Throne of Magic (Heiress of Magic Trilogy Book 3)

by H. D. Gordon

  Charlie plucked the note from the mirror, shaking his head. Deciding the idea of a hot shower was too tempting to pass up, he stripped out of his clothes and hopped in, turning the temperature to as scalding as he could stand.

  The small wounds all over his body burned as the water hit them, making him cringe as he watched the scarlet of his own blood circle the drain at his feet.

  Once he was finished, he stepped out and dried off with a towel Aria had set out for him. He pulled his jeans on, slung his shirt over his bare shoulder, and stepped out of the bathroom, drying his now too-long hair with the towel.

  While he was making himself at home, he decided to see if the girl had any tea or even coffee. He was in the middle of making a cup when a breeze brushed by him. Charlie’s heartbeat kicked up in pace before he turned to see Aria climbing in through the window, a small gasp escaping her as she took in the sight of him.

  He suppressed a sigh, regretting the decision not to put his shirt back on, despite it being filthy and in tatters. The Halfling girl came forward slowly, dropping the bag she’d been holding in her hand without a thought, and approaching Charlie with a look of sympathy that he’d learned to hate over the years.

  She stared at his bare chest, his shoulders, and shamelessly moved in a circle to study his back. “So many scars,” she said, almost as if to herself.

  He ignored this. “I don’t suppose you have any clothes that would fit me?”

  Aria’s eyebrows arched, and she couldn’t seem to keep her gaze from all the scarring on his golden skin, but she wandered over to the bag she’d dropped earlier, pulled out a plain black t-shirt, and tossed it over to him.

  She continued to watch him as he pulled the shirt over his head, the fabric sliding easily over the lean, strong muscles in his chest and waist. Leaning against the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room, she shook her head slowly, a slight smile pulling up her lips.

  “She’s coming for you, all right,” she mumbled.

  Charlie suppressed a half-annoyed, half-amused shake of his head. The girl had an odd way of making light of things.

  “You’re making this whole thing a bit uncomfortable, you know that?”

  Aria picked up the cup of hot tea he’d made for himself and took a sip, as if people just left random cups of tea around for her to drink all the time, and waved her free hand at this.

  “People tell me that a lot,” she said, and shrugged. “I’m never quite sure what they mean.”

  “How many of your kind are there?” he asked.

  Another shrug. “Not many,” Aria said. “The Fae don’t mix with humans the way your kind and some of the others do. When Halflings are born, we are taken and trained for a specific purpose.”

  As she said this last part, her shoulders sank just the tiniest of fractions, as if this were a statement that brought her heartache to speak. A less perceptive person than Charlie would’ve missed it. The girl was young, but she was good at hiding emotions.

  He steered away from the subject in consideration of her not-so-obvious feelings. “So what’s your stake in this?”

  Aria tossed her leather jacket aside and picked up some fingerless gloves from the coffee table, sliding them over her small hands.

  Then she went to a metal workout bar that was mounted on the wall and jumped up, grabbing it with both hands. She began to knock out pull-ups the way old Sorcerers tend to knock back beers. She carried on the conversation with Charlie as she did so, not in the least out of breath.

  “My stake in this is the same as my stake in all things,” she answered, as if this explained everything. She finished more pull-ups—making fifty in all—and jumped down, turning back to face him. “To keep the peace between the races.”

  “But you still haven’t told me anything about anything, Aria. For all I know, that’s not even your name, and this could be some magic spell-reality, rather than a town on a coastal part of the human world.”

  Aria hopped up on the countertop on which she’d been leaning and crossed her legs beneath her. The girl never seemed able to stay in one place for too long, but instead just bounced from here to there.

  “How do you know you’re in a coastal town? Did you leave the apartment?”

  Charlie smirked. “You’ve been around humans too long. I can smell the salt in the air, same as you.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “Aria is my real name, and this is a coastal town in the human world. Beyond that, all you need to know is that I’m going to help you reunite with your beloved queen, and hopefully stop Tristell from causing a war.”

