by Tasha Black
She walked with me back into the trees as the sun set fiery red over the valley.
“We don’t have much time,” I told her. “So I’m going to make this quick. You’ve said I can’t make you happy.”
She bit her lip.
“I will do all that is in my power to honor your wishes,” I told her. “We will perform this spell together, and then I will set you free.”
“You’re going to be part of the spell?” she asked.
She didn’t know about the change of plans. Jonah had volunteered to provide the last ingredient needed, but I talked to him about it earlier.
“You need the blood of a shifter. That’s going to be me,” I told her. “I decided to take Jonah’s place. I expect I’ll be recovering somewhere until the sun comes up tomorrow. That will keep you safe from me, and we can go our separate ways.”
She let out a single sob, and then nodded.
“Cori, if this isn’t what you want, all you have to do is say it,” I told her. “But at least tell me why.”
“You need my magic to make a shifter baby,” she said, her voice strained with emotion. “But my magic screws up everything it touches. It’s one thing to ruin a statue or a potted plant. But I just can’t take that chance on a baby. I’m sorry.”
But she turned on her heel, leaving me to chastise myself for making her explain. Rejecting me was hard for her, that much was clear. I hadn’t wanted to make it harder.
If I was better at being human, I could help her, make her understand. But I wasn’t. I was better off as a bear. Alone.
Before I could do anything else, Anya called for us all to gather, and I sucked in a long breath of cold, sweet air.
I was nothing and nobody. I had lost my mother to my human fears. I was losing my mate to my feral nature. I was a useless, unloved creature with nothing to offer.
Nothing but my shifter blood…
Tonight I would save the others with my blood sacrifice. It was all I had to give, and I would give it gladly to keep them safe.
36
Cori
Anya, Kendall, Nina and Lark marched over to me as I came out of the woods. The four of them looked like an army regiment, swooping in to rescue a fallen soldier.
Broken as my heart was, I felt it warm a little at the sight of my fierce, amazing friends.
“Are you okay?” Kendall demanded.
“I’m f-fine,” I told her.
“Good,” Anya said. “We need to get started.”
The winter ravens on her shoulders squawked and scolded softly, like they were reiterating what she said.
“Did anyone come up with a silver dagger?” I asked.
It hadn’t seemed like an impossible item to find compared to the others, but it had been the last one left on the list this morning.
“Sure did,” Kendall said, slipping something out of her pocket.
Headmistress Hart’s silver letter opener sparkled in the setting sun light.
“Holy cow, you stole it?” I asked as she handed it to me.
“I borrowed it,” Kendall said, shrugging. “Hopefully, I can put it back before she notices. We didn’t exactly have a lot of fancy silverware around here to choose from.”
“You would think an actual castle would have good silver,” Nina said thoughtfully. “Aren’t people always sitting around polishing it in fairytales?”
“Not if the castle is guarded by shifters,” Lark reminded her. “They’re not exactly fans of silver.”
“Oh,” Nina said. “Right.”
“Ready?” Anya asked, glancing at the darkening sky.
“Let’s do it,” Kendall said.
We headed toward the circle together, and I felt a tingle of power in the air. The fellowship of witches was magical, we were told that at school daily, but tonight that thread of strength actually flowed through my sisters into me. It lifted me, in spite of my broken heart, giving me something to hold onto.
When we reached the circle, Anya, Kendall, Nina and Lark each stood at one compass point.
I stayed back. My role was to bleed the guardian, that I now knew would be Reed instead of Jonah.
It was more of an honorary role than a magical one. I hadn’t wanted a place in the circle, where my unpredictable magic could threaten the mission, or my friends. None of them had argued with me.
Anya began to read from the scroll that Nina and Lark had written with the beetle ink and raven quill.
The words sounded like some sort of embellished Latin. I didn’t understand them, and hadn’t even asked Nina and Lark for the translation. The sound was haunting enough when I didn’t know.
In the valley below, I could just make out where the Order’s circle had formed. It was lit with a dome of magical energy, a sort of mist lifting and swirling inside it.
The wind on the bluff picked up, lifting Anya’s hair as she read, so that she almost looked like she was underwater. There was something strange about her eyes… they were glowing. I’d never seen anything like that before.
Nina, Lark and Kendall chanted along with her, repeating the ends of her lines, like a trio of back-up blues singers.
I pulled the small wooden box of ashes from my cloak and plunged the letter opener into it - ceremonially cleaning the silver blade in the ashes of the ancient tree, as the spell required.
I was ready for my part. Well, as ready as I would ever be to stab someone I cared about.
Reed approached me, head down so that I couldn’t see his golden eyes. He offered me his forearm and for a moment I stared down at the muscled flesh of the man I loved, wondering how I could even consider marring it.
But the wind was howling now, seeming to grow angrier as the spell progressed, and Anya’s chant made the air around the letter opener shiver and blur, as if it had a life of its own.
