by Hazel Hunter
If she didn’t know better, she would have said that there was something hopeful about his voice. It made her bristle.
“I am, yes.” Hailey turned to Liona. “Are you all right? That can be draining for some.”
Liona’s dark eyes were thoughtful.
“Yes…yes, I am. That does tell me something though. Come speak with me later. I have some information that might interest you.”
She turned and walked away, leaving Hailey alone with Kieran.
“So, Major,” she said, her voice breaking a little on his title. “What do you want to see?”
Kieran’s eyes followed Liona for a moment before turning back to her.
“I remember what you could do while we…”
“While we were together?” she asked.
He nodded.
“I would like to see what you can summon up in the way of fire. You were able to summon up flames when last we spoke, but I need to know whether you can make them burn hotter.”
There was that strange hope again, but Hailey pushed it out of her mind. If he wanted to pretend that they had never touched each other, so be it.
She nodded icily, stepping back from him.
It did not matter that Liona was skilled in far seeing. She had the power that Liona carried within her. Now she could wield it exactly how she chose.
She thought of flame. She thought of the hearts of volcanoes, and the way the world split to reveal a core of magma underneath. She thought of heat that could melt through steel, through rock, through things far stronger than human flesh and bone.
She heard a deep roar, like the sound of an oncoming train, followed by a snapping in the air.
When she opened her eyes, she realized that she was standing in a column of flame that was so hot it was a bluish white. Beyond the sheet of fire, she could see Kieran, staring at her with wide eyes.
She reached through the flame in wonder. She knew that it would not hurt her. Instead, licks of the white flame danced on her fingertips. There was a faint ticklish sensation where the flame kissed her. When she walked forward or back, the flame walked with her. It was a good thing that the ground of the practice field was nothing but packed dirt. Beneath her feet, it singed to black, but it did not catch.
Without thinking about how she could do such a thing, she brought a lick of the flame to dance on her fingertips before sending it flying from her. That narrow and deadly point of heat flew from her fingertips to embed itself on the stone wall on the far side of the courtyard.
The fire felt pure and beautiful. It was only with a sigh that she let it go. She was shocked by how cold she felt immediately after.
“That was more than you could do all those weeks ago,” Kieran observed.
“It has felt like a very long time for me,” she said. Her words came out softer than she thought they would. She thought that they would be recriminating, but instead, they were nearly a plea.
“I will need to see more,” Kieran said, looking away.
He offered her his hand again, but this time it was Piers, falling out of the sky.
He was a flyer, given to the high cold air. Flyers were known for their whimsical and fickle nature, but now she wondered if they should be known for their tempers as well.
“That looked like it could singe the clouds,” Piers observed. “What more do you need to see?”
“I was sent to do a job, Coven Master,” said Kieran, and now he sounded more tired than anything else.
Hailey stepped between them to prevent another fight.
“Piers, will you give me your hand?”
Piers didn’t hesitate before rolling up his sleeve. Taking a deep breath, she touched her fingertips to the inside of his wrist. Even that gentle touch was enough to feel his strength, his energy. Where Liona was a primeval power rooted in the earth and reaching towards the sky, Piers was a sea of light. Sometimes, she felt as if she could drink it all in, and then see to the end of the universe.
She pulled her power from him, feeling the warmth settle in her bones like a kind of embrace from the man himself. She knew that taking power from him would not harm him or even overly drain him. When she shared power with someone she was close with, it left both of them stronger than they were before.
“What would you like to see now?” she asked, her tone measured.
“I would like to see you fly.” Kieran’s voice was quiet. She wondered if she heard a kind of defeat there.
Without a word, she pushed off from the ground, leaving the two men far below her. There was some remnant of the flames with her still. The thin mountain air should have brought a chill to her exposed skin, but the coolness was almost welcome this time. She moved through the air like a fish, completely confident of her ability to go where she pleased. She knew how to use her body to steer herself, to fall and to let the wind catch her, and to power her way even higher.
Piers was a skilled flyer with a lifetime of experience, but her own ability was raw power. She knew that she could stay aloft for hours. Instead, she spun nimbly head over heels before showing Kieran how fast she could go by looping around the towers of the Castle.
When she lighted back on her feet, she risked a smile at Piers. There was a kind of fierce pride in his gaze, something that told her that he would always be there and ready to defend her, but that he was more than happy to let her defend herself as well.
Kieran’s expression was a little more difficult to decipher. There was pleasure there, pride like there had been in Piers’s face, but there was a kind of defeat as well. She couldn’t read it, couldn’t even begin to do so.
“Kieran?”
He nodded, distant and cool as a glacier.
“I want to see if you can change your shape next,” he said. Now they could both hear a desperate tone in his voice, something that scrabbled at the edges of his face for purchase. “It’s fairly difficult. Shapechangers tend to bloom later. It can take them years before they have complete control of what they can do.”
Kieran sounded like he was warning her off.
Hailey tossed her head in disregard.
“I’ll try anything once,” she said, forcing an edge of bravado into her tone. “Piers, if you don’t mind?”
