“One of these days, he’ll turn on you. It’s in his nature. He won’t be able to help himself. He’ll kill you, if given a chance, no matter how much he’s professed his love. No matter that you’re the mother of his child. No matter that—”
“Enough!” Oriana took another step forward, shoulders squared, voice like iron. “Abelone of Copper Vale, you have been found guilty of aiding and abetting in the escape of one thousand three hundred forty-five Muraco—an act of treason punishable by death. As Matriarch of Steelcross, I hereby sentence you to death by my hand.”
Not as Crimson Hunter, enforcing hand of Matriarch Kalinda, but as Matriarch of Steelcross. In what world did Kalinda think she could ever exert full control over Oriana? Certainly not this one. Yet, shit, there was something both liberating and frightening about the depth of his wife’s convictions.
Much of Earth Rift’s early history may have been destroyed but what remained included not only the war between witches and werewolves but the short-lived, brutal battles between witch families. When the magic smoke had cleared, the Blood of the Sun family reigned supreme, and they’ve ruled Earth Rift ever since.
As dissimilar as they were, Oriana and Kalinda were products of their lineage. That startling truth about his wife was all too evident in her proclamation, an executioner committed to delivering the death blow because that awful responsibility fell to her alone.
The moon and sun above, his wife’s arms began to glow yellow-and-red. Electromagic discharges shot from her fingertips and, within seconds, the lower half of her arms were gone, replaced by Ravagers of the Lost cannons. The barrels pointed toward the scorching sand under their feet, Oriana’s death sentence still only words. That wouldn’t last, though.
Abelone flicked her gaze to Marrok, her arms still raised. Hatred radiated from her to him, more potent than the stifling heat.
He growled. Marrok could leap around Solange and Nahara and be at Abelone’s throat before she had a chance to shoot Oriana to get to him. The thought of ripping her throat out in self-defense should’ve disturbed him. It didn’t. What did unsettle him was the anticipation he felt at the prospect of having witch blood and magic in his mouth, coating his tongue, and sliding down his dry throat.
Disgusted at himself, he stumbled backward, at the same time Abelone lowered her arms, and Oriana said, “Misae of Silverwater, you have been found guilty of aiding and abetting in the escape of one thousand three hundred forty-five Muraco—an act of treason punishable by death. As Matriarch of Steelcross, I hereby sentence you to death by my hand.”
One by one, Oriana named each of the witches, stating their crime and their sentence. No one moved or interrupted. With each recitation, Oriana’s magic grew, shifting from yellow-and-red to bright crimson.
“You’ve sacrificed your honor. Will you die to restore it? Will you fight for the right to reclaim your integrity?”
Her hair blew in a magic-induced wind. Pink granules levitated off the ground, joining the vortex of magic that began at Oriana’s feet, spread upward, and then moved outward, encircling the group of witches.
“I am Blood of the Sun, and you are my sisters. You have been judged, but you’re also loved by your Matriarch.”
Solange and Nahara retreated behind the limo. Marrok wanted to stay close to Oriana, but her wind magic worsened, slapping against his body and pushing him backward. Claws found no traction on the sand. Oriana’s tornado-like magic drove him to his knees, rattling his bones, watering his eyes, and singing his fur.
“You will die today, but tomorrow you’ll be reborn, part of the sun’s chromosphere—glorious and bright-red when glimpsed during a solar eclipse. That’s when you’ll be most remembered. Daughters of the Sun. Now, let’s begin.”
A magic whip curled around his waist, yanking him away from the ever-growing vortex. Marrok could no longer see Oriana. She’d vanished inside her magic tornado, and so had the twenty-two witches.
He could see nothing but a vicious swirl of thick crimson fog combined with hydrophobic sand. Attack spells rained down, pelting his ears with each garbled, desperate breath.
“Incineration slash.”
“Frenzy blow.”
“Blazing shot.”
“Destruction whip.”
The tornado expanded, lifting the limo and tossing it aside like an insignificant leaf in a windstorm.
“Oh hell,” Nahara yelled. “Solange, we need to get out of here.”