It was time.
Before I could change my mind, I lifted my hand and brought it down swiftly and cleanly, opening a gash in Reed’s arm.
He glanced up at me, as if in shock, and I could see the pain the silver had inflicted on him.
I wished I could take it back. Take all of it back and beg him to claim me.
But it was too late now, his blood was flowing, rich and scarlet, pouring out and soaking into the ground below.
He took a few faltering steps and made it to the circle. The silver must have harmed him even more than I’d imagined it would. Normally, a wound like that would have closed back up in seconds, but the silver was impeding his healing, sapping his strength.
Down in the valley, the mist inside the Order’s circle had risen enough to form a sort of storm cloud. It roiled madly, a dark eye in the center.
Our own circle was still dormant, but Anya’s eyes glowed pure white now, and her hair swirled straight up over her head. The ravens cried out, their eyes glowing pale blue as if reflecting back a measure of Anya’s incredible power.
My quiet friend was normally so diminutive, so gentle. I knew her magic was strong, but I had never pictured her like this. Anya’s power seemed to root into the ground below her and lift out into the heavens all around her.
Reed groaned and I was horrified to see the state he was in - barely able to drag himself around the circle. He had nearly made it all the way back to his starting point, he had only a dozen more steps to go.
I moved toward him, hoping I could help him get to the end of the circle.
The air shivered and hummed and the storm from the main spell in the valley below began to be sucked up as if it were in an invisible tunnel, and pulled toward our own counter-spell. The storm writhed and pulsated as it rolled toward us, like a giant slug made of electricity.
I reached Reed, but he pushed me away and staggered forward on his own. Maybe it was important for him to finish on his own.
I stepped back to watch him, wishing with everything in me for him to succeed.
He pushed through the last few paces, and the circle pulsed with an unearthly glow as he sealed it with his magical
blood. He looked ready to collapse, but instead, his head snapped up in alarm.
I followed his sightline and screamed to my friends when I spotted the source of his panic, though the wind and storm swallowed up the sound as it left my lips.
37
Reed
With a final, tremendous effort, I dragged my weakened body a few more inches until my blood soaked into the last of the circle.
A flash of power shivered through the air, lighting the circle as my life force sealed the magic.
I was done, and ready to rest, until a terrible scent reached me.
I rose, my whole body stiff with terror.
The masked rider from the gorge was approaching from the hillside below, the wind blowing his hood back just enough for me to catch a glimpse of his bronze hair. An enchanted arrow was already nocked in his bow, ready to kill.
But it was the flaming mane and tail of the vicious stallion that froze my heart. The creature looked even bigger than before somehow. Its hooves pounded the ground furiously as they approached, dark nostrils flaring.
My big body, my anchor of strength, was failing me now. Pain seared my veins and my feet felt like they were made of lead.
But I had to protect the witches. I couldn’t let the counter spell fail. And I wouldn’t let anything happen to Cori.
With the last of my strength, I staggered into the woods to meet the nightmare and its rider. If I could distract them, even for a few minutes, maybe Anya would have time to finish her spell.
I had to cut them off in the trees before they reached the bluff to keep them out of arrow-range of the circle. The witches couldn’t take cover from those magical bolts. They were sitting ducks.
I was their only hope.
38
Cori
Anya was almost disappearing before my eyes, her skin so pale it looked translucent. Her hair swirled over her head and her gown floated around her small form as if caught in an invisible current.
The storm funneling from the circle in the valley into ours pulsed and doubled in on itself. Something strange was happening. Something we hadn’t planned for.
The Order of the Broken Blade hadn’t been able to let the Raven King through the veil. Our counter spell must have worked. But it seemed like we hadn’t merely stopped them at the last minute. We had started something of our own on this side.
And something was happening to Anya.
But I was wrenched out of my fears for my friend in an instant when I heard a howl of pain coming from my mate.
I whirled around to find Reed, hating myself for not going to him when he collapsed from completing the circle. But he wasn’t on his hands and knees at the edge of the circle.
He was nowhere to be seen.
I closed my eyes and felt in the darkness for the bond I had rejected.
Reed, where are you?
There was an unmistakable tug on my soul, as if I’d caught my gown on the railing of the great staircase again.
My eyes flew open, and I sprinted into the woods, praying I could make it to him in time.
What could have possibly possessed him to chase after the Order in his condition? I had seen the flaming stallion in his mind the moment I opened the bond. It was terrifying, even to me. Reed was afraid of fire, and had one foot in the grave after his sacrifice.
The branches ripped at my gown, but I didn’t care that I was stumbling over roots and brambles, as long as I was moving closer to my mate at top speed.
Magic sizzled in my blood and skittered across my skin, unbidden. Waves of power washed through my chest, sending a delirium of awareness through me.
I could hear the gasping breaths my mate drew in all the way down on the hillside. I could smell the bitter leather of the rider’s tack, taste the river on the wind sweeping up from the valley.
