“I’m no expert at magic,” Exequías said, “but doesn’t it take power to maintain something like this? What kind of spell is still this strong two hundred years later?”
“The kind of spells Midnight would buy,” Rikai answered, shouldering past them at a slower but no less inexorable pace. The rest of them fell in line behind her, Jay’s steps tense, as if he were still fighting the instinct to run. “They were first crafted through sacrifice. When Midnight was attacked, the spells were fed with slaughter, and enough magic to leave stone smoldering for centuries.”
“You mean the spells got stronger after the attack?” Brina asked. She had no magical expertise personally, but she knew some of the witches who had supported Midnight. Black was not a dark enough word to describe some of their rituals.
“More than that,” Rikai answered. “I think it’s no coincidence that the civilizations who lent their power to this attack have all fallen into decline since. Before that attack, even Midnight feared the Shantel, the Azteka, and the shm’Ahnmik. They were worth fearing. Now they’re so insignificant that many consider them myths. The wreckage their actions left behind has been like an open wound that any parasite could use. I doubt Midnight’s defense spells were the only opportunistic leeches who noticed.” With a glance back and an unsettling smile, she added, “I know that I certainly intend to return, once other matters are—”
She broke off, going still. Brina moved up beside her and realized what had made the witch stop: the road was gone.
Looking back revealed more of the same. Without warning, they were in the middle of pristine wilderness.
“How did we lose the path?” Jay asked, looking around.
“We must have crossed into Shantel territory,” Brina replied. “There are no paths here.” She had never traveled through Shantel land, but she had heard stories from others who had. Once within the forest’s magical snare, no compass or map could save you.
“But we were just on a path,” Jay protested.
“And now we’re not,” Rikai snapped. “The Shantel were masters of illusion. Jay, what do you sense?”
Jay closed his eyes. “Power,” he answered. “It has a feline flavor. I can’t sense where it’s coming from.”
“Let me see if I can pierce a hole in this veil,” Rikai said, and she folded her legs to sit cross-legged on the ground. From her pack, she pulled what looked like a long silver chain. As she made a circle in the snow around her, the metal glowed so white-hot that Brina had to look away from its glare.
Brina paced a little, and opened a water bottle to take a few careful sips. Her throat was sore from panting as she’d struggled to keep up with Jay’s near-run, and her legs felt stiff and tingly. If she sat down, she doubted she would be able to get back up quickly.
Unexpectedly, she met Jay’s gaze. Something in those hazel eyes made her want to reach out to him, but before she could give into the impulse, Rikai stood up and announced confidently, “This way.”
They continued, but less than an hour later, Lynx let out a frustrated yowl, and Jay said, “We’ve turned around.”
“No, we haven’t,” Rikai replied.
“If we’re heading east, the sun shouldn’t be in front of us this time of day,” Jay insisted. He paused to turn on the watchlike compass on his wrist, and then turned it off again with a sound of disgust.
Brina explained, “You can’t trust the sun in the Shantel forest, any more than you can trust your gadgets.”
“I trust my power,” Rikai replied firmly.
Lynx growled, but what choice did they have? They followed Rikai. With sore legs and an increasingly aching head, Brina forced one foot in front of another, until, as the woods began to darken, Jay announced, “We’ve been here before.”
“We haven’t—”
“We have,” the witch interrupted sharply. “Lynx can recognize his own scent markers. We’ve been here.”
“You trust cat pee over magic?” Rikai asked incredulously.
“I do,” Exequías broke in. “Cat pee never lies. And it’s too dark to travel farther tonight. We’ll have to come up with another plan in the morning.”
Morning came far too soon.
“Brina?”
She mumbled a complaint in response to whoever was saying her name and touching her shoulder. Then her cheek, and her neck.
“Brina, can you hear me?”
She attempted to swat at the irritation, and found her wrist caught. Didn’t they understand she was tired? Couldn’t she sleep a little longer?
