by Tamara Gill
Aldreth's features twisted horribly.
Edeen's eyes rolled up in her head until only the whites showed.
“Nooooo!” Col raced forward. There was an explosion of golden light. Col vanished. In his place, a dark panther leaped out of the brilliance, snarling teeth and claws that rammed between the women, throwing them apart. Both women dropped boneless to the ground.
Charity lunged up.
The panther spun back, soil flying beneath his unsheathed claws. Aldreth threw out an arm. A lash of lightning hit Col, tossing him with such force his glossy side plowed up the hill, gouging a thick furrow in the ground.
Aldreth dragged herself to her feet, her eyes wild. What had Edeen done to her? The witch threw out her arms. The air crackled, the force of tremendous magic building like a volcano about to erupt.
A lightning bolt plowed across the ground, hitting Toren square in the chest. He flew backward.
This had to stop.
Charity ran toward Aldreth.
“You bitch!” She cold-cocked her right in the kisser.
Aldreth went down. Her legs flew up. She blinked up at her, wide-eyed, from the ground. Slowly, she wiped blood from her split lip.
Charity winced. Her hand throbbed.
Aldreth rose as though Charity’s punch hadn’t hurt in the least. “So you're the Healer Enchantress who has kept Toren's spirits from failing him.” Her gaze roamed down the length of Charity with as much interest as if she was inspecting an ant. “Hmmm.” She shot out an arm and Charity flew back as though she'd been struck by a log.
Toren screamed out her name.
Head ringing, flat on her back, Charity blinked up at the angry spitting skies. Shallow breaths pulled in and out of her lungs.
“Nay, Aldreth, do not.” Toren cried. For her.
Darkness moved over her. Aldreth's slim form blotted out the sky as she stood above her. The hem of her white dress flapped across Charity's stomach.
Aldreth's head cocked to the side. Her swollen broken mouth twitched in a hard smile. “'Tis an omen I think, you're being brought here, that all I've attempted is just and right.”
Aldreth leaned closer over her. Her long hair tickled Charity's face as the wind whipped it back and forth. Charity tried to pull in a breath, gasping instead. The witch's eyes blazed, dilated with magic and madness. “At long last I have the means to break Toren.” She pulled Charity up by her hair. Pain radiated through her. She twisted to escape it, hands clutched on Aldreth’s wrists to take some of the pressure off her tearing hair.
“Stop this!” Suddenly Toren was there, arms around the witch, pulling her away.
Charity dropped. The pressure on her scalp was immediately gone.
The air exploded, a vicious concussion of tearing sound.
Crying out, Toren dropped to the ground where Aldreth turned on him, punching out crimson light that slapped into the sorcerer. His hands clawed into the soil, every muscle rigid with strain.
A panther shrieked. Col sprang through the air. Aldreth spun. A gash of light knocked Col sideways.
Another ripped into Toren.
Unable to use his magic against her, Toren was vulnerable, helpless, just a man beneath the enormity of her power.
Aldreth blasted Toren again. Again.
In her fury, she was going to kill him.
Still in panther form, Col leapt at them again. A bolt of charged fire slashed him in the face. It caught him up in a stream of light, kept him frozen in the air, his sleek form bending and writhing, fur standing on end.
Behind him, Toren staggered to get to his feet.
“No!” A shout growled across the hill.
An incredible wave of power pulsed through everything, pierced into Charity like water through a net, warm and hard with the promise of creating a hundred worlds or destroying a million others flooded in its strength. A whisper of darkness sifted through it. Mountains fell to dust. Oceans swallowed continents. Entire cities crumbled. She'd never felt anything like it.
The storm abruptly stilled. Col dropped to the ground, steam lifting off his fur.
Toren lay unmoving.
Shaw stood at the bottom of the hill, between them and the abandoned village, his expression a mixture of devastation and horror at what he had just unleashed. His eyes glowed silver white, reflecting the shine of a trillion moons.
Charity sensed even Shaw had no idea of the full extent of his power, yet there wasn't a magic wielder within miles who wouldn't have felt the depth of what he'd just revealed. The ferocious potency breathed upon the very air.