My muscles burned from the chase, and when Reed and the rider were finally in view, it was all I could do to stop.
Reed clung to the saddle, too weak to shift, trying to pull the rider down as the horse’s fiery mane set his long hair alight.
The trees around them were burning already. The whole forest was about to go up in flames if no one put a stop to it right now.
“Reed,” I screamed. But he was fighting for his life with the last of his strength, too focused to hear me.
Together, we might be able to best this single warlock, but I could already see the other riders coming up the hillside to join the first.
It was the perfect time to give in to panic.
But instead, a wave of calm settled over me, cold as ice.
I stood, feet shoulder width apart, palms facing upward, just like I’d been taught.
And called on my powers.
Not a hint of magic. Not just enough to power a spell. Not holding back to try to keep from messing things up.
I called it all.
There was no time to meditate, and no amount of meditation that could pay in advance for the magic I needed. This was no parlor trick or school assignment. I was going to wipe them out.
I inhaled the night air and exhaled into my right hand.
A tiny storm cloud formed about my palm.
Time to grow, Misty, I told it in my mind. Time to finally show them what we can do.
She didn’t bite me this time, didn’t resist. Instead she expanded - to the size of cotton candy at the town fair, the size of a globe, a hot air balloon.
Power blossomed inside me, but I felt no fear. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t afraid of my magic. I wanted to do harm. I would blast this mountaintop from its base to punish the ones who would harm my mate.
My storm cloud rose and unfurled toward the riders.
I screamed, letting the emotion flow from me like pure energy.
Fingers of lighting blasted from the cloud, charring the grass.
One of the horses reared up and bucked its rider, who fell to the ground and nicked himself with his own enchanted arrow.
There was a small explosion that killed the rider instantly and spooked two more of those horrible horses.
Their riders cried out in fear and pain, and then I heard another howl of muted agony and remembered that the forest was burning around my mate.
Release, I told my storm. Let it go.
There was a moment when the Earth seemed to go still.
Then the air pressure changed so suddenly my ears clicked, and the rain began to fall.
The first fat drops hissed against the horse’s tails and ran down my cheeks like tears. Then it lashed down in sheets, extinguishing all the fire.
The trees were still smoldering but the danger of losing the whole forest had passed.
Reed’s moans ceased, and the horses whinnied piteously. They looked small and strange without their dancing manes of fire.
The power was blazing from me now and the rain came down in buckets, lightning flashing so that that whole hillside strobed.
One of the riders ran at me, arrow cocked and ready.
I lifted one hand and a lightning bolt felled him.
But another had been flanking me.
Suddenly Reed was flying at him, shifting in midair to tackle him to the ground.
As they fell, I spotted two more men and one of the nightmares behind them. The horse snorted and its fiery mane flared to life once more. It reared up to pummel Reed while he was down.
“No,” I screamed, instinctively pressing my palms through the air.
A brand-new thunder storm was birthed from each of my hands and launched forward toward the monstrous horse.
I felt the power tearing from me, emptying me, but I couldn’t stop. I wouldn’t stop until he was safe, until every last creature that stood against us was obliterated.
My chest ached and my vision tinged with red. In the back of my mind, I knew what was happening, but I didn’t care.
Rain was flying straight out of my fingers now, not even waiting for new clouds to be formed. I ejected lightning out of my fingertips, and it
felt like it was being ripped from my skull. I let the magic tear the power from my insides, and the sky flashed purple with it.
But I had let the emotion get the best of me.
While I went off like a firework, Reed was still trying to fight off the last horse. It had gotten the better of him and he had shifted back to human again, unable to sustain the bear form in his weakened state.
He screamed and I turned to him, lifting up my palms to send a burst of energy to protect him.
But there was nothing left in me.
Professor Sora had described the end point of used up magic as a wall, but this was so much more. It was a barrier made of glass, invisible and unending. I pressed my consciousness against the cool, unfeelingness of it, desperate for a charge.
And when I found nothing, I let my eyes rest on my mate’s desperate, golden ones. I could feel him slipping away from me. The knowledge of him, of us, sliding from my mind like the water flowing away all around us.
If I didn’t stop pushing, I would lose the memory of him forever. If I pushed too far, I could lose it all, memories of my magic, my friends… myself.
“No, Cori,” he moaned.
I closed my eyes and shattered my wall.
39
Cori
It wasn’t raining, but the air smelled like ozone.
I blinked up at the starry sky and into the startlingly golden eyes of a beautiful man whose expression wavered between relief and sorrow.
His hair was ragged, and parts of it looked burned. There was ash on his dirty face, but clean streaks striped it. He must have been crying.
“Where am I?” I asked him.
But he opened his mouth only to close it again without answering.
“Cori,” a woman’s voice said softly.
I turned my head and saw that several more people knelt by my side. The one closest to me had birds on her shoulders. They looked like crows but with all the color drained out of them.
