Shadowed Fire (Veil of Midnight Book 1)

by A. Vers

  I risk a glance at Nix. His fever bright eyes are locked on me as they have been since I turned to them. “Because of what we are?” I hedge.

  Chol’s expression furrows more.

  “You know what we are?” I ask, and Chol nods. “Nix’s Hallow magick has been hiding your power. Binding it with shadow. But it doesn’t hide all of it. Or, at least, not enough to make you invisible to what is after you. That means you need power strong enough to disguise who you are at every angle. You need more than one being.”

  I start to pace. “With a shadow cast, you are, essentially, covering your power with darkness. Which, in theory, would work fine if you had only one bloodline. But you don’t. So you need another cast to negate the other.”

  The Prince leans back against the wall. “I’m putting a damn bullseye over both of your heads even considering this.”

  I snort, making him look at me. “I’ve had a target over my head since I was born. Nix too. His becoming a Hallow guaranteed he could hide what he is. The Novendo should have taken mine. And it did, I think. Until the battle at Midnight. It was too much for the spell to contain.”

  My eyes track to the still quiet Hallow. “But that is the nature of what Nix and I are. We were never meant to walk the Earth.” His expression never changes, but something in his irises seems to expand in understanding. I look away.

  “We both found ways to camouflage what we are,” I amend. “To hide it. But your magick is too…hot.” Chol grins, and my eyes roll. “You know what I mean.”

  His expression sobers, but his silver irises still glint. “I do.”

  “With power that volatile,” I motion between us, “it only makes sense that the best way to camouflage all of them, is to mix them up.”

  Frowning, Chol turns to Nix. “And you’re okay with this?”

  Nix unfolds his arms from over his chest. Even in glamour his biceps are solid. Thick. He claps Chol on the back. “I’ve looked for years for a way to protect you. To finally keep you safe. There isn’t anything I won’t do to see that happen.” With a quick glance at me, he walks away.

  That same thickness from upstairs clogs my throat. Chol appears to have the same problem as he swallows, hard.

  “I can’t ask either of you to do this…” he begins.

  I walk over and grip his warm face in my hands. A slight shadow of golden facial hair scrapes my palms. He tries hard to keep the lid on his magick. The battle is visible in his bright eyes and the sudden tightness that laces through him. I go up on tiptoe and press my mouth to his. It makes my eyes burn.

  He inhales sharply, body shaking. I ease back.

  “I know you didn’t mean to scare me, Chol,” I say, each word soft between us. “You can’t change who you are. But I can.”

  He tries to chuckle, but the sound is edged. “Just what every woman wants…The ability to change her man.”

  A flush of warmth flows through me, but I squash it fast. “You aren’t mine, Chol. You don’t belong to me or anyone else. And this will help keep it that way.”

  He pulls back enough to really see my face. “Why are you risking so much for me, Sayah?”

  “Because I know what it’s like to hide. To never feel safe. To never be able to really live.” I exhale, knowing I have to finish this. “You deserve to be able to live life. To be free.”

  His body goes ramrod straight. “Is that what you want? For me to be free?”

  No.

  I want him safe, but I want him safe with me. Nix too. But they can’t be.

  If we bind Chol’s power to ours, we will have to separate. There is no other way.

  So I just smile even though inside I’m being riddled with holes. First Father, now them.

  He stares at me, full lips parted. “Sayah—”

  Unable to voice what I want to say, I rise up again and kiss him once more. It’s desperate. And maybe he senses that. His arms close around me like vises, lifting me against his chest as he kisses me back. My body melts. I wind my arms around his neck, one hand diving into the thick golden locks of his hair, holding him to me like I can keep him there by force of will alone.

  Someone coughs.

  I pull away and turn.

  Velnor stands feet away, his expression warring between polite disinterest and awkward embarrassment. He finally settles on a scowl rife with impatience, but it doesn’t quite work for him. His dark eyes cut through me and the man at my side. “If you are both ready, the ritual is waiting.”

  My eyes lock with Nix’s from across the room.

