Faerie Rising: The First Book of Binding (The Books of Binding 1)

by A. E. Lowan

  Karen sat back on her heals. “Could the seal be broken?”

  Winter opened her mouth to deny it, but then decided there was no need to lie. “Yes... but the amount of power required would be...” Winter spent a moment as she traced the first circle around the hole. “...probably enough to set off Sarah.”

  Karen craned her neck to look up the mountain, and gave off a low whistle of appreciation. Seahaven nestled comfortably in the shadow of what was often described as the “most inactive active volcano in North America.” Originally called Tamarawas, Mount Sarah rumbled, she grumbled, and occasionally let out a lady-like belch, but she never was rude enough to blow her top. Geologists at the University of Washington, Seahaven said she had not done so in ten thousand years.

  “Eventually, it might even close on its own.” Winter neatly completed the second circle, warming up to her subject. She loved teaching, and Karen seemed to be interested. “See, the rift and the hole aren’t actually connected. This wall could be knocked down, but the rift would remain. Now, the rift caused some of the erosion to the hole, but it isn’t dependent on it... it’s just that the Universe as a rule likes a bit of order, so rifts and gateways will form in conjunction with an existing structure or opening. There are some theories that...”

  Karen jumped away so high and far that she landed on the far lip of the ravine. “What’s that?” Fear lent a tremble to her voice.

  The world shifted sideways. Winter braced herself against the wall with her one good hand, the chalk grinding against the concrete as she fought the initial wave of disorientation. Something was horribly wrong. Within the rift, power was building up, as if someone had just crimped a running hose.

  And she was holding the nozzle.

  Nine glyphs in the warding, each unique, complex, and time consuming. Each must be drawn with precision, or the whole seal would fail. Winter had never drawn glyphs so fast in her life, her hand frantically scraping the chalk against the wall in her desperate race against... against what? It felt like a tidal wave, rushing implacably toward her. Somehow, something was affecting the balance of power.

  “What’s happening?” Karen’s voice had taken on the plaintive cry of a child. As a preternatural, she could sense the maelstrom building, but had no way of understanding or affecting what was happening.

  Winter had no answer for her. She spoke each glyph as she drew it, magic resonating in her voice with each syllable. Six glyphs to go. Its name spoken, the glyph would take on a glow, casting the hole in sharp relief, bringing out each line of exhaustion on Winter’s face.

  Highlighting the growing cracks in the cement around the rift.

  After the seal went up, the cement became irrelevant. It could be ground to dust, and the seal would hold. Before then, however... the seal needed a matrix, something solid to hold the lines she drew with the enspelled chalk. Before then, the seal was all too fragile.

  When the surge hit, it would blow the rift wide open. Those two little goblins would only be the beginning... and there would be precious little left of Karen and Winter, and probably the surrounding square acre or so.

  Five glyphs.

  She wasn’t going to make it. Winter’s shoulders were burning, her hand beginning to cramp and shake, her hurt wrist felt like it was on fire. The glow of the warding began to fade as her magic was drained by pain and panic and exhaustion. She needed more power. She did not have time to ground and pull power from the earth… leaving only one choice. “Karen!”

  There is power to control in a name. She spoke the name with resonant Command and suddenly the cougar was there, terrified eyes wide on the wizard beside her. Ruthlessly, she pushed aside the older woman’s flimsy natural protections and pulled what power there was into herself. It was wild, and tasted of dark places, pain-filled joy, and kittens warm in the den. This was not a wizard’s gift she used, but came of her mixed blood. A full-blooded wizard would not have deigned to use the therian like this, would not have been able to pull power like this from outside their body even if they wanted to. The spell flared back to life, and Winter redoubled her efforts.

  Four glyphs.

  The hole began collapsing inward, little chunks of cement falling into the flame-wreathed darkness.

  Three glyphs.

  The chunks were getting larger, the cracks creeping closer to her fragile chalk lines.

