Familiar Magic (Druid Enforcer Academy Book 1)

by C. S. Churton

  I stretched out on the floor, and Iain settled himself nearby.

  “Close your eyes,” he said, “and listen to the sound of my voice. Breathe in, two, three, four, and out, two, three, four, five. In, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four, five. Feel your body starting to relax.”

  The familiar fog sensation descended on me, bringing with it the feeling of deep relaxation and the sense of being disconnected from my body, of moving around inside it instead of being a part of it.

  “Feel your consciousness flowing through your body,” Iain said, his voice coming to me as though from a great distance. I felt a jolt of fear, knowing what was coming, but even that was muted. “Let it move from behind your eyes, down through your chest, and into your stomach, following your chakras.”

  I didn’t flow. I barely moved. It was as though my body had turned to a river of ice, or a snow drift – each step was an effort and the unseen force resisted my attempts to move, fighting back against me fighting back against it. But I wasn’t done, and I wasn’t defeated. I pushed past my heart and sought my solar plexus chakra. All around it was inky black, like moving through a forest on a moonless night. Where before there had been little darkness, now there was little light. The darkness was winning. Raphael was winning. And I was losing. Losing everything.

  My eyes flew open, and the room spun and blurred around me. Iain’s voice was a distant echo, and it was almost as dark out here as it had been in the trance.

  Something yellow-brown and black stared down at me through wide eyes. It opened its mouth, revealing a row of razor-sharp teeth, and let out a roar. The pitch undulated from high-pitched to guttural and back, and the creature gave me a good look at every one of its fangs.

  I let out a strangled cry and scurried back along the floor, keeping my eyes on the cat-like creature. It cocked its head to one side and closed its mouth, making a croaking deep in its throat.

  “Lyssa, what’s wrong?”

  I twisted my head round to Iain and blinked rapidly, bringing him back into focus. I turned back to the creature, but it was gone.

  “I think,” I said slowly, testing each word, “I think I just found my familiar.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Iain pressed a glass of water into my hands and I accepted it with a nod. I was slumped in a chair and he pulled one up opposite mine and sat in it.

  “Better?” he asked as I took a sip. I nodded.

  “Good. Now, what do you mean, you’ve found your familiar?” He eyed me carefully. “You know there are no unbonded familiars here on our plane. They reside in the astral plane.”

  I took another sip of the water. It was cold, and I shivered as it flowed down my throat to the river of ice inside me. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation, and honestly, I was cold enough. I set it aside.

  After a moment, I raised my eyes to meet Iain’s.

  “I know that. I do. But that’s three times I’ve seen it now.”

  I made to get to my feet, needing to pace, to move around, but Iain clamped a hand on my shoulder and raised an eyebrow. I rolled my eyes but stayed put, too hyped up to make any real attempt at arguing with him. I counted them on my fingers.

  “First, when I burned my hand and fell off Stormclaw, right before I blacked out. Then again, when Raphael attacked me. I just didn’t realise what it was then. And just now, when I came out of the trance early.” I shook my head. “No, wait. Four times. The first time was in Tàthadh Forest. Four times.”

  “You saw it in the forest?”

  I nodded. “On my first visit. It was curious, and I thought it was going to bond with me, but then…” I frowned, thinking back. “It got close, and then it was like something scared it off. Something about me, I think, or maybe Zara, but she managed to bond when she was there without me.”

  “Slow down,” Iain said, raising one hand. I took a deep breath and tried to corral my thoughts. The instructor grabbed a pen and pad from his desk and returned, scribbling frantically. “So, you saw it on your first visit. What form did it take?”

  “The same one it’s taken every time I’ve seen it. A jaguar. Brown with black spots. A cub.”

  “A cub? You’re sure?”

  I nodded without hesitation. I’d been struck in the forest by its large paws and small body, and I’d gotten a pretty good look at it a minute ago.

  “A cub. Or a juvenile, at least. About the size of Jalen.” I glanced over at the fox in the corner of the room, who, as always, had one mistrustful eye trained on me.

  Iain jotted it down.

  “Is that important?” I asked. I didn’t think any of the other familiars I’d seen had been juveniles. They’d all been adults – or at least, I thought so. I hadn’t really been close enough to know for sure.

  “I don’t know,” Iain said, looking up from his notes. “It could be. I think…” He got to his feet mid-sentence and hurried across the room to a bookcase, where he scanned the row of books before plucking one from the shelf and carrying it back, flipping it open on the table between us.

  “Okay. The youngest ever documented familiar was a young adult bald eagle, notable because of its slight mottling to the tail feathers. The adults have fully white tails, and it’s estimated this one would have been a month or two from maturity if it had been a corporeal bird.”

  “But the familiars take on the form best suited to their druids, right?”

  “Form, yes. Age, no. The physical appearance of the familiar is a reflection of their age. Familiars exist far longer than corporeal creatures. They do age, but much slower than we do. If the familiar is presenting as a juvenile, it’s possible it’s only a hundred or so years old.”

  I tried to process the idea of something being around for a hundred years and still being a cub, and Iain flipped through the book.