  Though his color is high, he gives me a small nod. There is none of the hostility from earlier, just that same sense of understanding. He knows, like I do, that our goodbyes are coming rapidly.

  I square my shoulders and loop my fingers in Chol’s. “You ready?” I ask.

  He sighs and gives my hand a squeeze, but I don’t know who he is trying to reassure, him or me. “As I’ll ever be.”

  Chapter 30

  The room is near empty, devoid of everyone but Nix, Chol, Velnor, and myself. Chol climbs up on the table and lays down. Velnor adds a layer of soot to the symbol on his neck. The one I smudged when my arms rubbed across it. Chol seems to follow my line of thought because his eyes burn up at me.

  Velnor steps back, motioning Nix and I together. The Hallow has stripped down to a tank top and jeans, just like me, but the glamour is gone. His marks blaze over his arms, disappearing under the jet-black material covering him. Even his crimson hair seems more alive, more wild where it hangs around his face and eyes.

  He extends his hands over Chol, and I let him close my fingers in his. Those carnelian irises gleam, so very warm.

  Velnor appraises us like a proud papa at a dance recital. “You will open yourselves to your magick.” His deep voice rumbles in the quiet. “You will take a part of the Prince’s energy, and add it to your own. In order for it to take, you will need to consume it.”

  “Consume it?” Nix asks, his gaze finally turning from mine to look at the Mage.

  “Think of it like how you would consume food. You will swallow it up in what makes you…you.”

  I squeeze his hands, and he turns to me again. “Like you did with mine.”

  The fire in his irises burns brighter. A flame that I can almost feel as it flows over my face.

  “Just follow my lead, okay?” I say.

  His lips twitch. “Into the fires of the Abyss.”

  My heart thumps wildly.

  Velnor backs away. “Ms. Nieddu, call your circle.”

  Shrugging off Chol’s now calculating expression and Nix’s words, I close my eyes and focus all my intentions on the stone around us. The incantus flows from my lips and light blooms over my closed lids. I open my eyes to find bright blue fire rising high from the floor. It rings the three of us, keeping our magick in…and everything else out.

  Velnor walks along the ring, checking it for weaknesses. “Phoenix,” he commands.

  Nix exhales. Black fire erupts along mine, melding and blending until the blue turns sapphire and is flecked with bits of silver like stars.

  I squeeze his hands. “Now, let go.”

  He meets my gaze head on. Out of my peripheral, some of the black fades, blazing from the inside out with all the fire of the sun. Oranges, golds, yellows and every shade in between. His power ripples and flexes, hungry now that it is released.

  The High Mage stumbles back a step at the ferocity. My fingers smooth out of Nix’s hands, gliding up over his wrists to his forearms. His features turn as wild as the fire.

  I shiver under his focus.

  “Stay with me, Nix,” I coax, softly. I continue my idle stroke until my hands alight, ever so lightly, over the first whirls of lines over his biceps.

  His neck cords and his muscles ripple. He makes a sound. “Sayah—”

  I fill my palms with seraph fire, holding him as the first trickle of his magick bleeds into my skin.

  It’s hot. Hotter than mine. It takes my bre
ath in a rush as it spears through me, diving deep into my stomach and filling every hole I never knew I had. Every hole I know he can see.

  Because I can see his.

  His eyes widen, burning and almost desperate. He tries to shield, to keep me out. Flashes of memory, of swords, death, and screaming filter into my brain. I try not to look, to keep a distance from the volley of his past.

  This, this is the danger of working magick in tandem.

  My nails clench into his skin as the world fades to a dark wooden house. A woman and girl, both with dark hair, dance merrily around a rather bare kitchen. The edges of the room are hazy. No. Not hazy. Smoking.

  Fire rolls through the house, burning everything in it’s path. Including the dancing figures.

  I throw up a shield of seraph power, cooling my feverish skin as the small glimpse fades into a blackness so complete, I cannot see anything beyond it.

  Nix’s face is chalk white and lethal as it comes into view. Feral. His chest heaves. “What did you do?” he snarls.

  I try to shake my head. To tell him it wasn’t me. But my throat burns, like I was inhaling--smoke.

