The Shadow Weave

by Annette Marie

  “I … I can tell.”

  “I’m a haemon,” she muttered tersely. “I should have magic.”

  Clio didn’t know what to say. The girl might be a haemon, but her aura was far from normal.

  The road ended at a T-intersection, and directly ahead was a thicket of trees with a paved walkway that disappeared into the darkness.

  Piper stopped the car and squinted at the park. “Should I go around?”

  “No.” The tracking signal pounded in her skull. “This is close enough.”

  Piper reached for the key in the ignition. “I can—”

  Clio grabbed the girl’s hand, stopping her from shutting off the engine. “You will turn around and drive home. You don’t want to lose your apprenticeship, do you?”

  Alarm flashed in her gaze as though she’d never considered the possibility.

  Clio unbuckled and pushed the door open. “Straight back to the Consulate, okay?”

  “Okay.” Piper leaned sideways to watch Clio climb out. “Be careful, Clio.”

  “I will.” With a reassuring smile, she swung the door shut and stepped onto the sidewalk.

  Piper steered the car in a tight U-turn, then the engine revved as she took off back down the road. Clio waited to make sure the girl didn’t stop and turn around again, then she faced the night-swathed park.

  Her heart hammered painfully in her chest. Touching her throat, she cast a cloaking spell over herself, then started forward at a brisk walk. The path zigzagged through the trees, silent and empty. The tracking spell called her onward, hammering so loudly in her head that she almost wanted to deactivate it. But not yet.

  She reached the edge of the trees as something splashed loudly, followed by hacking, wet coughs. Ahead, a memorial wall blocked her view. Barely breathing, she crept to the edge and peeked around it.

  The first thing she saw was Bastian’s back. He sat in a wooden chair that was completely out of place in the decaying park, facing a crumbling water fountain. Six daemons with red hair and tattoos stood at the edge of the fountain, and she didn’t need her asper to know they were his chimera bodyguards.

  Slumped at their feet beside the fountain was Lyre, a blindfold over his eyes and water dripping off his chin as he coughed violently. Convulsions wrenched his body as though he’d inhaled an entire bucket of water.

  “How much longer, Lyre?” Bastian asked, his calm voice painfully familiar. “Next round, I’ll double the time.”

  Lyre continued to cough up water.

  When he quieted, Bastian rubbed his chin. “You are exceptionally stubborn. Tell me how to activate the KLOC or we will continue.”

  Lyre sucked in an unsteady breath as though to speak, but instead he spat on the ground in Bastian’s direction. A clear answer.

  Bastian waved his hand and leaned back in the chair, looking bored. The chimeras grabbed Lyre by the arms, spun him around, and shoved his face into the fountain.

  Lightheadedness swept through Clio. Lyre writhed, his arms bound behind his back and his feet scraping helplessly at the ground. A guard snickered cruelly and rammed his knee into Lyre’s back, pinning him to the basin’s edge.

  Bastian sighed. “This is tedious. I didn’t expect him to hold out so long.”

  Clio didn’t even realize she was moving until she’d burst out from behind the memorial. She hadn’t decided to act, but her body was in motion and the only thing in her head was a raging fury so hot that it was like a poison flooding her body.

  Focused on Lyre, the men didn’t notice her until she was almost on top of them. The prince lurched up from his chair and three chimeras whipped to face her, but she had already reached Bastian, her arm pulling back.

  She struck him across the face with all her strength.

  He staggered, and then a blast of magic from a guard hit her in the chest, throwing her backward. She landed hard and two daemons sprang at her, their glamours vanishing and swords jumping into their hands.

  “Stop.”

  The chimeras halted at Bastian’s command, the points of their weapons aimed at her chest. She pushed up onto her elbows, too angry to feel fear. At the fountain, the other three guards hauled Lyre out of the water and dumped him on the ground. He retched and coughed, shaking violently.

  How long had they’d been drowning him in that water over and over? Tedious, Bastian had called it. Callously torturing another daemon was tedious?

  She turned her enraged focus back to Bastian—and the daemon standing beside him. Eryx grinned delightedly. Her fury cracked at the sight of him, grief and helpless anguish rising through her, but she choked it back.

