“Any idea where he went?” My mouth had gone completely dry.
“No. Oren never misses worship. He’s an idiot, but he’s pious. I’ll make you something to wear, and you’ll help me find him.”
With that, the Nathair meandered out of his room. It seemed I wouldn’t get to see how the magic worked.
As soon as he was out of the door, I sat on his bed wearing nothing but a bedsheet. I had to help find Oren, the man I’d murdered last night. On top of that, I faced another trial today.
If ever I needed to focus and not let my composure break, it was now.
Chapter 19
After a few minutes, a pixie strutted in with a fresh set of clothes, crafted by the Nathair. Lucky for me, the dragon seemed to prefer function over form. I found myself with a sleek set of leather trousers, with boots to match, and a simple but elegant shirt—dark silver, like the Nathair’s magic. He’d even made me underwear—black and sheer, exactly my size. Weird, weird, weird.
As soon as I’d stepped into the knickers, his magic licked at my body. It hummed and tingled over my bare skin before settling into a delicious warmth over my belly, like the summer sun. Had he done that on purpose somehow?
Gods damn this was distracting, and I had a whole lot of other shit to think about—like the dead body I’d left in the closet, and my missing best friend.
One thing at a time, Cora. I still had the chance of finding Wren if I could become a knight. As a knight, I’d have the secrets to the Institute, and I’d find where she was. I just needed that to happen as soon as possible.
And the corpse? I’d find a way to get rid of it. Simple as that.
I pulled on the leather trousers, gritting my teeth to keep my focus. I bit my lip. My friend Aenor the Avenger would know what to do with an unwanted corpse. I was sure she had a spell for it. I just needed some spare time to contact her through magic.
Along with the clothes, the pixie had brought a plate of food—bread, butter, eggs, and coffee. But this morning, I didn’t have much of an appetite. I picked up a piece of bread, chewing on it halfheartedly while I thought about the logistics of corpse disposal.
As I chewed the bread, I thought about the Nathair. In a strange way, I felt more wary of him than ever. He’d known I was lying about the wave, about the clothes. And yet he’d gone along with my request anyway. Why? What was his next game plan?
I wasn’t looking forward to finding out.
“Why haven’t you eaten?” His deep, disdainful voice interrupted my thoughts.
I stared up at him, ripping my gaze away from the plate. “No reason. Thanks for the clothes.”
“We’re leaving now. I assume you know a tracking spell?”
Oh, shit. I did know a tracking spell, as it happened. In fact, I’d used one last night to find the dungeons.
I cleared my throat. “Well, they don’t work if someone has used a protection against it. But we could try it, of course.”
A slight curl of his lips. “He wouldn’t have the first idea how to use a protection spell. He can barely read.”
“I don’t know his mind, Mister Nathair.”
I followed the Nathair into the hall. He walked at a much more relaxed pace than I’d expect, given the missing knight situation. As we walked, he hardly deigned to look at me, and he didn’t utter a word. Perhaps I was less interesting to him fully dressed.
In silence, I followed him through the castle’s labyrinthine hallways until we passed by a section that looked all too familiar.
My eye twitched when I saw the reverent sister on her knees at the far end of the hall, a rag in hand, wiping down one of the stone floors I’d flooded last night. She dutifully mopped the floor and wrung the rag out. When she looked at me, all I could see was her black veil and the hint of porcelain features behind it.
I glanced at the corpse closet and sniffed the air. I couldn’t smell death—yet. I scanned the floor, searching for any remnants of the blood, but the Nathair got close enough to it that I thought for a panicked moment he could’ve smelled the blood. Lucky for me, the heavy oak door was all the protection I needed.
As we approached the sister, she stood and bowed. The Nathair barely looked at her. She put two fingers to her chin, then to her forehead. “Taru protects.”
“Taru protects,” I replied, mimicking her movements with my fingers.
She watched me as we moved past her, resuming her duties only after we were a good distance away from her.
