When Wishes Bleed

by Casey Bond

  I stared out the empty door, willing him to return and say he believed me over Cyril, but he didn’t.

  Brecan leveled me with a glare. “Let him go. He doesn’t deserve you if he so easily dismisses your feelings.”

  Ugh. I didn’t want to deal with Brecan or his feelings, either. Not now.

  Mira finally let out a breath. “I should’ve told you, Sable. About the water. I was just so scared.”

  “I understand.”

  “What can we do to help Bay?” she asked. “And Ethne and Wayra, too.”

  I didn’t know what to do. Fate was still clinging to Tauren, but the witches in Thirteen needed help. If I left, Fate would tear me apart for defying him; if I stayed, I’d rend myself for not going to help them. Not that I’d stand a chance against Cyril if Fate wasn’t with me.

  Brecan knelt and gathered the slivers of glass. “I’m getting rid of this. She could still use the shards to spy on you. There are a hundred tiny mirrors she could use now, all still enchanted. I can smell the spell on them.”

  “I need to know Tauren is okay,” I said under my breath.

  Mira’s hand found my elbow. “I can help.”

  She removed a brooch from my trunk. “I snooped a little,” she admitted. The trinket was old and tarnished, one I found along the trail on the path to my cabin one day, but I liked it so much I took it home with me. It was silver, a death moth so intricately carved, it looked as if it might flutter its wings and take flight. When Mira breathed on it, that’s exactly what it did. The moth peeled away from the pin back and took flight. She went to the door and whispered for it to find Prince Tauren. Her eyes glazed over as she eased into a chair near the window.

  “You can see through its eyes?” I asked.

  Mira nodded. “It will find him.” A handful of precious seconds passed before she spoke. “It’s flying up… up the stairs. Up again. A twist, and then... down a long hallway. It flutters near a door that is closed.”

  “His bedroom?”

  “No… it’s crawling under the crack at the bottom of the door. It’s inside. Oh my goddess – it’s the King’s bedroom. Tauren is sitting on the bed. The King looks sick! Something’s wrong.”

  “He’s dying,” I entrusted.

  Brecan paused in his cleaning and glanced up at me. “How long does he have?”

  “Until the next full moon.” Brecan’s lips pressed into a thin line.

  “I can hear them,” Mira said. “Shhhh.”

  She listened for a long while. I settled into a chair beside her and waited while she eavesdropped.

  “He thinks you tricked him,” she whispered.

  “I didn’t.”

  “I know,” she answered. “He thinks you only pretended to love him. He’s telling the King about what your mother said in the mirror.”

  I balled my hands into fists.

  Mira continued, “But the King doesn’t believe it. He said that Cyril loves to play games, and that Tauren should never take her word over yours.”

  I threw my hands up. Exactly!

  “The King told him to listen here,” Mira relays, clapping her hand over her heart. “He doesn’t believe you would lie to him. He thinks you love Tauren.”

  Brecan stiffened as he walked to the window and opened it. The shards of glass turned to dust in his hand, and with his breath, he sent a violent gust to scatter the particles.

  “Awww,” Mira sighed. “He says you look at Tauren the way Annalina looks at him. He says the other girls are nice enough. They’d enjoy being Queen. They might even be a good partner. They’d enjoy the title, the prestige, and the privilege that comes with it. But he says they don’t have hearts to lead; hearts strong enough to weather storms and withstand battles and all that comes with them, yet be soft enough to show mercy. He says you have that.” She smiled. “The King likes you, Sable.”

  Her smile faded slowly away.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Tauren said you can’t be with him, but the King said he thinks Tauren’s being foolish. He says… rules can be rewritten. New traditions made. Compromises forged. He doesn’t think there’s anything you and Tauren couldn’t figure out and withstand… together.”

  Brecan stood stock-still, his arms folded tightly over his chest. I noticed he didn’t close the window.

  “Tauren…” she began.

  “Tauren, what?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “He’s leaving the room. He patted his father’s hand and told him to get some rest, that he’s sorry to have bothered him.” Mira’s eyes refocused. She turned her head to me, giving me a look that was part sorrow, part pity. “The moth is returning.”

  A knock came at my door, and the three of us stared at it for a moment before I stood to answer it. Tauren stood on the other side. “I’m sorry,” he said, glancing into the room to see Brecan and Mira were still inside.

  “We were just leaving,” Mira chirped, standing up and grabbing Brecan’s arm. She had to pry him from the wall beside the window, but he left the room with her and they returned to their own. I searched the walls for moths, just in case.

  Tauren hovered outside, his forearm braced against the door frame.

  “Come inside.”

  “I shouldn’t.”

  “Yes, you should,” I said softly, taking hold of his free hand and pulling him in.

  He looked to the ceiling, but I could see tears glistening on his long lashes. “It’s so hard to see him weakening. Day by day. Hour by hour. Knox is with Leah. I didn’t know where else to go.”

  “I’m glad you came to me.”

  He glanced toward my trunks. “Did you bring your wishbones?”

  “I would never leave them behind.”

  “Would you read mine again?”

  A sliver of fear coiled in my middle. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why not? What could possibly be worse than my first reading?”

