by TJ Nichols
That was true. Terrance gave Cadmael a nod and focused on gathering up what magic was whispering through the trees around him. There was more in the air here, more than in Vinland, but the Mayans made a point of keeping it moving.
He’d never wanted to be involved with demon magic again, but now he wasn’t sure he wanted to play sports again either. Although the energy of the crowd… maybe it didn’t need to end in death.
The hairs along his arms prickled and pulled tight as the magic gathered. The tension in his gut swelled. He couldn’t screw up. If he did, Cadmael would get someone else to be the anchor, and that would be a disaster.
Terrance thought of Saka and tried to bring up every detail he could, from the way he looked at Angus when he thought no one was paying attention to the way his hand had felt in Terrance’s and the promise that there could be more between the three of them. He bit his cheek to keep from smiling.
Then he reached for the void with his mind, to a place where the magic could punch through the gap between worlds. The void tore open with a rush of cold air and shimmered darkly within his egg circle. He couldn’t step across—not unless he wanted to be over there with Saka and Angus. Although, at the moment, that didn’t seem like an entirely bad thing.
But where had he opened the void to?
Each breath made his ribs ache. Who or what would come through?
Chapter 19
SAKA FELT the pull as the void opened, but it wasn’t Angus opening the void because Angus was walking next to him. They were on their way back to Iktan’s village, as Saka had promised.
Saka was sure it was Terrance summoning him, but he took a couple of breaths to get the feel of the summons before he allowed the connection instead of turning it away.
Angus glanced up as the void opened before them.
Wek stopped too. “So we don’t need to make the trek at all.”
“That opened for me,” Saka said. He sighed. Now he had two human warlocks. Twice the teaching. Safer for the humans. Was it safer for him? Unlikely. “I had best go through. I will not be long.” He glanced at Wek.
It was dangerous with just the two of them, but a demon on their own was an easy target for predators. While Wek was a good hunter, other things were also good at hunting and tracking. There might not be packs of scarlips here, but there were other things with long naked tails and bristly fur and things that flew and had talons like knives and hungry beaks.
“I’ll stay.” Angus bit his lip. “Terrance is your… your human now too.”
Yes he was. What had been discussed was now reality, though even Angus seemed unsure.
“I won’t be long.” Saka kissed him with a quick brush of lips and then stepped through the tear in the void.
Despite knowing who was summoning him, he was still careful. His hand was on his machete, and he was ready for trouble. There was every chance that Angus’s absence had been noticed, so he expected to arrive in a room with several unhappy priests. Instead he was outside, in a circle so weak it wouldn’t have stopped a plant from growing out of it. Terrance stood in front of him, but someone was behind him. Saka didn’t need to turn to know who. “Priest Cadmael.”
“Mage Saka. So glad you could finally find the time to respond.”
“I have been busy.” He kept his gaze on Terrance, even though he wanted to have an eye on Cadmael too. Why was the priest here?
“I heard.” Footsteps, and then Cadmael came into view. “A risky strategy.”
“You are not supposed to force a bond. What you did was wrong.” Any magic user who broke their own rules, that they claimed were for the protection of their people, should feel a modicum of shame.
Cadmael glanced at Terrance. “My intent was correct. It is dangerous not to have an anchor. You wouldn’t want Angus getting stuck across the void.”
“Nor would I want him having to work with someone not of his, or our, choosing.”
“And you choose this man?”
Terrance’s face hardened, and he shot a glare at Cadmael.
“Yes.” Saka knew enough about Terrance—the good and the bad—to accept him as his human. “He will learn.” He gave Terrance a smile. Magic wasn’t all naked rebalancing, although Saka wasn’t sure how much Angus had told Terrance.
“Some people shouldn’t learn.”
Saka’s gaze slid to Cadmael. “I was working with a college warlock before you were born. I have been involved in the fight against them. I know that the kind of people who shouldn’t learn magic are the ones most hungry for a taste. Terrance is not one of them.”
How the Mayan weeded them out, he didn’t want to know, though he could guess. The college had cultivated a need for power, corrupting them young and ensuring they’d never speak out.
“Agreed. But there are other things to be wary of,” Cadmael said carefully.
“Like the way you asked me to report on Angus?” Terrance finally spoke. He looked like he was going to crumble, but it took strength to reveal what he’d been asked to do instead of hiding it and obeying.
“Yes. That.” Cadmael’s expression soured.
“My judgment is sound,” Saka said with a smile. “We are not the enemy, Priest. We all want the magic rebalanced and our worlds healed. It doesn’t matter if our way of using magic is different from yours.”
“Their way is what has caused the damage.”
Terrance shook his head. “I have always paid for the magic I used. Angus has rebalanced more than his share too. We understand.”
“You aren’t properly trained,” Cadmael snapped.
“And we never claimed to be.” Terrance fisted something in his hand, but otherwise didn’t move. “All we wanted was refuge so the warlocks wouldn’t kill us.”
“They will be trained, but you have made that harder, cut them off from their friends and tried to stop what was happening naturally.” Saka didn’t remember any mages at Lifeblood ever talking about anchors, but it made sense. He also liked the doorways and wanted to learn how to make one to protect his people… if his people were still there.