Toren's head lifted. Shock and horror deepened the lines of his forehead.
Aldreth turned toward Shaw, undisguised wonder stark upon her features. “You.” She laughed, a giddy crazed sound. “It should have been you all along.” Her chest heaved in and out and her eyes rolled up in what Charity could only describe as arousal. “I can feel the darkness within you.” She clapped her hands like a child expectant for a treat. “All this time, I longed for the wrong brother.” She held out a palm toward Shaw. “Come to me. Ye and I are so very much alike.”
Shaw's gun-metal eyes narrowed. He started up the slope. “Leave this place, Aldreth. Be gone and never return.”
Aldreth let her arm drop, pouted. “Do not make me beg. I weary so of begging.” She smiled. “You're strong, but you're also young. I've had centuries to hone my craft. Nor do I abide by rules of fairness.” She glided over to where the panther lay unmoving, crouched down and petted his fur.
Shaw froze. His chest expanded on a ragged breath.
A low growl emitted from the panther's throat. He swiped out a weak claw, ripping through Aldreth's pristine gown. Lines of blood sprouted at her hip.
Enraged, Aldreth slammed her fist into Col's side and the panther screamed. Light sparked and the large cat dispersed. A naked battered Col took his place, curling into himself. Veins stood stark white in his rigid hands and arms.
Shaw's blast rolled into Aldreth. His eyes blazed silver light. Releasing Col, she flung her arms out toward Shaw and their magic collided.
Though she could not see Shaw's force with her eyes, Charity felt it with every fiber of her being. It was like being near a roaring waterfall, feeling the strength and energy of it rumbling through the ground and air as it spilled over the edge.
The clouds swirled above them, buffeting in roaring force. The ground groaned beneath them. Dirt and pebbles shook, bouncing off the ground, rolling into small landsides.
Holes ripped open in the air, time rifts jarred apart, seething and sputtering charged matter into the atmosphere. That should not be able to happen. A witch should not be able to open a rift. And a... Charity stared at Shaw. His hair floated upward, wild streams of black. She hadn’t a clue what Shaw really was or what his magic was capable of. Moon Sifter. Could he open rifts in time or was it a combination of the magic he and Aldreth were generating in the atmosphere?
In her rage, Aldreth had gone mad, shooting out her magic in every direction.
And her magic was immense.
Trees uprooted.
Boulders rolled down the hill.
Edeen's unconscious form slid farther down the slope toward the maelstrom Shaw and Aldreth unleashed upon each other.
Col lifted his head, rousing.
Toren staggered to his feet.
Aldreth moved down the hill, thrusting everything she had at Shaw, shots of gilded lightning executed with the precision of a surgeon.
Shaw stumbled back.
Aldreth screamed at him. “Your brother, the most powerful sorcerer in the land couldn't fight me. Do ye really believe an unskilled child as yourself has a chance?”
One of Shaw's legs buckled and he fell on a knee. Sweat poured down his face. Huge tremors rolled through him. His dark hair swirled and tangled behind him. If this was the first time he'd tapped into his potential, the effort would be overpowering. He’d had no training. There’d been no one capable of training him. Even if
his magic was stronger, no way could he keep pulling from it. The physical toll on him had to be enormous, yet Aldreth appeared to be having no such issues.
Another time rift tore open behind him, angry and unstable.
“I'll have what is in you, Shaw Limont, and then I'll wield the balance of your entire pitiful clan.”
Shaw's head snapped up. He smiled, a triumphant slash of white in the darkness. “Ye may have me, but my clan has crossed into the Shadowrood.”
Somewhere close, Toren groaned.
Shaw's gaze sought his brother’s and his smile turned apologetic. “They're safe. The clan is beyond reach and their magic with them. The Fae have bound the gateway.”
“No!” Aldreth shouted. “No! What have ye done? You've ruined everything! They cannot be gone. What have ye done?”
Twisting her body, she pulled her arms back to the side and swung back like an orchestra conductor. Giant crackling light pooled around her hands and then flew out toward Shaw.