“Go away.” Her voice cracked. Her throat hurt. Swallowing hurt more.
“She’s sick?” Exequías asked.
She sat bolt upright, protesting, “Of course I’m not.” But moving so quickly made her head spin and her stomach twist. She gagged, and that made her cough, and once she started, she couldn’t seem to stop.
Oh, God, it hurts.
“Brina, calm down,” Jay said. “You’re hyperventilating.”
He didn’t know. He couldn’t understand, no matter what his magic told him about her.
She wasn’t sick.
She couldn’t be sick.
She just needed some air.
She slapped hands away as they tried to keep her from pulling on her boots, and then she shoved her way out of the stifling tent. She fled the accusation of illness. She fled the memory of clutching Angelica’s cooling body. She fled the nights of huddling in doorways, trying to get out of the rain and wondering if the rattling in her lungs was pneumonia, or tuberculosis … or plague.…
Once outside, however, the winter cold cut straight through her. She tucked her bare hands inside her fleece sleeves as she turned back toward the tent, trying to hold her head high as if she hadn’t been panicking.
The campsite had vanished. Her footprints filled in as she watched, as if an unfelt wind were drifting the snow until there was no path to follow back.
“Hello?” she called.
Foolish, she thought. The Shantel never liked our kind.
But I’m not one of my kind anymore.
I’m talking to myself.
She tried to focus, but exhaustion coupled with fever to cloud her thoughts. Maybe if she took a nap, she would be able to think.
“No, stupid,” she said. Now I’m talking out loud to myself. But she kept doing it, because thinking silently was harder. “You can’t sleep in the snow. Humans don’t wake up when they do that. Need to get back to camp. They’ll look for me. Won’t find me, if the Shantel magic doesn’t want them to.”
She started walking. She couldn’t make a straight line. She drifted; she stumbled and occasionally bumped into trees. Her vision was blurry, and it seemed to take a monumental effort to lift each leg.
“Don’t want to die,” she said, over and over, until her throat hurt too much and she couldn’t speak or swallow anymore.
“Brina!”
She turned, awash with gratitude. “Jay!”
He caught her up in his arms. Warmth seeped off him; she snuggled close.
“I tried to tell you before you ran off that I can help you,” he said. “This isn’t like before, Brina. You’re a little sick, but it’s probably just a cold, maybe the flu, but nothing I can’t help with. You’ll be okay, I promise.”
His voice was comforting.
“Let’s get you back to the tent,” he said. “We should eat before …”
He trailed off, which made her glance up. He was looking around, obviously concerned.
“Xeke? Rikai?”
No reply.
“They were right here,” Jay said. “Damn it. I didn’t go that far. I didn’t think we could be split up when we should still be close enough to see each other.” He rested his cheek on her hair.
Brina yelped, startled, as a furry beast suddenly tumbled into sight. Lynx! He yowled, then turned about, took two steps, and glanced back at them with an impatient expression.
“He’s found something,” Jay said. “Let�
��s go.”
Brina was still a bit unsteady, but it was nice to walk without layers of clothes, the heavy pack weighing her down, and the sled snagging on rocks and brambles every few minutes. Jay’s hand was solid in hers, and his power wove a sphere of warmth around them. Her headache started to fade.
The feeling of unreality continued as they emerged from the forest and found a low stone wall, with deep drifting snow leading up to it but barely a dusting of powder on top or on the other side of the wall, as if the wind and trees and structures had colluded to prevent the snow from falling there. Jay placed one foot atop the wall, twisting to reach back to take her hand, and suddenly her fingers itched for a paintbrush.
A variation on Cernunnos, she decided, the stag lord of the hunt. Except, instead of a stag, Jay had his lynx companion. She hadn’t had an image appeal to her so powerfully since … since the days before she had wept over her brother’s dead body.
“If we survive, I’ll happily model for you,” her Cernunnos said, shaking his hair back. It billowed around his face, the sunset behind him bringing out all the gold and copper highlights in his deep auburn hair.
