by Mina Carter
It wasn't. With a small hand gesture reminiscent of a Jedi Knight, the Haven-master deflected the dagger, and it clattered noisily to the ground a few feet away.
“Brave, but stupid, as Warriors have always tended to be. Luckily your numbers are easily controlled by selective breeding. A dying race now, thankfully. There are much easier ways to deal with the darkness than merely hacking at it with metal sticks.” His lips curled into a sneer.
As far back as she could remember, he’d preached about the dangers of the Warriors, refusing to allow them into the Haven even though the old pacts granted them the right of sanctuary...and that of Hospitality, a ritual where Haven women would seek out visiting Warriors, hoping to conceive a child with greater magic running through their veins.
Hawk didn’t bat an eyelid. Another blade appeared in his hand from the multitude about his person. This one, though, hummed with power, the wards across it blazing in the early morning light.
Lyssa frowned and looked at him with new eyes. She’d watched him take the things off, then kit up again this morning, and she hadn’t noticed the magic about them before. And she should have. The weaponry he carried was packing a hell of a magical punch, the wards blazing like fairground illuminations if she looked in the right place.
“Perhaps you guys could clear something up for me?” Hawk asked in a calm voice—as though they weren’t staring down their deaths in the half-dozen, grey-shrouded forms.
“Of course. A dying man should always be granted a last request.” The Haven-master’s voice was magnanimous, and why shouldn’t it be? He’d won after all. Hawk and Lyssa were trapped with no place to go, the remnants of the Second Sigil group crowding into the courtyard behind them and cutting off any escape.
Lyssa flicked them a fear-filled glance but they didn’t move. In fact, they didn’t even look at her but stared straight ahead with blank expressions. The frown between her brows deepened. What the hell was going on here? It was almost as though they were zombies, incapable of independent thought.
“You want to tell me why you’re trying to kill a female Earth Warden? You see, in my experience, Havens normally want that sort of magical firepower around.”
Silence filled the courtyard for a second. Hawk’s expression was expectant as he looked at the figure in red with an eyebrow half raised in question.
Lyssa turned to him, confusion running through her body. Earth Wardens were usually...female.
“E-earth Warden? Me?” Her tone was incredulous as she looked between the two, forgetting for a moment the danger they were in.
“I wondered how long it would be before you worked that one out. Yes, my child, you’re an Earth Warden, just like Daddy Dearest. Which is why I had to kill you both. Only you wouldn’t fucking die,” the master snarled, his genial face contorting with anger and allowing them a glimpse of the monster inside. “We had it all set up, had you and your parents surrounded, but your father did something I didn’t expect. He used his and your mother’s death to shield you, a ward so powerful I haven’t been able to break it. Until now.”
He grinned and motioned around them at the assembled figures. “Months of work to corrupt them—controlling wards, binding wards—so that when the planets were aligned just right and your father’s ward began to weaken, I’d be ready. Ready to send you to join your darling parents in the afterlife.”
Lyssa stared at the master, her mouth agape. Her...an Earth Warden? She shook her head. “But I’m a null...always have been.”
“No, we told you that because we couldn’t break the ward your father put on you. And it was easier to have you think you were a null because, frankly, I didn’t want you coming into power without supervision.”
Lyssa raised an eyebrow, but Hawk beat her to the question. “So what would have happened if she had broken the ward and come into power?”
The red-robed figure shrugged. “Makes no difference. She’d still be helpless. Unless there were extenuating circumstances, her power would just trickle in after the ward broke.”
Hawk’s voice was flat and unemotional. “Humor me. What sort of extenuating circumstances?”
Lyssa held her breath, her gaze going from one to the other as if this were some sort of crazy tennis match. She didn’t know Hawk very well, but she still knew him enough to see the tension in his body. For some reason, he wanted the answer to that question. For some reason it was important.
The master blew out a sigh, his expression becoming irritated. “Okay, she’d have to not only come into her power but be charged up. Usually that involves a complex ritual, or a lover who knows how to perform a sex rite. Then she’d have the power and the control over it, a sexually inactive Earth Warden is little better than useless, which is why we put a suppression ward on her. She’s never so much as looked at a man that way, have you sweetheart?”
He turned his attention to Lyssa, his smile more a leer as his eyes travelled down her body. “Not a problem though, because after I’ve stripped your power, you’re going to be seeing a lot of action. Can’t let the boys here leave without a little treat, now can I?”
