The Rise of Magicks

by Roberts, Nora

  “I don’t know why the hell we’re here, but you’re not going to put that on me. You started it, sister. You moved on me.”

  “I . . .”

  He watched the temper change to confusion, then—some satisfaction, at least—some shock and shame.

  “I wasn’t myself.”

  “Bullshit. You’re always yourself, visions or not.” And he remained so hard, so damn needy he had to fight not to tremble with it. “The vision card doesn’t play for me.”

  “I’m sorry.” She said it stiffly, but she said it. “I don’t know why . . .”

  “More bullshit. We both know why. Sooner or later we’ll finish this and see if that takes care of it, or not. Meanwhile . . .”

  “I’m not a diddler.”

  “A what?”

  So much heat still inside her, she realized. From lust—she wasn’t so stubborn she wouldn’t acknowledge it—and from embarrassment. “It’s what Colin calls girls who come on to guys, then flick them off because they can. I’m not like that.”

  “No, you’re not like that.” Calmer, he looked at her again. “We feel what we feel, you and me. One of the reasons I left is because I’m not ready to feel it. I figure it’s the same for you.”

  “It’d be easier if you stayed mad.”

  “It’d be easier if you let me have you. Too bad for both of us.” He tipped his head back, studied the circling crows. “We’ve been here before, you and me.”

  “Yes. We’ll be here again. What we do then, what we do between now and then, and after? It all matters so much. I can’t think about . . . sex.”

  “Everybody thinks about sex,” he said absently. “I told you I’d come back to New Hope, and I will. I told you I’d come for you, and I will.”

  He drew his sword, enflamed it, shot fire at the crows. He turned to her again as they erupted and fell. “You think of me, too.”

  She woke in her bed with the evening light of summer slipping soft through her windows. She sighed, rolled out of bed to dress and find her family.

  Duncan popped back to his quarters with the same rude jolt he’d popped out of them.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  He dropped down on the side of his bunk to get his breath back. Not like flashing, he thought. That brought a little zip to the blood, but this had been—coming and going—like being shot out of a cannon.

  He damn well didn’t appreciate it.

  He needed a beer, maybe a good, long walk. He needed his hands on Fallon again. No, no, wanted his hands on her, and that was a lot different than need.

  He’d kept them off her for damn near two years, he reminded himself, and got up to pace around the bedroom of the house he shared with Mallick. He’d have kept them off her longer if she hadn’t moved on him.

  Not her fault—not altogether anyway. He wasn’t stupid enough to think otherwise. They’d gotten caught up in something—best to just leave it there.

  How many times had he been to that place in dreams, in visions? The stone dance, the fields, the woods. He’d never been inside the farmhouse where the MacLeods had lived for generations before the Doom, but he knew it.

  Tonia knew it—because she’d told him.

  Did Fallon?

  He should’ve asked. If he found himself in that field again, he’d go to the house, look for his ghosts. Look for the family who’d worked the land, lived and died there for generations.

  He knew their names because his mother had told him. Their names, their stories. But it wasn’t the same.

  He strapped on his sword. Strange, he’d worn it at the stones, but he’d taken it off to shower after the long training day. He’d worn his prized leather jacket—one he’d scavenged when he and some troops had flashed to Kentucky on a scouting mission.

  Dressed for weather and defense, he considered. Fallon, too, he recalled. Brown leather vest over a sweater, wool pants. She sure as hell hadn’t been sleeping in cool-weather clothes.

  So that was interesting. Magicks were, for him, endlessly interesting. A science, an art, a wonder all wrapped up with power.

  He glanced at the pile of books—most loaned to him by Mallick. Study, the man said, constantly. Read and learn, look and see, train and do.

  His own personal Yoda.

  Man, he missed DVD nights back at home.

  He wandered the room, looking at the sketches he’d pinned on his walls. His mom, his sisters, friends, one of Bill Anderson outside Bygones. One of the memorial tree. It held his father’s name, and the name of the man who’d stood as his father for a brief time.