The whip on his waist thickened, and he thought Solange would jump them away from the battle.
Snarling, he yanked at the glowing whip of magic, but Solange’s hold had no give.
“Calm down, Marrok. We’re not leaving our Matriarch.”
Over the howling wind and clash of magic and metal, they jumped. Marrok roared. No, Solange said they weren’t leaving. Why had she lied to him? He had to get back to Oriana. Marrok fought against the whip tugging him further away from his wife.
Then he was falling, muzzle-first, onto the ground . . . onto hot sand. They were still in Elio Desert.
“Dammit, Marrok.” Solange shoved his big, hairy leg off her two smaller ones. “I haven’t screwed up a landing since I was ten. I told you we weren’t leaving Oriana.” She shoved him again, from annoyance, he assumed, because they both had pushed to their feet, and Solange didn’t seem happy about her sand-dusted body armor.
“Are you sure we’re far enough away?” Nahara asked.
They hadn’t gone far. Marrok could still hear the sounds of battle and see Oriana’s magic fog. But Solange had put enough distance between them that his ears no longer rang, and his head ceased feeling as if it would explode from the overwhelming stench of heated metal.
But his mouth still watered from the blood he could smell in the air.
Dropping to his knees, Marrok shifted.
Solange shoved him again on his shoulder. “Good. Now Oriana can stop worrying about you being so close to the battle and seeing the extent of the Blood of the Sun power.”
“How in the hell can you say that so calmly? She’s fighting nineteen trained Crimson Guards.”
Solange’s scoff could’ve cut through Steelcross Skyrise. “If we thought those guards had any chance of beating Oriana, Nahara and I would be in that entanglement trap with her. Don’t get me wrong, she’s going to be bloody and bruised, when she gets out of there, but nothing more than what she wants. She’s giving them the respect they didn’t grant her, while also atoning for her sins.”
“What sins? Oriana didn’t do anything wrong.”
Rubbing her eyes free of sand, Nahara answered his question, although she coughed her way through most of it. “S-sins of silence, partaking, obstinacy. Normal, everyday sins, but not when you’re a Matriarch, not when your reach is vast, the impact a ripple effect.”
Unconvinced but uninterested in a topic that kept him from Oriana, Marrok ignored the witches. He listened to the battle Oriana waged, her firing cannons drowning out cries and curses. She was fighting for her beliefs, for him, for werewolves, even for witches who were victims of the same system they were afraid of altering.
Blood joined the vortex of magic and sand.
Witches raged.
Sun magic blazed.
And Oriana bellowed, “Hemorrhage Shove.”
The vortex exploded, flinging blood, bones, and flesh outward, a grisly defacement of Elio Desert.
Marrok bolted toward his witch, shifting as he ran. She fell. He caught her. Blood seeped from her mouth, nose, eyes, and ears, burst dams in need of immediate attention. Oriana trembled in his arms, followed by labored breaths and soft groans.
He nuzzled her neck and licked her face, needing her half-mast eyes to stay open and focused on him. Growling at the approaching witches for taking so damn long but never more relieved when Solange’s magic snaked around him, Marrok held Oriana to his chest, howling when she went limp in his arms.
Mother Dear
April 15, 2243
Ste
elcross Realm
Steelrise
“How could this have happened? Not one of those disloyal witches should’ve been strong enough to hurt my daughter, not even the Crimson Guards.” Kalinda whirled on Marrok and Solange. “Well, don’t just stand there, one of you answer me.”
Marrok looked past Kalinda to Oriana, unconscious in their bed, as she had been since passing out in his arms.
“Your temper tantrum isn’t helping. It didn’t help when the healer came, you hovering over her shoulder and barking orders, and it’s not helping now. I don’t like seeing my wife hurt any more than you do.”
“Then why the hell is she, hmm? I have yet to hear an adequate response from her consort or Captain. Solange, tell me what happened.”
“Umm, well, Matriarch, we—”
“I know you have ultimate control over the Crimson Guard, which I respect. I also know Solange and Nahara, whose waiting in the sitting area for your directive, will have to give you a report of what happened in Elio Desert. But not in here. You’re loud, upset, and angry. I understand the last two. Trust me, I feel the same. But Oriana doesn’t need this, not in her room while she’s recuperating.”
