Enchanter's Echo

by Anise Rae

  Far ahead, a tall fence lined the property. Every inch of the fence was spelled with security casts, blocking any would-be intruders. Half a dozen guards manned the gatehouse, and five times that patrolled the grounds. The property was safe.

  The territory was not.

  If he hadn’t known better, he might have thought she’d planned it. But that was impossible. His enchantress couldn’t hurt a fly. No enchantress could. Plus, as intended, he’d taken her completely unaware.

  Was it a coincidence that an enemy had struck the junkyard while he’d been there?

  No. No way.

  Someone had been watching as he’d kissed her, someone with balls bigger than wisdom should allow. Whoever it was wouldn’t have them for much longer.

  Violating the energy’s bond was an act of war. The bond emanated from the heart of his family and reached to the territory’s borders. The fissure might as well be a rip in his soul. And vibe shite but soul rips hurt. The senator had to be hurting, too, likely worse than Edmund.

  He leaned his hands against the window’s sill. His vantage point gave him a view of the woods’ treetops, concealing the city far beyond and the woman he’d waited for.

  He wouldn’t lose her again. That flicker in his heart flamed with a painful heat at the idea. How long had she been hiding in the junkyard? Had she wondered about him? Maybe while she’d been making that damn eye? And who the blasted hells had ever heard of an enchantress with a repair shop? He’d only discovered the fact by accident and just in time, too.

  Fuck, he should have thrown her over his shoulder and tossed her in the car. Rallis Hall’s north tower would make an excellent home for an enchantress. She’d be right beneath his refuge, easy to keep an eye on. Make that two eyes. One to ensure she stayed out of trouble, the other to admire those curves. If he’d stolen her, he could rub his hands over them while he pondered matters of state, such as a fissure in the Rallis bond.

  A fissure that could only have been created by a mage with a power that matched his.

  Problem was there were no other mages with a power like his. He was alone. Deadly. Too dangerous to live.

  The sudden ring of an old landline ripped through the quiet. He spun around, his vibes up and ready to attack before he’d finished the turn. The shrill ring sounded again, just as impossible as the first. No landline graced his attic refuge.

  He strode forward, right arm extended, fingers curved, thumb on top, as if he balanced a wand in his hand. He’d used the control device for years beyond the norm, his huge power so difficult to harness.

  He stalked toward the couch. Again, the ring blared. This time he pinpointed its location—behind the couch on a rickety table piled with junk and uselessly draped with a dust cloth. Circling around, he reached out and yanked the cloth away. A black landline gleamed dust-free.

  He knew the contents of this room like he once knew Aurora’s curves. This was not part of the Rallis cast-offs. The landline’s rhythmic cry vibrated the receiver twice more before he picked it up, the noise more insistent each time.

  He held it near his ear, careful not to touch his head.

  “Vow to stay silent!” Though static muffled the strident voice, the speaker’s outrage sang down the line.

  He eyed the receiver as if it might provide a clue to the person on the other end. Female, from the pitch. And scratchy. Like an old hag who lived in an isolated hut and no one dared to visit. There was certainly one female in his life who would stoop to wiring a landline in his refuge so she could call him.

  “Mother, is that you?”

  A quiet pause gripped the connection, lengthening until tension crackled in his ear.

  Finally, the caller spoke. “Boy, this is not your mother. If you can’t recognize my voice, then we need to chat more often.” Her words prowled down the line, a beast stalking prey. “Now, vow your silence.”

  Hell. This day was not getting better. He took a deep breath and summoned his suave charisma. “My apologies, Lady High Councilor.” He bowed respectfully, a habit when speaking to such illustrious old crones capable of removing one’s head through a landline. That comment about Mother hadn’t helped. The two weren’t friends. “I’ve been derelict in my duties to the Republic not to have memorized the sound of your lovely voice coming through the landline.”

  Who knew the woman even deigned to make landline calls? Did she not have a secretary? He should recommend someone for her so they didn’t have to do this again.

  “Vow!” Her command washed over him like a waterfall of molten metal, hardening into place as it coated him.

  He forced his mouth to move beneath the pressure. “About what am I vowing to stay silent, Lady?” Thrusting the strangled words through her power left him panting for air, but he refused to vow silence about an unknown subject, though he could narrow the possibilities to two: the enchantress living in Rallis Territory and her criminal past or the fissure. Or the fact that he’d destroyed evidence when he’d cast his spell on the unnatural eye. Make that three possibilities.

  A push of power was the High Councilor’s only answer. Her energy streamed into his throat and pulled the words from his gut.

  “I vow.” He gagged. Unmanly, yet unavoidable. The moment the strained words left his mouth, the heavy weight of a vow to the High C pressed on his shoulders.

  A click came through the receiver. She’d hung up on him.

  He dropped the receiver into it cradle and grabbed the base to yank out its cord. There wasn’t one. He let the landline thump to the top of the junk pile and pondered kicking the whole damn stack to the ground.

