Grave Chance

by D. D. Miers

  Carefully, as though I was performing surgery, I touched the nearest bar with the point of the magic, imagining it rusted and peeling away. The bar responded to my touch, dulling, then changing color before it crumbled to dust and fell in tiny red flakes to the ground.

  Sweat already beading on my forehead, I repeated the action, and my control faltered, leaving the bar only partly disintegrated. "Fuck. My control is better than it was, but the magic here is hard to counter. Just hang on, Gwyd."

  “Hurry, Vexa. The longer we’re here, the more chance we have of being discovered by things you never want to encounter.”

  I focused on the part of the bar that had broken down, feeding the decay until it fell apart in rusty pieces on the ground. The third and fourth were better, but it wasn’t enough for him to fit through without touching them. Ten minutes had passed and a creepy feeling that we were being watched made my shoulder blades twitch as I tried for a fifth bar.

  The sharp point of necromantic magic faltered for the umpteenth time, and I cursed, but Gwyd sat taller, light returning to his eyes. "Vexa, you've interrupted the magic. It should be easier now to force them apart. Help me."

  He pushed at the bar next to the space where the first had been, and I tested the one I’d been trying to break with a quick touch before pushing hard with both hands, visualizing my magic like a sledgehammer instead of a point. The bars wavered, held, then several buckled and fell away from Gwyd with a dull thump onto the cobbled stone.

  He tried to stand on his own, but his legs bowed under him. “I need a moment.”

  I shook my head. "No way. You said something's hunting here, and Aethon could be hot on our heels." He took my hand without a word, glaring at me with eyes that were hollowed out and bruised like he'd never heard of a good night's sleep. "C' mon, you great pain in my ass. Don't you dare give up on me now."

  He groaned in pain as I half-helped, half dragged him to the shadows of the nearest alley and clung to him, his arms limp by his side, head resting on my shoulder. “Do not leave me here alone.” He passed out, his body turning to dead weight that nearly bowled me over.

  "Oh Gwyd, I'm not going anywhere. You know that." I laid him back and straddled him, covering as much of his body as I could with mine. Holding his face, I kissed him, breathing life into him and magic to heal himself. For an eternity afterward, I held my breath as I waited for him to move, for his chest to rise with mine, even for a heartbeat to flutter against my breast.

  The seconds ticked by, and as I was about to unleash the full power of my magic on him, his chest rose and fell in a shuddering sigh. Tears burned my eyelids and trickled down my cheeks, clearing the dust from my face in crooked tracks.

  “I feel terrible. Why are you such a stubborn woman?”

  I choked out a laugh, tears still tracking through the dust on my cheeks. “You bastard. I thought I’d really lost you that time.”

  He started to laugh, but it turned into an ugly hiccuppy cry. “I cannot continue this road, Vexa. I was… it rendered me completely helpless.”

  “I get it. It was scary for me, and I was outside the cage. I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been to endure the pain.”

  “The pain was simply discomfort. Feeling my life ebb from me in front of you, watching you harm yourself trying to save me…It was unconscionable. No queen is to ever be endangered by her own people.”

  “Still on this queen kick, huh?”

  He ignored my quip, scanning the city around us intently. “The traps are deliberately veering us off course. We will never make it back to the portal I created if these continue to rise directly in our path.”

  I glanced around us, creating a mental map of where we were in relation to the hidden door to Gwyd’s house. “Okay, it’s fine. We’ll add a few twists and turns and find another way out of here. I mean, it’s the Endless City, right? There have to be a few streets that aren’t trapped against us.”

  “For someone so averse to accepting an office that befits her power, you certainly have no difficulty issuing orders.” He pouted.

  I flashed him a grin. "I can be the boss without a crown, Gwyd, that's the prerogative of being the one who's always right." I could almost imagine the intensity of Cole's eye-roll if he'd heard that, and it made my heart lurch. Back home they were waiting for me, possibly looking for us by now. We just needed to get back to them before Aethon decided to use them against me like he had my aunt.

