Titan Magic

by Jodi Lamm

  The queen rose and began to pace. “Straight to the point, I see,” she said.

  “Always.” Marcus smiled at her.

  “Then we will grant you the same courtesy, Marcus Lavoie.” She offered Marcus her hand. “Do you have any dreams?”

  “Dreams?”

  “Wishes, ambitions.”

  Marcus glanced at Maddy. “I do,” he said.

  “So we have something in common, you and I.” Now Désirée, for she seemed less and less like a queen, offered her hand to Maddy as well. Maddy took it and stood beside Marcus, her heart still fluttering in her chest because of Jas. She wished it would stop.

  “I’m a foolish idealist, Lavoie, I confess.” Désirée nodded toward her forest, as though that were the perfect example of her foolishness. “I want to believe a peaceful world is possible. But after years of ruling this country, I’ve found that peace can only be obtained through unity. A weapon such as yourself, in the hands of radicals, could create war on a massive scale. And, let’s be honest, you and your sister are capable of complete world destruction.”

  Maddy raised her eyes and opened her mouth, but found she had nothing at all to say. She hadn’t wanted to think of herself as a destroyer of worlds, but she knew one command from an ambitious master could force her to create a cataclysmic quake, level mountains, or cover whole continents with the sea. Maddy glanced at Jas, wishing the look on his face would tell her that her fears were overblown, though she knew it wouldn’t. She could already feel his guilt, his horror that he hadn’t erased her when he had the chance. “I wouldn’t do that,” she muttered.

  Désirée paused.

  “Pay no attention to my sister,” Marcus said. “I am the one you want to bargain with.”

  “Bargain?” Désirée let go of their hands. “Have you no desire for peace?”

  “I’ve seen your variety of ‘peace,’ Your Majesty. I saw it written all over my master’s face in Persia as he lay dying. Anyway, I’m through sympathizing with humans. You asked if I had dreams. I do. And I’m willing to make a trade.”

  Maddy stared at Marcus, horrified. She couldn’t make out what he was trying to do. Part of her didn’t want to know. That ruthless look in his eyes—she’d seen it before. Marcus glowed when he was cruel, as though that were his natural state, the very heart of him.

  Désirée leaned in close. “And why should I ignore your sister?”

  “Because she’s far younger than me, Your Majesty, and therefore weaker. The child beside your throne is even weaker than my sister. I can overpower them both.”

  “Can you? Exactly how old are you, Marcus Lavoie?”

  Marcus squared his shoulders and spoke his next words as though he’d been practicing them in front of a mirror for weeks. “My creator was the Titan Simon Magus of Gitta. I was born in Egypt nearly two thousand years ago. I survived by passing myself from master to master. So I can tell you, with the assurance that comes from experience, during my first year under any master, I am incapable of disobedience. That is what I am prepared to offer, Your Majesty: a year of my incontrovertible servitude.”

  He had hit the mark. Désirée faded back into the Queen of Silence. Her eyes glittered at the prospect, the sheer magnitude of what she could accomplish with Simon’s legendary golem as her tool. “And what would you ask in return, Simon’s boy?”

  “Only a very little, Your Majesty.” Now Marcus wore his most innocent face, which wasn’t innocent at all, but an obvious imitation he might have picked up from serving only children as long as he had. “First, I wish to be given Eli Mahler.”

  “Done.” The queen hadn’t paused to consider it, not even for a moment.

  Eli let out a cry of protest, but he was quickly silenced. Maddy pitied him more, the more pathetic he became. She’d been ready to crush him a few hours ago, but that pain had passed, just like all the rest. And Marcus’ pain must have healed as well, which meant his vengeance was calculated. Maddy suddenly found him distasteful, frightening even.

  “Also, I want the one thing I have never been allowed to have, Your Majesty,” Marcus said.

  The queen leaned forward, anxious to know.

  “I want her.” He pointed to Maddy. “I want her tonight.”

  Maddy felt like she’d been slapped across the face with something dead. No, he didn’t mean what she thought he meant. He couldn’t.

  But Marcus went on. “The Titan suffers from his longing for her, which means I long for her, too. I will give myself to you in the morning, but before I do, I want to taste the pleasures of humanity. All I’ve ever known is pain.”