Kalinda, at five-nine, wasn’t a short woman, but when she stepped into Marrok’s personal space, eyes boiling over with magic, she cast the shadow of a Leviathan.
Marrok refused to back or look away. Oriana had made him Cyrus of Steelcross. Facing down her mother, he wrapped his arms around the title, clutching it to his chest, stepping into the shoes given him.
“Are you telling me to leave?” Kalinda snarled, her teeth white, threat as clear as any werewolf baring his fangs.
“I’m asking you to calm down, if you want to stay. This is my home, Kalinda, and Oriana is my wife. I know you’re worried about her but—”
“You pick now to grow a pair of balls. Where were they when those traitorous witches were beating my daughter to death?”
The sun and moon had to be testing him. Why else would they put this egotistical, unhinged witch in his orbit. Everything he wanted to say statements he knew better than to let leave his mouth. So, he snarled, letting his fangs drop from his gums. He didn’t know if his eyes glowed red, but he suspected they did from the step Kalinda took backward.
“Oriana fought twenty-two witches at once.”
Kalinda winced, as if punched, which someone really should because, damn, if there was ever a witch who needed to have some sense slapped into her, it was Matriarch Kalinda.
“Oriana engaged in the Drowning Shatter ritual?”
“If that’s a witch ritual that had her creating a magic tornado vortex and fighting a one-on-twenty-two battle, then yeah, I guess.”
“I wasn’t speaking to you, Marrok, and do put away those baby fangs of yours. I can barely understand what you’re saying, although you’ve said little worth listening to. My question was for Solange, who thinks she can sneak away while I’m preoccupied with you.”
Marrok couldn’t fault the woman for taking advantage of a seeming opening to get the hell away from Kalinda. He’d never seen this side of the Matriarch. Fear wasn’t a flattering color on her.
Hand on the doorknob, Solange stopped. For a second, her forehead fell against the closed door, and her shoulders slumped. A sigh and curse reached his ears, but she’d kept it soft enough not to be heard by Kalinda. Turning, she glanced first to Marrok, dark eyes beseeching him to intervene, and then to Kalinda.
Short of tying up and gagging his mother-in-law, Marrok didn’t know what in the hell Solange expected him to do. The witch was a damn force of nature who turned into an evil, belligerent wraith when her daughter was hurt and she helpless. As the healer had told them, “She doesn’t have internal bleeding or swelling on the brain. Abrasions, bruises, and broken bones, all of which will heal. Give her magic time to knit her back together. Three days, a week at most. She looks worse than she is, but Matriarch Oriana will be fine.”
The healer had closed her deeper wounds, lacerations to Oriana’s arms and legs. If not for her body armor, the damage would’ve been more severe. So, yeah, Marrok understood Kalinda’s sense of helplessness. But she needed a serious attitude adjustment.
“Matriarch Oriana cast an entanglement trap then engaged in the Drowning Shatter.”
“And you let her?”
“It wasn’t for me to question my Matriarch. She wanted to give the guilty witches an opportunity to earn their place in the sun and among the stars.”
“They were traitors. They weren’t worthy of her mercy.”
“Perhaps not, but it was her mercy to offer. In the end, they’re dead and she lives.”
“Oriana is hurt.”
Marrok stepped around Kalinda, planting himself next to Oriana on the side of their bed. Touching the hand closest to him, he rubbed his finger from knuckles to wrist.
In a chair on the opposite side of the bed sat Bader. When Kalinda had arrived, Oriana’s father had been with her. They both were dressed in evening finery. So, unless they had similar but separate plans, Kalinda and Bader had been together when Marrok had called the Matriarch about Oriana.
While Kalinda raged, Bader sat vigil, holding Oriana’s hand, his fear a quiet, simmering kind of worry. Between the two, Bader’s response was more potentially dangerous.
Voice low and eyes on Oriana, Bader asked, “Did she kill all of them?”
“All I transported to Elio Desert, yes.”
