Gran had a potion in her grimoire for colds and fevers to make in a pinch. I made a mental note to look it up then continued to try writing.
Unfortunately, Nathaniel and I have only managed to convince three of the vampires we captured to swear an oath of loyalty to him. The others refused and he was forced to kill them.
I didn’t know what else to say. It was the truth. Therefore, it was a good place to start. A man such as Edmund didn’t need or probably want excessive details.
The writing turned into smoke on the page and disappeared. Five minutes later, writing reappeared. But it wasn’t my own.
Harper,
Are you alright? Your handwriting looks like you’re in distress.
Distress? What kind of question was that? He already knew that I was under an insane amount of stress. I responded with the best handwriting I could manage.
I think I might be getting ill. But otherwise, I’m alrig-
The pen fell out of my hand and onto the floor. I leaned over to grab it when a wave of dizziness took over my entire body. As though I was rocking back and forth in a small boat, trying to get away from a storm. My arms ached. Everything ached. And the shivers only got worse.
I peered back over to the book to see my writing turn into black smoke permeating off the page just before I fell to the floor. I barely managed to catch myself with my hands before smacking right into it.
A thick droplet of sweat plummeted down my face. I wiped my forehead and set my head on the ground. Every part of my body felt weak. As if there were lead weights tying down my arms and legs.
When I looked up at the ceiling above me I saw the night sky beaming down on me in the pale moonlight.
‘How did I get outside?’
No. I wasn’t outside. This was a vision. It had to be. But the air wasn’t getting thick. The room didn’t become saturated with gray like it normally did. I blinked my eyes a few times, trying to clear away the sight before me. It wouldn’t go away. Nor would the pounding in my head.
I finally gave in to the sensation of heaviness taking over my entire body. As soon as I shut my eyes, the sight before me changed. Not to darkness. I was outside in the bright sunlight. It beamed down as I faced the man looking at me with more affection than I knew him capable of giving. It was Tobias. But he was different. He was that same tribesman. The one who watched as the flames curled around my legs and devoured me. Only he wasn’t looking at me with horror as the fire consumed my body. His eyes were full of pure love and devotion.
There were people surrounding us. Watching as a man in a long cloak handed me a chalice with a strange liquid inside. I took a sip and handed it to Tobias. Only that wasn’t his name. Not in this form. Not in this life.
‘Talorcan.’
The name came to my mind swiftly and took hold of my every thought. This man wasn’t the one who had bitten into my wrist, that leered at me as I stood exposed in the courthouse bathroom in Dilton, and who threatened Nathaniel at the thought of competition for my affections. He didn’t need to. He already had them.
The cloaked man took a piece of long material and bound our right hands together as torches surrounding us were lifted into the air.
It was a wedding ceremony.
‘What in the world is happening?’
It was the day before the battle. The battle where we were overpowered and captured by the Romans.
‘We knew we might die. That’s why there was a wedding the day before.’
My eyes flashed open. The sky was gone. Only the ceiling of the small hidden room remained. Along with my pounding headache and weak limbs.
Tobias was standing over me. His freezing cold hand pressed up against my skin as he felt for my temperature. I only started shaking more at the feel of his icy touch.
“Harper?” he called my name.
He was in the small hidden room in the library.
‘How did he know where I was? How did he even know I was out of bed?’
Edmund must have sent him a message that something was wrong.
My eyelids were heavy. I could barely keep them open no matter how much I struggled.
He repeated my name. Again. And again. And again.
I opened my mouth to speak. Only one word came out.
“Talorcan,” I whispered.
Even though my body was weak, my magic didn’t miss a thing. I could sense the shock permeating from his body the second the word left my lips.
He gave a heavy sigh just before taking me into his cold hands and lifting me up from the floor. My arms dangled below me as he stepped out of the hidden room and he carried me down his large grand staircase.
My magic started weaving above my body. My eyes fluttered open to see the gold light twisting and turning, wanting to spread out from my skin and mark him.
“No,” I mumbled. “Not yet. I’m not ready.”
“Not to worry, Harper. You’re magic isn’t scarring me.”
I must have had a confused look on my face because he started talking as he folded me in his arms in the back of one of his many Audis.
“Take us to Lenora,” he said.
I could see Christophe’s reflection in the glass window as the garage door opened with a loud screech. The gears of the electrical garage door started churning.
Tobias leaned over and spoke softly in my ear. “It’s time you learned a few more things,” he said. “Arthur’s desires can’t fight back the truth. And apparently, neither can mine.”
‘The truth? What is he talking about?’
Whatever it was I was about to learn, I assumed I was better off not knowing. I went from knowing practically nothing to knowing far more than I desired over the course of a few months.
Tobias’s cell phone rang in his pocket. “Yes?”
I could hear Nathaniel’s voice on the other end of the line.
“No, she won’t be joining you and Carlton right now. You’ll have to do it on your own.”
Nathaniel protested, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying.
“She’s not well. I’m taking her to see Lenora.”
