Seacursed: The Mage Circle Trilogy: 1

by L. A. McGinnis

  “It’s the book, Kieran, the one we’ve been searching for. And if we play this right, we can finish off Devlin for good.”

  “I still don’t like it. The Book of Worlds…it’s dangerous, Luc. More dangerous than you can imagine. Even if you did manage to steal it from Devlin, he’d come after you with everything he has.” Kieran pursed his lips. “If you’re going to steal something, why not steal the records that have our blood in it? You know, the ones he’ll use to track us down and kill us? That might be a good idea, don’t you think?”

  After listening to them go back and forth, Victoria finally interjected, “If we do manage to get past Devlin, there’s something I want from his office as well.” She paused, then looked to Tate, knowing this would mean something to him, especially. “He has a record of all the Trackers. If I can—”

  Tate surged to his feet. “If you took it, if we had that information…”

  “Exactly,” Victoria said excitedly. “He’d never be able to control us again.” She smiled at the wolf. “I need you to put the cuffs back on me, loosely, so I can slip them off. They’ll know if they’re gone, and I don’t want this plan to fail before we’re inside.” The thought of having them on again, of dampening her power, was a blessing. She glanced over at Lucas. But a curse, too.

  She slid the necklace off, pulled from it the only token she needed and handed the rest to Tate. “You remember how to use all of these, right? I know it’s been a while.” There was a glimmer of white teeth while he pocketed them.

  An hour later, the iron binding her wrists, her magic dampened until it was practically nonexistent, Victoria stood at the portal with Lucas at her side. Fear coiling in her stomach, she clasped Luc’s hand and stepped through, feeling the whip of wind against her face as they were transported to London.

  Except…they weren’t.

  They’d emerged in some foggy version of hell, smelling of dead fish and rotting timbers. Victoria squeezed Luc’s hand tighter as she peered around, the mist swirling so densely that she couldn’t see a thing. Waves crashed against a wooden dock with a hollow sound, and beneath the fish, the air was ripe with brine and spume.

  “Well, shit,” Luc said. “Any ideas?”

  She had a few. The moisture-laden fog’s distinct aroma smelled of high cliffs and soaring birds. It smelled of home. The portal could have taken them anywhere.

  Why had it brought her here?

  She hadn’t been home in close to twenty years. In truth, she rarely ever thought about this tiny, backward place. But some said the portals took you where you needed to go, and right about now, Victoria was inclined to believe them.

  “Lucas.” She whirled to him, sorting through the possible reasons they’d been dropped here, in the most unlikely place on earth. With the fog swirling around him, he looked like some ancient wayfarer, given to her by the sea. Victoria drew her hand down his face, taking the time, the precious time to really study him. He was beautiful. So beautiful, and if things went right, if everything worked…

  He might be hers. And she might be his. If only…

  “I need you to listen very carefully to me. And I need you to trust me.”

  Tenderness flickered in his eyes before he finally nodded.

  “This is the village where I grew up. This is where I buried my…the man who raised me. And out there”—she pointed to the open sea—“is the only place I can find the answers I need. An hour, no more, then I’ll be back. I swear it. I won’t waste any more time than that. After that…well, it depends on what I find.” She pressed a kiss to his mouth, peeled the cuffs off her wrists, put them in his hand and closed his fingers over them. “Keep these for me until I get back. Trust me, Luc. Trust that I’ll find something that will help us.”

  But he didn’t release her hand. “Take me with you, Vic. I want to see…I want to see where you came from.” His eyes were shining, not a bit of fear in them, only curiosity.

  “I can’t,” she said. “You can’t go where I have to.”

  “You took me before. We did…before.” His eyes shuttered, distrust or something like it growing in them. “I can’t just let you leave. We’re in the middle of nowhere. And you have so little time left.”

  Victoria leaned forward, laid her head on his chest and savored the steady beating there. A moment later, Luc cupped the back of her head and drew her closer.