Hawk’s grin spread at the same rate Lyssa’s anger simmered, coming to the boil within seconds and going past merely angry into incandescent rage. For years she’d thought there was something wrong with her, both as a Warden and as a woman, and now she found out it wasn’t her after all. She’d been treated like shit and a pariah most of her life because she’d had wards on her?
Everything started to slot into place. Why she could see the wards on Hawk’s weaponry, and why she’d felt the ley-lines earlier. Why she could still feel the ley-lines now, humming with power beneath her feet, and the soft touch of the witching as it coiled against her skin like a lover’s caress.
“Oh no, we can’t let the boys leave without a little action. Definitely not.” Lyssa’s voice was low and dangerous, a new note in it. A new, more confident note. “Step aside, Hawk.”
“You always were a sensible girl, Lyssa. You get that from your mother. Such a pity she took up with your father. That girl had a bright future.” The Haven-master shook his head mournfully and unfolded his hands from the deep cuffs of his robes.
Before he started to move, Lyssa knew the wards he would cast.
Warden children were educated in the Havens. The communities had their own teachers and conformed to all the rules of the world outside regarding education, but they also ran their own, magical curriculum as well. One that started when the pupils reached puberty and started to manifest Warden-like abilities. When Lyssa hadn’t manifested those abilities and had been confirmed as a null, she’d had whole chunks of time to herself. Time she’d spent in the Haven libraries researching, among other things, the history and theory of wards.
“Somehow, I don’t think she’s the one who needs pity now,” Hawk added helpfully and stood aside as all hell broke loose.
Lyssa spread her hands, feeling for the unfamiliar sensation of the witching between them, like a fine silk sheet running through her fingers. She grabbed and twisted, forcing it to assume the shape she wanted. The shape of a ward, the most powerful ward she’d ever seen in the library.
Sword fights between masters were often decided with the first blow, that first strike indicative of the fighter’s abilities and experience, and magical duels were no different.
Lyssa didn’t have much in the way of ability, and she had zero experience. But what she did have was power. The power of a fully charged and ready-to-go Earth Warden. And knowledge.
Humming through her body, it made her hair stand on end as she twisted the last curve of the ward into place. There was a soundless click, more a feeling than a sound, but one only the magically sensitive would experience. A Sigil hung in the air over Lyssa’s upturned palm, glittering in all shades of purple and lilac.
“Wha—” The Haven-master’s eyes widened. “How? That’s not—”
“That’s not possible?” Lyssa cut him off, her eyebrow rising slightly as she
sketched another ward in the air with her left hand. It formed quickly, the witching leaping to do her bidding, and with a flick of her wrist she set it free to zip around the assembled Wardens. As it touched each of them lightly on the brow, they shivered and the blood-red wards binding them fell away.
“What th—”
“Fucking hell!”
“What’s going on?”
The confused questions of the Wardens behind her were ignored as Lyssa watched the Haven-master frantically try to finish his wards. He’d picked over-complex, and technically difficult wards. Ones that didn’t require a lot of juice to power and provided bang for the buck.
She’d always assumed that was because he was good, very good. A reasonable assumption given he was a Master. He’d have to be to attain the triple swirl.
Her vision shifted, and she looked within him, and beyond, directly into the magical layer in everything. The flesh and bones of his body fell away, leaving just a ghostly outline of a body to mark where he stood. What was visible was the magic pulsing through the wards tattooed into his skin and the ones he wore about his body. Lyssa jerked in surprise. What was a Master doing wearing ward charms?
Masters didn’t need ward charms. That was the point of mastery, the point of years of study. Her eyes narrowed as she burrowed deeper, examining them with this newfound power.
He was a fake. All the ward charms were set to boost and enhance what little power he had. She traced them all back to his connection with the witching and found a tiny, sickly pulse, barely alive—certainly not enough to qualify for mastery, and hardly enough to qualify as a Warden at all.
Gasping in surprise, she dropped out of her trance. He was nearly done with his ward now, his fingers moving at a frantic pace as he eyed Lyssa’s ward hovering there, all ready to go.
“Lyssa! What are you doing?” Hawk’s expression bordered on panic as he looked from her back to the muttering Haven-master. “Hit him with it already!”
Lyssa smiled as time dilated around her. It stretched until Hawk’s voice sounded like a DVD on slow playback and the Master’s hands took an age to move toward the last curve in the ward he was making.
She recognized it. It was the Genevas ward, a ward not normally taught or even much known about in Havens. It was one of the darker wards, normally used by Justice Wardens, and then only in the worst cases where the offender needed to be stripped of their power and isolated from the witching.