Cadmael’s lips twisted. “Cement the bond and be done so Angus may return.”
There was nothing to do to cement the bond. Vinnish warlocks spoke a few words that held no magical sway, but he didn’t feel like reciting them.
“Thanks for responding.” Terrance offered his hand.
Saka clasped it. “It will be a pleasure.”
Cadmael looked at them. “No blood offering?”
Saka held Terrance’s gaze. “Another time.”
He stepped back into the void before Cadmael could demand more, but his hand shook until he fisted it and regained control. He felt as though he were swimming in riverwyrm-infested waters and couldn’t reach the shore. It was only a matter of time until he was eaten. The void closed behind him, and the heat of Arlyxia wrapped around him.
Angus and Wek had waited for him.
“It’s done?” Angus studied him.
“It is. He will open the void for you in a moment. Cadmael has asked him to watch you.”
“Of course he did, and Terrance would’ve agreed because there would’ve been an accompanying threat.”
“These people are not our friends,” Saka said.
“They’re not our enemies either.” Angus shivered, and then the void opened in front of him.
Saka stepped closer. “Did you feel the tear?”
“Yes.” Angus rubbed his arms as if he were cold.
“Now you need to learn how to turn it away so it doesn’t open near you. It might save your life.”
“My next lesson?”
“There will be several. I need to think about what will be most useful.”
Angus frowned. “I don’t know what I need.” He gave Saka a bitter grin. “A way to take back all of the magic Vinland has been stealing?”
“If it were simple, it would’ve been done already. Go before Terrance thinks you’re never coming back.”
They share
d a final embrace, and then Angus stepped through. Saka watched and waited for the void to close. It took several heartbeats. Terrance needed to learn how to close it after himself, which wasn’t easy when traveling to Humanside. It was much easier to close it in Demonside. He stared at the place where Angus had been standing, and he sighed.
Cadmael would want blood. It was just a matter of when.
Chapter 20
“THIS MAN is a Vinnish spy.” Cadmael forced the kneeling man to look up by grabbing a handful of his hair.
The man didn’t look that Vinnish. While Terrance’s coloring was darker than Angus’s, he still had that square-jawed look and fair skin. This man had a narrow face and dark eyes. Angus glanced from the man to Terrance and then back to Cadmael. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“He’s not. I’m a refugee, like you.” The man stared up at Angus, pleading.
“You can look for yourself.” Cadmael released the man’s hair.
Over the last week they had been learning about mind reading. It could be done gently—a sort of sifting through the top layer as they had done in class. He’d tried with a few different people, and they tried on him. But Saka had taught him how to conceal. He knew thoughts could be hidden or faked—at least they could be during a cursory examination.
He’d experienced something much more painful and in depth at the hands of the college. Angus stepped forward. He still needed to touch the person to look into their thoughts.
“You could’ve planted fake thoughts,” Terrance said. He trusted Cadmael as much as Angus did, which wasn’t a whole lot.
Angus knew Terrance had told Cadmael some of what they discussed. For the most part, he didn’t care what Cadmael knew. He wasn’t doing anything wrong.
He’d started to study the videos of the clean sweep and its aftereffects.
A few priests in Merida had tried to harness the magic like he’d done. They’d been cooked from the inside out. It was rather more gruesome than he’d thought—Cadmael had helpfully supplied the details. Angus couldn’t explain how he survived, despite writing down exactly what he’d done and how it had felt so Cadmael and others could learn from it. It was an experiment he wasn’t keen to repeat, but if he didn’t, he wouldn’t know what worked.
“Sorry,” Angus murmured as he pressed his consciousness into the subject’s.
The top layer was fear and imprisonment. The man had been caught a week ago, just before Angus went to Demonside to see Saka. His earlier memories were jumbled, possibly hidden. The man remembered Vinland, but not a part Angus was familiar with. He had a memory of arriving in the Mayan Empire, but none of fleeing from Vinland.
There were other people in his thoughts, but Angus couldn’t see their faces. Then one image bloomed sharp and clear.
Wanted alive. Angus Donohue.
Angus jerked his hand back.
The man grinned. “If not me, then someone else. Traitor.”
“World destroyer,” Angus replied. How could people live with themselves when they saw the hunger and hurt on the human side? And the damage done on the other side of the void compounded the devastation.
“Humans will survive. Not all, but some. We will be better—stronger—without depending on demons.”
“You aren’t even a warlock. Do you really think they care about you? You’re fodder, a pawn in a game for control.” How could the man be so blind?
Terrance put a hand on Angus’s arm. “You can’t save everyone.”
Angus blinked and looked at Cadmael.
Cadmael was thin-lipped. “Take the prisoner to Demonside. Finalize the bond.”
“Finalize?” The bond was made. And while Angus was itching to get back to Demonside, he didn’t want to keep leaving Terrance behind. Terrance should come too… he needed to do stuff with Saka. Angus really wasn’t sure what, only that he didn’t like the idea of being left out, the way Terrance had so often been left out. He bit the inside of his lip to keep the grimace off his face.