“Does he?” The Nathair kept his stormy gaze straight ahead.
“What?”
“Does he protect?”
I arched an eyebrow. “What’s your issue with Taru? Maybe your ego feels that his divinity is a threat to your own?”
He slid his dispassionate gaze to me. “Cora, are you calling me divine? I am flattered.”
Once again, I tried to ignore the tingling warmth of his magic on my body. “The only truth I understand is this. Taru is a thinking force of nature. A tornado that decides what house it smashes and which it misses. I’m not going to make my life harder for myself by tempting fate.”
We reached the end of a hall—a part of the fortress I hadn’t yet seen. I didn’t see a door, just a black slab of stone before us. The Nathair touched it, and his silvery magic spilled from his fingertips, over the wall. It spiraled over the surface until an opening formed in the wall, one that grew larger and larger.
He had a strange sort of magic, one that didn’t require spells, like mine. I hadn’t even known that was possible, but it looked almost like … like he was connected to the walls themselves.
He stepped into the warm Mediterranean air, and I followed. As soon as I stepped outside, the walls closed over again.
I blinked up at the sun, disoriented. A moment ago, I’d been hearing the faint rumbling of thunder. Out here, though, birds chirped in the blue sky and cicadas droned on in the heat. A plane circled overhead, about to land. Life outside of the Institute went on as usual.
“Is there something you’re waiting for?” asked the Nathair. Sunlight gilded the perfect planes of his face, and he cocked his head. “If you’re unable to help me, perhaps I’ll have to take my clothes back.”
I was going to have to make it convincing. If he sensed I was faking, he’d start to put the pieces together that I had something to do with Oren’s disappearance.
But tracking spells could take all different forms. The Nathair wouldn’t know exactly what it was supposed to look like.
Think, Cora.
“I need to be higher,” I said.
“Why?” the Nathair asked.
“The magic works best when I’m closer to the sky.”
“We’re on a mountain.”
Dammit.
I cast my eyes across the Bay of Gibraltar again, watching the way the sun glittered on the water’s surface. Somewhere nearby, monkeys screeched at each other, probably swinging in the trees. After the gray walls and gloom of the Institute, it was hard to focus out here.
Come on, Cora.
“I know a powerful tracking spell.” I took a breath and stretched my right hand out. With my fingers splayed, I started muttering under my breath in the magical Angelic language. I’d give him a little visual display.
One by one, tiny arcs of static electricity began to zip across my hand. Slowly, I willed the charge to build and build, until soon enough, my entire arm crackled with power. In an instant, that wonderfully clear sky began to turn to charcoal. A sheet of gray clouds spilled over the back of the Rock like a slow wave and poured over the city.
Somewhere nearby, thunder—real thunder—made itself known, a low rumble that vibrated every bone in my body.
This was all bullshit. Fanfare. Whether the Nathair was buying it or not I didn’t know, but I kept it up for about a minute or so before finally releasing the magic. The static charge around my arm died off, the thunder rolled away, but the cloud hanging over the Rock remained.
A beat passed, then anot
her.
“Well?” the Nathair asked.
“He’s down there,” I said, pointing at the small city rolling away from us. I decided to narrow my focus and pick a spot in the city, a place called Casemates Square. “There’s a few restaurants down there, and you can buy churros. Maybe … Oren went for early-morning churros?”
“To buy churros?” His lip curled, and his words dripped with such derision I wish I’d come up with a better explanation. I’d been more focused on the magic.
“Well, I don’t know what he does with his time. You asked me to show you where he was, not judge his life choices. I’m telling you, he’s somewhere over there, by the churro shop. Can I go back to sleep now?”
“Sleep? No. You’re coming with me.”
“Coming with you?”
He took a step closer to me and leaned down to speak in a low voice next to my ear. His warm magic skittered over my skin, sending alarm bells ringing in my head. “Cora. You’re not lying to me, are you?”
Goosebumps rose over my skin at his tone. His body had taken on that eerie, animal stillness, like a snake about to strike.
