by Peter Dawes
“Ventus, veni foras.”
Without warning, the barn door flew open.
I clamored away, tripping over debris and landing on my backside while the lantern fell out of my grip. The oxen startled, but settled themselves as I twisted onto my hands and knees, still clutching the book. I righted the lamp before its fire could escape, my heart pounding in my ears. My throat felt tight and my temples throbbed, and a sheer, overwhelming sense of madness overcame me. I had no idea what I had just done. Somehow, I had tapped into whatever force breathed life into the mystical. And I wanted to do it again.
Coming to my feet again, I walked toward one of the animal pens and lowered my lamp onto a post. As a cold gust of wind blew through the barn, I dashed toward the door and shut it, racing back after this was finished toward my reading light so I could attempt it again. Focusing on the page, I held out my free hand. “Evocatio Spiritualis,” I began once more. Evocatio. Evoking. Narrowing my eyes, I focused on the door again, drawing from the energy building in my chest. This time, when I blew the door open, it swung so far it knocked into the barn’s side. The oxen voiced protest, but quieted themselves without any need for reassurance.
A sound of utter delight bounded past my lips. I shut the door again and flipped the page, finding another spell written out in a similar manner. Flames grew and shrank at my command. Winds blew through the barn and nature played out a chorus that seemed to have been written for me alone. I raved like a lunatic, repeating spells just to see the elements dance to the tune I intoned.
For a brief moment, I felt like a god.
Chapter Nine
With the first rays of dawn, I emerged from the barn alit with energy still crackling underneath my skin. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, and prickles waxed and waned with every purposeful step I took back toward my brother’s house. Jeffrey was in the fields, tending to his crops, allowing me the chance to slip into my room and gather my things. Whether or not my departure would be premature was of no concern to me. Whatever fate awaited me back in town, I was finished hiding from it.
Anne slipped me some food for the travel when I insisted I would not be staying. Ida and Ivette belabored me with kisses, and between the three of them, they kept me detained long enough for my brother to catch up to me as I readied my horse for travel. I took a deep breath when I heard his footsteps encroaching on me, not turning away from the task of saddling the mare and fitting her with bit and bridle. “You didn’t have to abandon work just to see me off,” I said.
The horse shifted her stance uncertainly as Jeffrey approached. I ran a hand along her mane to soothe her while my brother paused nearby. “Where are you going?” he asked.
“Back into town. You’ll forgive me if lingering has sat poorly with me.”
“Isn’t that a risk for you to be doing? Your friend hasn’t yet called for you.”
I sighed, making a final adjustment to Tempest’s reins before mounting her saddle. She shook her head as I settled into place and I held back my response until both beast and rider were situated. Jeffrey watched all the while, a sickening form of concern in his eyes. “Whether or not it’s a risk,” I answered, “I’m heading back just the same. Let the authorities seek me out if they so desire. They won’t find me willing to go quietly.”
Using my heels, I nudged Tempest forward. Jeffrey walked forward, though, touching her snout and forcing her to stop. She whinnied in protest and I glowered as he walked up to my side. “Please don’t do this,” he said. A shimmer overtook his eyes, an unspoken prayer contained within. “This is power that comes with a price. You and I have seen its cost firsthand and your fate won’t be any different than Father’s in the end.”
Despite the sincerity of the plea, I found myself apathetic toward it and unwilling to apologize for the chill which entered my words. “I’ll be careful, Jeffrey. That’s all the promise I’m willing to offer.” Giving Tempest a harder nudge, I gripped onto the reins when the mare surged forward, my posture stoic and only relaxing once I had passed my tree. I spared it one last glance, tempted to unearth the treasure box, but managing to resist the urge. I wouldn’t be depositing anything inside it this time. In fact, my thoughts stole to the scroll left to me by my father, wondering if at last I might understand it.
“Another time,” I murmured to myself before coaxing Tempest into a gallop.