There was a silence on the other end of the line followed by blind outrage. An outrage that I wasn’t used to hearing coming from Nathaniel’s mouth. He was usually so calm. So collected. Even when he was scaring the life out of me.
“No, you stay where you are. I will handle it. Do as I say and go on tonight without her,” he ordered him before ending the call.
“Talorcan,” I mumbled as my body fought the urge to give into a heavy sleep.
“Hush, Harper. I haven’t answered to that name since I was mortal. No point in starting to use it now.”
I felt the vehicle take off on the highway. Christophe took a few turns a little too sharply as he rushed through the traffic of morning commuters. The car came to an abrupt stop followed by Tobias lifting me into his arms once more and carrying me somewhere. At least he didn’t have me over his shoulder like Brian did. He held me like he cared. Like if he was too rough with me I might break.
Footsteps ran over the gravel walkway beneath me. All I could do was hear. My eyes were too heavy. Even so, the hastened footsteps told me all I needed to know. Whatever was happening to me wasn’t normal. Not in the human sense. And Tobias was worried.
“Lenora,” Tobias greeted the hammering steps rushing toward us.
“How long has she been like this?” a woman asked as an abnormally hot hand touched my forehead to feel my temperature.
I was brought inside somewhere and laid down on a hard surface. Was it a table? The floor? I wasn’t sure.
More feet started scurrying around. The woman opened one of my eyelids but my vision was too blurry to see her. I was slowly slipping away again. Seeing things behind my closed eyes that weren’t really there, but they felt as real as the hard surface beneath my body. I was slipping into another vision. Unable to stop it like Tobias had taught me and unable to sense what was real and what wasn’t. Because it all felt real. L
ike it was happening all at once.
“Get my kit!” The woman who I assumed must be Lenora shouted. “We’re going to need at least five of us.”
Then she was gone. Or at least her voice was. Along with the feeling of the surface beneath my body. I was floating in the air with my arms hanging beneath me. Levitating. And just before I started to panic at the feeling of being weightless I slipped into another vision.
I was standing before Tobias again. And this time, he wasn’t wearing tribal clothing. He didn’t look like a tribesman. More like a knight. A knight in armor that wasn’t exactly shining but was nearly black. He was still a warrior but one of a different nature.
He lifted the front so I could see his face through the slits for eyes in the metal. “If you go now, you might stand a chance,” he said in an English accent. One that I wasn’t used to and I wasn’t sure suited him. It strongly resembled Eli’s accent.
“Where ever I go, they’ll find me. They’ll hunt me.” My voice. It wasn’t how I usually heard it. It was Scottish. More like Georgeanna’s. But the clothes were wrong. All wrong. Tobias looked medieval. Like a knight serving a master. And I was clothed in a simple dress that looked as if I hand stitched it myself. And for all I knew, maybe I did.
Tobias cupped my face in his armored hands. “If you don’t go now, you’ll never be free again. Do you understand?”
Something pulled me back to reality. A shock of electricity ran through my body. My eyes burst open and I saw a woman standing over me. Her long brown hair was tied behind her head in a bun. Her eyes were as blue as the ocean. At least from what I had seen of it in pictures. I had only ever driven by the coast of the Atlantic once with Caleb. But if I ever got to see the Pacific, her eyes were as blue as I imagined it would be.
She was older. Definitely on the other side of fifty. But still elegant. If I managed to live that long, that was how I wanted to age. Gracefully.
The thought fled my mind as shock waves ran through my body like a sudden surge of electricity rushing inside my arms and legs, waking them up with a thunder I had never felt before. It didn’t hurt. There was no pain. Only a strange surge that brought me immediately back to reality and away from whatever vision or dream I was having. For all I knew, it could have been either. But one thing I did know, I hadn’t imagined the levitating part. I was floating in the air.
A bright blue light cascaded down from a wand in Lenora’s hand and into my chest, making her eyes even brighter. The light slowly dissipated and retreated into her skin. As she backed away my body descended to the hard surface. Her magic was setting me gently down. I saw that there were three men and two women standing around me as I lay on a center slab. They held hands and let their magic spiral between them, locked onto one another to form a complete circle.
Tobias stood outside the circle watching them. His attention drifted over to Lenora.
“It shouldn’t have happened this way,” he said to her. “What could have caused this?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But you have to find out.”
Chapter 5
Tobias paced back and forth, letting his eyes scowl at each of the witchlings in the circle before they fell to me. I turned my head over to the side to get a better look at what was happening, finally having the energy to move it on my own without my headache dulling my senses.
Lenora’s touch was so unbelievably warm.
She took her palm that held her magic only a few seconds ago and reached for my forehead, checking my temperature again as the others continued chanting words that I couldn’t quite believe I understood.
It was an old language. One that died along with its people. Words from so far north that most men didn’t dare cross into our territory. We were among the few who could survive it.
I blinked a few times, wondering where these thoughts had come from. They didn’t feel like my own.
“What’s going on?” I muttered.
“Something we were hoping to avoid,” Lenora said.
‘Wait, she knows me? Avoid what?’