  Two glyphs.

  The surge was now audible, a tsunami rushing toward them.

  One glyph.

  The ground beneath her knees was quivering with the building pressure.

  The warding blazed just as the tidal wave of magic rammed it from the other side, the whole ravine shuddering from the impact, then the lettering settled into the cement, leaving the two women alone in the quiet night. Winter slumped with relief as the warding held, her forehead pressed to the unyielding wall. “Karen... thank...”

  The cougar’s scream slashed through the calm and Winter snapped her head to the side just in time to see her fur form disappear through the trees, leaving her clothes behind. The stab of remorse cut deep. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. But there was no one to hear her.

  Winter rose to her feet and went in search of a gentler incline so she could climb out of the ravine alone, her shoulders slumped with the burden of guilt. She had broken a sacred trust tonight. This was the reason wizards were respected and feared – mostly feared. Therian could sense magic but could not wield it, and only rarely did a wizard choose to become vampire. That meant the vast majority of the two largest groups of preternaturals were defenseless against magicians. Wizards on the whole were arrogant and capable of some very unpleasant acts towards those they saw as inferior. It was a reputation her family had worked hard for generations to live down, to gain the trust of their community so they could keep the peace without resorting to terrorizing the preternatural groups in their care. Even though what she had done to Karen was not wizard magic, even though it had saved their lives, it did not matter. She had used magic to abuse the cougar and once word spread Winter would have to work even harder to get the factions to trust her again.

  She finally found a break in the ravine wall where pine needles and earth had filled in to make a ramp of sorts. Glancing back at the glittering track of blood drops she had trailed, she fought down the return of her exhaustion, now coupled with blood loss, and began to squirm her painful way up the pine litter-slick incline. First, find her way through the woods back to her Volkswagen Bug. Next, dig out that restorative potion from the box in the trunk. Finally, make it back home.

  Why did three little steps sound so impossible? She made it to level ground and struggled to her feet. Putting one foot in front of the other, she did not so much walk through the woods as maintain a controlled fall forward. Always forward.

  As she did every single day.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Winter rested her head on the massive oak door, letting the elaborate carving leave impressions on her skin, taking just a moment to make the world stop swaying so much. The cream-colored sweater still wrapped around her arm had soaked completely through and the stain was seeping through the liner of her old Army jacket.

  So, the restorative potion had not lasted all the way home, but made it home she had. She had never been hurt this badly before. Perhaps she should have gone to the hospital, though what exactly they could have done for her that she could not do better herself, she had no idea. There was also the fact that she was only half wizard, and her bloodwork would reflect that. It wasn’t worth her life to threaten the Veil of Secrecy that protected the preternatural world from human knowledge by letting humans draw her blood.

  Her sister Mirilyn had once lost her left hand to the snapping jaws of a hydra. Their grandfather had been there to get her home safely, however, and through the family’s combined efforts within a few weeks the hand had grown back. It never was exactly the same, of course... the skin was new as a child’s and did not match the rest of her arm. Mirilyn had been sensitive abo
ut that. Winter suppressed a shudder of exhaustion as she pushed the door open. This was not that bad.

  Soft lights came up, and the great entry hall of Mulcahy House was revealed. Two graceful, sweeping staircases arched down from the second level on either side of the massive room, like warm, carven-wood arms open wide for an embrace. From the dark-stained chair rail nearly to the century-old oak ceiling beams, the pale cream walls were covered with hundreds of framed pictures. Some were paintings, more than a few damaged by fire and time, but most were photographs, formal and casual, the frames themselves as mismatched and eclectic as the people grinning and laughing out from them.

  Her family.

  Winter smiled at them, a sad, tired smile that did not reach her eyes, but a smile all the same. “I’m home, Papa.” She said it quietly, on the very outside chance her father was sleeping. If he wasn’t, it really didn’t matter, for he would not answer, anyway. As she made her slow way down the dimly lit hallway, she saw the lights in the Library were not on, but then she really had not expected them to be. He would not have turned them on. She would check on him before she went to bed, but first she had to take care of herself.