We rode hard until we encountered a small village and paused there for a rest. I stole a nap along the way, seeking shelter from the sun under a tree, before progressing forward through the night. The sun had crested over the horizon by the time I approached town, and as I watched people come and go from the place my fellow mercenaries called home, I seized the chance to steady myself. “Please be here, Paolo,” I murmured, lifting the hood of my cloak over my head and entering the inn.
The patrons nearest to the doors cast a quick glance in my direction, but the few people who sat further in ignored me entirely. I rounded a corner and dashed up to the second floor, my footsteps light and measured carefully so as not to rouse an air of suspicion. Passing one of the whores who made the inn a regular haunt, I avoided eye contact and failed to pause until I reached the final room down the long corridor. Lifting a hand, I rapped my knuckles on the door and waited for a response.
Within seconds, it swung open, Paolo furrowing his brow until he registered who stood before him. “Christian, what are you doing here?” he asked. “You weren’t supposed to return yet.”
Our eyes met across the short expanse separating us. While the sparks of energy had waned over the course of my journey, seeing Paolo caused them to ignite anew, bringing with them an added wave of shivers. Power danced inside my veins again and before I could stop the compulsion, I reached for his shoulder, pushing him back inside and kicking the door shut behind us. “I got tired of my brother,” I said, my body pressing against Paolo’s as my lips brushed against his. My satchel slid from my arm, dropping onto the floor. “Displeased with seeing me?”
The hand which had pressed upon his shoulder slid up to his neck. While Paolo regarded me with confusion, he failed to move away. “No, but I wonder if you lost your mind on the travel back.”
“A distinct possibility. Or found it in the most pleasant of manners.”
“Stop that.” Our lips pressed together, the union tentative. I felt his hands settle on my hips, seemingly despite himself. “I am supposed to be preparing to leave.”
“Where are you headed?” My teeth nipped at his bottom lip.
“A job. I had planned on coming to see you after.” Paolo pulled me flush against him. I felt his lips curl in a smirk. “Aren’t you sore from being in the saddle?”
“Not sore enough if you ask me.”
“Roland is going to be furious when he finds out you’re here.”
“Remind me of that when I’m half of the mind to care.” The desire for him gained palpable urgency, the urge to take becoming all the more present the longer our bodies touched. A shaky breath passed through my lips, one of my hands sliding around to Paolo’s back to hold him firmly in place. Want collided with need within my mind and suddenly, it felt as though I had not desired anything nearly as much as I had him. And in that moment, it felt as though I could claim whatever my soul pleased.
“What happened at your brother’s house?” Paolo asked, his voice a whisper.
“Everything. I have so much to tell you.” A longer, more luxurious kiss commenced between us, my eyes shutting while my grip tightened. His hips rocked against mine, both of us falling prey to temptation at the same moment. Only the need for breath forced our mouths apart, and even then, we failed to drift very far. “Not now, though,” I added. “There are more pressing concerns on my mind.”
“Such as?” Paolo’s hand slid down to cup my backside.
Another shiver raced through me like quicksilver. “Hearing you cry out my name”
“Fai come vuoi, amico mio.” Paolo pushed away from the wall, using his hold on m
e to walk us toward the bed. I marched backward obediently, tumbling atop the straw mattress when my knees hit the side and spilling onto it with Paolo. He grinned while settling above me. “The Devil’s gotten into you,” he murmured within the space between kisses.
I licked his lips and struggled for breath, not wishing to end the rolling series of embraces. “Are you calling yourself the Devil?” I asked.
“Not in you yet.”
“Please allow me to make a petition.”
He whispered something in Italian I couldn’t quite make out. I opened my eyes long enough to see him pull his shirt over his head and reached down to untie the closure of his trousers. He made quick work of my cloak, lifting up only enough to allow me to toss garments aside and kick off my boots. We were both tightly wound by the time I kicked off my own breeches, our bodies warm and humming.
I cried out when he entered me, not giving a whit who might have heard.