“What does that mean?” For the first time since arriving, Bader’s worry bled through in the harsh timber of his voice.
“Matriarch Oriana interviewed one data technician. The girl’s nineteen and afraid of her shadow. As soon as Oriana called her into her office, she burst into tears and out flowed the story. She pardoned the girl and sent her back to her mother in Ironmere. The only other Steelburgh-related witches unaccounted for are Dr. Bhavari of Copper Vale, and Misae of Chromehaven. Dr. Bhavari is the wife of Abelone of Copper Vale, and primary healer at Crimson Guard headquarters in Steelburgh, while Misae is Dr. Bhavari’s assistant. My Whisperers of Echoes spell included a mind enchantment spell.”
“What does that mean?” Marrok asked, twisting on the bed so he could see Solange, who’d moved away from the door and closer to Kalinda.
“It simply means, Marrok,” Kalinda spoke, not as if she were explaining the phases of the moon to a man-child, but with informative thoughtfulness, “the enchanted mind is a spell that weaves its way inside one’s brain and answers the spellcaster’s single question, such as, Were you involved in helping Muracos escape from Steelburg and/or cover up the escape?”
Solange nodded. “That’s close to the question I posed. I embedded that spell inside my transport spell.”
“I get it. Only those witches whose enchanted minds revealed their role in the Muraco escape and cover-up were transported to Elio Desert.”
“That’s right. But not Dr. Bharavi or Misae.”
“Why not those two?” Bader asked.
“My magic couldn’t find the healers.”
“I see.” Good for Bader because Marrok didn’t. “Diverting bite spell. Misae and Bhavari are blocking your attempt to locate them, which probably means they’re also using their magic to shield the Muracos.”
Kalinda began pacing the room, reminiscent of a caged beast of prey. “Two witches aren’t strong enough to block Solange’s magic. There must be other traitors out there working against us.”
Now that Marrok understood. “How many witches would it take to prevent you from getting a read on Dr. Bhavari?”
As the center of attention, Solange had little choice but to return to the group she’d failed to flee. For better or for worse, they were in this together. With Oriana unconscious, he would speak in her stead, regardless of anyone else’s opinion, including Kalinda’s. So, he asked Solange a second question. “Do you think the unknown witches, Kalinda mentioned, are also hiding the Muracos? I mean, how do you and Oriana normally track down Muracos?”
“While I don’t know Dr. Bahvari’s magic skill level, any doctor licensed in the insertion and removal of Rage Disrupters have a high degree of mastery. They’re precise and patient spellcasters, in a way that Crimson Guards don’t have to be. Most guards are more blunt force soldiers. They’re trained to take down and eliminate enemies quick and hard. No finesse required. As for Misae, her skill level is likely a little less than Bhavari’s.”
As if by mutual agreement, they left Oriana’s side, walking to the other side of the room. The heat from the sun warmed Marrok, the glass window-wall reflecting a small portion of the light. In a couple of hours, the sun would set. Common sense told him Oriana wouldn’t awaken by then to enjoy the sunset with him, the way they did when time permitted, but common sense didn’t stop Marrok from hoping all the same.
“Kalinda knows Bhavari,” Bader informed them, his body angled in the direction of his wife. “If my memory serves, you handpick the healers who receive the Rage Disrupter certification. Is that still the case?”
“It is. I do know Bhavari, although I haven’t had reason to speak with her in years. Misae is an unknown to me. To answer your question, Marrok, Bhavari is strong enough to block Solange’s location spell, if she’s only concealing herself or another witch or two.”
“When dealing with werewolves, Oriana and I would normally track them by their disrupters. With the escaped Muracos, however, we were planning on using location spells, which targets a person’s bio signature.” Solange snatched the binding from her hair. Limp braids and pink sand fell onto her shoulders, a strange but pretty mix not matched by the witch’s expression. “When the healer was in with Oriana, Nahara and I used the time to cast a location spell. Twenty, actually.”
“I know next to nothing about magic. But I know you. You don’t need twenty spells to do anything. You and Nahara couldn’t find them, could you?”
Promise Forever: Fairy Tales with a Modern Twist Page 46
