Dark Illusion

by Feehan, Christine

  “You ready to get this done?”

  She nodded.

  “Stay facing me as if we are still talking. Discussing what to do. Every now and then look toward the lake. I will be doing the same, following your lead. At the same time, I will be able to tell you what your throat looks like and if there are any other places Barnabas has left a command for you.”

  Julija took a deep cleansing breath and murmured the revealing spell.

  Light of life, help me to see,

  That which was left behind to do harm to me.

  She waited, her heart beating a little too fast. It was never a good thing to have a spell left behind by a high mage. Once entrenched, they could be difficult to remove. She’d been having panic attacks for quite some time.

  “I can see small trails of what looks like blue running in tiny streams down your throat. Almost wispy, but definitely blue. The threads are so thin they are barely there, but there are several.”

  Julija frowned. “Blue? That’s odd. What the heck did he use?” She thought about it for a moment. Isai didn’t hurry her in the least. She loved him for that. It took a moment to remember to look toward the lake and gesture.

  Immediately Isai followed her lead, looking in the direction she indicated, shaking his head and murmuring nonsense to her. “If the lake was not so cold and we did not have such an audience, I would suggest we swim there together. You naked of course.”

  She burst out laughing. He was wonderful. He had a way of freeing the lock on her brain, allowing her to think. Blue.

  Time to remember that which has been forgot,

  Show me the way to that which was lost.

  It took a moment before she remembered the drink composed of blue flowers. She was certain the poisonous effect was what was blocking her fifth chakra.

  Vishhuddha, center of communication, element of Aether, color of blue,

  Deadly wolfsbane, I call to you.

  I seek to reopen that which lies in repose,

  Establishing balance to that which can close.

  Power of Akasha, remove this blight,

  Replacing it with healing light.

  “Perfect. No more blue.” Isai sounded admiring.

  Julija felt much better having removed the high mage’s spell. She should have suspected. “Any others?”

  “Only the one on your sex.”

  “Are you going to describe what you see?”

  “I am giving that a lot of thought. This particular spell benefits me.”

  She glared up at him. “I would have thought a man such as yourself would never need such a thing as a spell. In any case, if we really needed one, I could provide it for you.”

  “You think I need a spell to keep up?”

  She pretended to think it over and then nodded slowly. “I fight this particular spell and have gotten rather good at it, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to fight my natural attraction to you and you would have no choice but to try to keep up. You’d beg me to put a spell on you.”

  This time it was Isai who laughed. She loved the sound of it. He sounded as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  “There is a continuous circle that runs around your clitoral network. The stream goes from smooth to bumpy—presumably the bumps are what keep stimulating you.”

  “Is there color?” She held on to his loose jacket, uncaring that she was supposed to be conversing with him.

  “Red. Very, very red. Fire-engine red.”

  “Can you detect any runes running in the stream? They might be disguised as something else, some small movement within the stream of red.”

  “Yes. They look almost like the stream runs over rocks.”

  “That bastard actually added in a protection spell. That’s why I haven’t been able to get rid of it or figure it out. It was hidden, protected and—”

  “Julija, beloved, we have an audience. I love to hear you call that man names, but I would much rather remove these spells from your body. The more time we have to find and destroy the book all in one go, the better off we are.”

  She took another deep cleansing breath.

  That which was hidden so long in dark to conceal,

  I now seek to reopen, reverse and reveal.

  I call to the spirit of fire to trace,

  Tracking each root of this evil’s embrace.

  I command fire to burn each line of this dark,

  Removing all traces of evil to charm.

  Light to dark, dark to light,

  I bring forth that which has been hidden from sight.

  “Do you see any more runes? Any little waves like before? We can’t miss a single one.”

  “No, they appear to be gone.” His tone dripped with disappointment.

  She hid a smile, but she thumped his chest with her fist. She didn’t want to get overconfident, but if she could really break Barnabas’s spell after all this time, she would be overjoyed. The relief would be tremendous.

  Lust, desire, sexual need,

  That which runs through my body without thought or heed.

  I call to my soul child to help me undo,

  These thoughts that were planted to harm and abuse.

  I call to the moon mother to join with my spell,

  Following the bloodstream, I now cast out and dispel.

  Remove from my body this continual need,

  So that which remains is only heartfelt needs.

  She waited a moment, holding her breath, sending up a silent prayer that it worked. For the first time in as long as she could remember, that terrible need was gone. Really gone. She wanted to dance. Instead, she looked up at him, beaming.

  “We did it. Do you know how incredible it is to have actually destroyed a spell that a high mage put on me? I can’t believe that we could do that.”

  “We can do anything. I told you, Julija, you are extraordinary. You should have all the confidence in the world.” He stepped back away from her and took her hand, once more gesturing that they continue their loop around the lake. “Hopefully, we find Iulian’s psychic print sooner rather than later.”

  “I was kind of hoping we didn’t find it at all,” she said truthfully.

  He smiled down at the top of her head. “We would leave this place and you know what would happen? You would say to me that we had to return.”

