The Spellcast Gate (Accessory to Magic Book 5)

by Kathrin Hutson

  The sky that would either be the last thing she saw in Xahar’áhsh or the last thing she saw on Earth. Either way, both worlds were fucked, and she was the one who’d let it happen.

  The tears streaming from the corners of her eyes as she gasped for breath somehow hurt far worse than what might have been a few broken bones at this point. Those would heal.

  The rest of it... Well, the rest of it wouldn’t matter soon anyway.

  “Jessica.” Leandras skidded across the dirt and fell to his knees beside her. “No, no, no. I didn’t... Jessica, look at me.”

  She closed her eyes and could only let out a long, grating growl in response.

  If she couldn’t kill him and she couldn’t move to get as far away as possible, this was the last bit of autonomy she had. Maybe she’d just never get up and hope it rained again soon.

  “I know there’s nothing I can say to justify what you saw back there.” His voice broke as he said it, and Jessica clenched her eyes shut when he brushed her dust-covered hair away from her face.

  Fuck, why was it taking her so long to heal?

  Because this was more than a few broken bones. Something in her spine had to have snapped. Which would explain why she couldn’t feel her legs and why she couldn’t move. Not yet.

  Two broken eardrums and temporary deafness would have been a hell of a lot more useful, because the Laen’aroth just wouldn’t stop talking.

  “I had hoped the rest of my role in this had changed far more than this, but clearly, that’s not the case. I...” He hung his head and took a shuddering breath. “I swore myself so long ago, Jessica. So long that I hardly remember the reasons I did it. But now I’m being reminded of the cost.”

  He swallowed thickly, and Jessica opened her eyes to glare at him. Still no fully healed paralysis, but she could at least talk. “Fuck you.”

  Leandras clenched his jaw. “I’ve been serving two masters, yes. One on either side of this war. The Order of Laenmúr and the Dalu—”

  “Get away from me,” she snarled.

  “No, I’ll be here until you can move again, then you’re free to kill me if you want. But you have to hear this.” His eyes flashed silver as he met her gaze, his jaw clenching fiercely and his lips trembling.

  Yeah, right. None of it was real. Not now. Not after what she’d seen.

  Jessica closed her eyes again, because that was still her only option.

  “My time in your world was spent with a single purpose,” Leandras continued, the words spilling out of him in a rush. “I was to find the Guardian and gain their trust. Push as hard as I needed from whatever angle to get the Gateway open so we could be here. The task was simple enough in theory, and I thought it would be far simpler with Tabitha gone and someone like you to fill the role. Someone...who didn’t know half as much as you should have.”

  Jessica huffed out a poisonously bitter laugh, her chest heaving as she lay there in the dirt, completely at this bastard’s mercy. Why he didn’t just kill her now was beyond her, but hey. The Laen’aroth did things his own way, didn’t he?

  “And yes, that was still the plan when we stepped into this world.”

  “I will kill you if you don’t stop right now,” she growled.

  “But so many centuries in your world, without the constant fangs of one master puncturing what little sanity I had left... Jessica, it made all the difference. You are so much more than I ever anticipated, and you brought me back from the other side of the veil. It’s where I should be now. It’s what I deserve—”

  “You’re fucking right it is.” A sharp lance of pain shot through both her legs, moving up from her feet to her hips in one agonizing line, and she choked back a scream.

  Finally. Way to take forever.

  “But it’s not where I am. Because you’ve turned all the laws as I’ve always known them on their heads. Tabitha wanted you to trust me. She saw that I could change, and you’ve proven it. That light you said reached the sky when I died. It should have called my master to find my corpse.”

  “Stop saying that.” Jessica tried to make a fist against the dirt, but all she could get was a brief twitch of her fingers.

  Almost there.