  “You are sharing power, Phoenix. With that comes a melding unlike anything you have shared with another. You are becoming one. One vessel. One power,” Velnor calls, seemingly from far away.

  Nix’s vibrant hair flies. “I can’t. Not…” His eyes meet mine. “You can’t see that. Ever.”

  I can’t bare to ask what he saw from me. “Then focus on something else. Surely there is some sort of happy memory in that stubborn head of yours.” I try to tease him, to show him I’m not afraid of his past. Of him.

  I don’t know when it happened. When the fear morphed to something so…warm.

  He searches my face. “Not happy, no.”

  My fingers clench in his skin. “Fine.”

  Every ounce of blue around us intensifies. I funnel my magick deeper into his, forcing it to bend to my will, to see me. Into me.

  I conjure Nix’s mouth on mine. The kiss earlier in the bathroom. His bright eyes in the Parax tent, the loyalty to his friend, his menacing smile outside Crux. I shove my heartbreak at not realizing what he is into him. Of understanding his loneliness. A small sound rips from his throat.

  Still I funnel more.

  The Yellow Heart Inn with him and Chol trading insults until my sides hurt from laughter. How strong he is, inside and out.

  His magick begins to change, burning brighter and brighter. It responds to the heat in my stomach, the fire he has caused. I go from clenching to caressing, feeding the flames with the desire for him. The one I should not feel.

  His hands flow from my arms up to my shoulders and down in a calloused caress.

  “Chol, release your amour,” I say, breathless.

  “What?” Chol asks, voice hoarse.

  I dare a small look away from Nix, but the Hallow’s fingers dig into my arms, almost too hard before they begin to massage my skin. A gasp leaves me.

  The Prince’s eyes are glowing already when mine met his, burning just as Nix and I are. See, the thing about cambions, they can smell desire. They crave it. Need it. Chol never stood a chance around me.

  I want them both. And he can no doubt smell it. Taste it.

  He sits up on his elbows, neck cording and spine bowing. “Shit.” His eyes close and he grips the simple medallion around his neck. With a yank, the glamour falls away.

  Windswept gold and platinum hair hangs, tousled and unkempt, in waves over his forehead and the tops of his slightly pointed ears. His body is thicker, more defined now. Even his lips seem fuller, wetter. Cookie-scented fire fills my nose, scorching me surer than anything else could. I wind my hand around the back of Nix’s neck, damn near climbing on the stone table to reach the Prince. Chol’s hands dive under the hem of my shirt, brushing my midsection.

  Flesh to flesh. And it’s the only permission he seems to need as his amour rips free in a tidal wave.

  Chapter 31

  Gold, blue, and orange fills the chamber. Chol’s amour and seraph fire filter and spiral higher and higher in great gusts that whip at my hair. I pull from Nix and grab Chol’s hand. His magick flares through me, burning.

  “Nix. His hand,” I scream.

  The Hallow’s fingers wind in Chol’s and I reach with the other bloodline in my veins. My mimir heritage.

  Gold tendrils of power begin to fall away, separating from the silver pulsing inside the Prince. I pull more, unwinding and loosening their hold. The tangle he should not possess. They trail up my arm from Chol, seeking the heat in my veins. I shiver.

  I push some of the others toward Nix with a gentle coax. They climb from the prince’s body, slower than with me. I push harder and meet a wall of midnight flame.

  “Nix, you have to let it in.”

  The Hallow growls. “My magick won’t let it. It’s trying to devour it.”

  “You have to take it with the seraph side. Give yourself over to the flames.”

  He balks. “I can’t. You saw…I can never do that again.”

  I squeeze his hand tighter, making him look at me from eyes that glow like real flames. “I won’t let it get out of control. But I need you to trust me. Can you do that?”

  He searches my face before glancing at Chol. There is such devastation and pain in his expression that it makes my eyes well.

  “Nix.”

  He looks back.

  “Trust me,” I breathe.

  His bigger body shudders, but the first trickle of fire pushes away the dark.

  “Little more,” I coax. “Come on.”