  He blinked at her, half impressed, half in disbelief. “Okay… but why?”

  Sighing, Aria leaned forward and held his gaze. “Because war isn’t good for anyone, Charlie Redmine,” she snapped. “I told you, I’m trying to keep the peace. It’s my duty and honor.”

  He was silent a moment, mulling this over. He supposed it really didn’t matter what her reasons were. What options did he really have? The human world, as undesirable as it was for most of his kind, was probably the safest place for him right now.

  “You’re smarter than you look,” he told her. “You know that?”

  Aria rolled her eyes, the joking half-smile on her face again. “People tell me that a lot, too.”

  “So, Halflings are drafted to be peace-keeping liaisons between the worlds… Does that sum it up?”

  She shrugged, and he thought that it must be a default gesture of hers, as it was for many teens of all races. “It sounds more exciting than it is. Most of the time I’m just here sitting at my post, living like a human among humans… Only I’m not human.”

  “There are worse lives to live,” Charlie observed.

  “And better ones, too,” she countered.

  Charlie swallowed before responding. “So the plan is to wait here until someone comes for me?”

  “Your excitement mirrors my own,” she said, getting down from the counter. “If you’re hungry, you can help yourself to whatever you want in the fridge, but you gotta be quiet. I have an essay due tomorrow.”

  “You attend the human schools?” he asked, fascinated and slightly bewildered.

  It seemed such an odd way to live. To be taken and trained. He suddenly felt sad for the girl. Aria was forever a stranger in a world full of strangers.

  But if it was as sad and lonely of a life as Charlie expected it to be, the young lady had become a master at hiding it. She sighed.

  “Yes, genius. I attend the human schools. I eat the human food, and wear the human clothes, and rescue stupid Sorcerers who ask stupid questions from sticky situations.”

  She grabbed a backpack that looked as if it weighed a ton from a hook by the door and tossed it down on the coffee table. “I also enjoy video games, reading, and ninja training. Anything else?”

  Charlie didn’t know whether or not to laugh at this, because he had no idea what a ‘ninja’ was, so he just held his hands up in surrender.

  “Okay, I get it. You want me to shut up and sit tight.”

  She winked at him.

  “You’re very strange, Aria,” he said.

  “Another thing I hear often,” she replied with a roll of her eyes.

  Aria flopped down onto the couch and pulled several large books out of her overstuffed backpack. She spread them out all around her, and opened a silver computer atop her lap.

  Charlie decided there really wasn’t much else to be done on his part at the moment. He would listen to the young Halfling girl and wait for a little while, but not because he was waiting for Surah to rescue him, but because he needed some time to formulate a plan.

  After all that had happened, after all these years of hoping Michael could change, of having his trust and his love for his older brother betrayed again and again, a slow realization had finally settled over him.

  Michael could not be saved, because Michael no longer existed. Though it had taken Charlie longer than it probably should have t
o really see it, to really come to terms with it, there was no way of avoiding the truth of it now.

  Michael Redmine, the older brother who had chased away Charlie’s nightmares as a child, who had knocked out bigger boys in the schoolyards in Charlie’s defense, who had gone hungry on many a night in their youth after the war so that Charlie could put in his belly whatever little bit of food they’d managed to get a hold of… That Michael, he was dead.

  And a vengeful, cold-hearted Dark Sorcerer had taken his place. Black Heart, they called him, and Charlie knew for certain it was a name that fit.

  He also knew for certain that Black Heart and the Fae Queen Tristell had to be stopped. It was no longer just for Surah. It was for the young Charlie’s and Michael’s of their world, for the strange children who dwelled deep in the Fae Forest, for the girls like Aria, who was so young and so green, but obviously wiser and deeper than she most likely received credit for.

  Because the girl was right: War was good for no one, and one needn’t have lived through the horrors of a war to know that. One needn’t, but Charlie Redmine had.