“You’re not here for the right reasons.”
My lungs tightened. How the hells did he know that? I didn’t answer him.
“Do you know what I did to the last person who betrayed me?” He spoke in a dangerous whisper. “I pulled his lungs out through his back and left him to die.” He stroked the back of his finger down my cheek, and I shuddered. Despite the savagery of what he was saying, his gray eyes danced with cruel amusement. “You’ve heard of the savagery of the mad kings of Edinnu?”
Oh, yes, Mister Nathair. I knew what the king of Edinnu had done. It was why I’d left.
“Maybe you’ve even seen it firsthand,” he added.
My heart skipped a beat. How did he know? Was he linked to the king?
The Nathair’s eyes sparkled with cold savagery. “The kings bound their own subjects to rocky shores and used magic to call up waves strong enough to break their bones. Just understand that their brutality is nothing compared to mine.”
He stared directly at me, and the weight of his gaze was almost too much to bear. Shadows of his draconic wings swooped behind him. I wanted to tear my gaze away, but I didn’t feel like I could. For some insane reason, I thought, maybe, he could see right into my soul with those eyes.
My blood had turned to ice, and I had an overwhelming urge to flee.
Wren.
I didn’t have a choice. I had to turn away from him and look across the city. I was worried if I held his eyes for too long, I’d crumble. Maybe it was dragon-shifters in general, or maybe it was just him, but I couldn’t deal with having his full scrutiny like that.
I took a breath to control my breathing and my stutter, then spoke again. “We should go and find Oren.”
“I need a witch who will obey me.” He shrugged slowly. “Otherwise this is all for nothing.”
“What is all for nothing?”
A flash of gold lit his eyes, but the placid look never left his face. As always, he was perfectly composed. “I don’t trust you. I felt your power. You come from a powerful line of fae, yet you live like a pauper. So where do you come from, little witch?”
“Orphan. No idea.”
A slow, lethal smile. “A lie.”
Like the clouds that had crashed into the back of the Rock a moment ago, I felt his dark, silvery magic crash into me. It burned like a furnace. Darkness pooled in his eyes.
“Tell me who you are.”
He was searing me with his magic, and my skin was on fire. Gods, I hated him so much.
A booming voice sounded from behind me. “Melkarth.”
The Nathair’s magic slipped away from me. All at once, the searing heat had left my skin.
My skull felt strangely silent. My skin stopped burning, and now my teeth were chattering. I hated feeling that out of control. The Nathair, truly, was a monster. “You revolt me.” The venom in my voice surprised even me. “You psychotic freak.”
He was staring at me with a look of confusion. The mountain wind rushed over us, and the quiet between us felt sharp and cold. It seemed, for the first time, he didn’t know what to do.
“Melkarth!” The voice sounded again and seemed to pull him out of his trance. He looked over my shoulder, and my wild heartbeat started to slow down.
I glanced back, and there I saw the Grand Master of the Institute, looking resplendent in navy blue on a parapet just above us. He’d been watching us.
“What do you want?” The Nathair shoved his hands into his pockets like he had not a care in the world.
Wait a minute. Melkarth? That was his name?
“It’s time,” said Raegon. “Taru has blessed us with favorable winds and stormy weather. The trials shall begin now. Not tonight.”
Despite the conversation we’d just had, his eyes twinkled. “Oh, I don’t think that was Taru.”
Raegon stared at him. “Bring her to the pillar. Now.”
Chapter 20
I stood outside in the storm under a thicket of olive trees that didn’t quite shield me from the lashing rain, or the ripping lightning that had come after.
Without a word, the Nathair had brought me to a spot high up on the Rock of Gibraltar, with an expansive view of the world around it. To the south, I could just about see Africa’s shores through the clouds. To the north and west was Spain, its coast now battered by the rough seas.
