by Gail Dayton
“Have you eaten enough?” Mikoyan’s voice overflowed with sarcastic hospitality. “Are we finally ready?”
“I have a knife.” Esteban came from the back of the house carrying a long, thin boning knife. “It. was the sharpest in the kitchen. I sharpened it—”
“Take it to Jax.” Amanusa waved him away as he brought it in her direction, perhaps for inspection. “He’s the one who will use it.” If she had to rid herself of his blood, she would use the cut on her already swollen lip. “You don’t want me near the knife, nor do I wish to be.”
Esteban and Mikoyan gave her an odd look. Oleg sneered. “She is afraid of it.”
Amanusa ignored him, focusing all her attention on Jax. As I pull my blood from you, I will withdraw all the magic and build shields around both of us. I’m afraid to leave any magic behind—magic bound you after Yvaine’s death.
Magic and Yvaine’s blood.
Can I call her blood out as well?
I don’t know. Jax took the knife from Esteban, Oleg and Paolo hovering, ready to grab him if he showed signs of aggression. Jax brushed his thumb across the edge. It will cost you the knowledge that remains.
He spoke aloud. “The blade will do.”
There isn’t much left. And we have her books, back in the tower. I’ll try to call her blood.
Jax set the knife aside and looked up at her as he rolled up his left sleeve. The magicians hissed and recoiled as they saw the faint white lines of scars up his forearm.
“What?” the hidden man asked. “What is it?”
And when the shields are built, and I am no longer bound, then what? Jax held her gaze.
She felt his love and worry swell and flow toward her. I don’t know, she replied honestly. The only way she could.
“His arm is scarred from elbow to wrist,” Oleg croaked. “Scars of bloodletting.”
I hadn’t thought that far. Amanusa bit her lip, looking helplessly back at Jax. All I could think about was getting you free, however I had to do it.
Jax shook his head at her, a rueful smile on his lips. So the rest of the plan is mine?
Like when you carried me down the mountain. She smiled back at him. I work the magic and mess things up. You get me out of it. We’re a team.
So we are.
Chapter 30
“Stop gawking over old scars and free him so he suffers no more,” Mikoyan snapped. “Are wards set and secure?”
“Yes, Master Mikoyan.” Paolo dipped his head in a tiny bow.
Mikoyan and Paolo now moved close to Amanusa, leaving the others guarding Jax. “We will be monitoring the magic,” the master alchemist said. “At the . first sign you are turning it toward one of us, we will kill you.”
Do not do anything foolish, Amanusa, Jax said. If you live, I swear to live with you.
Then I will have to be sure to survive this. She smiled at him as she sat up straight in the chair. “I am ready.”
Jax took a deep breath. He picked up the knife, set it against the palm of his left hand, and caught Amanusa’s gaze. “I love you,” he said. “No matter what happens, I love you.”
“I love you, too.” She sent her love pouring into him and let his pour into her, marveling that there could be so much.
“This is my blood,” he said. “Spilled by my will.” He took another breath, and as he let it out, he sliced across his palm from one fleshy pad to the other.
At the same instant, Amanusa reached across the room with her magic, her lips moving only slightly as she repeated the words to call Yvaine’s blood from Jax’s veins. Old blood first.
It welled up in a sullen line, thick and dark and reluctant to answer her call, oozing across his palm to the little-finger side, where it dripped onto the pile of napkins in Jax’s lap. Depart from my husband Jax, you old besom, Amanusa thought at the last remnants of Yvaine. We don’t want you here. You are not our blood.
Finally, the dark, almost black droplets stopped seeping from the cut in Jax’s hand, and Amanusa sagged in her chair. “Blot that, please, love.” Her voice was raspy with the strain.
“You’re not done,” the shadowed man hissed. “He is not yet free.”
“Old bonds have to be broken first,” Jax said, wiping away the last of Yvaine’s blood with the topmost napkin. He tossed it over his shoulder, Oleg jumping to get away without it touching him. “Get her a glass of water.”
Oleg sneered. He was so predictable. “She is only a—”
“Get my wife some water, now.” The authority in Jax’s voice made Amanusa shiver. Not in fear, in… pleasure? Desire? She didn’t like it when other men gave orders, demanded obedience. But when Jax did it, it gave her a little thrill. Because he did it on her behalf?