  “This is something I have to do alone. Find the answers I never dared ask. If I find them, if what Kieran and Tate said is true, then maybe none of us will…get hurt.” She’d been on the verge of saying die, but it seemed too grim, given the reality of what they were facing.

  Even here, at the ends of the Earth, the Circle would find them.

  Luc sighed, gave her hand a final brush goodbye, then stepped back, releasing her. She knew how hard this was for him. And she loved him even more for it.

  “Thank you. I swear to you, I’ll come back.” And with that, she dove into the spume and let the freezing water pull her down, almost to the bottom.

  The second the waves enfolded her, her pale skin transformed to glittering scales, her eyes changed to adjust to the dim, filtered light and the oxygen filling her lungs tasted briny and cold. One strong kick of her feet took her past the breaking waves, another through the jutting rocks, and then she was past them, shooting into the depths. Without the iron binding her, she became a sleek predator, nothing but teeth and scales, riding the surging currents, cutting through the water like a knife.

  Moments, perhaps, before she reached the deepest depths, her eyes adjusting to the blackness, her senses kept pulling her…there. To the right, where a shadowy, jagged structure was barely visible.

  Victoria angled toward it, then felt the cold bite of a magical ward dance across her skin.

  She hesitated, but she was through. Whoever erected the protective barrier had allowed her to cross it, which meant—she hoped—that she had permission to be here. A leisurely kick shot her straight across to the towering fortification; another had her circling the top of a high, coral-adorned spire. Sinking lower, she noted the loveliness of the structure, covered in the sway of the soft, flowery creatures, the delicate branching of corals. Shimmering schools of fish spiraled away from her, leaving a cloud of bubbles.

  Settling onto the sandy bottom, she peered into the darkness of a doorway, then pushed herself through it and entered a cavernous room, as if the center of the ocean floor had been carved out. In it hovered a man, his tail covered in golden scales, eyes burning with a blue-green fire, his hair as white as the sand beneath him.

  “Daughter,” the man said, revealing sharp white teeth.

  “Father,” she replied, looking everywhere at once. There were faces in the openings now, some murky, some clear, all watching the exchange intently.

  “I only…I just found out,” she told him, glancing over her shoulder at their silent audience. “Had I known what I was…who I was, I would have come before.” A tremor of anger went through her at this long-delayed reunion. How could the Circle have cheated her out of her future? How could they take this away from her?

  Her father wasn’t old, or young, just ageless. And he had the same sleek white hair she did, the same color eyes, his skin completely covered in the same glittering scales, right down to his elegant tail. But there was no denying the aura of authority surrounding him; it encompassed the hall they were inside, filled it with a rippling power. Kieran said Manannan was a king, and from where she stood—swam—Victoria knew he was right.

  When all her father did was watch her, she tilted her head. “I’ve come to ask your help. I didn’t want to begin our relationship this way, but it really is a matter of life or death.” The slightest inclination of his head gave Victoria enough hope. “I have a death spell on me. If I don’t return to the Mage Circle in a few hours, I will die.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I have heard of this Circle. They are powerful, but corrupt. You cannot return to them. You will stay with me. Our wards are i
mpenetrable. The humans will not find you here.”

  Considering the powerful creature in front of her—considering her change in fortune—the crazy idea that she’d been nurturing for years turned into a slim possibility. “I have to return. There is something I must do. There are others…like me…and I want to free them. All of them. Is there a way?”

  “Why?”

  She didn’t think he’d opened his mouth—rather, the word might be echoing in her head. “Because for the last eighteen years, the Circle kept me as a slave. And I want to make sure nobody else endures what I have.” She looked straight at him. “After I free them, I will punish the men who did this to us.”

  Now that stony expression changed. It didn’t soften—no, it turned positively cruel. “You truly are my daughter. Very well. What do you require?”

  “First of all, can the death spell be reversed?”