  Beyond the attic door, footsteps pounded a warning. He recognized the rhythm, as well as the approaching mage vibes. His twin was coming up the stairs. A one-man cavalry. He wasn’t surprised. Vincent had surely sensed his pain from the fissure and was coming to check on him. In welcome, Edmund pushed the door open with his vibes.

  Vin gave him a chin-up nod as he entered. He inspected his surroundings then marched to the nearest window. Edmund glared at the landline once more before returning to his spot at the other front window.

  Outside, a car pulled into the gates. Two flags waved on the sides of its hood.

  “She’s home. ETA three minutes.” Vin stared out, motionless, straight. Always at attention. “Talk quick.”

  Edmund stuck his hands in his pockets. “You’re disturbing my nap,” he drawled.

  “Sleeping on your feet, were you?”

  “With a rocking dream.” She’d rocked a number of his dreams over the last months. He hated waking up from them. She disappeared all over again.

  Their mother’s driver pulled up in front of the house. A sentry, clad in the dark gray of Rallis with a scarlet sash, exited the passenger seat and opened her door. She stepped out, one high heel at a time and looked up at the attic windows, her gaze targeted him like a tracking spell though even she couldn’t see through the spelled glass. Could she?

  “Two minutes.”

  It’d be nice to confide in his brother. But he’d just vowed silence to something. The only way to find out was to try and see which words strangled him. He took a breath. “Aurora...”

  He let the rest of that breath go. His luscious girl wasn’t the secret.

  “Aurora?” Vincent prompted.

  With another inhale, he prepared to explain, but stopped. He wanted her to himself for a little longer. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and thought fast. “The aurora borealis can’t be seen from here except on very rare occasions.”

  Vincent blinked. “I used to think highly of your bullshit skills. Not anymore.”

  Edmund ignored the taunt. It wasn’t like that would be hard to earn back. With another breath, he tried the next topic. “A fi—” The word cut off, his air stopped as if a hand shoved down his throat to block his vocal cords. He grabbed his neck as if he might dislodge the energetic grip, but his hands couldn’t touch the vow. There’d be no tellin
g anyone about the fissure after all. Why the hell had the High C done this? The senator needed to know the territory was facing a serious threat.

  “Are you choking?” Vincent’s alarm took a moment to penetrate Edmund’s oxygen deprived brain. He spun around, giving his back to his brother, not wanting a witness to this, but Vin didn’t cooperate. Edmund shoved away the hand on his shoulder, but a backwards hug came next, along with a serious thrust of Vin’s fist into his diaphragm. Vibing hells, his brother was giving him the Heimlich. Edmund might have laughed. Unfortunately, this vow was going to kill him before he had the chance to share the joke.

  Another thrust. Consort of the goddess, that vibing hurt.

  “What is going on in here?” His mother busted into the room. The door banged against the wall.

  As the threat of his words disappeared, the silence vow finally released its chokehold. He took an enormous gulp of air. It resounded around the room.

  “Vincent Burr Rallis, were you strangling your brother?” Their mother had no qualms at reprimanding the commander of the Republic’s army.

  Vin lifted his hands, palms facing his body in an innocent mage’s pose. “My arms weren’t around his throat. He was—”

  “He was practicing his Heimlich, Mother,” Edmund rasped.

  The lady of the land’s nose flared. “Oh, for goddess’s sake, Edmund, is that all you can come up with?”

  He cleared his throat. “Apparently I’m not the bullshitter everyone thinks I am.”

  “And neither are you well-mannered.”

  He tried to break it to her gently. “Manners are just a façade men put on for the women in their lives.”

  She puffed up. “They certainly are not. Manners are the foundation of civil society. They keep a people cohesive and cooperative. When the entire group has common expectations of behavior, fewer misunderstandings occur. For instance, the rules of this house. One in particular comes to mind. Dangerous items confiscated from criminals are housed in the basement armory and are not removed until the convening.”

  Edmund shook his head, hands in pockets. “I’ve not heard that rule before.” He looked at Vin. “You?”

  “Nope. Haven’t heard that one.”

  Truth. It had never been specifically verbalized as a rule.

  “Edmund!” His mother actually stomped her foot. “The unnatural eye is missing! Imagine my surprise, my utter embarrassment.” Her vibes skewed slightly with the last words, jerking in the air.

  The vibes of lies always reminded him of crickets chirping.

  “I opened the deadening box to find it empty. Empty! In front of the entire judicial panel.” Crickets again.

  He’d known this was coming. “Mother.” He shook his head, disappointed. “You might have opened the box, but it wasn’t in front of the judicial panel. The hearing for that violation was erased from the convening’s agenda scrolls. I cast the spell to erase it myself. The man who bore the eye is dead. There’s no point in convicting him of a crime.”

  She shook her manicured finger in the air. “That eye was strewn with power. Utterly drenched in it. Who knows what that man was capable of seeing with it? In my life I’ve seen many cases of unnatural physique up close and personal. Never have I encountered the power that reeked from that sphere.”

  It hadn’t reeked. It had sung with power, despite the fact that it had been in the skull of one of the darkest mages in existence.