  With wild eyes, that midnight power obliterates under a tidal wave of magick. I throw up a shield around the three of us, and Velnor’s distant chanting tells me he is doing the same.

  Chol’s power dives into the heat, springing away from the cambion with little regard to who it goes into. I swallow each scalding line until my stomach washes in fire and my skin burns. Then it stops.

  All the fire around us quiets, rolling down into the stone until it disappears. Back into its rightful hosts.

  Chol sags onto the stone table, panting.

  Nix sucks in air next to me, and even my throat seems to be on fire with every inhale. It takes everything in me to stay upright as my limbs seem to shake and quiver.

  “And that still didn’t suck more than your fazing, Say,” Chol jokes. But there is little zing to it when he’s right.

  I flip him off anyway.

  We stare at each other.

  “You okay?” I ask.

  He nods. “Tired, but good.” Something about that makes him still. His smile is slow, but almost blinding with joy. “I’m good.”

  Nix lets his hand slide down my arm, his russet skin almost glowing from within. “Well I feel like shit.”

  I smirk. “It will ease off soon enough.”

  He drops onto the altar beside Chol. “Yeah. After I sleep for a week.”

  The roof above seems to shake and bits of dust filter down from the dim ceiling. My head whips up, searching the chamber. Another heavy thud sounds, reverberating in my ears. The thick doors to the room fly open, and Mother stands wreathed in her magick.

  “Attack! The consulate is under attack!” she shouts.

  Snatching up my discarded gear jacket, I barrel toward the door, Nix and Chol fast on my heels.

  Creatures and beings lean against the cell doors as we pass, arms stuck through and hungry expressions on their faces.

  Nix snarls, and brandishes the sword in his hand. “Just remember, if you get out…I will be the one to find you,” he tells them, not an ounce of fatigue left in his tone or frame.

  Quite a few of them back up and I have to force my lips not to form a smile.

  We run through the warded archway and race up the steps. Thumps and screaming are audible from the open doorway many flights away. My lungs heave and my heart gallops.

  I mutter under my breath, weaving a bolt of power as we go.

&
nbsp; Mother dives out into the Consulate and I fall in behind her.

  My eyes dart, trying to rationalize the bombarding tendrils of black tentacles and the beings pushing them back. It’s chaos of shadows and supernaturals.

  I throw seraph fire, drawing on the depleted well inside me. Each orb is slow to come. Weak. But I pull harder and snare the twin daggers at my hips.

  Something silver flashes out of my peripheral as Nix dives into the fray. He thrusts and slashes in a succession of blows almost two fast to follow. Chol ducks feet away, silver crossbows in hand.

  He fires.

  A gleaming bolt streaks through the air, seating deep into the fog creeping higher in the room.

  Something cool flows over my neck. I whip around, driving my blades in a sweeping arc. Black talons close into my jacket. I wrench back. The material tears with a wet sound, leaving it hanging around my arms.

  Damn.

  I liked this jacket.

  Wreathing my daggers in more fire, I stab into those still reaching appendages. Each spike sinks up to my wrist. An ear piercing screech rips through the din of fighting, but the tendril smokes and fades to nothingness.

  “Use fire or light,” I scream, wrenching my blades free.

  Across the room, Consul Ellmeck ducks under a long tentacle, her hair flying. “You heard her. Fire or light, damn it. Use fire or light!”

  Bursts of power vibrate all throughout the room. Velnor hurls balls of lightning like baseballs into the masses. Nix’s body is cloaked in fire, the vibrant hues muddled in black as he slashes and stabs.

  Mother dances with a writhing mass, her hands and blades encapsulated in spell weavings more ornate than any I have seen her use. Father battles from the stairs, his voice echoing as he barks one incantus after another.

  Erem leaps off the top rail and lands back to back with Nix, their bodies and movements seamless as they battle. Even Lady Marlec has joined the fray.

  Free of glamour now, her long platinum hair flows on a breeze that I can’t feel. She is like Artemis, lean and graceful with a long bow in hand. Each arrow that flies is illuminated from within. Backlit in her own fire.