  He nodded, then a ripple of magic swept through the water. As her father’s ancient magic encompassed her, Victoria felt the curse leach out of her, followed by a cramping pain as the dormant poison disappeared from her flesh. Beneath her skin, her magic sang, as if the final damper had been removed. For the first time since she was captured, Victoria felt free. Finally, there was no leash on her, and wouldn’t Devlin be surprised when he found out? Better yet, now they had ample time to lay out their plan.

  She inclined her head. “Thank you for removing the spell. Now, I will return this token to you.” She offered him the coin on her palm, the metal glimmering in the shifting light. “This should be… You should give this to one of your other children. Perhaps one who deserves it.”

  A dark chuckle rippled through the water, the force of it pushing her back. “That memento, daughter, is yours.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  “Nevertheless, it is yours.” Manannan offered a faint, predatory smile. “A gift. For my only child. My immortal daughter.” His smile turned to pride—pride and a sense of uncertainty as he noted her sudden apprehension.

  Victoria kicked her feet, pushing herself away from such an unlikely proclamation. A low murmuring issued from the windows as the gathering heard Manannan’s words. No, that cannot be right. “I can’t be… Certainly that’s not… I’m not your only child. And I’m certainly not immortal.”

  But the god of the sea inclined his head and watched her grapple with the idea, the coin clenched tightly in her hand. “It’s true. You are my only offspring—queen of all you see.” He swept a hand through the water. “If you so wish. I left you that coin the day I discovered you existed. And it is yours, until the day you pass it on to your child. With it, you hold the power of bestowing life. Or death.”

  Victoria shook her head vehemently, her hair winding around her face. “But none of this can be true. I was raised by a human. I lived most of my life on land.”

  “We thought it prudent, your mother and I, that you grow up in a more…civilized environment,” Manannan explained slowly, his uncanny eyes glinting. “After the human male drowned, I could not find you. I tried, but my scouts were never able to locate you. I thought you were lost. For that, I am sorry.”

  “The other slaves have the same death spell upon them. Is there any way for me to remove it, to free them?”

  Manannan’s eyes dropped to the pale bands circling her wrists. “Iron is not the only chain that binds, and the death spell will be harder to break. A true god, experienced and older, could do it easily, Victoria.” The way he drew out her name—Veeec-tooor-e-ah—had her smiling. “But one as young as you? You will not be able to break them by yourself, no matter how hard you try.” His silvery eyes shifted in the filtered light as she sorted through other possibilities, other questions she might ask in the precious moments she had left.

  “Well, I’m still going back to the Circle,” Victoria said softly. “To try to free them. Even though Devlin stands in my way.”

  “Devlin Bloodsbane?” Manannan asked, then sniffed. “I sensed a dark magic in the death spell. I wondered…how I recognized it.” His deep voice vibrated with anger.

  “How do you know Devlin?”

  A wicked smile creased her father’s face. “Long ago he came to our world seeking to conquer it. For a time, he sailed the seas and worked his magic—his evil—upon the seas. He and I waged our share of battles. Some of them he won. And some I won. He would have ruined this planet, as he did so many others, but he was finally stopped and bound to this world. Kieran Greycloak stole Devlin’s world-walking magic and trapped him here.” He shot her an appraising look. “I owe the Greycloak brothers a great deal. But in all I’ve seen, I never thought one might take my daughter away.”

  Victoria was struck speechless.

  “It’s clear Devlin uses his own blood to imbue the death spell into his victims. Which makes it nigh unbreakable.” Now her father’s anger shivered in the water around them, and their audience began to disappear. “Is he the one who enslaved you?”

  Victoria shook her head. “It was the Circle who bought me all those years ago. Devlin’s involved, somehow, but he operates in the background.”

  Her father shook his head sadly. “Had I known… I should have come for you myself.” There was a long silence, and then he finally said, “They say Devlin is unkillable. From my experience, that is true.” Victoria’s heart sank. “But there is a book that he guards zealously; he is never far from it. If you had that, there might be a chance…” Her father’s words tapered off as he furrowed his brow in thought.

  The book. He had to be talking about the same book Lucas was after.