“Kill me.” The man nodded at Cadmael. “He wants you to kill me to keep the blood off his hands.” The man didn’t seem too concerned about his death. Maybe he didn’t think it would happen.
“Why do I need to kill?” Angus didn’t want to kill anyone.
“A sacrifice is always made to the demon who is giving up his freedom to work with us. Even your warlocks once made sacrifices,” Cadmael said as though they were discussing the possibility of rain.
Vinnish warlocks had made sacrifices, but they were animals, not people. He’d read about them in the books in the library. More recently, criminals had been sent to die in Demonside. Traitors like this man.
“Would Saka want this, in his name?” Terrance didn’t sound convinced this was a good idea either.
Angus wanted to say no. Maybe Saka would want a sacrifice now that he was a mage to two warlocks, if only to rebalance a little of what had been taken while they trained. They would never refill the bucket one drop at a time, not when the hole at the bottom couldn’t be plugged, but Angus nodded. “He would. For Demonside.”
“Saka is back in the village. Go through the official doorway, so your leaving and return can be checked off. Try to avoid accidentally slipping away.” Cadmael looked at Angus like he had a bad habit of taking off to Demonside, although he had only gone the once. “Guards will take this man through for your ritual.”
“He won’t do it. Traitors are weak,” the man sneered.
“He will if he wants to earn his place.” Cadmael fixed him with a glare and then turned to Terrance. “Or he will.”
Terrance shook his head. “I’m only the anchor.”
Cadmael shrugged. “We will see who becomes the anchor. You have an hour to prepare.”
AN HOUR wasn’t long enough. Angus put the bells around his ankle. There’d been a time when he’d never taken them off, and now it didn’t seem right to wear them unless he were leaving the Training Temple or going to Demonside, even though no one else did. But they’d been a gift, and they had become a good luck charm as well as a riverwyrm deterrent.
He picked up the bone-handled knives that had been given to him when he fought for his life after his father had stabbed him. While the scar on his stomach was gone, the memory hadn’t faded at all. His father had tried to kill him, and while Angus hadn’t held the blade that killed his father, he had delivered him to the demons.
“Are you actually going to do it?” Terrance sat on the chair and watched Angus get ready.
Angus shrugged. “Do I have a choice? If I don’t, I fail Cadmael’s test and disrespect their way of paying for and using magic. If I do, then… then….”
“Then you kill a man.”
He nodded. It wouldn’t be his first kill, but it would be the first by his own hand. Was there really a difference? Saka always talked with reverence about those who volunteered to die. Death was respected and necessary. The Mayans knew that too. He’d been raised to believe that living was more valuable and that a warlock’s life was worth ten times that of a wizard. “What would you do?”
“You know the answer.” Terrance pressed his lips into a thin line.
Angus nodded. Terrance would act to keep himself safe and do as he was asked to live and have the chance to fight. Angus was tired of fighting. He just wanted to live. “Do you trust Cadmael?”
“No, and he doesn’t trust anyone either. I never realized until now how much Vinland is feared and hated.”
The Vinnish were the reason that other countries hated magic users, but it hadn’t always been that way. Angus had been able to learn more than he ever had at home, where knowledge was controlled. But the Mayan had watched it unfold and documented the college takeover. It was a chilling read.
When his father was his age, the college was just a place for teaching, not the power behind the government. But the World Council of Demonology had done nothing, or at least nothing effective, and by the time the Institute for Magical Studies stepped in, it was too
late. The ice was creeping, spreading.
He didn’t want to be another person who watched and waited and hoped something changed, so he strapped the knives in their red sleeve onto his forearm. They were demon in make and style. He hadn’t seen any Mayan priests wearing knives, though he knew they must own some, since shedding blood and souls was their preferred method for rebalancing. The bone handles were cool as he brushed his fingers over them, but the blades were clean and sharp. He made sure to keep them that way.
Angus lifted his gaze. There was only one way he would get his life back. “Tell Cadmael I will do what he wants. I’ll do whatever it takes to stop Vinland. But then it’s over, and we owe him nothing.”
“That’s what he wants to hear.”
“Then let him hear it.” The sooner he did it, the sooner it would be over. The ice would retreat, the Warlock College would be out of business, and Vinland could pull itself together. He could use what he’d learned to help instead of kill.
“Do you mean it?”
“Yes.” Angus forced a breath out between his teeth. “Let’s not be late to the execution.”
Terrance grabbed his arm as they reached the door. “Let Saka do it.”
Angus knew Terrance meant well. There was worry in his brown eyes and tension at the corners. There would be no coming back from this. It was a line drawn in the red sand of Demonside that couldn’t be uncrossed. It was also usually the line that made an apprentice into a mage.
“Saka trained me for this. It’s an offering to him. Either I do it or you do it.” He held Terrance’s gaze. The anchor didn’t make the kill. He wasn’t sure Terrance could hold the knife and draw blood from another, despite having done it to himself.
Terrance didn’t say anything.
Angus nodded. “I’ll do it. I’ll do what needs to be done.” He opened the door and started toward the doorway in the Training Temple. He trusted that Terrance would follow, though he wanted to be anywhere else. But there was nowhere else he could go.