A blur dove between them. Col took the hit and the angry light flung him across the air. He sailed backwards into the time rift and disappeared.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Shaw, Toren, and Charity cried out as one.
Col, no. He couldn’t be gone!
Vanished inside a rift. Just like that. It was still open. Maybe he could get back...
Roaring, Shaw threw everything he had at Aldreth. Momentarily stunned, she reeled back, but quickly recovered and pummeled Shaw beneath successive streaks of magic.
The young man was taking a beating, thrown to the ground, head and shoulders snapping to and fro as though hit by an unseen fist. He doubled over, hands and knees hit the ground just before he was flipped onto his back.
Aldreth was killing him and no one had the strength to stop her. Charity pulled up to her knees. Wobbled. Every muscle in her body felt like she had just finished a major workout.
Through the corner of her eye, she saw Toren run forward and was shoved back by the waves of magic coming off of Shaw like a backdraft.
The rift Col had gone through suddenly groaned, shuddered, before extinguishing out. No, no, oh no, Col, he was gone.
Toren’s anguished cry rent the air. He shot magic from him, only to have it whiplash back.
Toren was a powerful and skilled enough sorcerer to fight Aldreth. Charity had felt the strength of his core. She believed in him, but he could not use his magic against Aldreth.
He could not use his magic because of the damn spelled bands.
Charity gasped and shoved to her feet again.
He can't use his magic upon Aldreth, but maybe he could use hers.
Before, when they'd used their magic together, Charity had drawn from Toren's reservoirs. First, when she had healed him and then the second time when she'd tapped into his magic to have enough to send her back to his time period.
Here. Now. In this century, she had ten times as much magic of her own to rely on. Why couldn't Toren draw from her reservoir that was untouched by Aldreth's spell?
Fueled by a new surge of adrenaline, Charity raced to Toren's side. He was on his feet, once more, fighting past the backlash of streaming magic to get to his remaining brother.
Charity grabbed his arm and without an explanation, focused everything she had to pour into him. She had no idea if this would work.
His face swung to hers and then dipped to her hand at the rosy light pooling around her fingertips. His eyes widened, brows rose.
“Take it,” she gritted out. “Use it against her.”
His jaw clenched. Message received.
Toren's hand slipped over hers. Magic roared out of her in a heady rush. She swayed, felt her knees hit the ground, Toren's hand still gripped over hers, kneeling with her, his arm at her waist.
Everything she was melted into him. Events replayed across her sight like a reel-to-reel projector running backwards.
The flight through the forest, Col's light energy form stretched across the doorway, finding Toren in the dungeon, being carried over Shaw's shoulder, kneeling in her kitchen above a wounded Toren, slipping into his dream, back in the kitchen—the first time—using her magic to heal him, their magic weaving together, connecting them as one, the bonding between them...
And wham! It was back.
That connection, all that feeling, knowing another person inside and out, almost better than she knew herself...
“Charity.” He spoke her name like a fragile spell so weak the smallest breath might make it unravel.
She looked up into his face and saw it all there in an expression of wonder.
Her frozen heart stormed back to life.
Toren smiled and nodded. Hands clasped, together they stood to face Aldreth, and Charity felt Toren stir her magic, shaping it into something new, something beyond the ability to heal, something lethal and focused.
His arms flung out, bringing Charity's with his and a blinding spear of tourmaline light flew from between their clasped palms and...nothing.
The magic shot out, she saw the purple streak, but then it was as though it turned into water and dissolved like sugar.
Aldreth looked over her shoulder at them, smiled, and resumed her assault on Shaw. Dammit.
Not knowing what else to do, Charity grabbed onto Toren’s wrist to try and undo the spell just as Edeen had tried before. She had no idea what the spell was, but she had to try something.
Toren shifted up. He was going to tackle Aldreth physically again. He’d never make it. The witch would kill him with one blast. She’d gone mad, was out of her head. But she was killing Shaw too. Charity pulled back on Toren’s wrist, keeping him grounded, at the same time pushing all her senses into the band, searching for the puzzle to undo the spell.