Esteban returned from somewhere with a glass of water, and Amanusa sipped, grateful. She smiled her thanks at him as he returned to guarding Jax. She set the glass on the floor beside her chair, since there were no side tables. Time to finish this.
Blood of my blood. She spoke the words to herself, to Jax, through the bonds that tied them together. Return to me. She caught up the magic with the blood, pulling it out of him and piling it around him in the thickest shield she could make.
Bright red blood, new blood, poured from the shallow slice across his palm, and dripped to the napkins below, staining them scarlet. Had he taken so much? She didn’t know what she was doing. What if she bled him dry? What if she couldn’t break the blood bond at all?
“Love you,” Jax murmured. “Live.” Was he so weak already?
She wouldn’t live without him. She might survive—though that was in doubt—but she wouldn’t actually live. They both had to get through this intact. Perhaps she couldn’t pull only her own blood from Jax because she was holding on to his blood.
With a whimper, she hunted inside herself for those flavors of Jax and drove them out. Blood began to trickle down her chin from her split lip, out her nose.
Jax cried out, started up from the sofa, but Oleg shoved him back down. Esteban looked from Jax to Amanusa, then gently pulled a napkin from the bottom edge of Jax’s pile, one not too stained, and tossed it to Paolo. “For the blood.” Esteban gestured at his own nose and mouth, then at Amanusa.
Paolo dropped the napkin in Amanusa’s lap, and she used it to blot away Jax’s blood, feeling as if she wanted to weep. She hadn’t taken much from him, but it had been enough. Now that she cast it away, the bleeding from the cut across his hand slowed.
Now what? She still felt a faint, ghostly bond between them. There was evidently something more that had to be done, though they no longer shared blood. A sob escaped her.
“I love you, Amanusa,” Jax said. “That hasn’t changed. I am still your husband. They cannot force us to divorce.”
The faint bond throbbed, grew brighter with magic. No. That wasn’t what had to happen. All ties had to be broken. There could be nothing between them in order for him to be safe.
Amanusa stood. “I cast you aside,” she said, making her voice hard and cold, so it wouldn’t choke halfway out. “John Greyson, I renounce you. You are no longer my servant. You are not my familiar. You are nothing to me. I do not have any part of you and you have no part of me. You are no longer blood of my blood. Your heart is not mine and mine does not beat with yours. All bonds between us are severed.”
She reached out with her hands to grasp the faint ribbon of glorious magic shimmering between them, and she ripped it in two.
With a cry of anguish she collapsed onto the chair, Jax’s shout echoing with hers. The pain of loss and loneliness ground through her. God, it hurt. How could it hurt so much? Not physically, though it seeped into the physical, making her chest ache along with her weeping heart, with the emotions that had been torn apart.
“Amanusa—” Jax’s desperate groan made the anguish cut deeper. She could see the magic reaching toward her, groping, begging her to grab hold.
“I won’t.” She stuffed all the pain down deep inside, where she’d kept so m
uch before, hiding it away where he couldn’t see it, wouldn’t suspect the truth. “I don’t love you. The conjurer was right. I lied.”
Jax recoiled as the hidden man cackled in delight. “You see?” he crowed. “The truth comes out. Now that she has no familiar, now that she cannot use him, she casts him aside.”
She made herself sit up, stiffened her muscles, using the cold and the pain to lock them in place. If she was frozen, maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much.
“Is it done then?” Mikoyan the alchemist asked. “Is the familiar bond broken?”
“It is.” Esteban nodded, along with Oleg.
“Now, what will you do with us?” Amanusa didn’t truly care. Jax was lost to her. Their blood bond was broken and she didn’t know how to remake it. They might be married, but it wasn’t the same. It couldn’t be. How long before that fell apart too?
“Let them go,” Esteban said. “That was the plan. We would set him free of her and let them go.”
“What is to keep her from binding him to her again?” Oleg demanded.
“It was the plan to set them free,” Mikoyan said. “That is what we all agreed to.”
“But—” Oleg began.