  “Don’t tempt fate, Prince. Things can always be worse.”

  He walked toward my trunks. “May I?”

  I nodded and waited as he gingerly lifted the silver bowl of bones from the trunk. Settling on the bed, he approached from the other side and placed the bowl between us. “Are you ready?”

  Resigned to his wish, I sat down on the bed. “I am. Choose a wishbone.”

  The corners of his lips turned downward as his hand hovered over the bowl. He plucked one out and waited until my eyes locked on his.

  “Break it,” I guided.

  He snapped the wishbone.

  It did not bleed. It burst into flame.

  PART THREE

  When Wishes Burn

  22

  Tauren dropped both ends of the wishbone into the silver dish amongst the other bones. I expected the pieces to flicker out and die down. Instead, they burned hot and bright, quickly igniting the entire dish.

  I raised my hand and called on water. A puddle floated out of a nearby vase of red roses and doused the flame before it could spread to my bed clothes.

  Smoke filled my bedroom, mouth, and nose. Tauren’s haunted stare focused on the charred pile of bones.

  “What does this mean?” he dared ask.

  I opened my mouth, but no answer left it. My mind raced to make sense of what just happened.

  Fate whispered to me. This is not only his fate, daughter. This is yours.

  How can that be? I thought. No one’s fate could transfer to another.

  Your fates are one, he answered.

  One prince.

  One witch.

  One fate.

  I closed my eyes, but all I could see were flames. Walls of them. One right after another. They weren’t concentric like those painted on a target, these flames swirled… igniting far away and gathering power as they tw
isted in on themselves.

  My eyes snapped open.

  They begin in Thirteen and end at the palace.

  It was a warning from Fate. My mother was coming.

  I closed my eyes again, and a vision of flames licking the sky and a full moon floating helplessly above filled my mind. The scent of smoke lingered in my hair, making it feel too real. But it’s from the bones, the reading, I told myself. It’s not real. Not yet.

  There was still time to stop it from happening.

  “Sable?” Tauren said after a long moment.

  “That fate wasn’t yours,” I croaked. His brows kissed. A dark strand of hair fell into his eyes and I brushed it away. “Tauren, the fate was ours.”

  “Ours?”

  I nodded. “We share the same fate now.”

  “Because of the binding spell?”

  The two of you have always shared the same fate.

  “No. The spell has nothing to do with it.”

  “Does this mean we’ll die in a fire?” he asked, worry painting his face.

  “I’m not sure. The fire could be metaphorical,” I hedged. But I knew it wasn’t. My face still stung from the heat of the flames in my vision. The fire was very real.

  “The bone actually caught fire, Sable. I don’t think that’s a metaphor.”

  “I need to think.” I leapt from the bed and began to pace, biting the inside of my cheek as I concentrated on deciphering the vision.

  “Is the Kingdom in peril?” he asked abruptly, standing up.

  “I believe so. My mother has taken over Thirteen. She hasn’t killed the Priest and Priestesses yet, but I think she’ll try. She’ll kill them or bind them the way they bound her, and then… I think she’ll come for the Kingdom and crown.” And then for me.

  “My father won’t survive an attack, Sable.”

  “He won’t have to,” I vowed, my voice a growl.

  “I need to talk to him. We need to discuss whether to continue the telecasts, or if it’s safer to send the girls home. Then we need to figure out how to defend our sectors against your mother, if it comes down to it.”

  It would. I was sure of that much.

  “I’ll talk with Mira and Brecan.”

  “Can I come back later? I know it’s late.”

  “I won’t be able to sleep anyway, Tauren. Come back any time.”

  Watching him stride out the door, I wanted several things at once. To kiss him before he took another step; to tell him I would defend him and his family, his people, against my mother; and to somehow summon her and extract every particle of magic that lay inside her.

  Brecan and Mira were ready when I knocked. “What happened?” Brecan snapped. “I felt your magic again.”

  I looked to Mira. She confirmed the same with a nod, adding, “So did I.”

  I took them to my room and showed them the bowl with the charred remains of dust and bone. Most of the pieces were so brittle, they fell apart when I lifted the silver bowl from the bed.

  “It looks like there are no more fates for you to read, Sable. What does this mean?” Mira asked quietly.

  Brecan’s mouth gaped. “Has this ever happened before?”

  “No.”

  Brecan was terrified, and for good reason. “We need to leave. Now,” he ordered.

  “And then what? We need a plan. If we waltz back into Thirteen, my mother might bind us the same way she has the others.”

  We talked in circles for hours, but in the end, we agreed it was too risky to spirit away to Thirteen. We had to try to reach someone there and find out what exactly was happening, who was helping Cyril, if anyone, and where the witches and members of the Circle were being held.

  Tauren returned near daybreak, just as light from the sun began to yawn across the sky. The whites of his eyes were red and his clothing was rumpled, his hair disheveled.

  “We think it’s best to tell the invitees what’s happening,” he announced. “If they want to return home, so be it. For now, we need to figure out what’s happening in Thirteen, while acting as if all is well on the telecast.”

