Silver's Redemption (Soul Merge Saga Book 3)

by M. P. A. Hanson

  Gaillean did not reply, nor did he defend himself. He merely picked up the blade and walked towards the cave wall.

  “How’ve you been Kate?” Silver asked. “Anything interesting going on? Did he mention he was starving me as well? Or were you too busy making goo-goo eyes at him to notice what he was saying?” Ooh it felt good to actually taunt someone who’d react, Silver revelled in the feeling as Kate’s livid face grew a thousand times angrier.

  “Starving her?” She accused Gaillean rather than comment on Silver’s taunt. “She’s not one of us Gaillean, she does need to eat you know!”

  “She will be fed, as soon as the blade she creates is worthy of food.” He replied calmly.

  He chose the same piece of wall as before and flicked his arm back, holding her blade loosely. Silver waited for the moment when he would strike and the blade would fragment to a million pieces.

  He swung.

  The blade stayed intact.

  Silver’s mind couldn’t comprehend what she’d done differently. She hadn’t even tried to change this sword from a normal one. What had been changed?

  Gaillean’s eyes swung towards the slack tub with approval and then moved onto her.

  “Two more blades of the same quality and I will teach you to use your powers.” He insisted. “Well done.”

  Silver’s jaw dropped. It was the water, that glittering still lake water she had heaved up from the base of the volcano this morning had been the key all along.

  She’d passed the stupid puddle every morning, Gaillean had even teleported her there whenever she had failed in creating a blade.

  Problems started forming in her mind, would using the same water for the next two blades be okay? Or would she need to change it? Should she only temper the blade in the lake water for the last round of tempering?

  Kate’s jaw was hanging wide open. “You’ve taught her to forge our weapons? Why her? Every other Ancient must have asked for your secret at some time!”

  Ooh, she had the best blades in all of the twenty one realms, her glee at that thought was so great that she was considering forgiving Gaillean for the trouble he’d caused her.

  “She needed to learn discipline and persistence.” Gaillean replied. “Blacksmithing requires both. Now, as promised, food.”

  A steaming bowl of something – she didn’t particularly care what – was teleported onto the anvil along with a glass of wine.

  “I would suggest you begin work on your own blades now.” Gaillean told her. “I doubt you will wish to remain here instead of returning to your own world after your training just so you can finish off your blades.” Silver was barely listening as she wolfed down the food. Whatever it was, it was good.

  “You’re letting her keep them?” Kate looked ready to go into meltdown. “You want to put two ridiculously powerful weapons in her hands! Hasn’t she already got one of the darkest powers imaginable? Do you want to make her worse?”

  “She is not going out to fight our enemies with inferior weapons. If Romana made her own I would have taught both my daughters this. However blacksmithing takes years to master, and Romana has never even attempted it before. Silver was the logical first choice and she has performed admirably.”

  Praise, from the ever stoic Gaillean? Silver almost choked.

  “Did the Council agree this?” Kate asked.

  “I wasn’t under the impression that teaching my daughter a new skill was something the Council ought to be overly concerned with. You’ve taught Romana several questionable magic techniques after all.”

  Kate blushed and began to fiddle with a lock of her hair nervously. “That was only a minor thing.”

  “Then consider this also something minor.” Gaillean patted her on the shoulder and they both teleported away.

  Silver groaned and grabbed a steel bar from the corner.

  A month later and the blades were done.

  They were perfect reflections of one another, every detail on one copied perfectly onto the other. The blades, pommels and guards were steel polished to a silver shine while the grips were black leather wrapped in silver wire.

  Perfect for her.

  She’d even created arrowheads, throwing knives and daggers with the same theme so that by the time Gaillean came to inspect her work; she almost had an entire armoury laid out on the cave floor.

  “You worked fast once you figured out the technique.” He commented. “And they’re high quality.” His tone was approving as he tested each one. “Very well, we will continue to magic training.”

  He better start teaching her magic or nearly a year had passed for nothing!

  “Come with me.” He walked towards the door, still using mortal speed, a habit Kate also seemed to possess.

  Silver strapped her weapons into their respective sheaths across her body before she followed after him out of the caves to the edge of the lava lake.

  “It is useless to teach you to use your powers in a world where the realms may be closer together or further apart than they are in your own.” Gaillean began, and Silver sighed. Realm theory was one of the many boring things that her brother, Lorcan, had tried to teach her during her mortal years. It wasn’t particularly difficult until you got to the philosophical side of things, when it became littered with paradoxes that had made her brain hurt. “Worlds exist within realms; we exist on this world within the same realm as your world and the other worlds that each ancient rules over. Your powers can be used in this realm by linking with another; the demonic realm.” His expression seemed to harden. “The realm is unexplored by creatures of this realm simply because it is ridiculously dangerous and the beings there would easily kill any of the creatures in this realm in seconds. You will have the power to command these beings as well as elements of their realm and draw them into this realm. Kobos did this through extreme amounts of power that he acquired through killing wytches. You will not have to raise power in this way because your power is specialised enough that it can find the realm, tear open a portal there and draw creatures and other things through in exchange for far less energy than a regular wytch would have to expend.”