  “Clio,” Bastian murmured. The side of his face was reddening but he didn’t acknowledge that she’d hit him. He flicked a glance at Eryx. “Check if she came alone.”

  Eryx sped away into the trees.

  “How did you find us?” Bastian asked her.

  “If I don’t answer, will you drown me in the fountain as well?”

  His mouth thinned. “I would like to know.”

  She stuck her hand in her pocket, pulled out the tracking spell, and threw the gem at him. He watched it clatter on the crumbling pavement, then peered at Lyre with his brow furrowed.

  She glanced at Lyre as well, squinting with her asper as she wondered how he’d hidden his spell for so long. All she could see was his aura.

  Bastian made a soft sound of surprise. “He swallowed it?”

  Lyre lifted his head, his lips pulling back from his teeth in a humorless grin. “Surprise, asshole.”

  Irritation flickered across Bastian’s face. He turned to Clio again. “I’m pleased to see you alive and unharmed.”

  “Are you?” Ignoring the chimeras and their weapons, she got to her feet. “Are you equally pleased that Eryx murdered Kassia in a cowardly surprise attack, or that he left me to die in Asphodel?”

  “His methods may not be what I would choose, but Eryx is a loyal servant.”

  “Loyalty is important, isn’t it?” she sneered. “You like everyone to be loyal to you, no matter how many lies you have to tell them to win them over.”

  “So you have spoken to the king.” Bastian sank back into his chair, calm and composed as though they were discussing their holiday plans. “What did you learn?”

  “That you’ve lied about everything!”

  “‘Everything’ is an exaggeration.”

  “You lied to me about the threat of a Ra invasion! You tricked me into leaving Irida! You sent me to get military spells from Chrysalis when there isn’t even a war!”

  He smiled faintly. “But there will be a war, Clio.”

  She balled her hands into fists, trembling with fury. “You’re a filthy liar. Why should I believe anything you say?”

  “I rearranged the truth, nothing more. Would you like to discuss this, or would you rather rage and shout?”

  Anger spiraled through her at his patronizing tone. She sucked in air, fighting for control. Breathing deeply, she unclenched her hands. “You owe me an explanation, Bastian. For everything.”

  He appraised her as though analyzing an interesting specimen in a laboratory. “You told me many times over the last two years that you wanted to help protect our homeland. That is what you’ve been doing, Clio.”

  “But there is no threat—”

  “There is very much a threat, one that my father and his predecessors have ignored.” He tapped a finger on his knee as though to emphasize a point. “Centuries ago, Ra forced a trade agreement on Irida. They made us purchase our own sovereignty, and we continue to pay for it centuries later.”

  She glanced from her brother to Lyre, who was on his knees beside the fountain with three guards surrounding him. “I don’t understand.”

  “My father is too fearful of conflict to resist, but I am not. Before the trade agreement is next renewed, I will end Ra’s dominion over us.” He rose to his feet and slid his hand into his pocket. “Ra sees us as weak, but I will prove otherwise. You have helped
me prepare for that day, and I am almost ready to forge a new fate for our kingdom.”

  He withdrew his hand to reveal Lyre’s spelled clock, its gears glittering with jewels. “You did very well in Chrysalis. Far better than I had hoped.”

  “You left me there to die,” she choked.

  “Eryx’s choice.” Bastian ran his thumb along the clock’s edge. “No single life is more important than our goal. This is about saving Irida.”

  “Saving Irida from a trade agreement?” She struggled to gather her strength, searching for the hot fury that had died beneath his cold logic. “I would have gone to Chrysalis even if you hadn’t lied about a Ra invasion. Why did you send me to Earth?”

  “To protect you. It was my mistake … I shouldn’t have exposed you to danger by bringing you into the palace in the first place. It wasn’t safe for you, Clio.”

  Her hands clenched as she searched his face. His sincerity sounded perfectly earnest …

  “No, Clio.” Lyre’s hoarse voice startled her. His shoulders were hunched, his head hanging, the blindfold dripping water. “He brought you into the palace to show you the thing you wanted most—a family—then he took it away. He did it to make you dependent on him. He held your dearest desire hostage against you.”