  The queen dug her fingernails into the arms of her throne. She struggled with herself for a moment, and then shook her head. “Your mother would never have approved such a thing. I won’t dishonor her by allowing it.”

  “No dishonor intended, Your Majesty.” Marcus bowed low. “I will marry Madeleine, this afternoon. And tomorrow, come dawn, I will hand myself over to you.”

  “Then what becomes of your bride?”

  “Destroy her, if you like. All you need to rule this world is me. Destroy the Titan and both leftover golems with him.”

  The queen put a hand to her mouth to hide her shock.

  “It makes no difference to me, Your Majesty. After I belong to you, I will no longer share the Titan’s love for his clay golem. You can do whatever you like with her then. Order me to destroy them all, if that’s your pleasure.”

  Maddy felt the blood drain from her face. Her dizziness was Jas’ frustration. The powerless Titan hung his head as Maddy turned to Marcus and hissed, “How dare you.”

  Marcus just laughed. “She’s only feeling the Titan’s rage, Your Majesty. She’ll come around.” Then he turned to Maddy and said, “Remember we’re in my element now, as always, and you haven’t any of yours. You’re too weak to fight me.”

  The queen drew in a long breath. “We would prefer to keep Charlotte’s daughter alive, if it is possible.”

  “By all means,” Marcus said, “take her, as well. She’s just come of age, Your Majesty. She can choose her own master.”

  The queen turned to Maddy. “Is this true?”

  Maddy curtsied and stared at the floor. “I don’t know, Your Majesty.”

  “Pardon me,” Marcus said, “but if it weren’t true, Your Majesty would not be able to hear her voice.”

  The queen glided to where Maddy stood, now horrified, frozen in her curtsy. “What do you say, Miss Lavoie? Will you come with your brother to work for us?”

  Maddy gulped but didn’t answer. She couldn’t dream of giving herself to anyone other than Jas any more. And though the queen might have loved Charlotte once, she didn’t seem to care about anyone now. “What about the prince?” Maddy asked, testing.

  “He cannot choose and won’t be able to for a long time,” said the queen. “We mustn’t take that risk.”

  “You’ll kill him?”

  “We will return him to his original state.”

  From his heap on the floor, Eli moaned.

  “You don’t understand.” The queen looked disappointed. “He is not like you or your brother. He hasn’t had the chance to develop a personality. You see? He can hear every word we say about him, but he doesn’t care.”

  “He cares.” Maddy rose from her curtsy. “He just doesn’t understand, yet.” She wanted to tell the queen how it was to be created and open your eyes for the first time, how you could only register each day after your master was asleep—when the world stopped spinning too quickly and the blur of too much information settled into the dark—but she didn’t. She just stared in shock, until a sweet breeze distracted her. It slipped through her hair, between her fingers and entered her lungs, warming her from the inside. Marcus was caressing her, and the air he sent to comfort her was something completely different from the dead look he wore in his eyes. Which was the real him? What was he trying to tell her?

  “Maddy.” He drew nearer to her, his voice softening. “I don�
�t want to fight you on this, but I will. You’re just feeling the Titan’s distress. You’ve got to learn to let him go, live your own life, make your own decisions.” Now his lips were at her ear and he spoke so softly she had to strain to hear him. “Trust me, please.”

  Maddy didn’t need to say a word. She knew Marcus felt her surrender. Whatever he had planned was all the hope she had left, and if they didn’t try to please the queen somehow, Jas and all three golems were dead.

  Marcus took both her hands and smiled. “Marry me, Maddy. You will, won’t you? I know you will.”

  25: A Perfect Kiss

  The nightmare wedding ceremony, in which Maddy would marry her brother while wearing her mother’s color, began almost immediately.

  Maddy hated it. Though the queen pretended to honor Charlotte Lavoie, Maddy knew her mother would never have allowed Marcus to take her hand. She turned to see Jas, still strung to the tree like Saint Sebastian, his bare chest waiting to spill his blood and complete the picture. No matter what happened, they needed more time. Maybe that was what Marcus had been planning all along. Maybe he didn’t want a wedding night after all.

  “You’ll need a ring.” The queen removed one of her own glittering gems, but Marcus stopped her with a wave of his hand.

