Myth's Legend: Norrix

by Ysobella Black

  Her Seeking magic, now lilac intertwined with silver, rushed out of her, turned circles in the air, then zeroed in on the knife. Myth tilted her head up, focusing on the shard of obsidian in her hand. What did her magic want? Tentatively, she pushed at the knife with her magic.

  “So many Sorăs!” Soră’s laughter rang through Myth’s head, along with hundreds of whispered voices.

  Kill him.

  Open the gate.

  Set us free.

  Get revenge.

  Myth saw how to do it all. She spared the time to glance at Norrix.

  Ahuizotls surrounded him and Fable in a circle, not letting anyone get close. His eyes were all black and his fangs were bared. His vampire was out, ready to fight and kill for her, but he knelt, cradling Fable against his chest, protecting the most precious thing in the world to Myth while she fought a battle he couldn’t fight for her.

  She would love him for that, even if he’d done nothing else, did nothing else for the rest of their lives.

  Her prey squirmed, bringing her attention back to the man impaled on her claws. Why had she ever feared him? He was so small compared to what she’d become. Not only strygoi, but something else.

  He’d traumatized her daughter though, and he had to pay not only for that, but for all the other witches the Scorpion Mage had terrified and exploited over ten thousand years.

  “All my life, I was forced to live in your world.” Myth glared at Iqiohr. “I’m going to make the next one mine.”

  CHAPTER FORTY NINE

  IQIOHR

  IQIOHR, TRAPPED IN a mirror of obsidian smoke, gaped at the witch he thought he knew. His Esne was strygoi. And not only that. She was Tzitzimitl — or something like one. Tezcatlipoca had caused their extinction in a single day at the beginning of the Fifth Sun. She’d never shown any hint she could use magic at all, and yet here she was.

  Strygoi.

  A silver witch he had no power over, and combined with a star demon? Caught on the ends of her claws, he was looking at death.

  The mages rioted in his head, their voices rising and shouting over one another in a din.

  There had never been silver magic in the blood of the Esnes. When had that happened? How had she kept her secret from him all these years?

  She had always done the impossible. Been his hope when they were children and there was none. The light in the darkness that only expanded as they grew up. Mother of his child. Anchored his sanity after he killed the Scorpion Mage.

  He’d always demanded so much of her. Be happy in a place where there was no happiness. Help him in a world where everyone stabbed everyone in the back to get ahead.

  Love him.

  Even when he felt his humanity slipping through his fingers, somehow she made him think she did.

  Was strygoi what she could have been her whole life if she hadn’t been born in Aztlan and trapped with, and then later, by him?

  He’d never wanted to trap her, or live this existence as the Scorpion Mage. When he’d taken the glyphs, it was to protect her. He hadn’t done a very good job of that. Maybe now it was his turn to do something impossible for her. Something to protect her and their daughter. Something no mage had ever done.

  Make a sacrifice for a witch.

  When Iqiohr pushed on the mirror imprisoning him, it turned to smoke — the intangible wisps breaking apart, only to reform as an obsidian pane around him. Perfect. Exactly as expected. As old as Tezcatlipoca was, his magic was powerful, but he rarely had new tricks.

  Iqiohr summoned his Mage-Maker blade, stabbed the sharp point into the mirror and fed magic into a new glyph. Like the siphoning sigil, this one started round and expanding into hundreds of barbed tendrils, but instead of witch magic, this one fed on a god.

  Also, as expected, the god was not amused.

  Tezcatlipoca bellowed in rage as smoke channeled into a void and god magic filled Iqiohr’s glyphs. Once a new sigil was used, the legion of past mages could sense it. The strongest of them copied it, funneling god power for themselves. Freed of the mirror, Iqiohr strode through the barren landscape of his mind.

  The most powerful mages distracted with that battle, the weaker ones ran rampant, searching for scraps of power. Iqiohr intended to offer a feast. He faced a throng of them and threw his Mage-Maker to the ground, far out of his reach, and fed light magic into his glyphs to make them shine an incandescent white. “Come and get me.”