Maybe he wasn’t Cernunnos. Maybe he was Dionysus, Greek god of revelry. In his many forms and stories, Dionysus—also known as Bacchus—was wild and free-spirited, but with a dark side. He taught mankind to make wine, but also caused the vicious dismemberment of a prince who’d dared insult him and question his godliness. He was often depicted with a leopard.
Jay grinned. “I like that one,” he said.
It was nice, not needing to speak aloud to him. She could perform near-magic with oils, but even she could never perfectly create the images she saw in her head. The colors didn’t exist, and canvas for all its versatility could still only capture a single, still moment. So limited.
She froze the image in her mind and then let him help her across the wall.
Inside the courtyard, it was warm, and bright with dappled springlike light. The magic was still alive and breathing, willful.
She drew a breath, coughed once, lightly, but then completed the breath, laughed, and tossed her hair back from her face. If Jay was Dionysus, who was she? Not some little lost girl. No. Never again. Maybe Artemis, goddess of the hunt?
I could be Artemis.
Jay smiled at her again, a beautiful, feral expression, and said, “If I have a goddess at my side, how hard can it possibly be to conquer an elemental? C’mon, let’s hunt.”
It was false bravado, and yet it wasn’t. They both knew the next moment could be their last, that if they had really lost the others, they had no way to fight and no plan to move forward. But that was later. This was now, and right now was an instant of pure beauty.
CHAPTER 24
THE SHANTEL LAND was neither empty nor lifeless. The wood buildings were centuries old and crumbling, roofs collapsed inside and taken by rot and woodland creatures, but the forest had not overgrown these open spaces the way it should have. Though Jay’s eyes revealed no shapeshifters prowling through the clearings, he did not feel alone. Echoes of power and personalities lingered—trapped by Shantel magic?
No animal smells, Lynx said, or marks.
Brina edged closer to both of them. This felt like a haunted place to her, and even if it was not malevolent, that didn’t mean it had their best interests at heart.
“What happened to the shapeshifters who lived here?” Jay asked. “Could they not survive after losing the sakkri?”
“I do not think they would have sold the sakkri if they could not survive without her,” Brina reasoned, “but the Shantel may not have been able to survive after losing Midnight. It was a hard time.”
“Hard for the vampires, I’m sure,” Jay replied, his mind distracted by trying to make out the currents of thought and power around him. He kept thinking he saw the sleek movements of hunting cats out of the corner of his eye, but turning made the illusions disappear. “The less-fortunate species rejoiced.”
Something glittered in the dirt, and Brina knelt to pick it up as she said, “They rejoiced in their freedom, but freedom and comfort rarely go hand in hand. Do you think Midnight was nothing more than an empire of slaves?” The item she had found turned out to be a silver pacifier, which she stared at for several moments, unable to avoid picturing little Angelica.
“Do you want to talk about her?” Jay asked.
Not yet, she thought. She had loved that child, the first infant she had ever held.
“This area is rich in silver these days, but in Midnight’s time there were no mines here. Where do you think this silver came from? For that matter, where did your ancestors get the silver for their hunters’ blades?”
“Wherever people got silver two hundred years ago,” Jay answered. The question wasn’t idle, obviously, though Brina’s thoughts were still too tangled in the image of Angelica’s blackening face and wheezing cough for Jay to get her point without asking, “I don’t know. Where?”
“Zacatecas, Potosí,” Brina answered. “Modern Mexico, Bolivia, even Peru. This silver traveled at least two thousand miles before it reached this spot, in a day when there were no planes or trains. Maybe it went to the avian shapeshifters first, since they are famous for their silverwork. They sold it to some Shantel mother, probably in exchange for furs or leather. And do you know where those trades would have taken place?” In her mind, Jay again saw the market they had found. “In an age when few humans traveled a hundred miles from their homes, Midnight had minds that remembered the great empires of the Aztecs, the Romans, and the Chinese. We maintained trade routes that humans wouldn’t discover for centuries. Your kind might not have openly purchased Midnight’s tainted goods, but I guarantee that you prospered from it even while you tried to kill us.”
