Crown of Blood

by D G Swank

  I tilted my head, studying his face. Anger drew back the skin over his cheekbones and darkened his eyes. I’d only ever seen his face look hard and angular. What did it look like in moments of rest?

  But then I realized my magic was taking control again. That could be the only reason I’d look at Zane with anything but contempt. I gave an internal shudder. Focus. “What if I find a way to let Donall breach my magic and read my mind? Then he’ll know I’m sincere.”

  Zane’s brow lifted. “You’ll give him access to your mind and your memories?”

  I gave him a sweet smile. “Yes, but only if you give him access to your memories as well. Everything.”

  His face reddened.

  “No? Something to hide, Master Zane, or do you feel you alone are entitled to your privacy?”

  “I have nothing to hide,” he sneered. “You, on the other hand, have much to hide.”

  I turned to Donall. “I’ll give you access to part of my mind, but not all of it. And while, yes, I value my privacy, I’m also concerned my magic will harm you if you dig too deep.”

  Donall took a step toward me. “I’ll be careful.” His hand lifted, and I could already feel him trying to break through the shield created by my power.

  I concentrated on creating one small hole, letting a beam of power slip into my head. I arranged a jumble of thoughts to confuse him, then worked on creating multiple thoughts of working with the Dark Set—my hope, my fear they couldn’t help, my devotion to Donall. All false, yet real enough in the chaos I constructed. I added a few false daydreams of me in Donall’s arms to sell it even more.

  His brow lowered, and his eyes narrowed with concentration.

  I pushed the thoughts I wanted him to read to the forefront, then threw in a touch more chaos, chasing it with a gust of power to sting him. He recoiled, and as soon as his power withdrew, I resealed the small opening that had let him in.

  He hung over his legs, moaning. Zane shot me an accusatory glare, but I remained serene, the hint of a smile tugging the corners of my lips.

  “What did you do?” Zane asked.

  “I let him read my mind. I can’t help it if my brain doesn’t work like others.”

  Donall waved his hand as though to shush Zane, then looked up at me with new appreciation. “Zane, you must be the one to train her. Her mind…it’s too strong.”

  “Did you read her thoughts or not?”

  Donall took a step closer. “Sweet Celeste, I’ll get you the help you need, and you will be my queen.”

  If I accepted the book’s offer, I would be queen, but not at Donall’s side. He would bow before me…and I would have so much fun ripping his world from him.

  “Is everyone all right?” Lisa asked, sounding breathless as she burst through the door. “I heard the explosion.” Her mouth dropped open, and her gaze lifted to the open roof. “What happened?”

  “She happened,” Zane snapped, pointing a finger back to me. “She will be the death of us all.”

  “Zane,” I said, making sure my voice sounded light. “There’s no reason to feel threatened by my presence. Donall still needs you. I’m sure there’s room for both of us.”

  He stomped off, but Donall called after him, “Your lessons with Celeste start at three.”

  Zane paused in the doorway, and I was sure he was going to tell Donall to go fuck himself, but he walked away instead.

  Something he was apparently very good at.

  Chapter Seven

  Lisa walked me back to my room, then insisted on checking me over.

  “Did Zane try to hurt you?” she asked quietly.

  I could have lied and told her yes. The worry in her eyes told me she didn’t want to believe he was capable of harming a woman. Perhaps if I made her believe he was a monster, she’d give up her foolish affection for him. But I couldn’t bring myself to lie to her, not after she’d actually been kind to me, and if she was to be believed, she’d healed Rowan too. “No,” I said softly. “He was protecting me.”

  Her eyes fluttered shut, and I saw her mouth, “Thank the gods.” She opened her eyes then, and ran her hand up and down my body, searching for injuries. When she was satisfied that I was well enough, she sat back on the foot of my bed and studied me. “You’re very different than your sister.”

  I’d heard that all my life, and my mother had made sure to repeat the message often. “You seem too smart to be stating the obvious.”

  Her cheeks pinkened. “No. Not your magic. You.” She hesitated, then shook her head. “Sorry. Never mind. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  She started to get up and then stopped, placing a hand on my left arm. “Why are you really here, Celeste?”

  Had Zane convinced her to ask me that? My back stiffened and I lifted my chin. “I’ve made my reasons known.”

  “I’m not privy to the inner circle,” she said. “And Zane doesn’t share what he knows. So I’m asking you as Rowan’s friend—why are you here?”

  As Rowan’s friend? My sister had been busy during her week of confinement. She’d emerged with a boyfriend and a new friend. “If you’re not included in the inner circle, then why I’m here is no concern of yours,” I said in a condescending tone I hoped would convince her to let it go.

  Instead of getting angry or recoiling from my rebuke, she gave me a look of pity. “Be careful, Celeste. These are dangerous men who follow their own rules. They will use every last drop of you, then toss you out. Donall most of all.”

  “Then why are you here?” I asked.

  Her gaze dropped to her lap for a few moments, and when she lifted her face again, tears glimmered in her eyes. “I have no choice.”

  Fury burned in my gut, but it wasn’t directed toward her. “They hold you against your will?”