  She started to protest, but she knew he was right. As much as she didn’t want to face Anatolie or Barnabas, she knew the dangers of that book. “When you think about it in terms of being just a book, it seems so ridiculous that it could cause this much worry.”

  “I had little to do with mages, other than the obligatory training period of spells. Most of what I learned throughout the centuries, I took from those I met along the way. Most of those born mage that I came across were good people as far as I could discern. Later, when they were scattered after it came to light what Xavier was doing, most I heard of were ashamed.”

  “How did you hear of them?”

  “Carpathians shared mage knowledge with me.” He shrugged. “Even in the monastery, Fane would come across Carpathians, get all the news and bring it back to us. Other times, a few would come to the monastery looking for a little respite and they would bring news and more information.”

  “You have a good network.”

  “We have to. There are not many of us left in this world.”

  As they neared the lake and once again began to circle it, Julija picked up various energies of campers and hikers, even those on horseback who’d visited the lake. The temperature dropped even more, so that the wind coming off the surface of the lake seemed to bite at their faces.

  “I don’t think he would have been this close to the road where humans travel. He would have wanted privacy. He was suffering. His grief was so strong, I could barely breathe with it.” Julija turned her head to look up at Isai’s face. “I find it so strange that Carpathians without their lifemates can’t feel, yet I could feel your emotions and his as well.”

&nb
sp; “I have heard that from some of the other women. I thought, when I first heard it, that those women were gifted in some way, but perhaps we broadcast what we do not feel ourselves.”

  She kicked at a small pebble. It rolled away from the lake, spun around and came back toward her as if she was a magnet. Her heart took another plunge and a thousand knots seemed to form in her stomach. She pressed her free hand there and tightened her fingers through his.

  “Isai.” She kept her gaze fixed on the small, rounded rocks lining the path they were taking around the lake. “He’s here.”

  “Of course he is.” Isai didn’t ask who “he” was. His voice was the same. Steady. Matter-of-fact. Unemotional. “We knew he would come. Anatolie is a very powerful mage and we cannot discount him, but never for one moment forget who our true enemy is. Barnabas is far more dangerous. Because Xavier was the mage before everyone’s eyes, he became the greatest enemy of the Carpathian people. Everyone thought he was more dangerous than anything they had faced.”

  “You don’t think he was?”

  “How much do you know about the battle that took place quite recently between the Carpathians—specifically four women, three born Dragonseeker and one mated to one—and Xaviero? He tried to start a war between Lycans and Carpathians. His intention was to bring Xavier back. He would have succeeded if those women hadn’t been able to stop him. The brethren analyzed all the data, as we often do, and we concluded that it was not Xavier who was the most dangerous. We do not even think it was Xaviero. There is a third brother, Xayvion.”

  “Yes, of course. Anatolie mentioned him several times.”

  “He showed himself briefly but disappeared. He was heard calling to Xaviero, advising him to leave while he could, but Xaviero refused his advice.”

  “Why do you think Xayvion is the most dangerous?”

  “He had nothing to prove. He read the situation and left a battle he could not win. He succeeded in wiping out the Jaguar shifters. Yes, a few remain, but they cannot possibly rebuild their species. He remained in the background, allowing his brothers always to take the forefront, allowing them to think themselves superior. His ego is not what theirs was. He will not be taken down easily.”

  She was silent for a long time as they continued around the cold, glacier-blue water. “Why do so many people crave power, Isai? Why don’t they want families and people to love them?”

  “I do not know the answer to that.”

  She wanted to weep endlessly. Her heart hurt it was so heavy. She pressed a hand to it and took a few more steps, feeling as if she waded through quicksand, and her grief for the world was so severe, so deep, she could hardly go on. She forced herself to put one foot in front of the other when all she wanted to do was sink down and just rest. She needed rest desperately.

  “Julija.” Isai’s voice was extremely gentle. He cupped the side of her face. “You are feeling Iulian. We have found his psychic footprints. Can you manage to follow them?”

  She honestly didn’t know. His sorrow was overwhelming. Terrible to endure, to feel. She also felt like a voyeur. This was Iulian’s private grief and she didn’t belong there. In a way, it was his tribute to his lifemate.

  Sívamet, he cannot feel as you can. This grief was buried so deep he was unable to tap into it and that was a good thing. He went to her. He told her he would find her in the next realm. I do not know if he bound them together, which is a possibility even without his taking her blood or she his. Once the ritual binding words are said, their souls are tied. You said she couldn’t speak. If that is so, he felt no emotion, he saw no colors, but he could find her, and clearly, he always meant to follow her.

  She swallowed hard, fighting not to go down to her knees under the weight of Iulian’s sorrow and the long centuries of nothingness. Too many when, in the end, he hadn’t reached his lifemate in time. She knew the moment Isai intervened, taking the burden from her, but he couldn’t shoulder it all, not when she needed to follow Iulian’s psychic trail.

  He put his arm around her when she stumbled. She had been with Isai long enough to know she couldn’t leave him, their connection was too strong, but she hadn’t realized until that moment just what he had gone through. He was far older than Iulian and had endured so much longer and so much more. For her. Waiting for her. She turned her face up to his, love for him overwhelming her.