  And as he sat looking at the Halfling girl, her feet tucked under her as she read her human books and wrote her human essays and lived forever as an outsider in the human world, Charlie knew for the first time in his life that if it came down to it, if the only way to stop the coming of another war was to kill his older brother, the former Michael Redmine, the current Dark Sorcerer plaguing their world, then so be it.

  This thought settled on his shoulders and in his gut with the weight of the universe.

  Chapter 18

  Surah

  She stared into its depths, at the darkness in its endless, unflawed prisms.

  The Black Stone reflected in the vibrant violet of her eyes, as if casting her under a trance. But Surah Stormsong was under no spell. She was fully aware of what she was doing, and equally aware that there would be consequences for the use of this stone of dark magic.

  When the door to the secret chamber opened behind her, she nearly dropped the stone, startled as though she’d just been snapped out of a trance she would’ve sworn she was not under.

  Bassil stood in the entryway of the chamber, his dark eyes narrowed as he shut the door behind him. “Surah…” he cautioned.

  Though she knew he was only concerned for her wellbeing, her back went up a touch at the look the Warlock gave her.

  “If you’ve got any other suggestions, Bassil,” she snapped. “I would love to hear them. If not,” she paused, and her hand tightened around the large stone, which was so big that it shined through the cracks of her fingers, “then save the lecture.”

  The Warlock said nothing for a long while, only folded his hands into the long sleeves of his patchwork cloak and stared at her with onyx eyes. The small, secret space was dim and musty, and Surah was just going to teleport out of there when he sighed.

  “You are the queen, Surah,” he said slowly, “By divine right and law, the Black Stone is yours to do with whatever you see fit.”

  Surah’s purple gaze narrowed, and she waited, knowing the old Warlock well enough to anticipate the but that would surely follow this.

  But Bassil said nothing, only stood staring at her, offering every opportunity for her to leave, Black Stone in hand.

  And she almost did. There was a big part of her that wanted nothing more than to snap her fingers and teleport out from under the arbitrating gaze of the Warlock. But there was another part of her that wanted to be talked out of this madness, brought back from this ledge she’d been pushed out on.

  Still, the Warlock said nothing, because the truth was, they both knew there weren’t any other options. Surah had to go to the Underworld and seek out a Dark Lord. Not just any Dark Lord, but a Dark Lord who had hated the Stormsong family for as long as any of the descendants could remember.

  Any of the descendants, Surah thought, the words in her head as small and dark as the space she was standing in. I’m the only one left. Utterly alone in the world.

  She slapped this thought away, because it was counterproductive. Lifting her chin, she asked, “You’d rather I visit the Underworld without the protection of the Black Stone?”

  Bassil placed his large hands on her shoulders, his smooth, ebony face full of love and sympathy.

  “Dear child,” the Warlock said, “what I would rather makes none the difference… I would rather you not have to go into the Underworld at all. I would rather we not be at war with the Fae. I would rather…”

  Surah waited, and when he didn’t finish, she took a deep breath. “You’d rather what? Just say it.”

  The half-smile that pulled up one side of Bassil’s full mouth was colored with sadness.

  “I would rather that you didn’t love Charlie Redmine,” he said at last. “Not because he’s not worthy, not because he’s not a good man, and not because I don’t think he loves you as much as you obviously love him.”

  He shook his head, his gaze going distant, as if remembering a time from long ago. When he spoke next, his deep voice was barely above a whisper. “But simply because it would make things a hell of a lot easier, wouldn’t it?”

  Surah’s lips pulled up at this, but her heart remained as sunken as a sea-swallowed ship. “You ever known me to do things the easy way?” she asked.

  He chuckled and pulled her into a hug that was as close to a fatherly embrace as she would ever get again. As small as it was, she decided it was something to be grateful for.

  When he pulled back, Bassil kept hold of her shoulders, meeting her gaze. Surah placed her hands over his and squeezed.