“How can we set her free to work her foul magic on other unsuspecting innocents?” The hidden man came to the opening into the parlor. “We must kill her to keep her from undoing the good we have done.”
“No,” Esteban protested. “I did not sign on for murder. We would free him. That was all I agreed to.”
“I can look after myself,” Jax growled. He stood, ignoring the magicians behind him. “I am no longer her familiar. My mind and my will are my own. Do you doubt my ability to prevent what was done to me from happening again?”
Mikoyan looked sharply at him, then grinned and came to clasp Jax’s wrist—the right one, not the one that had been bled. “Glad to have you back with us.”
Jax gave him a brusque, cold nod. He looked down with distaste at his blood-spattered shirt and dragged it off, wiping his bare chest clean. “Do you have something I can wear, to get out of this filth?”
Footsteps sounded in the hall, and Inquisitor Kazaryk came into the room to hand Jax a fresh shirt. Of course. The man had dogged their steps too long to surrender without a whimper. Or a final attack. He was greedy for the power he thought sorcery could give him, and for the pleasure of the pain he thought sorcery caused.
Kazaryk smirked at Amanusa. “The empire has powerful friends within the conclave. They could not keep me.” Then he turned to Jax.
“Perhaps you will be safe, my friend,” Kazaryk said. “But too many others are not. She will still be . free to work her evil.” He watched Jax a moment. “My apologies for Nagy Szeben. I did not understand the situation at that time.”
Jax slammed his fist into Kazaryk’s jaw, sending the smaller man to the floor. “Apology accepted.” He shrugged into the shirt, covering up those lovely shoulders. “Sorcery is just magic,” he said. “No more evil than conjury or alchemy.”
“Agreed. As long as men are working it. Women are weak, easily corrupted by the power. A woman working magic is an abomination.”
The man was mad. But then it had been apparent from their first meeting that the man had a twisted view of women. Amanusa couldn’t bring herself to care too much. Jax was free. They would let him live. She had worked the magic and anything else was up to Jax. If he still wanted her.
“We must destroy her. John Greyson can be the new sorcerer.” Kazaryk’s head snapped around and he glared at Esteban. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Esteban held up Jax’s stained shirt, bundled with the bloody napkins. He’d even retrieved the one Amanusa had used. “To the kitchen. There is a fire there for burning these. Even I know it is not safe to leave so much blood about with a sorceress in her power.”
“Don’t be long,” Kazaryk said.
“I will be as long as it takes. Linen does not burn easily and I do not wish to smother the fire.” Esteban paused at the doorway to the dining room. “And if you are going to murder someone, I do not care to watch.”
“Coward,” Oleg sneered after him.
“Is it bravery to slay the helpless? Esteban is right,” Mikoyan said as the young conjurer departed. “We did not agree to murder.”
“Give her to me,” Jax said. “You promised me payment for the years I served.”
“What will you do with her?” Kazaryk asked, suspicious and eager both at once.
“Perhaps I will make her my familiar. What does it matter to you?”
Jax was head-blind. He couldn’t touch magic. Could he? Whatever he wanted to do would be fine. If she was his familiar, she would still be with him.
“As long as she is under control—” Mikoyan began.
“Are you a sorcerer?” Kazaryk moved closer to Jax, intent on his face.
Jax refused to meet his eyes. He didn’t know why the Inquisitor wanted to catch his gaze, but whatever Kazaryk wanted, Jax would be sure not to give it. “I could be,” he lied.
Kazaryk almost capered in place. “Yes, bleed her dry. Drain away her life and take her power. We need sorcery. You can be our sorcerer.”
Jax shuddered, wishing he could recall more of the intervening two hundred years. Even with Yvaine gone, much of that time was a blur. If this was how everyone thought of sorcery, no wonder it had been lost. Maybe so much secrecy had been a mistake. Perhaps if they knew the truth—but if they knew how much power her blood held, they might be all the more eager to drain her dry. He could discuss it with her later. Now, he needed to get her out of here. Alive.
She worried him, the way she sat in the big striped-velvet chair, staring at the vicinity of his chest, as if he weren’t even there. Could she have truly meant what she said?