  “I already have one, Your Majesty,” he said. With one swift movement, he had his hand over Maddy’s, and she immediately knew what he intended to do. “I’ve dreamed of this my whole life,” he said, and he slipped the ring from her finger.

  Maddy watched Marcus carefully. At first, he seemed unchanged. Then he trembled. His mouth opened, but he didn’t say a word. His eyes watered and overflowed, but he wasn’t weeping. He looked as though he saw too much, or felt too much, and would burst from the pressure of it. Marcus had become a vessel for bodiless spirits.

  The queen stood. “What is the matter, Lavoie?”

  “Nothing.” Marcus’ voice cracked. “I’m feeling the Titan’s pain. It will pass when he… when he sees there’s no way to stop this. Maddy,” Marcus spoke through his teeth, “we’ll need a symbol from you, something precious to you, something to prove you belong to me… in marriage.”

  Maddy knew exactly what he wanted, but she hesitated because she saw the chaos, the overwhelming pain in his eyes, and she knew she would feel it, too.

  “Maddy,” he said, in earnest.

  “The bracelet. Jas… The Titan is wearing it.” Maddy wrung her hands and thought fast. “It was my mother’s. I gave it to him for safekeeping.” She turned to the queen, almost hoping she would be denied permission to approach her master, but the queen nodded and urged her on.

  As she turned to go, Marcus whispered, “Try not to scream.”

  Jas would not look her in the eye when she approached him. She stood on tiptoe and reached for the golden, braided chain of his hair, which had slipped down his arm just enough that she could touch it.

  “Don’t,” he whispered. His chest rose and fell as though he were asleep—the forced, slow breathing of despair.

  Maddy hesitated. She wanted to tear him out of that tree, break through the walls, and carry him to a safe place. But the soldiers around them would be too quick, even for her. Their muskets were aimed and ready to fire. “There’s no other way,” she said. She kissed the corner of his mouth, just once, so no one would see, and then unclasped the chain.

  And she took ownership from him.

  When Maddy looked back at her master, he was not her master, he was not beautiful, he was not precious. She saw a man tied to a tree, just a man, and cocked her head in wonder at how much she had once given him. Jas’ eyes grew wide when he saw the indifference in her. His expression was full of pain, but Maddy didn’t feel it any more.

  She was free, but she was lost. She tried not to think of it. She turned her face from Jas and froze. All at once, a thousand feelings too powerful to bear came to life in her. Voices, songs, fables, memories… selves. She felt as though she were drowning, bursting, swallowing the sea.

  She gasped and turned to give the bracelet back, but before she could, Marcus caught her arm. He pulled her before the queen and held her face steady, forcing her to look him in the eyes. “Focus,” he hissed. “It’ll all be over in a minute.”

  In the background, the queen’s voice echoed as she read their vows, but Maddy couldn’t hear her, not over the spirits who took refuge in her body, not over the waves roaring over her head. She thought she felt tears cooling on her cheeks, smeared by Marcus’ unforgiving hands.

  “I do,” Marcus said, and he put the ring back on her finger. Before Maddy could scream, Marcus stopped her mouth with his hand. “Be strong. This isn’t you, remember?”

  But it wasn’t Jas either. It was someone… something Maddy had never known. A stranger… many strangers inside her.

  The queen went on, saying the words she had probably said over noble weddings a hundred times. None of it mattered to Maddy, who just stared at Marcus’ face until her eyes went dry.

  “Maddy.” He shook her when it was her turn. “Say you do. Say you do, Maddy.”

  “I do.” She trembled as he guided her hands to help her slip the bracelet onto his wrist. The flood of selves flowed between them them, locking them together in a violent ecstasy of Far Too Much. Marcus was the first to break the surface of that chaotic sea. Before the queen granted him permission, he kissed his bride.

  It was a perfect kiss. Maddy couldn’t have imagined better from a fairy-tale prince. Marcus, free of the beast, had lost all his clumsiness, his impropriety, his passion. And Maddy understood that the love he’d had for her the night he threw her from her home was gone. She knew because the difference between that kiss and this one was impossible to ignore. Love complicated things, made one hasty and stupid, and Marcus was taking his time. The smile on his face told Maddy that he knew exactly how the game would play out from this point on, and that this kiss was only a pause to savor his victory.