  “It didn’t. He has no idea things are any different than he planned. He does not know about you. And I...” Leandras’ voice broke again before he sucked in another shuddering breath. “I had no idea what he would do to my home while I was so busy being his pawn. I have to stop this. We have to stop this. Jessica, it’s so much more than—”

  She couldn’t hold back any longer and swung with all her strength to sock him in the face. Only her full strength hadn’t returned, neither had her aim, and her fist cracked against the side of his skull instead.

  The sound of her finger bones snapping was far worse than the pain, and Leandras reeled back before dropping sideways into the dirt.

  Yeah, she would have knocked him unconscious if she’d gotten that one right.

  Sitting up with a groan, Jessica clutched her broken hand to her chest—which wouldn’t be broken that much longer—and glared at the fae man blinking furiously in the dirt, finally too stunned to bullshit her with anything else.

  “I don’t give a shit what you think changed. You haven’t. Every goddamn word you’ve said since we met was a lie.”

  “Not...” Leandras blinked again and grunted. “Not true.”

  She scoffed. “Good luck with your denial. Maybe it’ll kill you before your master does.”

  Still favoring her already mending hand, she pushed herself to her feet and staggered across the broken earth.

  “I can change what I’ve done in the past just as much as you can, Jessica,” he called after her. “You let your mistakes hold you back once. As did I.”

  “My mistakes didn’t destroy two worlds, asshole.”

  “Neither have mine. Not yet.” Leandras groaned, the sound fading away behind her, and she didn’t stop.

  Maybe he was getting back up to stop her one more time. Let him try.

  She was more than ready to send him back through the veil if that was what it took.

  “Nothing is set in stone, Jessica,” he shouted. “Not even life and death are as they seem. Nothing is.”

  Jessica stopped dead in the middle of nowhere, clenching both fists now that her broken bones had stitched themselves fully back together.

  “Nothing is as it seems.”

  What the hell was it with scryers giving her cryptic messages for the future and creepy-ass hermit women giving her warnings for the present?

  That was what Ocaiye had said—what she’d been very clear about repeating before Jessica and Leandras left the Laenmúr clearing with their final artifact for his goddamn spell. Probably a spell to raise the Dalu’Rázj to enough power that consuming a second world would be a walk in the park.

  Then again, Jessica had been screwing up over and over because she’d refused to listen to those warnings.

  Tabitha and Ocaiye couldn’t both be wrong.

  More than anything, she wanted them to be wrong. Because that would give her an easy way out of this, wouldn’t it? She could blame everything on Leandras Vilafor, the snake of Xahar’áhsh, and deny everything she felt for him because it was all a lie.

  Then she wouldn’t have to face the fact that the Guardian of the Gateway had fallen for a fae man who might or might not still be working another angle, because that had been his purpose here all along.

  And she’d been so stupidly blind, she hadn’t seen any of this coming.

  Chapter 15

  Slowly, Jessica turned around to see Leandras pushing himself off the dirt with trembling arms. Maybe she’d knocked some sense into him with that last punch, but if he tried to slip his way out of this again with more bullshit excuses, she wouldn’t miss the next time.

  And she hoped she wasn’t about to make the biggest mistake of her long career in screwing things up by believing one dead scryer witch and a creepy woman in furs who’d up and disappea
red.

  “Was everything you told me a lie?”

  Leandras looked quickly up at her, destroying his concentration on picking himself up, and his balance teetered. “No. Of course not.”

  “How much of it was your twisted version of the truth?”

  The fae finally got up onto his knees and gazed around the barren landscape. “Most of it. Before we stepped through the Gateway.”

  “And after that?” Jessica slowly walked toward him, seriously glad now the tears she’d never really shed had all dried up. Crying wouldn’t exactly paint the most threatening picture.

  “After I died, Jessica, everything I’ve said to you has been completely true. Without ulterior motive.” He dipped his head. “I can promise you that.”

  She finally reached him and definitely found a certain level of satisfaction in seeing the Laen’aroth on his knees and the blood trickling out from under his hairline to trail down the side of his face. “Prove it.”

