by Jamie Magee
Before that day Reveca had watched hundreds upon hundreds of men pull through the transition of mortal to immortal. Some never made it, the death she had fought for them won the final round. Others would endure fevers that would soak them, their bodies would convulse, they’d roar into the night. It was a brutal experience to watch, so wretched that Reveca found deep seeded gratitude for her death and transition into the immortal witch she was.
It was different with him. He slept as soundly as a baby. Only his eyes would move behind his lids, every so often his fist would clench, and once she saw a single tear slide down his cheek. Mesmerizing.
Just as she had settled in for a long haul, certain it would at the very least be a fortnight, he rose soundly. Unlike the others, he wasn’t panicked or disoriented. If she didn’t know any better, she would’ve questioned if he had died.
“What is your name?” she asked crouching at his side.
He looked at the sky, judging the time by the stars above, before he dropped his head and muttered a curse in a language that did not exist in the dimension she was standing in.
Reveca had discovered before then that when she pulled the dead back to life power from the entire universe helped her, it was all a mixed bag. What was left behind in the soul changed the mortals as they grasped immortality. Never had the tongues of other nations landed in her newfound warriors.
Her gaze shifted over him in doubt and defense. What was he?
“Name,” she demanded thrashing her vim into him.
If he noticed the blow at all, he gave her no reason to think he had. The man stood as his sights locked on the heavens. “What did you do?” he asked as his accusing jade stare landed on her.
“Something I’m rather regretting.”
“Witch!” he accused.
“Guilty,” was her smug response as she palmed the dagger at her waist, her mind was weaving together the spell needed to take this man down. She knew it was too good to be true. Nothing came easy for her.
“Murderer,” was his next accusation.
“Quite the opposite.”
He roared into the night as he turned and thrust his fingers through his long hair. His chest began to heave, and seconds later smoke burst from his lips. When he held his arms out, waves of flames could be seen snaking along his veins.
His accusing stare landed on Reveca. “You offered me to the fire goddess?”
His words were lost on Reveca. She knew of no actual goddess. And as for the gods, she chose not to think of them at all, not after one of them struck down her first love.
“I saved you from death,” she countered. “I aim to rectify it directly.”
When she pulled her dagger forward, with one glance he flung it from her hand. Reveca cowered back in shock knowing no one could transition and use their power this quickly. A thousand reasons were rushing through her mind. Was he a witch? Surely not, she would’ve heard of one as powerful as him. Zale held the crown as it were, and if it were up to him, she’d stand at his side for all of time. A demon? It was possible, Reveca had felt enough darkness to know that someone or something was behind the dark arts, granting its power only when it saw fit, and always for a price that was dangerously too high.
When he fell to the ground convulsing again, only to rise looking twice as vicious before Reveca could take one step toward him, the DEMON accusation seemed fitting. There was something insane in his eyes, where they were once jade now rings of amber were spinning. “You selfish whore! I will destroy you limb by limb and dance on your grave for centuries to come!”
In shock, Reveca stared questioning why his voice was different. His voice was distant, almost controlled. When he lunged forward to strike, Reveca’s instinct kicked in. She knocked him back with her power, or so she assumed, his brutal yells, him tumbling on the ground only to rise and face her again left her confounded.
“Go,” he roared.
Her ego kept her grounded for seconds she didn’t have to spare. But after hearing the distant voices of the Sons searching for her, she left, for their safety, of course.
It was impossible to not think of the possessed man in the woods as the next days went by. He’d intrigued her, something not many had done. One moment she would argue it was her duty to face him, to help. The next she feared Zale was toying with her. She was growing tired of his seductions. The sight of her Sons only made her think of Talon more than she cared to. She ached for the balance Talon gave her. She could tell him anything and even if he didn’t know the answer, Talon simply listening to her would help her find the one solution that had eluded her.
But this, she could never speak of. Talon would not accept anyone she brought back from the dead when she was ‘with’ Zale, not for years and years to come at least. Struggling between her morals and desires, she stayed lost. The closest she came to any solution was sending mortals out to look for a wounded warrior, sick in the mind.
They came up empty handed.
On her last day in Zale’s kingdom, everything changed. Talon had decided he wanted his witch back, and to do so, he had turned her on. He let her see what a man with real power looked like. One by one, the scattered, never truly nurtured immortals she had transformed at Zale’s side were brought to their execution moments after Talon had overtaken Zale’s palace.
Though Talon was no witch, he was a smart man who never left a single action his woman did unnoticed. He’d traveled across oceans to find one blade he had once watched her spell then bury. “It will be out of salvation if those I have found promise and forsake my trust,” she had told him.
When Talon first set out for this blade, he’d done so to protect his life and the life of the men who had chosen to ride out with him. In his mind, only a fool would leave a weapon that could destroy him buried for anyone to find. His journey there granted him time to think over vows he’d made, and once the blade was uncovered, he’d hatched a new plan—to take Reveca back once more.