Which was exactly what he’d been doing all these years; stealing the power of other Wardens. He had to have been. There was no way someone with that little natural power could have risen so high. Borrowed power and a blackened soul, and she’d nearly become his latest victim.
“A Genevas. Interesting. Cowardly, but interesting. How many lives have you destroyed with that one, Master?” she jeered, flicking her completed ward toward him with a nonchalant movement of her fingers.
The purple magic sped toward him, knocking his ward out of the air and into a cascade of blood-red sparks. He squawked in panic and fury, back pedaling desperately, but Lyssa’s fingers moved, and the witching caught him like a fly in a spider’s web. He struggled, his red robes flapping around him.
“You can’t do this! I am Haven-master here. Release me!” he demanded, his tone imperious.
“What the fuck? A genevas?”
“Bastards been using a Seranai charm to control us!”
“That explains a few things. I said Johnathon Milcitt would never—”
Lyssa ignored the mutterings behind her and the building of power as the startled Wardens realized the truth about the Master, and concentrated solely on the man in front of her.
Her lips curled in a sneer as he started to cast again. “Oh, no you don’t.” Her hands moved as she completely opened herself up to the witching.
The power in the small courtyard whipped into a frenzy and crossed over into the physical world as she pulled power hard and fast. A whirlwind formed around her, lifting her hair and whipping it away from her face as she raised her hands.
“If you’re so much a Master, release yourself!” she yelled over the magical storm. “If you’re so powerful, strip me of power. The null you were so intent on destroying. Did you tell these people why?” Her voice echoed around the courtyard, the hum of power in the feminine tones.
She pulled more, the witching flocking to her and showing her the way. Reaching deep inside herself, she twisted something. It clicked and locked into place. She felt rather than heard the gasp from the Wardens around her and Hawk as, abruptly, she stole the power right out of their hands.
“I...”
Lyssa smiled. “I didn’t think so.” With a flick of her fingers, she severed his connection to the witching forever.
She was wonderful, amazing, and beautiful, and any other combination he could think of. Now that the danger was over, the disgraced former Haven-master led away in chains by his own guard, Hawk leaned against the wall and watched as Lyssa was accepted by the people who’d once shunned her.
She still hummed with power, even though she wasn’t actively using any, her magical aura so bright Hawk had to use a shield charm just to look at her. Otherwise, he’d get blinded. His magical sight was more acute than most, but it had taken even him a while to see what was hidden in Lyssa.
His lips quirked as he watched the Wardens make their reparations. She didn’t need him now. But he’d stay just long enough to make sure she would be all right. She deserved that much for the healing she’d wrought him last night.
The introductions over, the Wardens started to lead Lyssa away, so Hawk pushed off the wall and reached inside his jacket for his sunglasses. The sun was up now, and he needed to be moving. If he was lucky, he could sleep the rest of the day in the room they’d vacated.
His steps were heavy as he headed down the alleyway, away from the tiny Warden-woman he’d spent the last few hours trying to keep alive. Each step was harder than the last, as though he’d left a vital piece of himself behind.
He wouldn’t go back to the room. Not to where they’d lain together and he’d taken her innocence. Hard-hearted he might be, but even his heart twisted at the thought of lying there surrounded by her scent and not being able to touch her. To know she was gone for good. He might have saved her life but the fact still remained; what did a Warden as powerful as Lyssa need with a battle-hardened, cynical Warrior like him?
“Hawk? Where are you going?”
He stopped at her breathless voice behind him and turned to look over his shoulder. She stood framed in the entrance to the alley, the witching still lifting her dark hair in lazy coils.
His gaze latched onto the hand she extended, hardly daring to hope. Somehow she’d wound herself around his hardened heart and made herself more necessary than breathing.
“Please, I don’t want to go without you.”
Hawk hid his smile as he turned fully, his steps measured as he walked toward her even though he wanted nothing more than to break into a run. He stopped right in front of her, so close he could feel the heat of her body through their clothes.
“Thing is... I need a Warden. Seen one hereabouts?” he asked, unable to stop his lips from curving as he repeated lines from their first conversation hours and a lifetime ago.
“Oh, I’m not just any Warden...” Lyssa smiled, sliding her hand into his as they turned to walk out of the alley. “I’m your Warden.”
About the Author
Mina Carter is a bestselling, multi-genre author. She lives in the UK with her husband, daughter and a bossy cat.
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