Paolo’s lips crashed into mine, in some effort to muffle me. My fingers tangled with the locks of his hair, holding tight while my nails dug into his side. He groaned and pushed further in, causing me to see stars dancing on the backs of my eyelids. I clutched onto him as though the wind might carry me off; as though the elements I now heard whispering in my mind might unravel me. Somewhere in the midst of this all, I forgot my name.
And remembered it again, when he whispered it harshly into my ear.
Our eyes met in the midst of a haze. Coils of tension wound themselves in rapidly-forming knots and I struggled to hang onto the moment, seeing its end far too close at hand. Something danced on the tip of my tongue, a strong impulse to speak whimsical words present through the rush of ecstasy. We moved in time with the pounding of my heart and he gripped onto me as words born in the throes of euphoria spilled past my lips. I lost myself within climax before what I said could echo in my mind, aware only of my own completion and Paolo’s within me.
I had almost forgotten about it when I heard his voice again, his breath hitting the side of my face. “Amico mio?” he asked, the term of endearment suddenly a question, as though he was not yet capable of issuing a longer inquiry.
Air passed through my lips in lusty gulps. Paolo lifted up enough to look at me again, his eyes searching mine, as though skeptical and hopeful at the same time. I looked back at him, raising an eyebrow and heard my own voice again, speaking as though lost in the midst of a haze. “I love you,” I said, committing to its issuance once more time. My chest tightened, but my gaze held steady, unwilling and unable to retreat.
If saying it once caused Paolo to be skeptical, hearing it again only served to startle him further. He furrowed his brow and I waited for some form of acknowledgement from him. “I think the time has come for you to tell me what happened,” he finally said.
Paolo studied me in silence. I felt our bodies part and moaned involuntarily, floating for a few moments in a pleasant form of soreness as he settled next to me. An elbow bent and resting on the bed, he held up his head in one hand, remaining quiet. I took a deep breath and fixed my gaze on the ceiling, reflecting on the irony of peering up to the heavens. “I stole something from Exeter,” I confessed, glancing back at him. “I didn’t have the chance to show you before we left.”
“What did you take?” His voice was soft, but even, making it difficult for me to tell what he was thinking.
A frown tugged at the corners of my mouth. “A spell book.” I nodded toward the satchel left abandoned in the entryway of the room. “I can show you if you fetch my things.”
Paolo arched an eyebrow. I sighed and pointed at the doorway and he finally mirrored my frown, lifting to a stand and padding to the door. Without moving, I watched him pick up the leather bag by its shoulder strap, the other hand flipping open its flap and digging through for a book. He turned it so as to look at its cover. “This is their mark,” he murmured.
“Yes, it is,” I said. “That is precisely why I stole it.”
“You didn’t tell me you found this.”
“I didn’t know how to talk about it at the time.”
Paolo remained standing in place for what seemed like an eternity, the look on his face making it difficult to appreciate the sight of bare skin being afforded me. A sigh passed through his lips and finally, he strode back to the bed, sitting close enough to the edge for comfort. It prompted me to lift into a seated position. “Do you know how to talk about it now?” he asked, handing me the book.
I nodded and placed the volume on the other side of me, in favor of turning to face Paolo. “The kind Sir Lawrence nearly killed me,” I began. Paolo remained impassive, but I watched him hold onto his breath for an extra moment before exhaling it. A small, wan smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. “I know I’ve told you a hundred times that the men who killed my father snapped the neck of an innkeeper without so much as laying a hand on him. Well, I experienced how firsthand in Exeter.”
While he held his position, I saw something indiscernible trace across his eyes. His fingers touched mine and I interlaced them, clutching onto Paolo in some effort to center my thoughts. “For as many times as I have carried on about witchcraft being the culprit, I never expected to be proven right quite like that. I had him disarmed and suddenly, couldn’t breathe. The world turned dark and all I could think to do was fight it, even if I had no idea how.”