Mortal armies, starving and desperate to feed their people, followed Talon and his undefeatable men without question. They pillaged, and Talon grew in power, until taking over one measly witches castle was child’s play. Along the way he and the Sons had gathered the ‘others’— wild immortals that needed to be stopped. It wasn’t hard to find them, their lack of control, showing their powers to all those who had left the mortals fear struck. Word of mouth led Talon to each.
Slaying them as Zale and Reveca watched was icing on the cake, his public claim that no witch would find him easy prey.
When Reveca saw the spelled blade in Talon’s hand as he stood judge and executioner on the steps that led into Zale’s castle, it was hard not feel a quiver of passion rush through her as she swelled with pride. For hours, she kept her gray eyes steady on Talon. She wasn’t heartless. When each immortal fell, her mind’s eye watched their soul cross her Edge, some to the light, some to the Veil. Her well wishes went with each.
But then, he came. The strange possessed male from the woods. Reveca ventured to think the only reason he had been captured at all was because he was once again catatonic. His stare was distant as his limp body and detached stare was dragged to the bloodstained steps.
Panic set into Reveca. She was sure if they attempted to slay this male whatever was within him would strike. Deep down she knew she could not watch this golden mystery be destroyed.
Reveca lurched forward and put her neck in place to meet the blade. Instant jealousy and suspicion hit Talon’s bloody expression.
“Fire,” she whispered. No other immortal she had brought back had displayed any tendency of fire, except for Talon thus far.
She rose from her place of sacrifice and put her hands-on Talon’s chest and chose her words ever so carefully. There was a fine line between jealousy and esteem. “He was brought back with my reason. With my craving to have what we have.”
In her own twisted, paranormal way, she was telling Talon that Scorpio was their love child, a new beginning she was grasping.
>
“Just days ago, I left him when I sensed the Sons close, I’ve searched but could not find him.”
“Witch, filthy scoundrel, murdering heathen set me free!” the man mumbled trying to focus what he looked at.
Talon arched an amused brow then his blade landed at the male’s throat.
“November Scorpio,” Zale gasped as he was brought out for his own execution. Suddenly, his demise seemed far less perilous. “Take him, you beast!” Zale demanded.
Those few words forever swayed Talon’s opinion of Scorpio. If Zale wished something to be, Talon would go to the ends of the Earth to see that it never came to be. The male began to mumble once more, his words were low and heavily accented. Reveca strained to hear them over the uproar of the crowd, each eager to see more blood.
The powerful, smug grin on Talon’s lips stood still in time as a blank confusion hit his eyes, and then washed down the rest of his expression. Assuming the male was hexing Talon, Reveca began to conjure her power. Before any of her power gathered, Talon grasped Scorpio’s head turned it side to side in inspection, then glanced back at the crowd. The furrow of his brow, the curiosity hidden behind his stoic image baffled Reveca.
“You brought him back,” Talon asked Reveca as his stare moved to her eyes searching for truth.
Talon was only verifying it was her magic in Scorpio and not Zale’s, so it was easy to offer a simple nod and fair on the side of truth. However, for days she had questioned if this male had ever died.
“And you fear him, why?” Talon asked Zale.
His answer came when Scorpio exploded from his limp stance on the stone stairs and charged Zale like a rabid dog. The fight was brutal, gruesome and only fueled further roars of the crowd. Talon’s delighted chuckle was among the loudest.
Reveca stood with wide eyes watching more than the others could see. Zale was using every power he had as a witch to destroy Scorpio, including dark spells Reveca would not touch in her most desperate hour. Nothing worked, it might as well have been water falling on the warrior.
When Zale fell limp, Scorpio punched his fist into Zale’s chest and pulled his heart out, and Reveca nearly fainted. Before Scorpio could go for more— ripping Zale to shreds— Talon and the Sons pulled him away and hoisted him on their shoulders in victory.
Obviously Zale survived, but no one knew he had for years to come. The common story was that his witchling’s in training had saved him, cast an illusion spell to fool the others that Zale’s heart had been ripped out.
Oddly, when Zale did come back around, Scorpio’s prior anger was nullified. He still hated Zale; led every charge against him at Talon’s side, but never with the same hunger. She asked why once, and Scorpio grinned absently. “He no longer possesses what he should not. When he does again, I will fight him again.”
“What?” Reveca pushed.
The absent look in Scorpio’s eyes told her he wasn’t sure. Scorpio was a male driven by instinct, nothing more or less. He never fought for glory or vanity. His battles were natural, an unavoidable path he had to cross when it came to protecting his own.
All Reveca knew was she had an immortal in her keep who could withstand the darkest of magic without a flinch, and a secret that would one day strike at the worst of times.
Chapter Three
Still wheeling in the thoughts of her past, Reveca offered a remorseful glance at King. There were endless reasons she was grateful to have him at her side once again, but one of the greatest gifts he possessed (and worst depending on her mood!) was knowing that he could always see through her bullshit. He would have never fallen for her ‘love child’ reasoning back then.
It was the witch in King that would have sensed more was lurking than an untruth. King would have prevented her from ever having to plan the hunt she was about to embark on, and he would have stopped her from fretting over this day for the last dozen centuries.
“I’ve watched him withstand curses that would make the gods tremble,” Reveca said quietly.
