Spirit Binder

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  A gryphon, she guessed, obviously having never set eyes on a mythical beast outside a book before. The body of a lion with the head of an eagle. This one was at least nine feet tall.

  It screamed at her attackers.

  They’d frozen at its arrival, but now they shrieked, dropped their knives, and ran. She was fairly certain Sammy had peed himself.

  “Well, they were hoping to see some tricks,“ Theo murmured, as she watched them disappear into the forest. The gryphon glanced back at her over its shoulder, and she decided it might be a good idea to step away from the cliff. As she walked by, the gryphon lowered its head to watch her. The forest now in front of her, she turned to face the mythical beast.

  “A gryphon? A legendary creature, and a guardian of the divine. Is that ironic or by choice?” The gryphon tilted its head as if listening, but Theo made sure to stay out of the reach of its hooked beak. “Though … it might have been a good idea to capture them, instead of just scaring them into fleeing.”

  The gryphon turned its head and squinted toward the dense forest.

  “I don’t think you can fly through the trees.”

  The gryphon seemed to think for a moment, and then its skin began to crawl and ripple and twist. She stepped farther away, but, intrigued, couldn’t will herself to flee. The gryphon began to glow, and then, with a flash of magic so bright it knocked her back, it transformed into a large grey wolf. The wolf shook itself all over, then sprang by her, and dashed into the forest.

  A spiritwalker.

  Not just a gryphon, but a magic user who could transform. She’d heard of their existence; one of the rarest manifestations of magic: to be able to connect to and collect the spirit of animals and alter the very structure of their bodies. It was an amazing ability, and obviously one not just confined to actual living animals. Though, perhaps the spiritwalker could simply combine the spirits of multiple animals at will … hence the gryphon.

  ∞

  Theo, a little regretfully but steadily, left the peacefulness of the cliff and traced her steps back toward the castle. She didn’t know who the spiritwalker was, and though he or she appeared to be friend rather than foe, Theo was all too aware — thanks to the killers on the cliff and her own ten-year kidnapping — that the enemy of her enemy was not necessarily a friend.

  She was almost back to the safety of the wards — why was it that the return trip always felt longer — when the wolf padded out of the forest to walk alongside her. Had she been more aware of the surroundings, rather than so in her head, she would have noticed how quiet the forest had become right before the wolf appeared. Prey always recognizes a predator; even if it could change shapes.

  The wolf came up to her waist, and easily weighed two hundred pounds but the gryphon had been larger, so spiritwalkers were not hindered by their own physical mass.

  “Got them taken care of, did you?” she asked the wolf, as casually as she could, while maintaining a steady pace toward the safety of the invisible ward barrier she could feel only a hundred feet away. The wolf didn’t answer, and they continued onwards in silence. She was suddenly acutely aware of her footsteps. The wolf moved noiselessly, though its massive head swung side to side on its broad shoulders as it kept a continual watch over their surroundings.

  The wolf stopped as Theo took the last few steps through the wards. She felt the magic slide over her, taste her own magic, and then allow her safe passage. Once inside the protected property, she turned back to the wolf, who padded off behind a fallen tree and disappeared.

  She hesitated, wondering if she should try to thank her savior, and was rather taken aback when Hugh, buttoning his shirt, stepped out from behind a tree and began striding toward her.

  He was barefoot and spitting mad, but he didn’t speak until he too had passed through the wards. “What were you thinking? Did you think you could just wander off and leave the protection of the castle? Sometimes you act like you don’t even know who you are!”

  He’d missed a buttonhole and his hair was completely wild. All she could do was grin at him. This seemed to give him pause, as if he wasn’t certain how to proceed if she was just going to marvel at him.

  “Where are the rest of your clothes?”

  “What?”

  “Your shoes? You are missing your shoes.”

  With an exasperated growl, he turned back to the fallen tree to retrieve his shoes, socks, and belt. When he returned, he didn’t seem as angry, which, oddly, was a bit disappointing. She couldn’t actually remember a time when anyone had ever yelled at her. She liked that he wasn’t worried about the proper way to address her.

  “I suppose you just wanted to walk,” he grumbled, as he put on his shoes.

  She turned to continue through the forest toward the castle. “I don’t, you know,” she said.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Know who I am.”

  He sighed, but then fell silent. He picked up his pace until he was beside her. With him at her side, she felt the calmness of the forest settle around her once again.

  “I’m sorry. I was scared for you.”

  “Did you find them, then?”

  “I tied them up a few miles east. I’ll send the Captain of the Guard to retrieve them for questioning.”

  “Tied them? As a wolf?”

  “No, but then I wasn’t concerned about parading naked around them.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, oh.”

  Theo laughed a little and could see him grinning out of the corner of her eye. Silence fell, and though it was pleasant, her curiosity won out over polite correctness. “So … you’re a spiritwalker.”

  “And you are a mind mage,” he answered.

  “Mostly.”

  “Which calls into question why those men even got far enough to draw their knives. Are you … are your powers …”

  “Compromised along with my memory?”