  Leandras spread his arms, but for the first time, the gesture looked more like defeat. “I have nothing else to say.”

  “Then you’re done. We’re done. Hand over the artifacts, and I’ll find someone else to help me cast the spell.”

  “Jessica.” His flickering smile wasn’t strong enough to cut through his obvious anxiety. “Who else would you find?”

  “Well to start, there’s an entire faction of Laenmúr right outside my front door willing to do whatever it takes. Without lying to me.”

  The fae’s eyes widened, and he swallowed. “Please.”

  It took all her willpower not to sock him again right there. “The artifacts, Vem-da’án.”

  The word was so fucking weird coming from her own lips, and just saying it almost made her gag.

  It seemed to have something of a similar effect on Leandras, whose eyelids fluttered as he pressed his lips together and stared at the dead earth between them. “That’s not who I am.”

  “Whoever you are, I can’t trust you.”

  “All right.” He lifted his hands in concession and looked up with so much desperation, Jessica wondered how far she could take this without actually breaking him.

  But she had to push. If anyone knew how hard it was to force a habitual liar into breaking that habit, she did. She’d spent too many years lying to herself, and that was almost as bad.

  “I can prove it to you, Jessica. If you’ll allow me to do so.”

  “So do it.”

  “Not...” Leandras looked around again—seeing nothing but wasteland and more wasteland, because there was nothing else—and lowered his voice. “Not here. It will not work here. The ties binding me are too strong—”

  “Then forget it.” She turned around to walk away, and the fae man leapt to his feet.

  He staggered forward, caught his balance with another grunt of effort, and hurried after her.

  “Jessica, on the other side the Gateway, in your world and where your magic is tied to the bank, I can break the Dalu’Rázj’s bonds.”

  “Should’ve thought of that before we got here.”

  “It doesn’t work that way. Wait.” He scurried around her and tried to reach for her hands.

  Jessica snatched them away, glaring at him, and instantly lifted his hands again before taking a step back.

  “The magic tying me to my...to him cannot be broken unless a new bond is there to take its place.”

  “Then I guess you’re screwed.”

  “Jessica, I will prove it to you. Let me do this. You are the Guardian, and I... I’m not certain what I am at this point, but I will break my allegiance to the Dalu’Rázj and swear myself to you instead.”

  She frowned and almost turned away again.

  If they kept this up, she’d cover more ground walking back and forth away from him than it would probably take them to get back to Cálindor.

  “A promise isn’t good enough.”

  “It’s more than that.” Leandras dropped his gaze again. “An old Xaharí ritual. It’s... It is absolute. The only way I can break my ties here is to reunite them with another.”

  Jessica clenched her teeth and studied his expression. Everything about his hunched shoulders and his lowered gaze screamed submissiveness, but that wasn’t what she wanted either, was it?

  “You mean another master,” she muttered.

  “Call it whatever you like. I will do this for you. For my home, and for yours. I’m merely...” He dipped his head even lower, and all she wanted was to tell him to cut it out. For some reason, she didn’t. “I’m merely asking that you let me accompany you through the Gateway again. One day on the other side, and I will prove to you that I...”

  That he deserved a second chance. Or a third. Or a hundredth.

  Jessica swallowed thickly.

  This wasn’t right. Someone like Leandras wasn’t made to grovel at anyone’s feet, and here he was, doing just that. Practically begging Jessica to let him swear an old Xaharí oath that would eternally bind him to her as his master.

  “That I can change, Jessica,” he continued in a whisper, closing his eyes. “That I already have.”

  What the hell was she supposed to say to that?

  They stayed there for a long time just like that, the Laen’aroth with his head bowed in supplication and the vestrohím Guardian standing over him like judge, jury, and executioner.

  Because she was.

  Then Leandras cleared his throat and added, “If you want me to beg, I will.”

  Under any other circumstances, Jessica might have laughed at the sight of him starting to lower himself to his knees again. Instead, it was horrifying.