“No. I need you to pull that power from me this time. Otherwise, there’s no reason to do this at all.”
Hailey bit her lip, nodding. Piers looked furious. If he had any kind of reason to step in, she knew that he would have.
“All right. I… All right.”
She didn’t realize she was holding her breath until she stepped a little closer to Kieran. Her body still recognized his. Even if he was as distant as a glimmering star, some part of her simply didn’t understand why she didn’t embrace him, or why he didn’t reach for her.
He offered her his hand. Closing her eyes, she touched his bare skin with just her fingertips. His power rolled and tossed like the sea in a storm. It turned over and over. When she went to draw it from him, she had a sensation of being drowned, of being carried under. It was still so deep and so powerful, but unlike the calm that he had always had before, now there was something deeper and crueler about it.
She broke away from him with a cry, staring at him with wide eyes. Piers started for her, but she shook her head.
“What happened to you?” she whispered.
Kieran paused. Then he shook his head.
“Nothing that I can speak of,” he said finally. “Can you pull power from me or not?”
“I can.”
She thought about her shapechanging transformation for a moment. The first candidate that came to mind was the shape of an owl, like her own familiar, Merit. Merit lived in the forests outside the keep. She brought death on beautifully silent wings. While she knew Merit’s form well enough, Hailey decided that the prospect of needing to fly was too intimidating.
Instead, she thought of Cavanaugh, Kieran’s wolf. Cavanaugh was a Mackenzie Valley wolf, one of the largest species in the world. He w
as powerful and unforgiving in a way that prey animals never were. It was clear that he only recognized Kieran as his pack, though by the end he had allowed Hailey to touch him as well.
She closed her eyes, reaching for the power that she had pulled from Kieran. She imagined her body twisting and changing, losing fat, gaining muscle. She imagined dark hair sprouting all over her form, she thought of a nose that was far keener than hers and eyes that could see through the dark.
She was aware of a faint pain, of popping noises that would have disturbed her if she had thought of them. She wasn’t sure how long it had gone on, but when she looked up, the world looked very different. She turned in a circle to see herself before glancing up at Piers and Kieran.
They both stared at her. Piers moved first.
“Though I have to admit I prefer you as a woman, you make a very fine wolf, Hailey.”
He offered his hand. To Hailey’s intense irritation, her first instinct was to sniff it. Instead, she took his hand between her powerful jaws, closing her teeth on his skin with the utmost gentleness. Her senses––sensitive and marvelous––could detect the fact that his heart started beating faster, that the pupils of his eyes were dilated black. He was fascinated, but he was afraid too. Some wolfish part of her liked that a great deal.
“That is amazing.”
She turned to Kieran, cocking her head curiously. There was something rueful in his face too. Without thinking about it, she approached him, thrusting her nose in his direction. Even as a human, she could sense something was off about him. Even when she had a poor human nose, she knew something was wrong. Now that she was a wolf, she could sense even more. The scent that rolled off him was one that her human brain labeled with the word ‘sorrow,’ though her wolf brain was more inclined to call it a sickness, albeit one of the soul.
She whined deep in her throat, flicking her ears back.
Kieran’s laugh was hollow.
“In just a few short weeks, you have fulfilled the promise that both Piers and the Magus Corps saw in you.”
“The Magus Corps?” Piers’s voice was sharp. “And what exactly does the Magus Corps have to say about Hailey’s promise?”
Kieran glanced at him.
“The Magus Corps is more than just a club for bullies and time wasters, no matter what you seem to think of it, Coven Master. We need resources just as your precious Castle does, and we also understand that we must grow them up carefully.” He sighed. “Hailey, will you please return to your human form? I have something I must tell you.”
Hailey almost wanted to deny him. The wolf form was so sensitive and so wonderful. She wondered what it would be like to go wandering through the forest. She wondered what it would be like to go running in the night. She wondered what it would be like to chase down prey. The idea of killing something in this form, of feeling the red gush of blood and life over her tongue woke her up. She was repulsed by it and at once fascinated and excited. It jarred her so thoroughly that she gave up her wolf form entirely, rising up to stand on her own two feet again.
Kieran was there, steadying her with a hand on her shoulder.
“Are you well? I should not have asked you to do that without any preparation.”
“Leave me be, Kieran,” she said, something in her snapping. “I can’t take this. If I meant so little to you that you were willing to avoid me until the Magus Corps sent you my way again, don’t pretend that you care when I’m just shaky on my feet!”
He stepped back as if stung. For a moment, it was like she had ripped him open. She could see the shock and the hurt on his face. She could no longer believe that their parting was pain only for her. There was grief in him as well. He covered it up again quickly, but she could never deny that she had seen it.
“Rightly so. My apologies.”
For a moment, he couldn’t even look at her. When he spoke again, there was a deadness to his voice.
“Hailey, I am on a mission for the Magus Corps. At the moment, the scope of the mission is unknown, but my commandant believes, and I agree with him, that this is going to be more than what we usually deal with.”