The soft chanting of the witchlings surrounding me continued. They spoke of memories long lost and meant to be forgotten.
‘Okay, thanks for clarifying. These weren’t normal visions after all.’
“Don’t panic,” Lenora said.
‘Easy for you to say. You seem to know what the hell is going on and I don’t.’
“More will come back to you over time,” she said. “Although, it was meant to happen after the marking took place.”
“What was meant to happen?” I murmured.
“If you were to regain the memories of your past lives too quickly, it would only frighten you. And I have no doubt you’re under a massive amount of stress already.” Her voice was soothing. Like gran’s voice. Only she hadn’t yet acquired the husky depth that made gran so calming to listen to.
“I don’t understand,” I mumbled.
Her eyes softened. She stood up a little straighter and directed her attention to the other witches surrounding us. “You may leave. Thank you for coming so early on a weekday,” she said.
They bowed their heads and walked out of the room as they spoke quietly amongst themselves. I was left alone with her and Tobias.
She leaned forward and brought her arm underneath my back. “Grab onto my shoulder,” she said. “I’ll hoist you up.”
I did as she said and she brought me back up to a sitting position. A strange sensation passed from her to me when she took my hand. She was definitely a witchling. And much more powerful than me. I looked around to see that I was in a medium-sized room with walls made of stone. There was a skylight above us that let the sunlight shine directly over me on the stone slab.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“An old ceremonial chamber my small coven uses for rituals. We try to keep the old ways alive. So few luxra do these days.”
“The old ways?”
“The rituals of the luxra,” she said. “My coven is one of the few remaining after the Changing occurred.”
The Changing. The word was one my gran used on occasion. I knew what it meant. The time when a coven of luxra had broken witchling law and tried giving the kruxa more power. Inevitably causing the creation of vampires.
“Is Daniel in your coven?” I asked.
“Daniel?”
“No, he’s not,” Tobias chimed in from the corner of the room. “Daniel isn’t the only luxra I have on standby when I need things. I don’t like putting all my eggs in one basket.”
“Oh, please,” said Lenora, allowing her voice to get a little more high pitched as she feigned offense. “You know you keep coming back because you can’t stay away.” She was teasing him! And all this time I figured Tobias wasn’t a man any woman would dare tease.
“On occasion, yes,” he said, looking back at her with equal amusement.
‘Okay, that’s a relationship I really didn’t need to know about.’
It didn’t take much effort to see that Lenora had been stunning when she was younger. But magic could only help the vixra prolong the inevitability of death. Not luxra or kruxa. I imagined Lenora probably knew him some years ago.
I brought my hands up to examine them. My magic tried marking Tobias when he was carrying me down the stairs. I looked over at him standing by the wall. I didn’t feel any different. And I definitely didn’t feel any stronger inclination toward liking him.
“Daniel gave me a sleeping potion,” I said as the memory of how this all started came back to me. “Could that have caused this… this illness?”
She seemed rather entertained by the idea. “No, my dear,” she laughed. “This is what your magic has been trying to do since you met this one over here,” she said as she tilted her head at Tobias.
“Did I…I mean…I couldn’t have-”
‘No! Please tell me I didn’t mark him.’
I was starting to tremble. The very thought of my magic doing the unthinkable disturbed me to my core
.
“What in the world is wrong?” she asked me.
Tobias took a few steps forward with his head hanging. As if he was ashamed of himself. Perhaps even guilty. I knew better. He wasn’t a man who did anything in life with regret. He lived with intention at all times.
“Calm down, Harper,” he said. “Your blood didn’t scar me.”
Lenora’s eyebrow raised at Tobias’s words. “Oh, no. You didn’t, Tobias! You didn’t lead her to believe-”
“That all this time her blood was trying to scar me?” He shrugged his shoulders as if the deception was no big deal. Or just a small misunderstanding. “Perhaps.”
“Why would you do that to her?” Lenora scolded him. “Marking is a very personal process, Tobias. Shame on you!”
I got the distinct feeling that Lenora was one of the only women even remotely capable of shaming him. He glanced up at her and I swear for the briefest moment I thought I saw a hint of remorse flash in his eyes. Then it was gone in an instant.
“Your blood wasn’t marking him, Miss Ashwood,” she said, having the decency to use my last name given that we still hadn’t been properly introduced. Although, the ‘my dear’ bit made me think she had some southern roots. “Your magic was trying to revitalize your past life memories. Tobias is practically your direct line of access to them because you’ve met in each life you lived throughout the centuries. If I were to guess, you’ve gained a few of those memories back. Am I right?”
“She did indeed,” said Tobias, his smugness returning in full force. “She called me Talorcan.”
Lenora’s mouth fell open as if he had said the unthinkable. “That far back? That shouldn’t be possible.”
“Apparently it is.”
“Not without magic to help. And stronger magic than a kruxa can possess.”
“Then your guess is as good as mine,” said Tobias. He didn’t dare mention that I had vixra blood in my system. It would only lead to questions about how I got it. Which could lead to Lenora knowing he had it as well.
Witchling Wars Page 53