  He didn’t answer. It was taboo to discuss personal magic with anyone except your mentors, or parents. Even then, such knowledge gave people power over you, and, if her uncle was any example, sharing blood wasn’t always a protection.

  “You would have had me crush their spirit, rip through their brains until they did my bidding?”

  “No,” he choked a little, perhaps on the idea of her being that powerful. “Certainly there were other options.”

  “I could have just shut them off, would that have worked for you?” She felt him staring at her now. She knew she shouldn’t be trying to frighten him with the extent of her abilities, but she also knew he needed to understand.

  “A well-placed suggestion would have sufficed,” he, rather stiffly, retorted, and she realized he wasn’t aghast, but angry once again. She smiled and he caught her doing so. “What? You think they didn’t train me with a basic understanding of what a mind mage can do?”

  “Your father does like to be prepared,” she acknowledged, and he nodded his acceptance of this assessment.

  “Do you know any others spiritwalkers?” she asked, after it seemed that some of the tension had eased between them.

  “Not any more.” He was back to being reserved, but then again, she was presuming a lot by even asking such things.

  “That must have been difficult. Growing up without a mentor.”

  “Yes, though my father and your mother, when she could, tried to help.”

  “But mostly you figured it out for yourself.”

  “As we all do to some extent.”

  “Do you need prolonged physical contact with the animal to retain the imprint?”

  “It helps.”

  She laughed lightly, delighted by a vision of him petting a wolf or even a lion.

  “It’s funny, is it? That I turn into animals.” He wasn’t amused.

  “No. Just imagining you and how you came into contact … perhaps you went on a safari as a boy?”

  “Nothing as romantic as that. The safari came to me.
All arranged by my father.”

  “The accumulation of power …”

  “Is the highest priority. Yes. I imagine you understand. Animals, unusual or not, were captured, often dying, and brought to me. Secretly, obviously. The lion, a remnant of my mother’s menagerie, died in my arms.”

  Theo paused to give him a moment, and she noticed he held his hands clasped behind his back. He looked steadily away from her, but he seemed more reflective than sorrowful.

  “I’m sorry.” She’d known, of course, that his mother had died when he was very young. She now guessed that she too had been a spiritwalker.

  “I imagine we could trade childhood horror stories back and forth for years and not cover them all.”

  “The accumulation of power … “

  “Yes, right.” He laughed and unclasped his hands to gesture toward the castle, which they could now see just beyond the forest. She allowed herself to be directed up the path he indicated, and then through her mother’s prizewinning garden where it seemed like everything bloomed no matter the season. The head gardener position at Hollyburn was sought after, and through local fairs across Cascadia, fought over.

  Theo noticed that the birds were once again chattering above their heads. So he wasn’t a predator in his human form … at least not according to the birds.

  “When I woke …” she hesitated, not certain why she wanted to share with him.

  “Yes?”

  “When I woke, the power was different from before.”

  “Ten years stronger, but you only remember being almost sixteen.”

  “Yes,” she hesitated again, but then continued, “I’m stronger than my mother now, and I think … I think … I can do … more.”

  “To be expected. Given the prophecy.”

  “I am not a god,” she snapped.

  “I never said you were,” he tried to soothe her, but she didn’t want to be distracted.

  “No one is more powerful than my mother.”

  “But you will be. Once you learn to wield without fear.”

  Yes. The fear of tearing those men’s minds apart … fear of creating monsters who would do her bidding … shells of the men they’d once been, looking to her for every thought and movement …

  “Power is what you make of it,” she whispered.

  “Yes,” he answered quietly enough that she almost didn’t hear him. “We learned the same lessons, you and I.”

  And, just for a moment, she felt like she was in the right place at the right time. Everything aligned in that breath, among the magically-enhanced, ribbon-winning roses, on that path, with this friend at her side. She fit … though just for a moment.

  ∞

  Then, because she just couldn’t still her mind — it was the empty spots that plagued her — she ruined the moment. “Do you know of this Preacher?”

  “I’ve heard he exists.”

  “And he leads a movement against … me?”

  “Is that what you gleaned from the men on the cliff?”

  “No. I could read nothing specific.”

  “Your mother will rectify that, I suppose. I have warned her of the growing unrest among the Lackings, but I am not an official advisor.”

  “She does prefer formal channels.”

  “Getting drunk at public houses is not an acceptable avenue.”

  Theo laughed, though she suspected Hugh’s wryness was intended to mimic her mother rather than to be funny. He smiled, though he didn’t look directly at her.

  “So she doesn’t give any of it much credence?”

  “She will now that you’ve been threatened.”

  Suddenly, the east wall of the castle was before them. Here, the path parted. One fork led south toward the front entrance and one headed north toward the kitchen and stables.

  She stepped north, as she always preferred the less formal entrance of the kitchen. Hugh hesitated.

  “I should notify the Captain immediately.”

  “I should not be in any danger on my way to my rooms.” She smiled, and attempted to restore the pleasant moment they’d shared before the talk of the Preacher. “Thank you for coming to my rescue.”

  He shrugged. “It’s my duty.”