  “So other wytches could do it?” Silver hadn’t known that.

  “All of the wytches on the Isle of the Gifted would have to be present to summon one demon, and controlling it would be beyond them.” Gaillean dismissed. “No one but you will be summoning them for the majority of the time. How Kobos did it was too well organised for many people on your world to imitate.” He paused and then took a deep breath. “Power over something only comes from a deep knowledge about that thing. So your training will take place in the demonic realm. Each week I will teleport you between worlds – there are five in all – and you will spend that week learning similarities and differences between the habitats and species on each planet.”

  Silver groaned, but Gaillean gave her a look. “How can you hope to summon these beings when you do not even know what they look like, where they live, what their strengths are?”

  Okay, maybe she could kind of understand where he was coming from, but staying away for another five weeks? She had no idea what was happening to Romana, what was going on with her brothers or even what the weather was like in her world.

  “Your study will pay off.” Gaillean sensed where her thoughts were headed. “If you were to learn your powers in your native world, you would have a basic understanding of them. This way you will find out the creatures strengths and weaknesses for yourself. They will easily come straight for you, and you will have to defend yourself.”

  “You’re leaving me on a demonic survival mission for five weeks.” Silver surmised. “I don’t even know how to access my powers, how am I supposed to stop myself from getting killed?”

  “I am fairly certain that once there, the demonic energies will unlock your access to your powers in a way that I could not. Even if you do not access your powers, the blades you have created should be more than sufficient to stop anything that comes at you.”

&
nbsp; Without another word or even any warning, he teleported her straight into a land of dark fire and barren wastelands that was designed for creatures far more deadly than any she had encountered before.

  Chapter Eight

  LEASH

  Romana glanced up as she heard someone teleport into her reception area on the Isle of the gifted. She was in the middle of an initiation, and the teenage girl sitting next to her on the rim of the fountain was swinging her legs happily. The image of the wytches had become somewhat better over the years as more and more healing centres were set up and their participation in the Battle of Elvardis became widely known; now girls often retained communication with their families when they joined. Of course there were those who abandoned their children here, but they were becoming more and more few and far between.

  It appeared that wytch-phobia was slowly being cured.

  She looked up from the black quartz bowl to see Kate waiting for her in the shadow of the corner of one room.

  Finally, she had been trying to reach her mother for a year without success. Now Kate would explain what on earth was going on.

  The little girl’s mentor teleported into the room and Romana quickly got through the introductions and sent the new child off with their newest wytch queen, Monique.

  “Romana.” Kate walked from the shadows and hugged her. “I’ve missed you.”

  “Where have you been?” Romana demanded. “I haven’t seen you since Endis burst into my parlour ranting about his sister being reincarnated.”

  “I have been busy.” Kate replied. “Your father is being stubborn yet brilliant and as usual has the Council in an uproar. In between defending his actions and trying to figure out what on earth he has planned for your half-sister I haven’t had time to breathe.”

  “So Silver is alive!” Romana hadn’t quite believed it until that moment. But her mother had vowed not to lie to her. “Where is she? Who is our father? Why couldn’t I find her?”

  “Slow down.” Kate muttered, moving over to one of the large and comfortable arrangements of cushions and flopping down.

  Romana followed, curious yet saying nothing.

  “Your father advanced your sister’s maturity about two days after her escape and took her to his own world to teach her discipline in the form of magical blacksmithing. I last saw her a month ago after her first success. I don’t need to say that she has not changed. Silver is still as mercilessly brilliant as she was before, if not worse now that she has learned patience. At the moment I believe your father is teleporting her to the demonic realm where she will learn to control her powers or die. The latter is not acceptable to the Council, so she will survive. I only wish she could have had some lesser power.” Kate’s face – now that Romana slowed down enough to look – was drawn with worry. Her eyes were haunted by something, perhaps the power that Silver now wielded.

  “What is her power?” Romana spoke softly, tempering her enthusiasm as she used her power to boil water in the teapot and put the leaves in to brew.

  “She is to become the Wytch Queen of the Demonic Realm.” Kate whispered. “Yet she swears she will never bow to you, nor join the Coven. She will be a dangerous, rogue wytch, with no allegiance. The Council will allow her to run unchecked; they see this as the lesser evil. But I fear it is not lesser by much.”

  “Perhaps we are overestimating this,” Romana began, cautiously. “When she was with me, she only killed because war demanded it. She stole, lied and insulted people, but she never killed an innocent while inside of me.” She poured the tea out and handed a cup to Kate.

  “And all the sorceresses who she killed for power?” Kate demanded. “What of them? Do you think she would hesitate to kill you if it made her more powerful and she wasn’t bound to you? And what will happen when all of this is over? It will fall to the Ancients to have to dispose of her and leave her on some tiny planet in the middle of nowhere. Then we will just have to hope and pray that by that point she hasn’t killed so many of her cousins that she has become powerful enough to move between worlds as well as realms. Because then nothing will be able to stop her, and the Council will be so deep in their bickering that she will kill us all and rule by herself.”