  He slipped his arm around her waist. “You are worth every moment of being alone, Julija.”

  That was humbling beyond words. She gave him a watery smile and forced her attention back to Iulian. “I’m glad he at least saw her before she died. He had that and knew who she was.”

  “If he bound them together, soul to soul, he will find her,” Isai said with great confidence.

  That made her feel better. They rounded the next little curve of the lake and she stopped abruptly. They were on a small rise and could see far out onto the lake. The surface rippled madly with the wind, but it didn’t matter. She could see Iulian clearly now.

  “He stood for a long time, right here, right in this spot, thinking of her. For a few minutes he paced, but he had already made up his mind. He knew what he was going to do and had no hesitation whatsoever about it.” She turned her face up to Isai’s again. “He had no interest in the book other than to protect Mikhail from attacks and the Carpathian people from the book falling into the wrong hands.”

  He smiled at her reassurance. “Once I knew he’d found his lifemate, I was certain he would not have wanted the book for his own gain.”

  “Well, we know for certain.”

  “We have to have a plan for destroying it as soon as it is in our hands. We will be attacked the moment you bring the book to the surface. It is in the lake, isn’t it?”

  She looked out over the expanse of water, the wind ruffling the surface, causing choppy waves. “It isn’t there, Isai. He considered it. That was his intention, but the lake was too beautiful, and he didn’t want to mar it with the ugliness of the book.”

  He sighed. “I suppose it was never going to be that easy.”

  “It is close. He chose to end his life here. He sliced his wrist and sat here, allowing his blood to coat the book completely. He had no idea you were alive, or that I could track him through our earlier connection. With his blood sacrifice, that of a good man of honor, he was certain no other could find the book.”

  “If the book is not in the lake, where did he hide it? Perhaps we could leave it alone.”

  She shook her head. “Sooner or later, someone would stumble across it. Even if he buried it deep.” Isai had told her the exact same thing earlier, and he was right, no matter how much she wanted to walk away from the task. She took a look around her.

  “Iulian would be weak from blood loss. He had to have had a plan.” Isai looked around as well. What would his brother have devised at the last minute? He wouldn’t allow anyone to find his body or the book. The only way to get rid of a body without moving it far was bury it or burn it. He couldn’t burn it after he was gone, and the book didn’t burn anyway. So what?

  “He buried it,” both said simultaneously. They looked at each other in agreement.

  “He opened the earth and moved down inside, taking the book with him,” Isai guessed.

  “Deep then,” Julija said. “He had to have gone very deep if he thought the wind and rain wouldn’t eventually uncover the book.” She began to walk in an ever-widening circle around the spot where she knew Iulian had rested and then cut his wrist. There was no trace of his blood anywhere. She knew because his blood would have called to his brother. He had done so in the open earth.

  “Do you feel him?” Isai asked.

  She stepped right and then left on a narrow track, trying to feel, trying to puzzle out Iulian’s way of ridding the world of the book. Then she stepped right on the exact spot. She knew because it was overwhelming as the hunter’s last thoughts were of his woman.

  She looked up at her man. “Here. He is buried right here.”
/>   19

  You have to be ready for an all-out war, Julija,” Isai warned. “We are very exposed standing here out in the open.” He knew what was coming even more than she did. This book had been the thing of controversy for hundreds of years. If they were right, and he feared they were, the mages—particularly Anatolie, Xavier’s son, and Barnabas, Xaviero’s son—would come at them with everything they had to get possession of the book. Once it was destroyed, they would be furious.

  “We have to stand over the exact location in order for me to counter what Iulian did to hide the book,” Julija protested. “You have to be here so your blood calls to his.”

  His heart sank. He had to be prepared for either event. If they were wrong and they couldn’t destroy the book, they would have to flee with it. “The moment the book is destroyed, we take to the air in the form of mist.” He poured confidence into his voice. “Owls can be shot down. I want you to do what you have to do and then immediately, immediately, become mist. I’ll blanket the entire area with heavy snow to slow them down. I want you to head back to our sanctuary and wait for me there.”

  “You can’t deal with these mages on your own. Both, both are high mage. That means very few could defeat them in a battle. It took four of your most powerful women to defeat Xaviero. They were Dragonseeker and they knew all the mage spells.”

  Isai knew she was right, but he didn’t want her exposed to their enemy. She wasn’t the type of woman to obey when there was danger. He could force her obedience . . .

  “Don’t you dare. Don’t you even think about doing that,” Julija snapped. “I would never forgive you. It’s my right. My choice. You’re mine, Isai, and I have the right to fight for you if that is what I choose to do and it is. I will not leave you here alone.”

  He kept his hand low by his side but sent a command to the clouds by murmuring under his breath and twisting his fingers. The wind picked up just a little, enough to blow leaves and twigs in small little eddies, tiny twisters that danced over the ground around them. Any other time it would have been a beautiful heralding of winter, but tension was growing.