My gaze returned to him and our eyes met. “I broke his spell,” I said. “And spent the time with my brother discovering that not only was my father a sorcerer, I am as well.”
Paolo furrowed his brow, regarding me as though determining if I had gone mad or not. I gave his hand a squeeze, pulling mine back from his grip and holding it out before us. Shifting my attention toward my fingers, I focused on them while blocking out everything else in the room – the four walls, the bed beneath us, even the sound of Paolo’s rhythmic breathing. Whispering words I had since memorized from Lawrence’s spell book, I watched a spark jump from my palm until the final syllables had been birthed.
As flames rose from my hand, Paolo startled to a stand again, taking several paces backward. I glanced from the fledgling fire to my lover, unable to contain the smirk which traced across my lips. “Remarkable, isn’t it?” I asked.
Paolo stared at my hand, his eyes wide. “Dios mio,” he murmured with a nod.
“My brother would probably argue how involved the Almighty is in all of this.” Shutting my hand, I extinguished the flames with that action. A sigh chased away my mirth, forcing me back into a much more sober posture. “My father had brushed paths with these men before, apparently, though my brother seemed not to know how they first met. All I can gather is he stole something valuable to them.”
“The jeweled case he sent you away with?” Paolo spoke the question on the breath of a whisper, his expression still laden with incredulity.
I nodded. “I spent the entirety of my journey here solving the riddle. My brother says my mother met her end at their hands, too. All of my life, my father moved us around the country and it took until he fell ill for them to catch up to him. What other conclusion is there?”
“That you should leave the parchment buried and run.” He swallowed back the lump in his throat and focused on my eyes again. Slowly, Paolo shook his head. “You shouldn’t have come here. We shouldn’t be anywhere near here if they know this is where they can find you. We can ride to London and be in France in a few days’ time, or anywhere else in the world after that. Amico mio, they tried to kill you once. Who is to say they won’t try to kill you again?”
We regarded each other in silence for several moments. While I had been able to shield myself against my brother’s worried gaze, the same look in Paolo’s eyes caused nervous flutters to dance in my chest. My hand lowered, touching the binding of the spell book, fingertips caressing the leather and using it as a reminder of what I had just done. An endless scope of possibility had been opened up before me, but as I held my breath, thoughts waged war inside my mind. I couldn’t d
ispute Paolo’s logic. Lingering would put me in the clutches of danger. Yet there I stood on the brink of uncovering my father’s killers at long last. The vitriolic words I had cast at Jeffrey’s feet felt impotent as I considered delivering them to the man standing before me.
He walked closer as though reading my thoughts. “Did you mean it, Christian?” he asked, kneeling before me and cupping my face in both hands. Paolo rested his forehead against mine. “Do you love me?”
“Yes,” I said, shutting my eyes. My hand lifted from the book, coming to rest on Paolo’s wrist. Tempted though I was to muse on how much three words could change an entire posture, I remembered how many times the man had compelled me even without them and groaned at myself. “I’ve shown my hand and now, I will be damned by it.”
He failed to respond at first, though the quiet didn’t carry any tension to it. My eyes opened as I fought the urge to be vexed with Paolo. “You truly want us to leave?” I asked.
“Yes, I do,” he said, his lids lifting for him to meet my gaze. “I know you don’t see the amount of danger you’re in, but I do. If you can make fire in your hands, then they can do worse things.”
“And if I leave, they’ve won. Nobody will avenge my father, certainly not Jeffrey.”
“Do you think your father has ever cared about that?”
“No, but I have.” I muttered obscenities under my breath as Paolo pulled away, his hands shifting down to clutch onto mine. He frowned and I mirrored the expression, the debate no less settled in my mind, even when I nodded. “He would want me safe,” I conceded. The angry boy within me kicked at the ground and raged, but I held steady to the feeling of Paolo’s hands, gripping hold of them tight. “You want us to go to France?”