  “I can send something to spy on Cyril,” Mira offered. “How attached are you to your garden statues, Prince?” she grinned.

  “I’m not nearly as attached to them as I am my own head.”

  Brecan snorted, pushing away from where he leaned against the wall. He, Tauren, and I followed Mira to the north garden where a statue stood in the center of a small pond. It was of a woman, so detailed that even her tears tugged at my heart. The draping gown she wore showed every crease and fold as it hung from her ample body. She poured water from a clay pot into the pond below. A concrete dove with outstretched wings was perched on her shoulder.

  Mira walked on the water’s surface and called on her affinity for water, reaching up and using her other ability on the stony dove. A wing twitched. Then the other. The fowl’s head craned from side to side, then its smooth stone faded, transforming to pale gray feathers. Bits of rock sprinkled into the fountain, pebbling the surface.

  My breath caught in my throat when the dove cooed. Mira held out her hand and brought the dove close, whispering instructions as her free hand slid down its soft, downy feathers. She raised her hand and the dove flapped its wings and took flight, heading toward Thirteen.

  The sculpted woman haunted me. The artist had chiseled the dove as a comfort to her, and without it she looked inconsolable.

  The sky lightened as we waited with Mira, who watched the world through the eyes of the dove she brought to life. Tension settled among the rest of us, thick enough that even the light morning breeze couldn’t disperse it.

  Tauren looked at me. “My father wants to have an emergency meeting with the invitees this morning. After that, he will consult his generals and we’ll make a plan.”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell him that my mother would undoubtedly dash his plans, no matter how masterful they were laid out.

  Even though she hadn’t raised me, the longer my mother breathed above the soil, the more I felt I knew her. She would strike hard and fast, and likely first. And if I was right, she wasn’t a patient woman. Cyril would use dark magic to give her the edge, which meant that we needed to be ready for her, and I would need to use my darkness against hers. Brecan would oppose. I glanced at him to find he was already watching me.

  “She’s getting close. I can feel the magic from the wall,” Mira suddenly reported, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Her breathing became erratic.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, fingertips biting into my palms.

  “She’s across it, but something isn’t right. This doesn’t feel right,” she said slowly, eyes darting in every direction.

  “Is the bird just spooked? Some animals don’t like the feel of magic,” Brecan offered.

  “No,” Mira said sharply. Her eyes widened. “No, fly away!” she screamed, then clutched her chest in pain. She squeezed her eyes tightly closed and let out a guttural scream. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she’d been run through. “The dove is mortally wounded, but I saw…”

  “What did you see?” I asked, placing a hand on her shoulder to steady her, and waiting until she took several deep breaths to compose herself. “What happened to the dove?”

  “Someone shot an arrow through her heart; a male witch with long, stringy dark hair. I’ve never seen him before. He’s not from Thirteen.” She rubbed her chest over her heart, feeling the residual pain of the animal. “The dove… her spirit is almost gone, now. She’s on the ground, staring up at the canopy.”

  The witch was the same one who shot the arrow at Tauren. I was sure of it. Loyal to my mother and willing to do her bidding, he was also on my short list of people to hang. He and the girl who’d attempted to poison my prince.

  Mira couldn’t take a deep breath until the dove died. When i
t did, a tear fell from her eyes, making her look more like the statue of the woman in the pond than my friend for a moment. She wiped the tear away. “She’s trapped all the witches in the Center.”

  “How is that possible?” Brecan breathed.

  “Dark magic,” Mira and I answered at the same time.

  “You felt it the moment the dove crossed the border,” I whispered. “Didn’t you?”

  Mira shuddered. “Yes. It’s powerful… like nothing I’ve felt before.”

  Fate came alive inside me, bringing forth an image of the Son of Night. Was he involved somehow?

  A muscle ticked in Tauren’s jaw. “We have to free them.”

  “Why do you care?” Brecan challenged.

  “They are my people.” Tauren slid a look in Brecan’s direction that left no room for argument. The witches in The Gallows might separate themselves from the rest of the Kingdom, but it didn’t mean the monarchy felt they were any less citizens of Nautilus. And like a good prince, a good king, Tauren cared for his people.

  “And how do you propose we set them free?” Brecan asked, part challenge and part curiosity.

  He had no idea how to challenge my mother, but I did.

  “The only way to fight her dark magic is with something darker,” I replied flatly.

  “No,” he said immediately, standing from the bench he’d sprawled out on. “You can’t do it, Sable.”

  Fate disagreed. He slithered warmly in my stomach. “Yes, I can.”

  The King wasn’t well, but Annalina had hidden his exhaustion beneath a layer of fine, translucent powder. She’d washed his hair and helped him dress. The fact that he wasn’t in pain relieved him tremendously, but the cancer ravaging his body couldn’t be stopped. Its insidious effects were visible as the final five invitees joined the royal family in the King’s private study.

  Brecan and Mira slid into the room while the other escorts waited outside. No doubt they’d try to eavesdrop. I discretely poured a silencing spell from my hand. What was said in this room would stay within it. The other ladies gasped as the shimmery silver magic formed a solid bubble that spread out until it hit the corners of the room. It was the same spell the Circle used to protect their conversations.