King pulled her to his lap and began to coax the very trembles she spoke of away as her mind churned up forgotten times, moments that had been gathering dust on her ‘do later list.’
When she left with Talon and the Sons long ago, they began a four-month journey at sea. Most times there was nothing much to do but wait, and idle warriors are never at ease. The known fact that they weren’t along with a fresh transition hid the oddities of Scorpio to the others. Him falling into a catatonic sleep, the mumbles, the change in his eyes and voice, the combat skills that only surfaced now and again were all within the realm of the expected.
Once home she searched every relic she had on what he could be, being the most powerful witch, and assuming the second most powerful witch was dead only made things harder. She’d be damned if she asked her sister or Jamison. They both thought she was mad as a hatter at the time—raising the dead? Insanity.
As all new warriors did, Talon set off alone with Scorpio. It was a rite of passage he put them all through.
While they were gone, Reveca was sick with fear, sure the demon would kill Talon. When they returned a fortnight later laughing and as close as any other Son, she began to assume it was her who was perceiving Scorpio wrong. Perhaps the high her exulted power always gave her caused her to perceive more than was there, fear when no true fear was needed.
For the majority of the time, Scorpio kept a vast distance between him and Reveca. Now and again, she would catch him looking her way from Talon’s side. A new kind of jealousy struck her then. She was sure her cunning baby immortal sought to destroy her slowly by turning her family against her one by one. Her fears were only underlined when Scorpio would tell of lands full of all that Talon’s mortal armies could ever want. Before she knew what was happening, the newest member of the Sons was plotting wars at Talon’s side. Behind closed doors, she fought with Talon about how easily he trusted. Sex was her weapon, withholding, or making it so raw and mind-bending Talon was putty in her hands.
Her ploys didn’t work until the third battle Scorpio had planned. Reveca saw no reason to overtake the city. To do so on the scale Scorpio was planning would only bring forth travesty. The Sons would win, of course. But mortal souls on both sides would be lost. Furthermore, the city was notorious for ‘unveiling works of the devil.’” Her sister was captured once by those fools. The last thing Reveca wanted was for her reputation to precede her, or her Sons. They wanted to be phantoms in the night, fighting for those who could not.
Hours after Talon announced that they would be engaging in the battle, Scorpio attacked Reveca when she was returning from the river.
One massive hand landed on her throat. Out of instinct Reveca’s power pushed Scorpio back. Knowing her worst fear was about to happen she started chanting spells she had practiced day in and out looking for defense, a way to deliver a fatal strike. She focused so intensely on saving her life that she never saw him struggle.
Scorpio jerked away then fell to the ground and cursed in the dead language he spoke when he was under restraint. There was no time for her to find glory, a beat later he raised and knocked her down again, then he sat astride her with a hand wrapped tightly on her neck. It was his eyes that drew real fear from her, they were every color but his, then all at once they flooded with jade.
“Name your holy city,” he grunted out.
She had no idea what he was speaking of. When his eyes swarmed with other colors, his hold tightened. Then once again the jade returned.
“Name,” he rasped.
“R-Revra.” She managed to say. It was a city that only her coven would know, but the one word relaxed Scorpio’s grip. “Feel it.” When she did nothing, he squeezed tighter. “Feel it!” he raged.
As furious as she was at the gods, in general, she did see the white ocean in her mind, not as a woman scorned but as child excited for life to commence. Scorpio’s chest heaved as his breath caught.
“Feel the end,” he said on an exhale.
&n
bsp; Bringing forth her hate for the end of her time in her world was easy enough to do, watching King being ripped away from her in her mind’s eye was her own personal hell.
Tense moments later Scorpio released her and fell at her side.
It was a long while before she spoke. “What are you?”
“Like you,” he rasped reaching to rub his eyes.
“In what manner?”
“This is not your world. You’re young, confused about your gifts, battling to master them.”
Reveca swallowed tensely. “I’m not evil.”
“Like beauty, evil is a matter of opinion.”
She rose and glared down at him. “My opinion wavers on you. I’ve done nothing to deserve the madness you threaten all I have with.”
His grin was cold. “Have you not? How many lives were lost by one of your girlish whims?”
Reveca’s vim slashed at him and just as before he defended her blows easily. He stood at his leisure looking worn, as if he had single-handedly fought an epic battle.
“There is honor among the powerful. It has saved you today.” He glanced down at her. “Honor in all its greatness can not offer forgiveness.” His jade eyes slid over her in slow evaluation. “Every action you take impacts the universe at large. Your brashness has destroyed something precious to me and my own.”
“What?” she bit out.
Scorpio swayed his head. “Have you not been schooled to leave be magic that you do not honor?”
“I honor all magic.”
“What I saw in the lands of Zale was your honor?” He snapped.
She pulled her shoulders back, battle ready, “You saw a weak moment.”
Scorpio’s lip curled into a snarl, “Weak moments rip souls apart. It is a failure that can not be undone.”
“And what have I done to you?”
He searched her visage, and she questioned who or what he was listening to. His thoughts? The voice of evil?