  “Don’t.” She stepped toward him, and he stopped, looking up at her with wide eyes. No trace of amusement. No sign that he was thinking or planning to do anything other than what was clearly written across his face in that moment. “Christ, Leandras. Don’t do that.”

  The corners of his mouth lifted in a clearly uncomfortable grimace as he straightened and bowed his head again. “As you wish.”

  Jessica sucked in a sharp breath and glanced at the sky.

  Their trip back to the Gateway was going to be so much worse than everything they’d encountered in this world put together, but she wouldn’t leave him here.

  She wouldn’t be the heartless piece of shit who’d finally forgiven herself but couldn’t find it in her to at least try to forgive this fae man.

  That didn’t mean she had to like it.

  No, it made her sick. But if there was a chance he wasn’t actually lying to her now, she couldn’t afford to turn him away.

  And nothing was as it seemed, right?

  “Just tell me which way to Cálindor,” she muttered.

  Leandras raised his eyebrows and pointed across the barren land.

  “Great.” She turned around and headed that way, forcing herself not to run. “I’d keep up if I were you.”

  He didn’t say a word as he hurried after her. Pretty soon, he’d probably end up taking the lead, because Jessica had no damn clue where she was going.

  For now, though, having the Laen’aroth following her across a dead world seemed a lot less pitiful than the other way around.

  THE FIRST THING HE said to her after an unbearably long silence was that they should rest. Jessica didn’t even bother arguing against it; she was exhausted, and there was no way to tell how long they’d been walking or how far they’d come. So she sat right where they were, ate the charred mulgadí he offered from his pockets, and curled up in the dirt afterward because she couldn’t keep her eyes open.

  They traveled like this for who knew how long until it was one endless string of monotony repeating itself—walking until they could hardly stand, eating small helpings of shriveled mushrooms, sleeping in strained silence, then getting back up to do it all over again. They passed no one and saw no sign of life in all this sameness.

  At least there wasn’t an actual sun beating down on them to add to the torture, but the temperature had risen si
gnificantly from its post-rainstorm freeze.

  Despite all her efforts to completely empty her mind and focus on one footstep after the other, Jessica’s mind had other plans. It returned again and again to the fae’s offer, as if reviewing it to death would bring her an answer to such an impossible decision.

  Leandras wanted to break away from the Dalu’Rázj. That part was all hunky-dory, sure. But to do that, he had to swear himself to someone else, and he wanted that someone else to be her.

  How was she supposed to give him the green light on that one? How could she possibly know if that was something she even wanted? Flat-out turning him down wasn’t exactly an option; it would make standing against his current master that much harder for all of them.

  That much more treacherous.

  But if Jessica didn’t become the Laen’aroth’s new number one, who the hell else would be the one to take the job? The options were pretty damn limited.

  Shit.

  And she thought she’d had commitment issues before this became an option.

  It felt like she had all the time in the world to think about it as their monotonous trek across Xahar’áhsh stretched on. But even when she saw what looked like a giant wall in the middle of nowhere in the distance, she still hadn’t made up her mind. The only thing she knew for sure was that she had Leandras with her right now, and Leandras had the artifacts.

  The only way to keep moving forward was to trust that he wouldn’t have subjugated himself like he had if he wasn’t being desperately honest with her. For once.

  Jessica had been asking for the truth from the beginning, hadn’t she?

  Yeah, and the whole truth really blew chunks on this one.

  FINALLY, THEY MADE it close enough to that wall in the distance for Jessica to recognize it for what it was—the ruins of Cálindor. They’d made it.

  And not once had they seen another living thing across the wasteland. That included the imminent attack Leandras had been so sure they’d have to fight back.

  “What happened to the giant pit?” she muttered.

  It was the first thing she’d said since telling Leandras to point the way back to the Gateway, and the fae man blinked quickly in obvious surprise before finding a suitable answer. “On the other side of the ruins.”