  Fragile, blanched and haggard, the wraiths descended on Iqiohr with their Mage-Maker knives out. Always eager to feed on power, they struck in a frenzy. Blade after blade sliced the glyphs from him, stripping him of mage and god magic.

  Each loss was a welcome agony. The price he paid for the return of his humanity. In his mind, he left the body of the mage he’d been behind for the scavengers to feed on and floated free.

  Fresh pain racked his body — the feeling of claws in his chest.

  For the first time since he’d killed the Scorpion Mage, Iqiohr gazed on his Esne with human eyes.

  And with all the impossible things he’d already asked her to do over the years, he asked her to do something unimaginable for him one more time.

  “Kill me.”

  She slammed his body down on the altar where his daughter’s had been seconds before and held the obsidian knife above her head. In spite of the exquisite pain as bones shattered in his back, he choked out a laugh.

  Perhaps his death wasn’t so unimaginable for her after all.

  Blood rose in his throat and coated his tongue in a metallic taste. Something was broken inside when he breathed, but he forced the words out. “Our daughter. Key under the... the... the m-m-ountain.”

  With her blazing silver aura, he couldn’t read her expression. Had she heard him? Would she know what that meant? It was the last gift he could give her.

  Betrayer! You can’t stop me. Tezcatlipoca raged. I will not die, but this will cost you your life.

  But I will cost you Aztlan.

  Tezcatlipoca roared his outrage, flinging half of his foes into mirrors.

  The distraction hadn’t lasted as long as Iqiohr hoped. Already Tezcatlipoca was trying to pry control away. Maybe if his body died human, it would be enough to end the mage magic.

  Iqiohr had performed this rite often enough, and the obsidian blade was sharp as the claws of all the Tzitzimimeh trapped inside it. He wouldn’t feel the next part much.

  He hoped.

  Before resolve could abandon him, or the mages could recover and stop him, he wrapped his fingers around his Esne’s, gripped them tight, and slashed the obsidian knife down his body, neck to stomach, straight through his sternum. The shard cut deeper than he thought, but hadn’t ripped into his heart. Good.

  Warm blood spilled down his chest onto the altar. There wasn't much time. Only seconds. “Bow fire. My heart. Quick.”

  His Esne, no. She wasn’t his any longer. The strygoi. The magnificent silver witch kept her eyes on him as she extended a hand behind her. The dark red flames lifted from their place near his throne, floated through the air, and came to a stop on his chest. He screamed then, the unnaturally hot fire sizzling his body at the same time Tezcatlipoca surged forward and darkness engulfed Iqiohr.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  MYTH

  FABLE MIGHT NOT HAVE been able to scream when she was on the altar, but Iqiohr’s scream wasn’t silent when the bow fire landed in his chest. And it was Iqiohr that time. The face wearing the black and yellow stripe had vanished before she cut his chest open, but flashed in and out of view now. The flames, blood-red from feeding on so many hearts in the last few days, seared into his skin, blistering bone.

  She glanced up to make sure Fable wasn’t seeing this. Norrix held her tight to his chest and a silver aura surrounded her. Still safe.

  The tilmatli Norrix wore had fallen back over his shoulders, leaving his weapons free, and a lot of his skin on display. The hundreds of voices in her head approved.

  Mine, she admonished th
em, smirking at the role reversal.

  Magic — part Seeking, part strygoi, part something else — pirouetted and caromed inside her.

  Myth thrust her hand into the flames and released the fragment of Itzpapalotl’s wing that had served as a prison for decades.

  The flames leapt, burning higher. The blade shimmered and turned malleable in the heat, stretching into a shiny obsidian portal. Myth threw her head back and laughed, reveling in her magic. “Come Tzitzimimeh sisters!” Her voice rang with power. She hardly recognized it as hers, but she liked it. “Be welcome in this place.”

  Women wearing armor of bones from their vanquished enemies and fearsome skull masks, clawed hands and feet, shiny bat wings extending fully, flew out, hundreds of them. Each time a new woman passed through the portal, a new cut opened on Iqiohr’s skin. His voice gave out long before the stream of women.

  They flew from the pyramid in droves, seeking Iqiohr's men. Tzitzimimeh liked to devour the hearts of their enemies during solar eclipses.