“I fail to see how that is an issue for anyone here,” Piers said icily.
Kieran ignored him.
“What this means is that I need you to come with me. You have shown yourself fully capable and fully in use of powers that are commanded by no one in the Magus Corps.”
“The Magus Corps has no authority at the Castle,” snapped Piers. “There is absolutely nothing that you can do to take Hailey out of here, nothing that you can do to drag her out against her will.”
Kieran turned to Piers. He looked almost relieved to be talking to the coven master instead of to Hailey.
“What you say and want means very little to me, Dayton. I am here on a mission, and I owe my loyalty to a higher power than you.”
Piers’s eyes narrowed.
“How fascinating. What you need to understand, Major, is that I owe my loyalty to Hailey. Does that make any sense to you at all? Do you understand what that means? That means that it is my life’s work keeping her and the other members of my coven safe. That goes far beyond your mandate and far deeper.”
Kieran’s face was split in a snarl. At that moment, he looked more like Cavanaugh than Hailey would have thought possible.
“My business here is not with you–”
“Stop it!”
Hailey’s voice echoed across the practice yard. She could hear the way the sound reverberated through the thin mountain air.
Both men froze, staring at her. She was nearly trembling with rage and with emotion.
“I need to understand this very clearly,” she said at last. It occurred to her that her voice was strung as tight as piano wire.
“I will of course answer any questions that I can,” Kieran said. His voice was soft and subdued, as if she were a wild animal that he did not want to harm or startle.
“You came here to recruit me for a mission that the Magus Corps thinks is dangerous. Is that correct?”
“It is.”
“You came here because…someone decided that I was the best tool to use for the job. Who was that?” Kieran’s pause was long enough that her nerves frayed. “You need to tell me, Kieran,” she said, her voice growing louder. “I need to know if it was your commandant or…or Stephan or you that decided that I had the right skill set to be brought in for whatever it is that you are planning.”
“It was my commandant,” Kieran said at last. “Hailey, you must believe me. When I submitted my report on the mission that…on the mission, I related what we accomplished together. I had no idea that it would be used to count you among the resources that the Magus Corps commands.”
Hailey flinched. There had been a part of her that hoped, that prayed, that Kieran had used this opportunity to come see her. She wanted him to want her the way he had, the way that she still wanted him. That hope died a hard death in her heart. She struggled to keep her voice level.
“This mission. What is happening?”
“Over the last seven months, we have lost nearly as many Magus Corps officers. None of them were in situations that we consider normal, and we were able to recover none of the bodies. This has taken place in the Alps, mountainous cold territory that makes me a good fit for the mission. This region has long been known for its Templar activity, something that makes many of the Magus Corps nervous. We have considered sending in an entire strike team, but the concern is that they would be too obvious.”
“So they want to send you and me in instead?”
Kieran nodded.
“Throughout the history of the Magus Corps, smaller teams tend to have a greater level of success than larger ones. They saw the file that I created. They saw your powers.”
A sudden thought occurred to Hailey, one so terrible that it momentarily made her head swim. She stared at Kieran.
“What else was in that report?” she asked. It felt as if her entire body had gone numb.
>
“Hailey?”
“Kieran, tell me what else was in that report. Did you tell them everything that we did together? Did you tell them that I was…I am in love with you?”
Kieran’s face had gone white.
“Hailey…”
“You’re not saying no,” she whispered. “Dear gods above, you filed me in your report like your swords or your gear. That’s why they sent you.”
Kieran started to deny it, but there was nothing he said that would have convinced her otherwise. It was too clear. The Magus Corps saw her as a tool to be used. When they made that decision, it only made the most sense to send the person who could use it in the most able fashion.
She couldn’t take any more.
She shook her head, turned and walked away.
CHAPTER THREE
IN TIMES OF trouble, Hailey had a habit of seeking the highest ground she could. When she was staying with the Angioli coven in Italy, she often took refuge in the choir loft. Though the Castle was short on choir lofts, there were still many odd corners and closets where she could hide.
She found an unused bedroom in one of the towers, a place where someone had stored a small library’s worth of books before abandoning them. She sat on the window seat, gazing out over the dark mountainside. She had been so happy to come to the Castle. It had been an island both in time and in space. It marked the first place where she had felt truly safe, truly cared for. It was a community that was for her. She gave back to it with every bit of will and power that she could. Now she was being asked to leave it again.
The only light in the room was from a small lamp. She sat in the dimness thinking about what it would be like to pull back from this place, to leave it. Even in such a short time, the Castle had become her home. The idea of leaving it made her feel hollow and empty.
There was a knock on the door behind her. Hailey’s first impulse was to hide, to pretend that there was no one in the small room. Then she was disgusted with her own cowardice.
“Come in,” she said.
It only took her a moment to recognize Piers’s silhouette in the door. He entered, closing the door behind him, but in deference to her sensibilities, he didn’t turn on the light. She felt a surge of the love that she had for him. It was warm and lovely. She remembered that she could trust him.