  He sighed, giving me a longsuffering look. “I can move now. Perhaps we should continue, before a more direct action is taken against us.”

  Before more direct action is taken. Because losing my aunt, almost losing Cole’s parents, being trapped beyond the boundaries of reality in a coma, and nearly watching Gwydion fade right before my eyes, wasn’t even the direct approach. Aethon was slowly stripping away anything that would make a mortal life worth living, let alone an eternal existence.

  I took a deep breath and released it slowly, feeling the empty streets and farther away, the wells that led to realms beyond this waystation. Somewhere out there was a hidden enemy, waiting for us to take a wrong turn into their grasp, hidden from us.

  But our salvation was also out there, and that we could find. Gwydion and I still needed to duke it out once we’d eluded this minute’s life-threatening danger. He’d put us both at risk for his own manipulative reasons. With the constant imminent risk of Aethon finding me and using whatever force was necessary to take the candle from me, he’d put the whole world at risk.

  So, yeah, I’d have to get it through his thick skull that I wasn’t a pawn to be shoved around on his personal chessboard. Nonetheless, I wasn’t about to leave him alone in the Endless City to be hunted by our unseen enemies for the crime of helping me, or because I cared about him. We’d get home together, and then I’d take my pound of flesh…or two, if it took much longer to make it happen.

  Chapter 12

  I fed Gwyd more magic, more discreetly than when I thought he was fading. “I’d feel a lot better if I knew the guys back home weren’t out looking for us. I hate thinking that Aethon might have access to them while we’re stuck here.”

  “More likely that they think I took you somewhere to seduce you away from them, and they are waiting angrily for our return,” he offered, ignoring the long look I gave him.

  “So, they think the truth, then.”

  Another longsuffering sigh. “If that is how you choose to see it.”

  We peered around the corner of the building we’d taken shelter behind and turned away from our desired destination. Every sound became an unseen enemy, every moving shadow an attack.

  After an hour of scurrying from alley to alley, making our way through the silent streets we’d made it less than half as far as I’d thought we could together. Gwyd was still healing the injuries of the trap that had nearly stolen his immortal life, and he was showing signs of exhaustion.

  At each pause, I gave him the chance to rest for a moment, and each time, he angrily pushed on. “Why do you continue to demand we stop? I am well enough to move, and not in any particular hurry to end up in another cage of iron.” He glared at me as I swayed on my feet, and realization dawned on him. “Sit, stubborn woman, before you fall where you stand.”

  With a sigh, he led me further into the cool shade and sat me down on a large patch of moss. “Why couldn’t I be a conjurer, so I could pull some chocolate and food out of thin air?”

  He chuckled and sat next to me. "You could ask nicely. I might have a bit of something for you if you need it."

  “You’re not hungry?”

  “I am so angry there is no room for anything else in me. But rest, and eat, and we will continue when we are both stronger for the fight.”

  It was the only admission of weakness I was going to get from him, so I accepted it, along with the meal he conjured of an herbed bread and water. We sat cross-legged in the shade, our backs to a windowless wall as we watched for signs of trouble… or any life at
all aside from us.

  “My apologies for the simple fare. Even with your infusion of magic, the Endless City continues to drain me faster than I can heal my wounds. I cannot afford to expend magic irresponsibly.”

  "Thank you for the food. It is more than enough and more than I should have demanded."

  He sat next to me and picked at the cloudlike bread, tearing off small bites as he saw me slowing my ravenous feeding. “We should stay here for a while, listen for trouble, and rest.”

  “I agree. I’ve never felt so exhausted as I do right now, and I haven’t done any fighting yet.”

  He touched my temple and dragged one finger down my cheek to the pulse at my throat. "We should limit the amount of healing you do or any magic. It may allow Aethon to track you, or whoever may be here with us to find you."

  “I say we rest, then make a break for it to the nearest well and get the fuck out of Dodge.”