  Clio stared at Lyre, then turned back to Bastian. His expression seemed blank but his eyes had narrowed and his mouth had tightened. Anger. Displeasure.

  Pain ricocheted through her chest as her heart broke piece by piece.

  “Was that your plan?” she whispered, her voice shaking. “From the very beginning? You wanted to use me all along … your secret mimic.”

  “You did well, Clio. You learned the skills you needed quickly, and you were ready to enter Chrysalis sooner than I had anticipated.” Bastian hefted the clock like it was a well-earned prize.

  She pushed her anguish aside. “You can’t use that spell. It’s too dangerous. You can’t control how far it will spread or how much magic it will eat.”

  “Does that matter? If unleashed in the correct place, its uncontrolled spread will work in my favor.”

  “But—”

  “I will purge Ra’s shadow from over our kingdom, Clio. I will bring Irida back to its former strength and glory. The question is …” He fixed his cool stare on her. “Where do you stand?”

  “What?”

  “You have proven yourself resourceful and resilient. Your loyalty has … strayed somewhat, but it is nothing I am unwilling to forgive. You’ve proven your commitment to protecting Irida.” He walked toward her, stopping a few feet away, and he smiled—the gentle smile of welcome that had won her over so easily when they’d first met. “Will you join me in the battle to free our people from Ra’s shadow?”

  Her throat constricted until it ached.

  “I have used you,” he admitted softly, “and I regret that I have hurt you, but this is for Irida. Help me protect our people, Clio. Fight for them at my side, not as a tool but as a valued ally.”

  The pain in her shattered heart turned to icy flames. “Free Lyre first.”

  Bastian’s brow furrowed. “What?”

  “Let Lyre go. Prove you’re better than Ra and Hades and the other power-hungry warlords who do nothing but hurt and oppress whoever they think they can control.”

  Images flashed through her mind—Lyre in chains in Asphodel’s basement; Reed with his eyes shadowed by helplessness; Ash covered in blood and bruises as he walked unresisting into a prison cell.

  She raised an unsteady hand and pointed at Lyre. “Prove it, Bastian. If you won’t free him, then you’re no better than Hades and you have no right to call yourself a prince of Irida.”

  “Clio …” Bastian sighed. “He is far too useful, and too dangerous, to let go.”

  She lowered her arm, the last of her hope crumbling like bitter ash. “I defended you to Kassia,” she whispered brokenly, “but she was right all along.”

  Bastian’s face hardened with annoyance. Then a different voice spoke right behind her, its familiar arrogance triggering a cascade of loathing.

  “I told you she was too stupid to understand.”

  She gasped as a man’s arm clamped around her torso, then the cold edge of a blade pressed against her throat.

  “Two for two,” Eryx whispered in her ear.

  Bastian dropped back into his chair. “Take the blindfold off the incubus.”

  A chimera ripped the cloth strip off Lyre’s head. His eyes, black with fury, jumped straight to Clio and he snarled at the sight of Eryx with a knife at her throat.

  Bastian snapped his fingers, drawing Lyre’s attention.

  “Now, Lyre, let us try something different. My patience has worn thin, and I would like to proceed without further delay.” He tilted the KLOC, the gems glittering in the moonlight. “Tell me how to activate the spell or Eryx will slit Clio’s throat. You have to the count of ten.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Ten,” Bastian began, his voice cool and emotionless.

  Lyre clenched his teeth so hard that pain shot up his jaw. Bloody hell.

  “Nine.”

  Things just kept getting worse. His gaze darted from the prince to Clio, her eyes wide and Eryx’s dagger at her throat.

  “Eight.”

  He wished he could go back in time and destroy the tracking spell. He wished he’d never given it to her.

  “Seven.”

  He’d thought she would bring help—palace guards or something. He’d never imagined she would come alone, bursting in without a plan.

  “Six.”

  Damn that prince. He’d twisted Clio in his emotional games for so long she probably hadn’t considered the possibility he would turn on her like this.