  “No.” She scrambled to her feet. “I’m here of my own accord.”

  “You’re here because of Zane,” I said, my tone flat. I was surprised at my disappointment. She stuck me as a woman who was too smart to follow a man so blindly.

  She took a backward step toward the door. “Please be careful, Celeste. I’ve seen what they can do.” Then she spun around and left the room. The door closed and locked behind her, which made me smile. I could fling the door open in seconds—or crush it to toothpicks—and they knew it. What purpose could that lock possibly serve? It was bolstered with Druid magic, sure, but it wouldn’t matter.

  They left me alone for the next few hours, with the exception of a guard bringing me lunch. Then, close to three, the door swung open, and Zane stood in the hall. “Let’s go.”

  I gave him an amused smile. “Well, since you asked so nicely…”

  His eyes darkened, and he turned and started down the hall, leaving me to follow. I wasn’t surprised when we ended up back in the sanctuary. The damage had already been done.

  He strode toward the altar, which was still strewn with chunks of wood and stone, and stopped on the steps. He turned back to face me, even taller on the steps, his contempt nearly palpable.

  “Why are you here?” I asked him with a hint of mockery. “You so obviously don’t want to be here, yet you let Donall force you into doing something you don’t want to do.”

  His hands fisted at his sides, and I could feel his magic building. This was the second time anger had loosened his control, which meant it wasn’t an aberration. I was going to play that for all it was worth.

  “I do it,” he said through gritted teeth, “because you are a danger to us all, and no one else seems to know what to do with you.”

  I graced him with a serene smile. “How gracious of you.”

  That pissed him off, and I did my best not to gloat. Openly. “I realize you don’t want to be here, so if you’ll just teach me what you know, then you can be done with me.”

  “Teach you what I know?” he asked with a laugh. “I spent years training with the Druids, and now you and Donall think I can teach you how to control your power with a few afternoon sessions?”

&nbs
p; Interesting. So the Druids had taught him control? I’d never thought to seek one out. My mother had always made it sound like their magic was beneath us. Maybe it was possible I could get something out of training with Zane after all. “Perhaps I’m a better student than you.”

  He gave a short shake of his head and snorted. “Doubtful.”

  “Then prove it.” I held my hands out at my sides. “What have you got to lose?”

  He stepped back onto the stone floor, glaring at me. “You’re dangerous.”

  “So you keep saying. Why not make me less dangerous?”

  Pushing out a long breath, he started to walk the periphery of the church along the outside edges of the pews. “What do you know about expression magic?”

  “That it’s rare,” I said, turning to keep him in my full sight. “And it’s capable of just about anything.”

  “But only if the witch or mage has proper training,” he said. “Your mother clearly didn’t have the first clue about how to train you.”

  Words of defense bubbled up in my throat, but I quickly swallowed them for a host of reasons. Mostly because it was true. She hadn’t understood my magic or how to train me, yet she’d been terrified to let someone else have influence over me.

  The night of her accident, Mother had left to meet Xenya so they could figure out what to do with me. A powerful telekinetic mage in France who claimed to know how to deal with expression magic had offered to train me, but he’d insisted he’d only do it on his rural farm. Mother had turned him down at first, but after a disastrous training session that had very nearly killed her, she’d finally realized I needed more help than she could offer. She and Xenya were to discuss the possibility of Xenya accompanying me to France as my guardian since my mother couldn’t leave the book or the land.

  Only my mother never made it to the meeting. The Dark Set had killed her instead.

  “No response?” Zane taunted.

  “If I were properly trained, then I would have no reason to be with you now,” I said, burying my anger. Why was I so upset? I couldn’t afford to deal with emotions. They made it more difficult for me to remain in control.

  He continued to circle around the sanctuary in silence as though weighing my response, then stopped at the entrance and turned to face me. “The Druids believe expression magic is the accumulation of all the magics. Every type.”

  I studied him as I considered his suggestion. “Every type? There must be well over fifty different types of magic.”

  “Seventy-two,” he said. “The Druids recorded them.”

  “Huh.” I couldn’t fathom that many. “What are they?”

  He held his hands out from his sides. “Magic is everywhere, Celeste. It’s part of the earth around us. Even the non-magicals still possess magic; they just don’t realize it because it’s in very small amounts.”

  I scrunched up my nose. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Is it?” he asked, his attitude now gone. This was something he felt passionate about. Something that mattered to him. “When a rose bush blooms, that’s magic. When the human heart beats because of electrical pulses, that’s magic.”

  “That’s not magic. That’s nature.”

  “Can you create a human heart and make it beat?” he asked.

  My magic latched onto the idea, wondering if was possible, sorting out what materials would be needed to make it happen. What living things to use. I squeezed the magic with a chokehold, letting it know there would be no sacrifices to do such a thing.

  The exchange only took a few seconds, but it caught Zane’s notice. “Where did you go just then?”

  The real question was how much I should share with him. I wanted to believe he could help me, but he’d made his dislike of me very clear. He could use anything and everything I told him against me. But if I withheld the nature of my magic, I reduced the likelihood he could help me gain control.