  The man his mother had loved, for that brief time. And Austin had given him an art set—even more prized than the leather jacket. He’d long since worn the colored pencils, the charcoals, pastels to nothing. But he’d scavenged more.

  Mallick had surprised him, as he’d expected a man who was that hard a taskmaster to scoff at sketches, and to complain about the waste of paper and supplies.

  Instead, Mallick found an alchemist who could create more.

  Art, he’d said, was a gift.

  Of course, it didn’t hurt that Duncan drew maps as well—minutely detailed. Or could re-create an enemy base on paper to help plan a mission.

  Still, Duncan hadn’t shown him the sketches of Fallon. Not even the one he’d done of her drawing the sword and shield from the fire in the Well of Light.

  He nearly opened the drawer where he kept sketches of her, then drew back. Just asking for trouble, he decided. So he dragged his fingers through his disorderly mop of black hair, considered it groomed, and walked out to the living room where Mallick sat by the fire.

  He knew Mallick had chosen what was basically a vacation cabin for the fireplace, the trees, a plot of land he used for a garden, for beekeeping. And it had a loft for his workshop.

  Duncan, who’d considered himself pretty well versed in magicks—hell, he’d taught the younger magickals back in New Hope—had learned a hell of a lot in that loft.

  The place wasn’t much—they had to bespell it in the winter to keep from freezing half to death—but they did well enough. Maybe neither of them could cook worth a damn, but they didn’t starve.

  “I’m going out for a beer.”

  “Have wine instead,” Mallick said, “and tell me about Fallon.”

  Duncan stopped in his tracks. “You sent us there? Goddamn it.”

  “No, but I saw you, both of you, in the fire.”

  “You didn’t send us?”

  “No.” Leaning forward, Mallick poured the second glass of wine—a nice, tart apple wine he’d helped make the previous fall.

  Duncan dropped down on the other end of the battered sofa. He’d rather a beer, but the wine was okay in a pinch.

  He took a swallow, sized up Mallick.

  The man didn’t lie, so there was that. Now he sat, patient—he often displayed the patience of a damn cat at a mouse hole. Gray threaded through his dark hair, worn longer even than Duncan’s. The white streak in his beard added a strange sort of . . . pizzazz, Duncan mused. He kept his body soldier fit.

  Duncan supposed he looked pretty good for a guy with a few centuries under his belt.

  “I was thinking about the beer, and pop. There we were. She said she’d been catching some rack time. She’d have earned it, from what Tonia told us.”

  “Yes.”

  “While we were there she had a vision.”

  Mallick nodded. “Tell me. I could see, but I couldn’t hear.”

  Instead of the beer and the walk, Duncan drank wine by the fire and spoke of visions.

  “Her blood, mine, Tonia’s probably because of the twin deal. No surprise there. How and when,” Duncan mused, “that’s the mystery. Visions are a bitch more than half the time. More questions than answers with the cryptic bullshit.”

  “The answers are there,” Mallick corrected. “You are of the Tuatha de Danann, as is Fallon. As was your grandfather. His blood, innocent blood, played a part in opening the shield. Yours,
and the blood of The One, will close it.”

  Duncan tossed back more wine. “How and when?” he repeated.

  “Courage, faith. These are the what that lead to the how. When you have them, when all that must be done has been done, leads to the when.”

  More cryptic bullshit, Duncan thought. “I put my life on the line, and will again. So does she. So do the people of New Hope, the people here, at every base we’ve established. So do the people who’re fighting who we haven’t been able to reach.”

  “The gods are greedy, boy,” Mallick said mildly.

  “Tell me about it. I don’t ask why—what’s the point—some people kill, torture, enslave other people. They just do.”

  “Fear, ignorance, a thirst for power.”

  “Just words.” Duncan dismissed them as he might a thin layer of dust. “It’s nature, for some it’s just how they’re wired. I’ve read the histories. People did the same as far back as those histories go. Before magicks faded and after. Maybe especially after. The world goes to hell, and they still do it.”

  “Life is long.”

  Duncan smirked. “Yours anyway.”