  “I don’t want to do any of this either,” she admitted. “But you agree that it must be done?”

  Bassil smirked. “You’re asking for my permission before doing something dangerous and crazy?” he laughed. “Who are you, and what have you done with Surah?”

  “So you’re not here to stop me, then?”

  “Would I even be able to stop you if I were?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t suppose you could.”

  His dark face grew serious, and he took the Black Stone from her hands, tucking it gently into a pocket on the inside of her cloak.

  “And that is the point, dear child,” the wise Warlock told her. “Whenever there has been something you’ve really wanted, all the powers and magic and crossed stars in the universe have never been able to stop you from getting it. You’ll be keeping that stone of dark magic so close to your heart… I just don’t want you to lose sight of things. Don’t let it change who you are. Don’t let it corrupt you. There is the greatest of lights within you, Surah Stormsong, but even bright lights can be doused with shadows.”

  Surah said nothing to this, because there was nothing to say. How could she tell him that it was too late, that she had long been corrupted, that she had spent years fighting off the shadows, only to have them creeping in like creatures of the night right now?

  How could she tell her old friend, her lifelong mentor, that sometimes one could not fight the darkness with light, that sometimes one had to take a torch in hand and battle fire with fire, darkness with darkness, hate and revenge with hate and revenge?

  She could not say these things to Bassil, because he would not understand. Only those who were as lost as she could possibly comprehend.

  So what she said was, “Okay, Bassil. I’ll do my best.”

  The smile he gave her then was enough to break her heart, had there been any part of it left unbroken.

  “That’s all any of us can do, dear child,” he said, and kissed her forehead.

  Before he could see the moisture that was beginning to fill her eyes, the start of salty tears she hadn’t the time nor the patience for, Surah gripped the piece of White Stone around her neck and teleported out of the secret space in which they’d been standing.

  Using the power of both the stones combined, she commanded them to take her to Charlie Redmine, and Gods help whoever stood in her way.

&n
bsp; Surah landed in a small apartment, her mind a bit fuzzy from the use of so much magic in one burst.

  She had crossed realms. Of that, she was sure, and she could smell a slight saltiness to the air that suggested close proximity to an ocean, but other than that, she had no idea where she was.

  “Holy jumping jacks!” said a sweet voice.

  Surah spun on her heel, her hands gripping her sais, the silver weapons slipping free of her cloak as she braced herself for an attack.

  Her eyebrows rose as the owner of the voice hopped up from the couch she’d been sitting on, a large book spilling to the floor in the process.

  “I’ve never seen a portal open like that,” the girl said, her pretty face lit up in a smile.

  Surah only looked at her, wondering if the stones had somehow taken her to the wrong place. She glanced around the small space, determining that she was in the human world, but that couldn’t be right. Why would Black Heart have taken Charlie here?

  Before she could ask these things, the over-excited girl held out her hand, her bright green eyes locked on the sais in Surah’s.

  “You must be Queen Surah,” she said with a bow. “I’m Aria Fae. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

  Surah’s voice was poised, careful. She returned the bow mostly out of habit. “The pleasure is mine, Aria,” she said. She studied the girl closely. “You’re a Halfling,” she observed. It was not a question.

  Aria grinned, tossing some of her thick, red-brown hair over her shoulder. “So you’re the smart one in the couple, huh?” she said, as if in jest.

  Surah was growing more confused by the moment, but before she could ask the girl what that was supposed to mean, Charlie stepped out of the back bedroom. He opened his mouth to speak, but the words seemed to jam up in his throat as he saw Surah.

  For a moment, as she took in the sight of him, it was if the world stopped. The small apartment, with its slightly sea-scented air, dropped away around her, and all she could see was Charlie.

  Her gaze traveled the length of him, checking for injuries, nearly convinced she was seeing a ghost. Until just this moment, she had not realized that a part of her had suspected she might never see him again.