  “Even stripped of his world-walking magic, Devlin remains immortal. Many have tried to kill him; all have failed. It’s said that book grants him immortality.” Her father went on, his white hair floating around his face, “If it’s true—if he’s only immortal if he has the book—there’s a chance he can be stopped. Take your fire god and steal away his power, as he did to you. And if you two manage to kill Devlin in the process?” Manannan grinned, revealing long, narrow teeth. “Then bring me back his head, daughter. I’ll spike it to my wall.”

  “If we can, we will.” Victoria hung in the water for another moment, wondering how her father knew so much about Devlin.

  “One last thing,” he said. “The walls of the Circle are warded in many ways, but the book itself is tainted with Devlin’s evil. It will not be an easy task to remove it from Obsidian Hall. Take great care in your quest, and know this, daughter…”

  He inclined his head. “No matter what happens, you are always welcome here.”

  27

  “Where the hell are you, Victoria?” Lucas muttered, pulling his sweatshirt around him tighter.

  When the fog receded, dark clouds swept in behind it, heavy with rain. And as they dumped a cold torrent upon him, Lucas remained at the edge, scanning the waves for any sign of blonde hair.

  The rocks jutting out of the churning froth looked like black and broken teeth, gnawing at the edge of the limestone cliff upon which he stood. Where he would stand, he swore, until Victoria reappeared.

  Finally, far out in the flatness, past the breaking of the furthest waves, a white-blonde head bobbed and then disappeared. A moment later, she was between two roaring breakers, and then she climbed the steep shore, saltwater sloughing off her, in sand up to her ankles.

  Lucas ran down to meet her and pulled her in so hard that she threw a hand against his chest, then settled against him. “We have enough time now. The death spell is gone. My father removed it.”

  But her eyes told him a different story. Not everything had gone to plan, then.

  “Let’s get inside first, then I’ll tell you everything.”

  The house she’d grown up in was half rotted from the salt, but the roof was solid enough, and the windows kept out the rain. Lucas made a fire in the fireplace from the remaining furniture, and Victoria found a few blankets that hadn’t yet dissolved in the weather. They both stripped down, throwing their wet clothing in a soppin
g pile on the floor. Once they were wrapped up tightly in front of the fireplace, Victoria spoke.

  “I found him, at the bottom, far out at sea. Manannan.” Her shoulders slumped. “My father. He really is my father.”

  Lucas reached out, pulled her close and tucked her head under his chin.

  “I think I was hoping he wasn’t, that this was all some sort of mistake. But it’s not. I tried to give him back the coin, Luc. He wouldn’t take it.”

  Of course not, Luc thought. That would be too easy. “What was he like, Vic?”

  “He was…cold. Unwavering. Utterly bloodthirsty. Has a grudge against Devlin, which might come in handy. But he seemed to like me well enough.” She moved closer, something in her seeming to grow taut. “He claimed I was his only child.”

  He rode out the long silence and was about to fill it with something light and meaningless, when she added, “Told me I’m immortal.”

  Ah. Stripping everything out of his voice, anything she might interpret as pity, he asked, “And? What else did he say?”

  She pulled back far enough to scan his face. “Isn’t that enough? For God’s sake, Lucas. I went from being a slave, doing the Circle’s dirty work, to being on the run, to being…this.” She waved her hands around beneath the blanket, dust flying all about. “Now I find out I’m immortal. What next? I’m Fae?” Something rippled through her face, a hint of the power beneath that shimmering skin, a shadow of what lay beneath. With a shuddering breath, she shoved her hands toward him. “The cuffs—put them on me.” When he made no move to do so, she said, “Put them on me.”

  Regretfully, he slid them on, feeling her relax beneath his touch, as if the cool bite of the metal was somehow comforting. “Would it be so bad, then, to be immortal?” Lucas asked nonchalantly, his hands still upon her, gliding along that smooth, pale skin. “Would it be so bad, if you had someone to spend the time with?”