  Her heart fell a little in her chest, which was a strange and unexpected sensation. “I’ll see you at dinner then, my Lord.” She turned away, dismissing him as her station demanded, as his behavior seemed to request, though she felt him watch her until she’d rounded the corner, out of sight. Only then did he turn to find the Captain. She refused to track him further, even though he was the brightest spot in her mind’s eye.

  No. She had her mother to deal with. She almost felt sorry that Hugh had managed to capture the would-be assassins. Her mother had no issues with using her own mind mage powers, and would completely strip Sammy and the Traitor’s psyches to learn who ‘the Preacher’ was, and how to find him.

  Except … the tension between her and Hugh nagged. It wasn’t as if she was jumping for joy to be betrothed. She shouldn’t expect any different from Hugh. Yet, her heart ached a little around the edges. His heroic rescue and rare magic had turned her head just a little, but it was easy enough to turn it back …

  It was just that moment where everything felt like it was going to be all right — maybe even as it should be — that haunted her a little bit.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “I suppose we should talk.” Rhea had found her, though it seemed she’d needed Hugh to do so, which was odd. Her mother had always been able to track her before, and Hugh’s ability to do so now was puzzling. She had retreated, once again, to the west-facing balcony in the unused wing of the castle in an attempt to get away from her mother’s interrogation of the would-be assassins. Even at this distance, she had to struggle to block the psychic backlash.

  “Why talk when you can just rip through my mind, retrieve what you want, and render me compliant and useless afterwards?”

  Her mother sighed, like someone with an actual heart would, but then turned a dismissive look Hugh’s way. He actually hesitated momentarily before leaving. Standing up to her mother was impressive, but Theo would be more flattered if she thought he was doing so to protect her, rather than just generally defying anyone who had any bit of control over his actions.

  He left, though not before narrowing his eyes in Theo’s direction for a moment. She felt like squinting back at him, just to be childish, but then remembered she wasn’t supposed to be sixteen anymore.

  As soon as the door clicked shut behind Hugh — she could see that there were now double the guards posted in the hall — Rhea lowered herself onto the bench beside Theo, though she sat facing into the room rather than the ocean and the mountain view.

  Her mother sighed again, and Theo gathered she was supposed to feel sorry for her, for the weight of the world, and the ordeal of a brain-damaged daughter, that sat upon her shoulders. But she was still shaking from the force with which her mother, once she’d hit the barriers placed in the would-be assassins minds, had ripped through and seemingly shredded their very spirit … all because she’d gone wandering. An extreme reaction — protective, not only of her daughter, but also of her nation — though not unexpected. No, it was she, not her mother, who was to blame. She should have acted on the cliff. She should have given the men a little nudge, perhaps back to their lives before the mysterious Preacher had enthralled them, but she’d been scared. Too scared to do anything more than just wander about the estate. Scared of being incomplete, of being only half herself. And Hugh, having somehow been alerted to her absence from the castle, had been forced to step in.

  Theo had come to understand, while desperately trying to block out the magical backlash of her mother’s interrogation, that she was missing more than just ten years of memories. She was missing some other vital part of her spirit.

  “Are they dead, then?”

  “They tried to kill you, Theodora.”

  “They di
dn’t get very far with it.”

  Another world-weary sigh. Theo didn’t think she’d ever heard so much emotion from her mother; ever. She decided to change the subject. She could discover the fate of the men on her own, later …

  “And why do you need Hugh to track me? And how is it that he can, if you can’t. Is it some part of his magic?”

  Her mother shifted, more than just uncomfortable from the stone seat. “I suppose we should talk about Hugh as well.” But then Rhea fell silent, long enough that Theo considered trying to get a peek into her thoughts. Not that she was stupid enough to think that any attempted invasion of her mother’s mind wouldn’t be a terribly painful idea.

  Finally, her mother spoke, and, oddly, she momentarily missed the silence that had stretched between them in this peaceful place where the jasmine was still blooming and everything didn’t seem quite so out of her control.

  “I wouldn’t have chosen marriage for you.”

  “You would have me be a pristine figurehead for the Worship of Spirit.”

  “Snorting is not terribly ladylike, Theodora, but yes, I believe you would be more powerful, more devoted to Spirit, unencumbered.”

  “As you have been.”

  “I have you. Just as destiny shaped my life, it will shape yours. One cannot argue with prophecy.”

  “Read by Hugh’s father.”

  “Verified, as you already know, by a number of outside sources. I don’t take my responsibly lightly.”

  True, her mother never did anything lightly. She was more doggedly focused.

  “But they are different,” Theo said. “Hugh’s and my prophecies. And no one has ever bothered to tell me the exact wording of his.”

  “Not only do you already know there is no such thing as exact wording when it comes to prophecies, but it is also not yet your place to know anything of Hugh’s reading.”

  “Is it so childish of me to want to understand a destiny that is being forced upon me?”

  “No, darling, though it pains me to hear you phrase it that way. I can tell you that Hugh’s prophecy never changes. Every reader arrived at the same conclusions. Perhaps it was unkind of me … but … I even had him read when you went missing … and yesterday.”