  Kate’s hands had begun to shake so violently that the tea sloshed over the rim of the cup and into a puddle on the saucer.

  If Romana had been around since the beginning of time she guessed dying would be a terrifying concept to her as well. She carefully took the teacup from Kate and put her arm around her mother.

  “None of that will come to pass.” She reassured her. “I wouldn’t let it. To stop her, all you have to do, is threaten me. I am her leash.”

  “You should never describe yourself so callously.” Kate reprimanded, hugging Romana back. “You are far more than simply a leash for anyone.” A smile of maternal pride crossed her face before reality caught up once again. “Her time in the demon worlds may not change her as much as I fear. I may simply be overreacting due to stress.” Kate looked across the room, her gaze blank, and Romana knew she was talking with one of the Council members.

  “Your father is incorrigible.” Kate muttered as a blade appeared in her hands.

  It was a beautiful flamberge; exactly the style of sword that Romana herself had come to love more than any other. It was long enough to require two hands to wield it, yet the metal shone slightly in a strange way, the rippling blade was etched with runes she could not read and the hilt was wrapped in vibrant scarlet leather bound with white wire – a design that was continued on the scabbard which Kate held out next.

  “What is this?” Romana asked as Kate handed her a sword.

  “It’s a sword made for use by your father, but you are only ever to use it if you ever fight your sister. You are never to tell anyone of its existence and you must keep it safely hidden. If anyone else were to take possession of this blade, the consequences would be ridiculously severe.”

  “Why? What’s so special about it?”

  “It was made by your father in his forge, in the same way that the blades the Ancients use were. It is the only sword that will stand a chance against what Silver has made for herself in his forge. At least he cares for your safety.”

  “But yet he will not talk to me?” Romana was confused. “You guys truly are in a league of your own when it comes to strange reasoning.”

  “He has his reasons.” Kate muttered. “Your father is different even for an Ancient.”

  “Different?”

  Kate smiled a secret smile, “He’s quite the rebel. When we were young he was always the hothead one among us.”

  “But what’s he rebelling against?” Romana wondered, knowing that Kate probably wouldn’t tell her – they didn’t discuss Council matters together because Kate was bound not to tell her anything.

  “He doesn’t like the way we have become.” Kate muttered. “I don’t think any of us really do, but your father shuns the Council, toes the line just barely enough to keep away from the repercussions of nonconformity. Stubborn man.”

  Romana realised just how in trouble Kate was in that moment. “You still love him, don’t you?”

  Kate turned to stone the moment Romana said it, and instantly she knew she’d made a mistake.

  “I didn’t mean to pry.” She began.

  Kate nodded and then stepped back. “It’s quite alright. Thank-you for the tea but now I have some urgent business to attend to.”

  “Wait, Kate, I didn’t mean to upset you. Stay a little longer, have dinner with us.”

  Kate gave her a quick smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’m sorry but I really must go. Take very good care of the sword and do not lose it. In the wrong hands a weapon that powerful could cause chaos.”

  Kate teleported away before Romana could say anything, and she sighed.

  “Is something wrong?” Cass teleported into Romana’s reception area at the exact moment Kate disappeared with a confused expression on her pale face. “I couldn’t telepo
rt in for a moment there.”

  “Kate was here.” Romana said by way of explanation. “I think I upset her.”

  “How do you manage to upset an Ancient?” Cass asked. “Either way, we have bigger problems; a healing centre was attacked last night.”

  “What? Why am I only hearing about this now?” Romana was shocked as she quickly revised her opinions of how well curing wytch phobia was going. “What happened?”

  “We only just got word. It takes a while for Mortals to send information anywhere. There’s a crater in Fenkirk where the building used to be.”

  “The wytch queen in charge?” Romana prepared herself for the worst.

  “Alive, she managed to teleport away with the healers just in time.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Leanne.”

  “Is she okay? Did she say what happened?”

  “She felt a build-up of magical energy and evacuated just in time to see the building vaporised.”

  “Could it have been Silver?”

  “I doubt it.” Cass replied. “She’s still a newbie wytch. Without training she would never be able to manage it.”

  “Our father is teaching her.” Romana realised. “I’m an idiot; she’s on another realm, along with our father.”

  “Did Kate tell you who he is yet?”

  Romana scoffed. “He wishes to retain his anonymity.”

  “We could attempt to summon him.” Cass suggested.

  “No, it would be a waste of power. I can live without knowing who he is.” Romana said, as much for her own benefit as for Cass’. “Now, do we know anything about this attacker?”

  “Nothing. There are no reports of rogue wytches, no wisps of power left where the healing centre was, it’s as if all trace of the perpetrator has been wiped away, but we can’t even find any evidence of the magic used to clear it up.”

  “Then perhaps it wasn’t magic. Perhaps it was some kind of a bomb?” Romana suggested.