by D G Swank
“You’re joining the very group your mother died fighting?” Zane asked, incredulous.
“I was virtually a child when she died,” I said. “I’ve grown up and realized that sometimes our parents are held back by their own prejudices.” Even though I was lying for her, doing as she’d told me, I felt a slight twinge of guilt.
“Enough,” Donall called out behind me, but I refused to turn around to watch him advance. He was pelting me with tiny slivers of magic, trying to slip past the defenses I’d put up to guard my thoughts. I’m sure he thought he’d find an opening, however small, if he tried hard enough. He was powerful, I’d give him that—more so than he had any right to be—but he was also wasting his time. Based on the look of disgust Zane shot my would-be mentor, he knew Donall’s efforts were pointless.
“Celeste will be a great asset to us,” Donall continued. “She already has been. She opened the Book of Sindal, and she created the Orb of Power.”
“Yet she’s now in possession of the orb,” Zane said dryly. “So we don’t have it after all.”
“It was trapped inside Lester,” my father said. “Celeste freed it.”
“By taking it for herself,” Zane pointed out. “She’s in control of it now.”
I could feel my father squirm. He was the one who’d suggested I absorb it, although I suspect he’d done it as a power play against Donall. If I had the orb, Donall didn’t. Was he worried I’d give him up?
He needn’t concern himself. It served my purposes for him to think of me as an ally. For now.
I narrowed my eyes at Zane. If I didn’t win him over, he would become a thorn in my side. “It was either possess the orb myself or let my sister take it. It’s bad enough that they have possession of the book. Did you want them to take the orb too? You might as well have waved your white flag and surrendered.”
Zane’s face reddened, and he clutched his hands at his sides. He was talented at shoring up his magic, I’d give him that, but I could feel it now. His guard was down, and I could sense his power building.
Anger weakened his ability to hide his magic.
Interesting. Perhaps that might prove useful.
“Celeste,” Donall said, slowly reaching for my hand. “I promised to help you learn how to control your magic if you helped me open the book and read its secrets. I live up to my promises.”
The statement was laughable. I’d obviously only become a priority to him because I’d claimed his precious orb, but I knew what he wanted to hear.
I took his hand and bowed over it slightly. “Thank you, Master Donall.”
Zane snorted, clearly not buying my performance. I didn’t care if he fell for it. My father and Donall were in charge. They were the ones I needed to convince. If need be, I’d find a way to discredit him.
“When do we start our lessons?” I asked, although I had serious doubts Donall could help me.
“You can start after you finish your breakfast,” Donall said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “But your lessons won’t be with me.” His smile spread. “You’ll be training with Zane.”
Chapter Five
“Oh hell no!” Zane shouted. His power flooded the room, washing over my skin, and my own magic lapped it up like a dog left out in the heat.
“You’re the most logical mage for the job,” Donall said in a patient tone.
Zane shoved his finger toward Donall, his face turning red. “You’re the one who promised to train her. It’s your arrangement, not mine.”
“Zane,” my father said, not looking surprised by Donall’s decision or Zane’s outburst. “Surely you can see the wisdom of Donall’s suggestion.”
“Suggestion?” Zane sneered. “That implies choice. My choice is no.” Then he turned around and stomped out of the room.
Donall turned to me, his hands folded against his abdomen. “Celeste, I’m sorry for Zane’s overreaction. He needs time to adjust.” He tried his best to look concerned, but I wasn’t deluded by his attempts at charm. I knew the monster under his skin. I felt the unnatural power churning within him.
I gave him an acquiescent smile. “I came to you for help, Donall. I’d planned on working with you.” Indeed, I’d counted on it. I needed to get close to Donall so I could discover his weaknesses. So I could make him suffer.
“I know, but I feel that Zane is far more capable in this particular situation.” He sounded sincere enough, but his gaze flicked to my right hand, then back up.
He was afraid of the orb.
He was afraid of me. For all the power he’d padded onto his own slender ability, he knew I was stronger.
I leaned forward to signify my urgency yet kept an angelic, peaceful look on my face to pacify him. “But I prefer you, Donall.” I sat back and shivered slightly, letting pretend fear creep into my eyes. “Zane doesn’t like me.”
“Zane doesn’t like anyone,” my father said in a soothing tone. “He’ll come around.”
“But that doesn’t help me now,” I said, turning to face him. “The orb has only made it harder for me to stay in control.” They didn’t need to know that was a lie.
Worry filled my father’s eyes, but I wasn’t deluded into believing it was concern for me. Just like Donall, he was worried about the orb—if something happened to me, they might never be able to retrieve it.
“Why don’t you go rest?” Donall said. “We’re trying to find the book, and I’m sure its presence will help calm your power.”
As if summoned by his words—and my thoughts—a wispy white smoke began to seep in from under the door. It coalesced in the middle of the room, where it hung in the air for several seconds before floating toward me. My heart stuttered as I recognized the mist from the Book of Sindal. The life force living in its pages.
He’s right, the mist said. We belong together.
My gaze jerked to Donall to gauge his reaction. His shoulders lifted slightly, and he turned to the side, looking right at the mist. His lack of a reaction indicated he couldn’t see it, but had he heard it? He still couldn’t read my mind, but he had a strong telepathic ability. Perhaps he could sense the spirit of the book.