  The soft sounds of her footfalls sank into the darkness of open doorways as she passed, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, and it seemed an eternity before she entered the cavernous kitchen towards the back of the great house. The middle sink was filling with warm water as she arrived, and the doors to the massive medicine cabinets were open and waiting. “Thank you,” she said aloud, knowing she would be heard. After five generations of caring for Mulcahy wizards, the House was quite adept at anticipating their needs.

  She unwrapped the blood-soaked sweater and dropped it into the depths of the outer sink where it hit the bottom with a wet slap. For a brief moment, Winter considered running cold water over it, but she knew the goblin drool and pine pitch would not come out as easily as wizard blood... exhaustion struggled fleetingly with thrift, and she spun the cold tap on that sink’s faucet, hoping morning would find it improved. She had no energy left for stain removal, but nor did she want to needlessly replace the sweater. Even with holes in the sleeve, it could still be wearable.

  Taking a moment, Winter rotated her wrist, watching for the tell-tale pulsing in the flow of blood that meant she was in real trouble. Of course, it had been so long that if an artery had been severed she would have never made it home, and she should have done this in Karen’s yard... but better late than, well, late. Rivulets of blood rose and trailed lazily down to drip chrysanthemums into the clear water, but the ooze remained steady. The goblin had missed her arteries.

  She was procrastinating and she knew it, but after another moment’s hesitation she slipped her bitten arm into the warm water, carefully rubbing it with her free hand to loosen the blood clots and dried slime. When the water invaded the depths of the worst punctures she spent another few minutes fighting back dry heaves from the deep, nauseating pain which shot up her arm and caused the muscles in her shoulder to spasm, but she refused to stop rubbing until she was certain the wounds were completely cleaned out. She cried out once and it echoed throughout the kitchen. It was met by silence.

  By the time Winter was satisfied, her throat was burning tight with suppressed sobs and she was barely able to clumsily wrap her arm in a clean towel before her knees gave out and she slid to a heap on the floor. It hurt…! She held her wrist to her chest with her right hand, the claw marks there smearing the nice white towel with renewed blood, and bit by bit folded her tall body around the pain until her forehead touched her knees. “Papa...” Her throat was raw, and she gave a little choking cough. He was up. She knew he was up because he never slept. “Papa, please help me.”

  Silence answered her.

  Winter raised her head, and tears spilled down her flushed cheeks. “Papa! Please!” she called louder. The sound echoed like a mad thing up and down the hall, perhaps the loudest sound heard here in months.

  Still nothing. No footsteps, no pale figure emerging from the dark.

  “Papa!” This time she screamed, shouted her pain and frustration into the empty kitchen. Her throat buzzed from the sound of it. Surely he heard her that time...

  She caught movement at the kitchen door, and her heart jumped with excitement. “Papa...!” But a sharp gray face with lapis lazuli eyes peered at her around the corner, and the rest of the large cat followed. The disappointment was like a blow, and Winter dropped her face to hide her pain.

  The greymalkin simply sat there, expectant.

  Winter wiped her eyes with the bloody towel and raised her gaze to face the faerie cat. “I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”

  The cat blinked, then walked over to the right medicine cupboard and washed her face.

  Taking a deep, shivering breath, Winter gathered up her pain and frustration and stuffed it firmly back down into the pit of her soul where she kept her grief, her anger... everything else she did not have the time to indulge in. And a fit of temper was an indulgence, indeed. The cat paused her washing to look impatiently over her shoulder at Winter and then resumed with the other side of her face.

  As sitting and bleeding were doing her no good, Winter clutched the lip of the sink with her good hand and dragged herself to her feet. There was no one to help her but the faerie cat... and she would do nothing but sit there and scorn her frailty. The greymalkin was, after all, immortal and tended to hold all others to her high standards. Her knees did not want to cooperate, but Winter was able to stagger over to join the cat.