  He shook his head and went quiet, holding up a hand to me for silence as well, listening for any indication of trouble. “I understand your concern about staying here, but even with the drain on my magic, it is safer to stay until we find the correct doorway.” He picked up a twig on the ground and traced a map in the dirt. “Every one of those wells leads somewhere unknown. It would take more lifetimes than I have lived to explore the other side of them all.”

  “But what are the chances the place we end up is worse than where we are?” I stuck my finger in the middle of one, leaving behind my fingerprint in the dust.

  “And if we exit in the middle of Mariana’s Trench? Or into a two-dimensional world that would crush us to death the moment we emerged? Or unluckily find one of the doorways for which there is no world on the other side and are absorbed by the atomic explosion of a new universe being born."

  "I get it. Strange wells no bueno. But we’ve got to get out of here, somehow.” I grabbed the last bit of bread and chewed it slowly, thinking. “We’ve got no choice but to go back, and whoever set the traps will be waiting somewhere between here and there.”

  “That is my understanding as well.”

  “Fuck.”

  He laughed without humor. "Yes." Gwyd leaned against the wall and patted the moss next to him. "Rest for a few minutes, and we'll make a break for it before I'm so drained that you're forced to feed me again."

  I hated leaving him weak, but I didn’t know for certain that he wasn’t behind the traps in the first place, even if it meant he’d harmed himself on purpose. Damnable fae and their tricks and manipulations.

  The time was long past for us to be done with Aethon, with the fae at Tir na Nog, Gilfaethwy and his cruel games, and the battles that seemed to loom over us in a never-ending storm of violence and loss.

  “Are you able to move now?” I touched Gwyd’s arm when he didn’t answer, and he nodded his head unhappily. “Then let’s head back to the portal. We’ll stick to the shadows and move as quietly as we can. But if you need me to give you strength, ask. I can’t afford to have you collapse on me out there.”

  He stood and smoothed out his clothing. "I will be fine if you try to control your impulses and follow my lead. He led the way out of our temporary sanctuary, and we started back up the street, turning aside almost immediately at the warning flash of a trap being sprung, made of ice, fire, and

  Every alley, every doorway turned us back to the wells, no matter how many times Gwydion tried to find a safe path back to the doorway home. As another flash of light gave me just enough time to leap out of the way before a flame erupted where I’d been standing, I cursed aloud and turned back the way I’d come without checking first.

  I saw the runes and felt the hum of magic, but before I could move, Gwydion pushed me to the ground, taking the brunt of the trap that sent him flying through the air. He landed on his back and stayed still as the air crackled with power all around him.

  I dragged him back from the trap, his skin tingling under my fingers as raw power danced between us like static and propped his head up on his jacket. “Damnit it, Gwyd, you can’t lose it now. Just open your fucking eyes and look at me.”

  Slowly, his thick lashes parted, and he stared bleary-eyed up at me. "Why must you be so loud Vexa? Your voice is ringing in my ears like cannon-fire.”

  “Are you going to be all right? I should never have stopped feeding you before you were completely whole again.”

  “You did what you had to do, and I do not resent you for that. As I did what I believed I had to, bringing you here.”

  I stifled the urge to swear and took a breath. “You may have believed it was best, but you were wrong. It is always wrong to try to force me to do things your way. Whether it’s siphoning off my magic or kidnapping me. We are not toys you play with and discard when you tire of us.”

  “I could never tire of you.” He sighed and groaned in pain. “Though I feel tired of living, in this moment.”

  I kissed him repeatedly on the face and neck. “Thank you for protecting me. I hate to see you hurt, you know, there must be something better than this.” My guys were left behind, finding solace in each other and I had no idea how to get back to them.

  Gwyd seemed to read my mind. “What would be better, is if you were with your men, safe and warm in bed, and not out here running from whoever, or whatever is preventing us from returning. I did not intend for you to be harmed by my actions, Vexa. I truly wish for you to have the power and respect you deserve, free from the violence and the grief that accost you now.”