  Amused, Mallick shook his head. “The life of all, of worlds, of gods and magicks and men. But since mine has been long, I can tell you there have been times of harmony and balance, and always the potential for it. Faith and courage build that potential.”

  “Faith in gods and their cryptic bullshit?”

  “In the light, boy. It’s what it holds and offers. You would fight and die for your beliefs, your ideals, to defend the innocent and oppressed. But after the battle, the blood, the wars, will you live for them? Light for life.”

  “Solas don Saol.” Duncan thought of the words engraved on the wooden cuff Fallon wore.

  “The One came to understand the fight won’t be enough.” Leaning forward, Mallick poured himself more wine. “You’ve failed to report the rest of your time with her tonight.”

  “Not relevant.” Annoyed, Duncan decided he could use a little more wine himself. “Besides, you saw for yourself.”

  Mallick said nothing, just sipped his wine. Damn cat-and-mouse patience.

  “She moved on me. I kept my hands off her until she made the move. And I took them off her when she said no. Except she didn’t say no. She never says no, exactly. And I’m not getting into that with you. It’s weird.”

  “You’re young and healthy, as is she. This alone creates attraction. But there’s more between you than a desire for physical release, and you both know it.”

  “Physical release.” Duncan rubbed his hands over his face, left them there. “Jesus.”

  “Do you think because I haven’t indulged in the pleasures of the flesh I don’t understand desire?”

  “I don’t want to—” Dropping his hands, Duncan stared, those green eyes both fascinated and appalled. “Ever? No sex, as in seriously ever? No, no, don’t tell me. Talk about weird.”

  “Body,” Mallick continued easily, “mind, spirit. There are some who find a mate in all three.”

  “I’m not looking for a mate.”

  Mallick nodded, sipped more wine. “When you don’t look, you don’t see.”

  Enough, Duncan thought as he pushed to his feet. Just enough. “I’m going for a walk.”

  Mallick sat where he was as Duncan strode out. The boy would brood, he thought. He’d also check the sentries, the security levels, do a spot check on the newer recruits.

  The boy was a born soldier, a born leader, though he still had much to learn.

  He would walk off his frustration and his brood, just as he would, eventually, meld his considerable courage with a faith he didn’t yet trust. He’d make his way to where he needed to be.

  The world depended on it.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Fallon spent time with her maps, studied images in her crystal—and slipped into it to gather more intel. Out of habit, she trained before her family rose, in the dark before dawn, conjuring ghosts to battle.

  She helped mix balms, potions, tonics because they were needed and the skill in creating them needed regular honing, like a good tool. She went on hunting parties, scouting parties, scavenged, as those skills required practice as well.

  She’d learned from her parents that she couldn’t lead a community without being part of it. From Mallick she’d learned that training, studying, looking could never cease.

  As she walked to the barracks, the air sang with the ring of steel against steel, the thump, thump of the dummy bullets (real ammo remained too precious for training), the whiz of arrows in flight.

  She watched soldiers and potential soldiers fight their mock battles, with Colin shouting orders and insults with equal fervor.

  “Fuck it, Riaz, you’re dead. Get the damn rocks out of your boots and move your feet! Get off your ass, Petrie. Catch your breath?” She heard him layer in so much incredulity, she snickered as he grabbed Petrie’s sword and used the enchanted blade to mock-slit Petrie’s throat. “Try breathing without a windpipe. Now give me fifty.”

  Petrie, easily twice her brother’s age, rolled over. He may have snarled—silently—but he started counting off the push-ups.

  The brand on Petrie’s wrist gleamed with sweat. He’d train, she thought, and would take orders from a teenager because he knew what it was to be a slave of the Purity Warriors.

  The cult formed by the fanatical Jeremiah White branded magickals on the forehead with a pentagram. Then tortured and executed them. People like Petrie, the non-magickals, they marked as slaves, used as they chose—in the name of their merciless god.

  So Petrie would train, he’d do the fifty, pick up his training sword, and fight back.