  “Five.”

  To someone else, maybe her actions would seem willfully stupid, but he understood. Even after everything Lyceus had done to him, part of him still wanted to please his father. It had taken years of outright abuse to crush the ever-kindling hope that the person he most wanted to love and protect him wasn’t actually that bad.

  “Four.”

  Clio was learning the hardest lesson of all. Her brother would never love her. He had never cared about her.

  “Three.”

  She had refused to submit to him. She was standing on her own two feet—and therefore, she was useless to him.

  “Two.”

  And now he would kill her.

  “One.”

  The blade gleamed in Eryx’s hand. Lyre tore his gaze away from Clio and focused on Bastian.

  “Fine. I’ll tell you.”

  Clio gasped in horror. “No, Lyre, you can’t—”

  Eryx clamped his hand over her mouth and pressed the knife into her throat. A trickle of blood ran down her neck.

  “An excellent decision, Lyre,” Bastian complimented.

  He bared his teeth. “Get that knife off Clio.”

  “No, I think the knife will remain where it is in case you’re inclined to be difficult again.”

  Lyre growled silently. “Unbind me.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “If you want the key to the KLOC, then unbind me.”

  Bastian’s eyes narrowed, then he nodded at a guard. “One suspicious move and Eryx will cut her throat.”

  Clio made a furious sound through Eryx’s hand. A chimera snapped the magical bindings on Lyre’s arms and pain shot through his shoulders as the strain on his muscles released. He sucked in an unsteady breath and climbed to his feet.

  “Well?” Bastian asked softly.

  “I’m going to drop glamour—briefly. Don’t overreact.” When Bastian nodded his permission, Lyre let his glamour fall. Tingles rushed over his skin, and as power washed over him, he let a touch of aphrodesia spill out of his aura. He grabbed the chain around his neck—protected in his daemon shape—and snapped the silver skeleton key off.

  He pulled his glamour back into place. He could sense the faint presences of the chimeras standing around him�
��too close for their own good and unaware he’d begun to ensnare them.

  He glanced once at the key he had carried since the day he’d realized how dangerous the KLOC was, then tossed it to Bastian.

  The prince caught it, his gaze flicking over the ruby in the bit. “What is this?”

  “The key for the clock.”

  Bastian’s jaw flexed as he realized Lyre’s reference to a key hadn’t been figurative. “Explain.”

  “Insert the key in the back of the clock and turn it counterclockwise to wind one minute.” Lyre let more aphrodesia leak out while the nymph’s attention was on the KLOC. “When you remove the key, the second hand will count down. In sixty seconds, the spell will activate.”

  Bastian flipped the clock over to check the back. “That seems needlessly complicated.”

  “Tell you what. When you design never-before-conceived magic, you can craft the trigger however you like.”

  Ignoring that, the prince continued his examination. “I see. This explains why I had such difficulty understanding the weaving or discerning a trigger method. Fascinating.”

  Lyre was about to slip more aphrodesia into his captors when Bastian inserted the key into the clock’s back.

  “What are you doing?”

  Bastian glanced up at Lyre’s sharp tone. “Testing it. You don’t expect me to take your word, do you?”

  “You can’t use it here.”

  “Why not?”

  “Don’t you understand how easy it is to lose control of the spell? If it touches our magic, it could spread for—I don’t even know how far, but—”

  “There’s water in the fountain,” Bastian interrupted dismissively. “I chose this location for more than one reason.”

  “It’s too risky,” Lyre insisted. “Even I don’t know its exact range, in or out of water. If you misjudge—”

  “Why would it concern you if everyone here has their magic devoured? It will hardly make your situation worse.”

  Lyre snapped his mouth shut. Shit.

  “You look nervous, Lyre,” Bastian observed silkily. “Why does your spell frighten you? Have you omitted information I should know?”

  Lyre let out a rough exhalation. He didn’t want to reveal how catastrophic the KLOC could be, but he couldn’t allow Bastian to use it carelessly. Lyre using it on himself in Asphodel had been insanely dangerous as it was.