  The last woman through the portal was Itzpapalotl herself. The leader of the Tzitzimimeh didn’t fly through the portal, but walked, clawed feet stepping on Iqiohr, then the altar before hopping to the ground. Pushing her skull-faced mask up to rest on her head instead of over her face, she eyed Myth's body up and down, crossed her arms, and grinned. “Well, I haven't seen a Tzitzimitl like you before.”

  Myth grinned back. “I’m something new.”

  “We have been locked away from this world for too long.” Ītzpāpālōtl extended her wings fully. They were edged in obsidian like Myth’s, but one blade was missing. Myth plucked the obsidian dagger from the fire and walked behind Ītzpāpālōtl, sliding the shard into place.

  “Thank you. That has itched for decades.” Ītzpāpālōtl looked down at not-Iqiohr, still clinging to life on top of the altar. “Best not to leave any of Tezcatlipoca’s doorways open. We weren’t always alone in there.” Powerful sweeps of her wings put out the fire, and she reached into not-Iqiohr’s chest. The portal dimmed.

  Myth darted a glance at Fable. Her daughter’s face was still pressed to Norrix's chest. Soră huddled with them.

  Norrix shook his head frantically. “Don’t! If you kill him—”

  Ītzpāpālōtl closed her claws around the mage’s heart, ripped it out, and devoured it in three bites. “That should do it, but there wasn’t a lot of meat to it.” Picking at her teeth with a long claw, she added, “Stringy, too, and it left a nasty aftertaste. I’m going to find something a bit more satisfying.” She reached out and tore one of Iqiohr’s legs from his body and spun it in the air like a club. “That’s better.” Taking to the air, she hovered over the pyramid steps. “Come friends. We have an army to put down.”

  The ahuizotls bounded after her.

  Part of Myth felt revolted, but part of her had enjoyed seeing that. She owned both feelings. With the portal gone, outside noises roared back. Screaming. Cheering. Men and women laughing together. It was an odd sound to hear in Aztlan.

  Norrix rose to his feet, keeping Fable’s view of the carnage blocked with his cloak as he stepped over bodies and drowned skins to approach.

  Myth took Fable from Norrix. “Why is she still chained? Iqiohr is dead, shouldn't the spell be broken?”

  “Iqiohr’s body died. The magic will find another.” Norrix put an arm around Myth and guided her toward the back of the temple. “But you are strygoi. Mages have always feared silver witches because your magic is more powerful. You can break the chains.”

  Gripping the collar around her daughter’s neck with both hands, Myth ignored the buzz of mage magic on her skin. Still unsure how to use strygoi magic, she simply willed the collar, manacles, and chains gone. With a flash of silver, the metal crumbled to dust.

  Searching for the magic that had rendered her baby mute, Myth found a white scorpion, its stinger embedded in Fable’s throat. This she killed with her bare hands, taking the loathsome creature into one fist and squeezing it into nothing. Fable made a choking sound, but that was it. “You’re free, Fable. The spell on you is broken now. You can talk if you want to, little one. Will you talk to me?”

  Fable put a hand over her mouth and shook her head.

  CHAPTER FIFTY ONE

  IQIOHR

  THE SCORPION MAGE MAGIC, ejected from its body when the heart was torn out, sought a new host.

  Rage, a familiar sensation, was overpowered by fear. He’d died many times, but it was always planned. The next body arranged. Having been sacrificed as an offering, like that was an acceptable or fitting end for him, left him unprepared.

  Without a Mage-Maker blade to funnel the power into a new vessel, the magic floundered and weakened.

  A pull and sharp pain regained his attention. The weakest mage broke off and drifted. He flailed to rejoin the amalgamation. The other mages dithered.

  He’s weak.

  Take him back!

  Let him go.

  He will be taken by another and give them strength.

  Idly, Tezcatlipoca lashed out with a tendril of smoke and reeled the flailing mage into a mirror. The man offered little to the whole, but there was no point giving even a fraction of strength to another mage.

  Waste not.

  The longer the magic remained unanchored, the more that would happen. If he became too weak, one of the other mages would find and absorb him. The Scorpion Mage would be no more. Taken and used like a pathetic witch to bolster another's power. That was no fate for him.