She felt the powerful spell used to lock it to Toren. It was a combination of blackness and evil, power imbued from demonic essences, riddled with death. It hurt to touch it. No wonder Toren couldn’t escape its magic.
Who was she kidding? It would take her months to figure this out. Her talent did not lend itself to picking apart a crazy witch’s dark spell. Her gift was healing.
Healing.
Time seemed to slow. Charity pulled forth her gift, her magic to heal and let it flow into the band. Without looking, she grabbed onto Toren’s other wrist, sensing exactly where his hand was. Toren was still pulling away from her, but his movements were slow. No, time was slowing, everything distilled down to this one moment, this one happening. Healing magic spread into the bands, into the dark spell, flowing over the blackness like spilled wine. Her magic did not unravel the spell. Her magic healed it. It drew out the darkness the same as she would squeeze pus from an infected wound, drawing it out, out, away, and let it dissipate into the roiling angry air. Like seeks like. And there was so much darkness around them in the atmosphere for it to flee to. And when she was done, her magic withdrew, leaving the spell still a spell, but unrecognizable—a benign useless thing.
The bands shriveled and fell from Toren’s wrists, husks of leather.
Time resumed its natural speed.
And Charity met Toren’s awed gaze.
He took her hand, lifting their palms once more, and spewed out an enormous blast of blue-violet light that roared into Aldreth's back.
The witch's hand flew up. The punishment she'd been pounding into Shaw sputtered and zoomed up into the sky.
The young warrior listed sideways on his knees and slumped to the ground.
Aldreth fell forward to her hands. She twisted around. A dark eyebrow arched. She glanced at Toren and Charity’s joined hands with disdain and shook her head.
She stood up slowly and somewhat shakily and smoothed her hair back down. “I weary of these games. Come with me, Toren. Give me your magic and I'll let what's left of your family live.” Her gaze slanted to Charity. “I'll also allow ye to keep your pretty plaything as a pet.” She shook out her gown. “After all, your clan is gone. 'Twill just be you and I.” She smiled. “And your b
rother. He has hidden what he is all these years. I’ll enjoying unraveling his secrets.”
Toren’s arm tensed along Charity’s.
Aldreth looked down at Shaw. “We can salvage what's left of our magic together. With your clan taken from the world, all magic will fade. Can ye feel it lessening already? Surely ye do not want to live a life without magic? Come with me. Together we'll retain what we can, you and I.”
Geez. Charity scowled. The chick didn't know when to give up. Lady, you’ve been rejected. Get over it. “I don't think so.”
Aldreth's face hardened. Her hands lifted.
And Toren zapped her off her feet. “You've brought enough ruin to this world.”
His magic spilled through Charity, undiluted and heady. Apparently they were still joined somehow. Together, she and Toren were formidable.
He zapped Aldreth again. With the bands gone, Toren's magic was no longer restrained, yet he had not gone in for the kill.
Aldreth's face crumpled, finally catching on to the danger.
Toren moved forward, bringing Charity with him, entwined hands outstretched.
Aldreth scrambled to the other side of Shaw and pulled his limp body up to shield her. Shaw groaned. His head lolling, arms dangling.
“Aldreth...” Toren warned. “Let him go and I will spare your life.”
“You’ll spare me?” She tsked. “You would not give me what is rightfully mine, but he will. He will! We are not finished, you and I, Toren Limont.” Aldreth ran a hand through Shaw's dark hair and smiled. “Worry naught. I will take the utmost care with him. As I did for ye.” She pressed her lips to Shaw's temple and in a brilliant flash, they were gone.
Toren ran to the empty spot they'd just occupied and slashed a fist through the air. “Shaw!”
EPILOGUE
Toren carried his unconscious sister into their deserted village, past the thatched longhouse and into a small cottage that Charity assumed belonged to Edeen. He placed her gently on the bed and stood back, scrubbing a palm down his face. Charity's heart wept for him. He'd endured Aldreth's tortures for months, not giving in solely to keep his clan and family safe.