  “Ah, here. Yes. Hayward theorised that the reason we don’t see younger familiars is that they’re not mature enough to be able to form a full bond. But there’s never been a documented case of an immature familiar attempting to bond with a druid.”

  “Okay… so what does that mean?” I craned my neck to read the book, but it looked like a good portion of it was written in Gaelic. I knew I should have made more of an effort to catch up in that subject. Most druids were raised to speak it from birth. As Sam would have said back at Dragondale, I really could have made more of an effort to integrate.

  “I’m not sure.”

  Well, that was never a good thing. When even the instructors were stumped, bad things inevitably followed. I picked up the glass again and toyed with it, running my finger round the rim. I was on my third lap when my mouth popped open and I froze.

  “It happened after.”

  Iain raised his eyes from the textbook.

  “What did?”

  “All of it.” In my excitement, my words tumbled out rapidly, tripping over one another. “Stormclaw, Jalen, the other familiars – it all started after my first trip into Tàthadh. After I met the familiar for the first time.”

  Iain blinked twice, then his forehead creased into a frown, and his eyes quickened with excitement.

  “You’re sure?”

  I nodded. It had started within weeks of me coming out, and it had got worse and worse since then.

  “What if…” I slowed for a moment, long enough to think through what I was saying, but I was sure I was right. I had to be. “What if it’s not Raphael’s spell freaking out the familiars and the gryffs? What if the jaguar followed me out of the forest somehow? Like it formed some sort of connection, but it couldn’t bond?”

  “Everything we know about familiars tells us they can’t manifest outside of the astral plane without forming a bond.”

  “I saw it! Iain, I’m not imagining this. It was there. Every time. Every time I’ve been in danger.”

  I turned the words over in my mind and saw the truth in them.

  “Like it’s been watching over me.”

  Iain looked doubtful. “It’s not that I don’t w
ant to believe you, Lyssa, but no-one else has seen it. If it had manifested on our plane, we all would have. You weren’t alone when any of those things happened.”

  I slumped back in my chair, my excitement evaporating instantly. He was right. Ryder had been there when I took my spill, and Cody when Raphael had attacked me. And the familiar – or whatever it was – had been standing right over me, roaring into my face when I came out of the trance. No way Iain could have missed that.

  Except…

  “I wasn’t fully on this plane when it happened,” I said, leaning forward again. “The first two times, I was right on the edge of blacking out. And the last time, I was halfway in a trance. I was in an altered state of consciousness for all of them. Not fully here, not fully there. You’re right. The familiar can’t manifest on this plane. But it can’t get back where it’s supposed to be, either. It’s trapped. And somehow it’s attached itself to me.”

  Iain closed the book, sending a puff of dust into the air.

  “If you’re right – and that’s a big if–”

  “Do they teach you to say that at instructor school?”

  “Excuse me?”

  I gave an impatient shake of my head. “Nothing. Go on. If I’m right – which I am.”

  “If you’re right, then why can’t it cross back into Tàthadh and manifest properly? You’ve been there plenty of times.”

  I chewed my lip, thinking it over.

  “You said they’re not supposed to be able to cross that threshold at all, right, without bonding?” He nodded, and I continued. “Maybe the effort weakened it. That’s why it can’t manifest in any meaningful way, on any of the planes. Not for long, anyway. The first time I saw it, it was just a flash. The second, a blur. This time it roared at me. It’s getting stronger. Recovering.”

  Iain leaned back in his chair and exhaled heavily.

  “It could be possible,” he said eventually. “But we’re talking completely unchartered territory here.”

  I snorted.

  “Which bit? The age, the crossing over, the manifestation, or the fact a cursed druid went into Tàthadh?”

  Iain sat bolt upright and snapped his fingers.

  “That’s why it couldn’t bond,” he said. “It’s not its age – although gods alone known what an immature familiar is doing trying to bond – it’s Raphael’s curse. It’s not just blocking your chakra. It’s blocking the familiar from forming the bond.”

  A chill ran through me. “He can do that?”

  Iain’s expression grew grave.

  “It’s Raphael. None of us fully know what he can do. But I wouldn’t rule it out. If your chakra is blocked, then your energy is being disrupted and thrown out of the natural order. It could be enough to prevent a bond being formed.”

  My relief vanished and my gut churned. He was right. We had no clue of what Raphael was capable of. If this spell was permanent, he’d condemned not only me to live my life with no familiar, which meant I could never become an enforcer, but he’d also cursed the familiar to roam this world on a plane where it didn’t belong. I had to find a way to help it recover its strength, and when it did, convince Elias to let me escort it back into the forest – because it seemed a pretty safe bet that I’d have flunked out of Krakenvale by then.

  “Hey, at least I know why Stormclaw hates me now.” I forced a smile that didn’t even make it halfway to my eyes. Iain gave me a sympathetic smile in return.

  “It’s not forever. When the familiar moves on, the gryffs will have no reason to be afraid of you.”

  “If I’m right.”

  “If you’re right,” he agreed.

  And whether I was right or wrong about that, it didn’t change the fact that whatever Raphael had done to me when I went back was killing my magic, or smothering it, or something. Worse, this wasn’t something we could fight back against. To counteract a curse, you had to know what it was, and even then, removing them was far more complex than casting them. How long did I have? Years? Months? Weeks? When would my magic die, taking every one of my dreams with it?