  "I know." I kissed him again, pressing my lips chastely against his mouth. "I forgive you, Gwydion, for making my difficult life harder." The next kiss was deeper, and as he opened to me, I poured magic into him, healing him fully from both the ravages of being fae in this place and the wounds he'd sustained from me and from the trap he'd sprung.

  The magical traps might have been fae, or they may have belonged to Aethon or someone from any one of the wells we weren't allowed to try. The longer we dodged, or more importantly, the traps that almost succeeded, were chasing us back to the wells, and soon, the only choice we'd have would be which well to take.

  But what are the chances that we’d actually pick the one that will cause our bodies to implode? My luck hadn’t been good enough to feel good testing that theory.

  I tried to take shelter in a doorway, but Gwyd grabbed my arm and tugged me away just before the mouth that had appeared in its place snapped shut around me. “Holy shit what is wrong with this place?” I gasped, checking to make sure all my limbs and digits were still intact.

  “Did you grow up reading The Labyrinth?” he asked, jumping to one side as a spout of flame shot up from a cast iron cover in the road.

  I nodded and took his hand again, gripping it tightly in spite of the sweat that dampened my palm. “Great movie, loved the puppets.”

  He rolled his eyes and sighed. "Right. Anyway, this place is a magical labyrinth, and you won't find puppets here unless you think about them too long and hard." He gave me a long look. "Please don't, the result the city would show you would be nothing like a children's movie."

  We stared at each other until I finally promised not to treat the city like a storybook and be more careful of the hidden traps and magical hazards that kept springing up in our way. “Okay, this is not a movie, and David Bowie won’t be waiting at the end to seduce me. Got it.”

  “Let’s move on.” He shook himself as if he was cold but didn’t say anything to me about giving him more magic.

  “First, let’s top you off. We have a way to go and somebody slowing us down to weaken us both.” Gwyd was healing, but too slowly. I straddled him and kissed him again, letting him siphon magic off me the way he had back at Julius’ place, trusting him to stop when he’d had his fill.

  The hum of magic between us grew until his hands were on my hips, pulling me into him as he stopped taking magic and began to feed a different hunger. His clever tongue flicked and teased inside my mouth, with none of the magic we’d used before, but all
of his long-lived experience and talent.

  My hips rocked of their own accord, and his long slender fingers worked their way under my shirt and up my torso. "Take this off," he muttered, tugging my t-shirt up to my breasts. "Your magic goes far beyond the candle, Vexa. You are the rarest kind of creature."

  I groaned and pulled away. “Hey, I wasn’t trying to start something. I’m sorry if I made you think…”

  His hands slipped under my ass and pulled me tighter into his lap, pressing my heat tight against the growing bulge in his pants. “Vexa, there is no need to protect your virtue. We’re veritably trapped in the endless city with Aethon breathing down your neck. What we do here will not change anything in your world. Just be with me, here and now. Why should we be lonely, all alone?”

  Chapter 13

  Gwydion slipped his hand between my legs and magic sparked between us, only to die just as quickly. He pulled away, and I placed his hand back on my inner thigh. "I don't need your magic, Gwyd. Being with you isn't about being with a Fairy. People do this all the time without the addition of magic, and it turns out just as great."

  “But that’s not true of your other men.”

  The insecurity in his voice took me by surprise. I didn’t know if it was the lack of magic, or simply that he’d watched the three of us as we fell in love together, but he was more vulnerable than I’d ever seen him before.

  “It wouldn’t matter to me if either or both of them lost all the magic in their bodies. That’s not why I love them.” I meant it, too. I loved Cole for who he was, and what he’d been through, just like Ethan. I didn’t want either of them to be anything other than they were, including the complications that came with it. Saying so out loud filled me with a kind of calm joy I could only describe as true love’s bliss.

  He blanched at the word love and jerked me against him, kissing me roughly. “But you don’t love me, and here we are.”