  Some wouldn’t. Some freed from slavery or oncoming death wouldn’t pick up a sword or bow. That, she thought, was their choice. There were other ways to fight back. Planting, building, tending stock, teaching, sewing, weaving, cooking, treating the sick or injured, tending to children.

  Many ways to fight.

  Petrie had chosen the sword, and as he sweated out those fifty—arms quivering on the last five—she saw the potential soldier.

  He’d train, she thought again, then she glanced over at the shouts.

  Travis whipped another squad out of the woods, across the field, and through the last, brutal section of the obstacle course. A girl held the lead—maybe sixteen, Fallon judged, pale, pale white skin flushed now with effort. Delicate features, and a fierce determination in exotic eyes as she high-stepped through the old tires. She had a red streak—like a slash of defiance—in her hair while the long black tail of it bounced as she leaped onto the rope wall.

  Climbed it like a lizard up a rock, Fallon noted with approval. Sweat soaked her shirt, ran down her face, but she swung over the ropes, charged up a narrow ramp to vault onto the next wall. She found her handholds, flipped over and down, then bolted over the finish.

  A spotter called out her time. Twenty-three minutes, forty-one seconds.

  Impressed, Fallon walked over, offered a canteen as a couple others hit the final wall.

  “Thanks.”

  “Marichu, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s a damn good time.”

  Marichu swiped away sweat. “You still hold the record at twenty-one twelve. I’ll beat it.”

  “You think?”

  “I’ll beat it.” She handed back the canteen. “I want to go on the next mission.”

  “How long have you been here? About three weeks?”

  “Five. I’m ready.”

  “That’s up to your instructors, and you have three more weeks to meet the minimal eight.”

  “I’m ready,” Marichu repeated and walked away to stretch.

  Fallon waited for Travis, waited until he’d seen the last man over the course, ordered his squad to hit the showers before the next round—tactics, the classroom session their father taught today.

  “Marichu,” she said.

  Travis nodded, guzzled wat
er. Lanky, his hair sun-streaked, and lately sporting a trio of thin braids on the left side, he glanced toward Marichu as she headed for the barracks with the others.

  “Strong, smart, and freaking fast. Damn near elf fast. Well, a slow elf.”

  “But she’s not an elf, right? Faerie.”

  “Yeah. She’s the one who escaped the PWs before they got her to one of their compounds—but not before they’d raped her, knocked her around, and busted one of her wings beyond repair.”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “She was in pretty bad shape when we stumbled on her—heading here, she said. That was me, Flynn, Eddie, and Starr. Fever from infection, half-starved, still hurting bad. Still, she had a stick she’d sharpened like a spear, and would’ve jabbed the shit out of us if she could before we convinced her we were the good guys.”

  “I wasn’t here when you brought her in. The healers tried to fix her wing. Mom tried.”

  “Couldn’t. Too much damage, too much time between the break and when we got her back. Rough for her, but I gotta say, she’s compensated. She’s good with the bow—not great, but she could be. Sloppy with a sword yet, but . . . She’s got speed, endurance, agility—nobody in her group comes close.”

  “Thoughts, feelings?”

  He blew out a breath. He’d been raised not to poke into people’s private thoughts—not that he hadn’t done so now and then. Now, since Petra had infiltrated and attacked, it was part of his job.

  “She’s good at blocking out the poke, I gotta say. But I get she’s pissed, more determined, but pissed, too. She wants to fight. She likes learning to ride, wants to learn to drive. It’s normal stuff, Fallon. No underbelly there, I can feel. Oh, and she’s figured out Colin’s got a thing for her.”

  “What?”

  “He keeps it to himself, because she’s kind of young, and a recruit. But he’s got a little thing there. I didn’t poke in—I could see it. Anyway.”

  “Anyway,” she echoed for lack of anything else. “How many are ready for a mission?”

  “You should ask Dad.”

  “I will. And Poe and Tonia and Colin and all of the instructors. Now I’m asking you.”

  He hooked his thumbs in his front pockets as he chewed it over, bite by bite. The fact he’d think carefully was the very reason she’d asked him first.