  She found the jar she needed in the well-organized, if depleted, cupboards with ease, and simply let herself sink again to the kitchen floor and pried the top off with the jar held between her scraped knees. The scent of the contents rose spicy into the air, and she scooped out a generous handful of the thick, translucent green ointment with her right hand while carefully shaking the towel off the other.

  The bite was an ugly thing; all ripped skin and exposed flesh, pink and white from the water and crimson smears of fresh blood. Cool air seeped into the open wounds, breathing on places never meant to be touched. The sensation brought back the nausea, and she set to applying the ointment. It took three handfuls before she was satisfied, carefully filling in each puncture before pressing the flesh back into place. Her arm went blessedly, wonderfully numb, as did the scratches as she dabbed at her face, chest, legs, and right hand. A dressing of clean bandages followed, as neat as could be done with one hand, and she just sat there on the floor with her legs stretched out before her for a few long minutes, enjoying not being in pain. She reached up blindly, her hand finding a long red bottle, and drank it all down, screwing her face up as she spat the dregs back out. Her great-grandma Maria had created the best potion to treat blood loss, but there had to be something she could do to improve the taste. Honeysuckle, maybe, or another sugar...? Or a couple of shots of whiskey beforehand, just so she wouldn’t care so much.

  Even with the healing warmth pulsing through her body, Winter caught herself nodding off on the kitchen floor. That would make for an unpleasant morning, and she desperately wanted a shower, although that would have to wait until the scratches healed. In the absence of pain, she could feel her scalp and skin crawling with dirt from rolling around on the ground with the filthy little goblin and then her later adventure in the ravine.

  What, exactly, had happened in the ravine? She rolled the long neck of the bottle between the fingers of her good hand, frowning a little in thought. Instability was one thing. The entire area around Seahaven was massively unstable and things came through the larger rifts with frequency. But what happened tonight – she had never experienced or even heard of such a thing. What caused it? Could it happen again? There were so many questions that she just did not have answers to.

  Enough was enough. She did not have time to sit on the kitchen floor fussing about this all night. She needed to check on her father, then get clean and find her bed for what precious little sleep she c
ould get. She stood, still a bit shaky, but she was able to keep her feet, and she made her careful way down the wide hall to the Library. She would check on her father, and then find a shower and her bed.

  Mulcahy House was famous throughout the magical world for its two great treasures - the Mulcahy Gardens, first planted in the 1860’s when the House was created and then taken up by generations of Mulcahy wizards, most notably Maria Stetson-Mulcahy, who made it into one of the most remarkable magical gardens in the world. The other was the Mulcahy Library. Other Great Houses could boast impressive libraries dedicated to one or two schools of magic, but only the Mulcahys had such a vast and wide-ranging collection, with copies of thousands of rare books and hundreds of volumes that were unique. The Mulcahys were known for their eclectic tastes.

  Among wizards, perhaps only the library collection of the Wizard Council itself was as broad in material, although she had heard that the Servants of the Eldest possessed a library that surpassed it. Her father, Colin, would know for certain. He was the keeper of the Mulcahy Library.

  Winter found him exactly where she expected to find him, in his worn green leather chair in the deepest corner of the stacks. Piles of books surrounded him, buried the table beside him, and littered the floor about his feet. A wooden tray was balanced on top of one of the piles, a full bowl of soup and a small plate of toast untouched. “I’m home, Papa.” She checked the cup – at least he had drunk his water. She had dosed it liberally with her vitamin tonic, so it was better than nothing, but still... “I wish you would eat.” The food she had laced with anti-depressant potions. He refused to take them on his own. She would have put them in the water, as well, but unlike the vitamin tonic they both colored and flavored whatever they were added to and he knew whenever it was in there.