“The book didn’t help before,” I said, pressure building in my chest. “After it gave me the spell for the orb, it turned its back on me.”
Lies… The mist floated toward me, wrapping around my right wrist and squeezing. My hand glowed brighter, and the orb surfaced. I never turned my back on you. You were tested to see if you were worthy.
The orb released a blinding light that sent my father scrambling out of his seat. Donall backed up toward the double doors.
“There’s no need to be upset,” he said, his hands held up in surrender. Part of me wished I could get a photo of him acting frightened of a small woman. The rest of me wanted him on his knees.
A separate stream of mist forked off the main section and floated to my ear, cooing, All in good time, my child. You will see him lie prostrate before you, but you need me to complete the task. You mustn’t be frightened. Together, we will do great things.
An image passed before my eyes—Donall on his hands and knees, his head tilted back as he pleaded with me. His face was smeared in blood.
This can be yours, the book promised. Find me. Free me. Use me.
Free me? Was the book bound? But of course it was…it was bound by the Whelan blood. A slight taste of our blood had opened it. What would sever the chains permanently?
It had asked me to take the life of Rowan’s boyfriend. Would only murder sate it?
Would it ask me to kill my sisters?
No! I shot the thought at it with enough power to fling the mist from my wrist and send it halfway across the room. You will not have my sisters.
Donall was now on full alert. “What was that?”
“I’m struggling to control the orb,” I said, which was not entirely untrue, given that the orb was from the book. “Is there someplace quiet and serene I can go to meditate?”
“I’ll tak
e her to her room,” my father said, taking a cautious step toward me.
The thought of returning to my cell ratcheted up my anxiety, making the orb burn brighter still. “No,” I said, grabbing my right wrist. “Am I a prisoner?”
“No…” Donall said, trying to figure out the right way to handle me, “but surely you understand that your lack of control makes you a risk to others.”
“All the more reason to work with me,” I said, my voice thin as I struggled to regain composure. When he didn’t respond, I said, “Fine. But I can’t bear to be contained in that small room. This place was a church. Perhaps there’s a sanctuary I can use?”
The mist roiled across the room from me.
Yes, the book said. The sanctuary…
It frightened me that the book agreed, but I couldn’t allow that to matter. I still needed to be in a larger space so I could expel my excess energy, and while I would have preferred to be outdoors, I also wanted privacy.
Donall nodded and opened the door, addressing a guard who had been stationed outside the room. “Take her to the sanctuary.”
The guard glanced at me, or rather the bright glowing orb on my hand, and his eyes became huge with fear.
Which was just as well. I didn’t want or need an escort. “Just tell me the way, and I’ll find it on my own.”
Donall’s brow furrowed. He obviously didn’t like this plan.
I’ll show you the way.
Did I trust the book enough to follow it blindly? I decided it couldn’t do any harm. Part of it was here with me, but the book itself was likely miles away. “Never mind,” I said, walking toward the doorway. “I’ll find it on my own. Which shouldn’t be a problem since I’m not a prisoner.”
Donall took a few more steps backward, clearly not wanting to come in physical contact with me lest he lose his magic. I strode past him, fighting the urge to smirk.
My father didn’t utter a word.
The mist twined and twisted, leading me through the hallways past niches filled with statues of saints and the Virgin Mother, most in states of decay, making me wonder if this was an abandoned monastery or convent.
I stopped in front of two wooden double doors, the urge to enter so strong, I nearly sent a blast of power to fling them open. Instead, I used my left hand, my right now so hot I wondered if it would melt the metal handle.
My heart leapt with joy when I saw the three-story-tall peaked ceiling with exposed wooden beams. The side walls consisted of stained-glass windows. Behind the wooden altar was a rose stained-glass window, and the sun shone through it now, casting a deep red beam of light on the four-foot-wide stone aisle. Wooden pews flanked the aisle and spent candles clustered around the sanctuary on all sides.
Leaking a tiny amount of magic, I shut the doors behind me. When I heard the latch click, I blasted more power toward it, purposely melting the hardware to fuse the two doors together.
Now I knew I wouldn’t be interrupted.
Next, I created a sound-proof barrier as I moved toward the ray of light. I didn’t dare risk being overheard. “Spirit of the book,” I called out into the room. “We need to talk.”
The mist formed a floating cloud next to me, in the beam of light from the rose window. To my surprise, it coalesced into the shape of a young woman. Her features were wispy and rendered in shades of gray, but it was unmistakable that she was beautiful. “The Dark Set locked me inside the book centuries ago, and they’ll do the same to you, child of expression magic. They are not to be trusted. They seek to use and destroy you.”
I swallowed my surprise. While I had no doubt she was right, I wasn’t so sure she could be trusted either. “You told me that you belonged to me,” I said carefully. “That I needed to sacrifice everything to gain the book.”
“And you did,” she said with a benevolent smile. “You gave all to possess me. You don’t need the Dark Set. You only need me.”
“But you come with a price,” I said, the orb in my hand now throbbing. Was she doing that or was it because I was close to her?