No. She had lied. Lied to the magicians and to the magic—but she couldn’t lie to him. She loved him. She trusted him. He had to trust her. He had to carry out his part of the plan.
A decanter of spirits on a table shoved into the corner of the room caught his eye. These men—these bloodthirsty men—had no idea how sorcery truly worked. They believed one could steal magic by stealing blood. Therefore…
“Let us share her power among us all.” Jax went to the table and splashed the whiskey into five glasses, then carried the tray to the center of the room. Kazaryk, almost slavering at the idea, fetched a spindly-legged table from the front hall and set it to hold the tray.
Jax took Amanusa’s hands and lifted her to her feet. Kazaryk moved as if to grab her arm and Jax swept her out of his reach, into his own hold. “She is mine,” he snarled, hoping he sounded more possessive thug than protective mate.
Kazaryk spread his hands and backed away, his gloating smile still in place. “What will you do with her?”
“Spill her blood.”
Jax didn’t like how Kazaryk watched Amanusa, didn’t like his eyes darting over her body and never her face, didn’t like his tongue flicking out to touch his lip before vanishing again.
Jax held his hand out for the knife he’d used earlier. Oleg fetched it from the sofa. Kazaryk licked his lips again. Mikoyan and Paolo stood on either side of the chair where Amanusa had worked the blood magic, their arms folded, faces stolid. It was clear they believed he had changed sides, that he now wanted revenge against Amanusa. They didn’t seem to disapprove of vengeance, but they didn’t seem to want to participate.
Jax lifted the sharp boning knife and turned Amanusa’s right hand palm up. He’d cut his own hand. They wouldn’t suspect he had no intention of killing her if he cut her in the same place. He looked at her, waited until she looked back, drowned him in the blue of her eyes. Could she read the message in his eyes? Trust me.
He laid the knife against her palm and drew it across in the outflow of his breath. Immediately, crimson drops welled up and began to flow. Jax held her hand over each glass in turn, letting one or two fat drops fall before moving to the next. The blood plunged into the amber liquid, dispersing li
ke smoke. He hoped Amanusa had charged the spell, but if she hadn’t, he could speak the spell while she worked the magic.
With their blood bond broken, could they still work magic that way? He hoped so. It was the best he could come up with.
“Why her hand?” Kazaryk snatched up a glass, peering at the whiskey inside it. “Why not cut her wrist, bleed her out?”
“Because I’m not ready to do that yet. I don’t want to waste any of it, and to let it puddle on the floor would be a mess as well as a waste.” Jax clasped her hand in his, fingers twined, cut to cut, and willed his own wound to bleed more.
His bleeding had slowed, but not stopped completely. The wound was still raw. He wanted her blood inside him again and his inside her. He’d cut her right hand rather than the left for that reason. He could hide their entwined hands in her skirts and still drink with the others.
He held a glass out to Mikoyan, who didn’t quite hide his distaste, but came to take it anyway. Kazaryk handed a glass to Paolo, and Oleg picked up his own.
“To success.” Jax lifted the last glass in a toast. His success was not theirs, but they didn’t know that.
“To victory.” Kazaryk gloated a moment more, then tossed the whiskey and blood down his throat.
Everyone drank. Mikoyan and Paolo only sipped. Oleg tossed his back like Kazaryk. Jax did as well. He wanted as much of Amanusa’s blood inside him as he could get. He would finish off the alchemists’ whiskey if they set it aside.
Damn his stunted magic-sense. He couldn’t tell if any magic was working. Was Amanusa gathering it up? It took time for the magic to work its way into a man’s system, but his blood-to-blood contact with Amanusa ought to work more quickly.
“I don’t feel any different,” Kazaryk said after a few minutes.
“Give it a little time,” Jax said.
“You were at the session yesterday. You were in the session. You should remember,” Mikoyan said.
“That farce.” The Inquisitor sneered and poured himself another drink.
Jax held tight to Amanusa’s hand. Justice magic took only a few drops. More blood could change it to different magic. He wouldn’t spike Kazaryk’s drink again. But Kazaryk didn’t ask for it. Maybe he wanted to see how the first dose hit him. He would learn soon. Surely.