  Iqiohr deserved to suffer for his betrayal.

  Leaving the magic vulnerable. Losing Aztlan! He’d built that city from the ground up. It was his!

  There were no worthy options left in Aztlan. Those demon women tore through Iqiohr’s men, destroying any chance of using one of those bodies. They were all missing hearts now. The magic could resurrect a recently dead man once, but without a heart, the body wouldn’t live long enough to be of any use.

  Where was the boy? Tizoc. The body of a child was a last resort. Using him would cost magic to force growing a Mage-Maker immediately, but no other viable choice remained. The magic streamed toward the boy’s house.

  Tizoc lay unconscious. Somehow, the boy’s father had escaped his confinement and sat at the boy’s bedside with his witch. Tizoc’s life hung by a thread. Too frail to provide an immediate sanctuary.

  Tezcatlipoca snarled. He’d ordered the little witch taken, not the boy beaten. Perhaps it was for the best. If the boy fought this hard to keep his Esne, likely he would have the same fatal flaw as Iqiohr, and what had that wrought?

  Tezcatlipoca hovered over Aztlan, watching as his city was lost. The home he’d given a limb to create and lived in for thousands of years. Fallen.

  This was the fault of Iqiohr.

  Him, and that witch — the one glowing silver atop the pyramid.

  Strygoi, the mages hissed.

  The daughter could be strygoi too.

  They were supposed to be impossible — the blood lines exterminated a thousand years ago in a massacre so bloody even some mages had been against it, arguing for subjugation instead. But silver witches were a threat, resistant to being siphoned and against mage spells, so they had been killed. No more threat.

  How had silver witches hidden beneath his nose in Aztlan? How far back did they go?

  The Scorpion Mage had fed on silver magic, coerced into being given to him by a mother via threats to a daughter. It was exquisite, and he’d craved it like a drug. It increased his power exponentially and had no restrictions as to the type of spell it could fuel.

  That mage was the only one to provide a challenge for a new vessel’s body when he could be bothered to stir himself to action.

  He’d drained that witch too quickly. When the daughter was old enough, he’d bred it, hoping for more silver witches. The silver magic had faded away over time, but the tradition of keeping an Esne for breeding had been maintained, all in hopes silver magic would be reborn.

  Until now,
it hadn’t.

  Tezcatlipoca’s consciousness replayed memories of the strygoi obeying because of threats to the small one. Always so weak, mother witches. If he could find a powerful enough acolyte, he could use these silver witches against each other once the demons had been dealt with. Itzpapalotl still gave him pause.

  With no option, the mage magic left Aztlan, flowing north. The Eel Mage lived in that direction. It was too cold and wet there for the Scorpion Mage’s taste, but they had traded witches and creatures before. A previous Scorpion Mage had given one of the ahuizotls to the Eel Mage once, and remembered the mage’s strong acolytes.

  There was one boy the Scorpion Mage had tried to steal away as his own. That boy should be old enough now. Ruthless, young, almost ready to forge a Mage-Maker blade, and so adept draining witches, already white-haired. But the boy had been foolish, wanting to stay with his brother. Maybe now he would appreciate what the Scorpion Mage could offer him.

  The Eel Mage's island was empty when the Scorpion Mage hovered over it. The drowned, boneless bodies of minions littered the ground. His pet at work. How had the Eel Mage lost control, and where was the ahuizotl now?

  Wintry winds buffeted the Scorpion Mage, threatening to dispel the cohesion of their company. He hated this place, but he’d used too much energy to range much farther. He needed to find a body soon and regain his strength.

  Flowing toward the city, Tezcatlipoca cast a wide net, searching for the best possibility. There, in the mountains to the east of the city. There was hope of a worthy acolyte, but he would have to be cautious. The east was Wolf Mage territory, and while some mages tolerated one another, the Scorpion and the Wolf had never been amiable.

  The Scorpion Mage flew with purpose now, zeroing in on the small wooden cabin in the forest. Two men, and to his delight, one of them the very same acolyte he had wanted for his own — all grown up now.