  “I need some air,” I announced. Iain made no move to stop me when I got up.

  “Lyssa, this is good news,” he said, catching my eye and holding it. “I can take this to the circle. They’ll do everything they can to compel Raphael to lift the curse, and they’ll put their best hex breakers on it. The enforcers look after our own.”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  He meant it to be comforting, I was sure, but we both knew his words were empty. The only one who knew how to break the curse was Raphael himself, and he’d made his price clear.

  The question was, did I value my magic more than my conscience?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I’d tried my whole life to be a good person. When I was a little kid, I stole a Mars bar from the local sweetshop. I’d been so giddy with excitement at getting away with it that I’d waltzed right into the house with it in my hands – where my father had caught me. My father – my real father, the one who’d raised me, not Raphael – was a lawyer, and the rules had always been the rules. They were there to be followed, and respected, not broken on a whim. I’d trembled as I stared up at him, the still-wrapped chocolate melting in my hands, expecting him to scream and shout. Instead, he sat me down, and to this day, I could remember his words. He took out a match and told me, This match could destroy an entire forest. The things we think are small, they never stay that way. Before we know it, they’re out of our control, and the whole forest is ruined. You’re one tree, Lyssa, but your actions affect them all.

  It was my first and last foray into the world of crime. As a perpetrator, at least. So what I was considering was no small thing. It went against everything I believed in.

  I pushed myself harder, until my feet churned the track to mud beneath me. The air burst from my lungs in a puff of white vapour with each ragged breath, and my legs burned with every step. It felt good to run. I’d allowed myself to lose the carefully honed edge of my fitness since I’d stopped riding. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I was unfit – I was pretty sure no-one in our year could say that, thanks to Killian – but I definitely wasn’t at my peak.

  The only trouble with running – aside from the burning in my lungs, legs, and various other parts of my anatomy I hadn’t known I possessed – was that when you weren’t busy dying, you had way too much time to think. And yet, somehow, whenever I had a problem, I found myself running. A therapist would probably have something to say about that.

  Breaking Raphael out would undo the sacrifice of everyone who’d worked together to lock him up last year. And sure, I’d been the one who’d risked my life, but I wasn’t the only one in the battle. Other people had done more than risk their lives that day: they’d laid them down to put Raphael where he belonged. Good druids had died. Good people. Kayden had given his life. What I was thinking about betrayed his memory. And it betrayed everything my parents had taught me.

  And yet I couldn’t quite shake it.

  It was selfish. I was honest enough to acknowledge that much. Just thinking about it was selfish. How could I care so little about others that I’d even consider doing such a thing? Not just the ones who’d died, but the ones who would die in the future if Raphael was free. Because it was too much to hope that Daoradh had reformed him.

  No.

  It was wrong, and I couldn’t do it. Wouldn’t. No matter how much it pained me, no matter how it would destroy my dreams, I couldn’t unleash Raphael on the world. Because people’s lives were more important than my dreams.

  I just wished there was some way I could have it all.

  I dragged myself back to my dorm room, and by the time I emerged from the shower, I was starting to think maybe there was. If I could work out how to pull it off.

  I slumped back on my bed with a huff.

  “What’s eating you?”

  I twisted my head to the side and looked across the room to where Zara was sitting cross-legged on her bed,
chewing the end of a pen with an open textbook on her lap.

  I wasn’t sure where to begin. But if I was going to pull this off – if I had any chance of making it work – I was going to need some help. Whether she’d be willing to give it was another thing entirely.

  Zara set her notepad aside.

  “Come on, spill it.”

  “When I went to Daoradh, Raphael didn’t just attack me. He cursed me.”

  “What? How?”

  “The council couldn’t bind his powers – he’s too powerful.” I rolled my head up to stare at the ceiling, because I didn’t want to see her face when I told her the next part. “My magic is dying.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I held my hand out towards our window and muttered a word. Instead of blacking it out, the barest film covered it, so that the light still poured in.

  “Oh, my God. Lyssa, your magic…”

  “I know.” I sat up, and turned to her slowly, giving her time to mask the look of horror on her face. I should have taken longer.

  “But the circle, they can fix it, right? The hex breakers?”

  I shook my head. “They’ll try. But we both know there’s nothing they can do. Not in time, at least. Raphael’s too powerful.”

  “Then what? You’re just going to sit back and let it happen? Because I think I’ve gotten to know you quite well over the last seven months, and I gotta say, that doesn’t sound like you.”

  A slow smile spread over my lips.

  “Well, now that you mention it… Here’s the thing. Raphael says he’ll lift it – if I set him free.”

  “If you set him free?”

  “Right. I mean, I can’t do that – I went through too damned much to put him there, and there’s too much at stake. But I could let him out long enough to fix me, and then lock him back up again.”

  “You want to double-cross the most powerful druid in the country?”

  I nodded, ducking her eye.

  “Cool. I’m in.”

  “Don’t you have some sort of objection to that? You know, being a trainee enforcer and all?”