  “Let’s begin,” said the boy with quicksand eyes. He moved toward the Titan in a flash and sliced through the air with his hand. Blood ran down Jas’ arm where Marcus had touched him. “Look!” Marcus held his own bare, uninjured arm out for all the court to see. “I am no longer tied to the beast. Killing him will do nothing but destroy the only creature in the world who can stop me. Examine my sister. You’ll find she has broken free, as well.”

  Maddy glanced at her own unmarked arm. She thought she ought to feel disturbed that Jas was bleeding without her, but she didn’t.

  “Now,” Marcus strode toward the former Duke of Silence, “I am free to deal with you.”

  Eli raised his head from his huddle on the mirrored floor. His eyes were red and the salt of dried tears still clung to his lashes. He shuddered when he saw the merciless face staring down at him.

  Marcus smiled. “At first I wanted to kill you, you know, for meddling. You came around and made things difficult for me. I was filled with the Titan’s passionate temper, and I wanted you gone. Then you took my mother.” He knelt down to Eli’s level and leaned in. “I loved my mother once. Now, thanks to you, I don’t love anyone. You, on the other hand, still do, even after your lover’s betrayal.” He sneered. “You’ve a true and loyal heart if ever I saw one, Eli Mahler. You bastard.” He bore his teeth and hissed. “You don’t deserve to keep it.”

  The queen fell to the floor. With one hand, she clawed at her own throat as the other tore away the lace at her chest. Her soldiers stood baffled. One of her handmaids ran in, opened her bodice, and pulled frantically at the laces in her corset. Nothing helped. The queen was exposed and dying. Eli screamed her name and pulled against his chains, but Marcus held him and made him watch.

  “I’m taking the air from her lungs,” Marcus said, “and putting it into yours. I just want you to know that you’re breathing her last. Don’t you dare hold your breath.” Marcus sucked in a chest full of air and closed his mouth over Eli’s.

  Maddy watched in horror as Marcus forced open Eli’s lip
s in a hellish kind of kiss, and poured the queen’s last breath into her lover’s lungs. Eli struggled uselessly against the coils of the serpent. He curled his fingers into the boy’s flesh, tore away skin with his fingernails, but Marcus didn’t flinch. Every mark Eli made healed before it even had the chance to bleed.

  Maddy screamed for Marcus to stop, but he ignored her. He didn’t pull away until the queen lay lifeless on the floor, her dress splayed open like the skin of a hunter’s kill. Eli fell from Marcus’ arms, quivering, pathetic. And Maddy saw how the duke was utterly destroyed, how Marcus had taken everything from him.

  “Ignore them,” Marcus said to his sister, his face glazed with both their tears. “I’ll try to keep most of them to myself.” He meant the bodiless spirits. And Maddy knew he was succeeding in holding them captive because she felt empty and saw the furious storm in Marcus’ eyes.

  “Tell me you didn’t mean it,” she said, “when you said ‘I do’ and married me. I want to hear you say you didn’t mean it.”

  “I meant every word. Unfortunately, the sentiment behind it came from him.” He pointed to the Titan. “But the vow was mine, and now, so are you.”

  As Maddy turned back toward her former master and creator, she saw the extent of Marcus’ power. Every soldier lay dead on the floor, their hands curled close to their faces. He had killed them while she was distracted, just like that.

  “This is wrong,” she muttered.

  But Marcus wasn’t listening. His eyes flooded and overflowed. He wept and laughed and shook with excitement. “Now,” he said, wringing his hands, “you can claim your soul.”

  Maddy just stared at him.

  “Go on.” Marcus gestured for her to approach the Titan. “Take his life and claim his soul.”

  Maddy felt her mouth fall open of its own accord. Her promised soul, her one hope. All along, it was this? What a twisted, disgusting reward.

  “You aren’t tied to him any more, my sister.” Marcus paused and smiled. “My wife. When he dies, you’ll go on without him. So take his soul and make it ours.” He frowned when she didn’t move. “Maddy, you must claim the soul of your creator, and you must willfully take his life to do it. It’s the only way. Don’t make the same mistake I did and miss this chance.”