  “My magic was trying to figure out how to create a human heart.” Much more benign sounding when I left the sacrifice part out.

  He blinked. “Does it do that?” Then, realizing his question was too vague, he added, “Try to figure out how to make things happen?”

  I frowned. “Sometimes.” He waited for me to expand but I changed the subject. “So the Druids include blooming flowers and beating hearts as two of the seventy-two types of magic?”

  “Not exactly.” He paused, as if he too was wondering how much to divulge, then said, “The magic of the human body is included in that number.”

  “So that’s the magic non-magicals possess?”

  “Yes, but some of them possess other powers. Luck. Superb intuition. The ability to make others like and want to be near them. The ability to draw people with the power of lust and sex.”

  “Like a siren.”

  “Yes,” he conceded, “but in a much less targeted way. Non-magicals have the possibility to embody about fifteen different magics, some of which Valerians possess to a stronger degree.”

  “So if expression magic is an accumulation of all the different magics, does that mean you have control over seventy-two different types of magic?” I wasn’t sure whether to call him a liar or be impressed.

  “In theory,” he said. “We need to learn to harness them one at a time.” He caught my gaze and said, “But I don’t think the Druids’ interpretation of expression magic is quite right.”

  “So what do you think?” I asked, genuinely curious.

  “I believe expression mages are conduits to all different types of magic. We don’t possess it, though—we use our magic to harness the magic around us and guide it to do what we want.”

  I shook my head. “That doesn’t sound right. My magic is always trying to control me.”

  “Your magic is like an untrained thoroughbred racehorse. It’s dying to be raced but is kept in a stall. It rebels and behaves badly.”

  I grinned. “Did you really just call me a racehorse?”

  He stared at me a second before a boyish grin lit up his eyes. “I called you a thoroughbred racehorse.”

  “So you’re saying I need to start taking my magic on walks around the track.”

  “Maybe not even a walk around the track. Perhaps just let out into a pen.”

  “How do I let it out?” I asked, realizing that neither one of us was being condescending or hateful. I was eager to be trained, and despite his early protests, Zane seemed to enjoy teaching me.

  “How do you release it now?”

  “I can’t just release it,” I said. “I have to let it leak out.”

  “Which makes it sporadic,” he said.

  “Yes.” I hated to admit it, but I wanted his help.

  “I was like that too, before my mother sent me to the Druids.”

  “They taught you to control it?”

  “Control it? No. You can’t control a thoroughbred racehorse. Only train it. Your magic is busting at the stall door. Releasing it in small increments is likely making it more frustrated. You need to let it all the way out.”

  “Like this morning.”

  A dark shadow crossed his face at the reminder. “I have to warn you, Celeste, the damage might already be done. I started training with the Druids in my teens, and that was considered late. You’re in your early twenties. You might be untrainable.”

  I watched his face for signs of deception and found none, only concern. Why concern? He’d made it clear he couldn’t stand me. And then I realized why he’d be worried. Donall was expecting Zane to produce results.

  “Why aren’t you in charge?” I blurted out before I could think better of it.

  My abrupt question caught him by surprise. “What?”

  “If you truly have the ability to access all seventy-two magics, that means you’re more powerful than Donall.”

  His eyes hardened. “No one is more powerful than Donall.”

  “I’ve felt his magic. If you truly possess—”

  “I told you expression mages could potentially access a
ll magics. In theory. I never said I could do it.”

  I started to protest, then stopped. I’d felt Zane’s magic, and what I’d felt was much weaker than what I’d felt from Donall. Except the perception didn’t seem to match the reality. The only reason the building hadn’t fallen down around us earlier was because of Zane’s power. It struck me that he’d been hiding the full extent of his power from Donall. Why?

  Zane headed for the doors. “We’re done for the day.”

  “What?” I called after him. “We only just started.”

  “I’m not prepared. We need to find a way for you to safely release your magic without blowing up the church and everyone else with it.”

  I started to protest, but he had a point. I usually worked alone in the woods on our land. I’d never let my sisters come close while I was doing my part in the quarterly ritual to protect the Book of Sindal. But something told me that wasn’t the real reason he was in a hurry. He didn’t want me to ask any more questions about his abilities.

  “So when will we start?”

  “Tomorrow. Follow me.”

  My initial reaction was to buck at the command in his voice, but there was no denying I could learn from Zane. And that pink light I’d seen in his aura meant that he wasn’t completely contemptible. Maybe I’d do better to cooperate. I was also curious to find out where he’d been during the whole Rowan-and-the-book episode. They’d asked him about it that first night, but he hadn’t said much. Had he been sent back to the Druids as a spy? Was he trying to recruit more of them?

  It soon became clear we weren’t headed back to my room. We walked up a flight of stairs and then down a hall with closed doors on one side and a wall of windows facing an overgrown courtyard on the other. He stopped at a door and pushed it open, standing next to the threshold as he waited for me to enter.

  I stepped inside, only to stop in my tracks when I realized it was a bedroom, although much larger than mine and more nicely appointed. Could this be Zane’s room? Why would he have brought me here?