“Prospered?” Jay snapped. “Most of us were wiped out!”
“And those who were not founded SingleEarth. You have your own empire now to control humans, and the shapeshifter kings who once bowed to us now bow to you.”
“We founded SingleEarth for protection, not to rule.”
“Why do you think Mistress Jeshickah founded Midnight?” Brina challenged. “The Inquisition killed dozens of those who thought they were immortal. Shapeshifter mercenaries helped.” She looked at his expression, and her shoulders squared defensively. “I am not saying this makes Midnight good or SingleEarth evil. But I know the modern Midnight fears SingleEarth. Don’t you think that should concern you?”
“I trust my kin.”
Brina smiled sadly. “And apparently you trust that your kin will always be in charge of a massive international organization that has its fingers in the governments and economies of every major civilization in the modern world. That makes it an empire—one with a branch devoted to mercenary work, if rumors of an alliance with the Bruja guilds are to be believed.”
“Okay, I’ll admit there is a potential for abuse, but that’s different from an empire totally devoted to slavery and subjugation.”
“I believe in two absolute laws of politics,” Brina admitted. “Power corrupts, and good intentions are the fastest way to hell. Oh, and none of us really wants to live on our own. That’s why we make these alliances in the first place. There’s no shame in not wanting to be alone.”
What had happened to the addled woman so known for obliviousness that Xeke had been surprised she had noticed her own brother’s death?
As Brina flinched instinctively from Jay’s hard stare, he learned the answer to his question: no one had ever listened to her before, or challenged her when she’d spoken up, no matter how outrageous she’d gotten. She was enjoying arguing with him.
As the uncomfortable moment stretched, Brina dropped the silver pacifier and said, “All I see here are cracked plaza tiles, collapsed buildings, and an ancient stone wall. What are we hoping to do?”
Jay wanted to prod her back into the fight, both because he wanted to come up with a retort to defend SingleEarth and because she was entertaining to wrangle with.
There will be time for that if we can figure out how to save the world.
“I don’t know,” Jay admitted. “I had thought maybe we could reason with the elemental, but if it knows we’re here, it’s ignoring us. We need Rikai and Xeke.”
“What I know of Shantel magic is that you could not step a foot in their forest without the sakkri knowing. The sakkri controls the magic, and it controls where you go,” Brina said. “Right now, you’re the only witch this woods has. Bring Rikai and Xeke here.”
It was on the tip of Jay’s tongue to point out that a Marinitch empath and a Shantel sakkri were very different, but maybe it wasn’t as crazy as it seemed. Jay had been able to mingle with the woods around the new Midnight, even though that magic had been outright hostile toward him. The Shantel elemental had tried to help him the last time he’d communicated with it. If this forest considered him an ally, maybe he could speak to it, albeit in his own way.
“I’ll try,” he said, earning another sunlight smile from her. “I’ll probably space out while I do this. Touch me if you need my attention, okay?”
Brina nodded.
Jay sat on the ground, where he could put his bare hands against the cobblestone ground, then closed his eyes. Beneath the cobbles was raw earth. Through that earth, he stretched his awareness as far as he could, not looking for animal minds but drifting in the ebb and flow of the power around him.
Impressive. The magic wrapped into this land was so complex, it dazzled him. He envisioned it like a spiderweb, with crystal drops of mist stuck to it. Each bead of moisture was a living being, hanging on the gossamer strands.
Except spiderwebs were fragile. This had existed, and would continue, for ages.
Brina was a bright glow near him. Yes, her vampirism was gone, but he realized she had power in her, like a witch’s magic, lingering, dormant in her blood. Could that power wake?
He skipped his awareness along the line of Shantel territory, through the leaves and winter breezes, the pine trees stretching in the cold air, and the deciduous trees tranquil in their long sleep.
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