The bay’s water beneath us churned and frothed. Ships rocked from side to side, waves crashing around them. It looked like a scene from my homeland—the fanatical king with his silver hair, calling up storms to drown his heathen subjects. Goosebumps prickled over my skin.
How had Melkarth known I was from Edinnu? Was he a spy, and would he report me? What the hells was going on?
Taru’s power electrified the air, and something stirred inside of me—a savage instinct I had to force back into the darkest hollows of my mind.
Stay in control.
I breathed deeply, focusing on the scent of brine, the taste of salt on my lips. I needed my head to be here, in the present, watching out for Melkarth.
I’d thought his name was ridiculous at first, but now that I’d had more time to think about it, it was oddly fitting. It had a distinctly masculine quality about it. It was a name that commanded authority, respect, and fear, but hinted at something more. Something beneath the surface. And what’s more, it rolled around the inside of my mind like an ancient curse.
Lightning ripped through the clouds, and the thunder that followed rattled my chest. I stood on a flat patch of the famous rock. Here, a single marble column stood, ravaged by time, covered in inscriptions. Humans couldn’t see the real monument. In fact, I could see human tourists below us, dressed in parkas. They were snapping selfies around a fake monument beneath us. I didn’t think they could see me at all.
One by one, the knights of the Institute trailed onto our spot on the Rock. None of them held an umbrella or used rain-repelling magic. They just let themselves become soaked. If the Storm God wanted them drenched today, they would be drenched. When Ree showed up, with droplets of rain soaking her dark curls, we gave each other faint smiles.
Did any of the unsworn know what we were doing here? Was I the only one who’d been left in the dark?
As the other unsworn took their spots around the pillar, I got the impression I was supposed to join them. I cast a quick look at Melkarth. He slid his icy gaze to me, his face an emotionless mask.
“Any hint what this trial is about?” I asked. “You’re still my mentor. Shouldn’t you be … mentoring?”
His lip twitched, and for a moment, he looked like a beast about to devour its prey. “Well. This will certainly be interesting. Good luck.”
Without another word, he meandered over to the pillar.
Hugging myself, I crossed over to the rest, blinking the rain from my eyes. As I approached, I noticed something inscribed into the pilla
r itself. Non plus ultra. I couldn’t read Latin.
The Grand Master raised his hands and looked into the sky. Lightning thrashed about the clouds, strike after strike. Raegon smiled a strange sort of ecstatic smile as the rain whipped his face.
“Devoted followers of Taru,” he bellowed to the skies. “We have been blessed with the perfect conditions for our trial.” The Grand Master cast a look around the gathered congregation. “Do you know where you stand?”
Silence. But I knew where we were, and this was a chance to impress him. I wanted to become a knight as soon as possible.
“Girl.” Raegon pointed to me, squinting. “Answer.”
Girl? Didn’t he know my name? I suppressed a sigh. “We’re standing at one of the two pillars of Hercules.” No idea where the other one was.
“Excellent, child. You are precisely right.”
Letha glared daggers at me from across the way, but maybe Taru would strike her down during the trial.
Raegon’s silver hair whipped around his head. “This sacred spot is a place knights of this Institute have been sworn to protect from all threats and dangers … from within, and without.”
Threats from within…. Now that sounded interesting. Didn’t they realize that Melkarth was a threat? He didn’t even care for the Storm God they were supposed to serve.
“Non plus ultra,” Raegon intoned. “It means nothing further beyond. Those words are inscribed into this pillar and its lost twin, which once sat across the stormy strait. The humans have been told many stories about this place, most about the demigod Hercules. The truth, however, has always been written on the pillar itself. Nothing further. The pillars are a warning—a warning to anyone foolish enough to get close that they must turn back. Do not go beyond here.” Raegon’s magic beamed from his body, tinged with gold. “Only there is … there is so much more. Taru shows the chosen one its true purpose.”
Thunder roared. When lightning flashed again, it illuminated the faces of the unsworn standing around me. Ree stood across from me, wiping blue eyeliner off her tawny cheeks.
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