“Everything comes at a price, Celeste Whelan. Your own mother paid the ultimate price. Are you willing to let her sacrifice be for nothing?”
“My mother died to bring the Dark Set down. I’m fulfilling my promise to her. I’m going to bring them down.”
“You think you need to do it from within,” the witch said, “but all you really need is me. I offer you the Crown of Blood. Why won’t you take what so many have killed for the chance to possess?”
“I’d never heard of the Crown of Blood until you told me about it last night. The Dark Set has no idea it exists. As far as I know, my mother had never heard of it either.”
She laughed, but it sounded hollow. “The Crown of Blood existed long before the Dark Set. It was stolen from its rightful heirs and hidden, but I can help you claim it.”
Heirs? If the crown preexisted the Dark Set, it had to be very old. “The Brexors?” I asked, taking a stab in the dark.
She smiled, but there was a hint of malice in it. “What do you think started the war between the two magical kingdoms?” she asked. “A crown was stolen. Justice was demanded.”
“But who stole it from whom?” I asked. “And how did you become trapped in the book?”
Her brow lifted. “All good questions, and good answers come to those who wait.”
“And pay the price to hear them,” I said skeptically.
“Ah, young Celeste. We shall have great fun together.” Her face folded into nothing and a surge of energy slammed into me full force, leaving me with a body consumed with power and a whole lot of questions.
Chapter Six
There was no way I could leave the sanctuary without releasing my power, and yet I worried I’d blow the entire place apart. What was I going to do?
The orb.
It throbbed in my hand like a deep wound, pulsing with my heartbeat. I focused on funneling my energy into it, but it wasn’t absorbing it quickly enough, and my anxiety wasn’t helping.
I fell to my knees, the magic consuming my entire body.
The doors to the sanctuary splintered and then swung wide open.
“What the hell are you doing?” Zane’s voice boomed off the walls and ceiling, echoing around me, and with all the magic flooding from me, I could actually see the vibrations.
I studied them, tilting my head to watch as they moved.
Zane knelt in front of me, his jaw tense and his eyes dark with anger. “Release it slowly, and I’ll help dissipate it.”
I turned back to him, almost as if in a dream. I was used to this altered state of reality, when the magic was too much to contain. It gave me glimpses of the world we lived in that no one else saw. I felt a new energy in the room, dark and strong, and I realized it was Zane.
Just like before, my magic was drawn to his.
“Celeste!” he shouted. “Release some of your power before you kill us all.”
A light glowed around him—his aura. A dark violet with a smattering of the palest of pinks. I rarely saw auras, but I was fascinated with the dancing light emanating from him. The pink told me there was still goodness in him somewhere. Perhaps Lisa was the one who’d created those pink specks in his soul.
“Celeste!” His voice was angry now, and I felt his magic shove my body down the aisle, toward the stone altar.
I unconsciously lowered the gates to my control. Some still-sane part of me realized the danger I was creating for Zane, so I turned my gaze upward, pushing up my hands and releasing the pent-up energy through the roof. The power blew through the stone and wood, sending the magic into the sky in a column of blazing yellow light.
Stones and wood chunks started to fall on me, but they were quickly sent flying into the back wall, creating a new hole that weakened the structural integrity of the building.
The walls and ceiling began to groan, and everything was falling down on top of me—until it wasn’t. Zane was kneeling next to me, using his power to keep the
ceiling from crushing me while my power still pounded into the void above us.
When the last of it was spent, I collapsed to the floor, barely conscious as I heard shouting in the distance.
“What have you done, Zane?” Donall demanded. An upended table went flying into the wall, joining the rest of the debris. So he had telekinesis now too. Interesting.
“What have I done?” he snarled, getting to his feet. “I just saved your precious princess’s life!” He stormed down the altar steps toward Donall. “She’s going to kill us all! If we didn’t have so many concealment spells on the compound, we’d have a dozen human policemen breathing down our necks. Why are you wasting your time on her?”
“She has the orb,” Donall said, lowering his voice. “And she’s here of her own accord. We need her.”
“You have me,” Zane said, his voice sounding gravelly.
“Yet you couldn’t open or read the book either.”
So he had tried. A slow smile spread across my face, and I dug deep to find the energy to push myself up to a sitting position.
“You can’t trust her,” Zane said. “She’s unstable. She nearly blew the entire place apart.”
“Then train her. Mold her. Make her your apprentice.”
Zane scoffed.
“The book says she’s important,” Donall said. “The book says she plays a role. We need her.”
Had the book spoken to Donall when we were in Kansas? If so, the message he’d received was quite different from the one I’d been given.
“And what if the book is lying?” Zane spat in disgust. “What if you’re falling into a trap?”
“The book doesn’t choose sides,” Donall scoffed. “It answers to the mage who possesses it.”
“It chooses the Whelans, and Celeste was close to her mother, who was killed over the book. Do you really think she will choose us?”
“I already have,” I said, getting to my feet. “And before you ask again, I already told you why.”
“You’re choosing us because we’re the stronger side,” Zane snapped. “What if the balance of power shifts? Where will you be then? Your lack of loyalty only makes you more suspect.”