  His mother took a breath. “Someone made that eye. Someone needs to pay. The entire Republic abhors unnatural physique.”

  She was right. The vibes of unnatural physique made it impossible for a ruling family to bind a mage and ensure his loyalty, leaving the mage a renegade with uncontrolled energy. That was reason enough for the founding families to despise it. But it wasn’t just the descendants of the Mayflower mages who hated it. The uprisings of ’93 and ’02 that started in the south and spread to the northern territories would never have happened if the radical political groups hadn’t had access to unnatural physique. Artificial muscles had powered the rebels beyond human strength. Enhanced skin had repelled defensive spells and let them charge through the army’s barricades. Thousands of innocent mages had been caught in the crossfire and died.

  What had Aurora been thinking to create such a monstrosity? That eye had severed the metallist mage from his Rallis ties and might even have contributed to his insanity.

  But there was no point bringing that up that now. The eye was gone forever. Wiped from existence.

  “We can all guess who the criminal was. It was a metal eye worn by a metallist mage, who is now dead. Making this public knowledge will only reflect poorly on Rallis.” And endanger his enchantress. He stepped forward and placed his hands on his mother’s shoulders. “I understand your feelings on unnatural physique, but for the sake of the territory, we need to keep this within the family. I’ve taken care of it. I also took care of mailing our census this afternoon.” His change of subject probably wouldn’t distract her, but it was worth a try.

  Before he’d driven to the junkyard, he’d slipped the papers into the new mailbox at the corner of Goodale Park. Reporters from the city’s three major papers had captured the moment, Edmund’s attempt to help the city heal. No one would ever forget the little boy who’d opened the mailbox on the corner of Park Street and Buttles Avenue, excited to be tall enough to reach all by himself, only to be brutally murdered, along with twenty-eight other mages, the terrorists’ bomb triggering when he’d opened the mailbox.

  Five months gone and the park had yet to be repaired. Its beloved elephant fountain remained a partially crumpled heap on the park’s northeast quadrant. To prod the park committee into action, he’d finally had a new mailbox installed. The former blue metal hump that had hidden the bomb had been replaced with a glass one—see-through and strengthened with spells to ensure it was indestructible. There would be no hiding deadly weapons in this one.

  He’d publicly taken the crystalline hump’s virginity with the fat census envelope while the reporters’ image spells snapped around him. The background of the pictures would clearly show the committee’s lack of work on the fountain.

  Edmund always played his part to bring their mages peace, to lead them into their future, whether he wanted the job or not.

  His mother nodded. “I heard. Nice move.”

  “Yep. I can see the headlines now. Rallis Family Census Heir-Mailed.” He looked over at his brother. “Those reporters are fools if they don’t take advantage of that pun.”

  Vin shrugged. “They’re fools. You better call and suggest it.”

  Their lady mother covered her eyes with a hand but collected her frazzled wits easily. “Since I have you both here, the P.U.R.E. Ball is in two days. You are going, Vincent. And Edmund, you will have a proper date.”

  “Of course, Mother. I’m asking the love of my life to the ball.”

  She stared at the ceiling, exasperation drenching her every vibe. “Just show up with someone appropriate.” Spinning on her heel, she disappeared down the stairs, her footsteps silent, like all well-mannered mages.

  Vincent stared. “I cannot believe she didn’t notice.”

  Neither could Edmund. He wasn’t unique in his ability to sense lies. Many mages could...when they bothered to pay attention. And their mother always paid attention, except, apparently, when Edmund spoke of love.

  “You’re telling the truth.”

  * * * *

  Aurora huddled over the morning newspaper at her usual booth, but her eyes skipped over the words. Instead, Edmund occupied her mind. He’d held that metal eye and blindly believed she’d done nothing worse. Her lips softened, as if in sympathy for his gullibility, but really it was in memory of his kiss. Heat uncurled inside her and rose to the edges of her skin.

  She flicked the paper shut with an annoyed snap. The heir was not gullible. And that kiss needed to be forgotten. She lifted her mug and took a scalding swallow of
coffee to drown any remnants of the memory.

  Behind her, bacon sizzled on the grill, the hiss merging with the diner’s sleepy atmosphere. Its scent mingled with yeasty waffles and fresh ground coffee. Though Bleak’s Diner had good food, their coffee was the best in the territory…the best in two territories since she’d not found its equal in Noble Territory either. She could only guess that Bleak added magic beans to his daily grind. Like sunflowers on a rainy day, she was droopy without it.

  She leaned back as Izzy paced over, coffee pot in hand. The waitress’s bright yellow hair, bobbed but spiky at the ends, swished in time with her pace. The tips of her spikes were a rainbow of colors that matched the tiny beads in her nose ring.

  “I heard a rumor about you.” Izzy poured the hot stream of caffeine into Aurora’s mug, then set the coffee pot on the table and rubbed at her scarred fingers.

  Aurora closed her eyes, but it was too late. The roar of the bomb exploded in her mind. The cloud of fire burned her face as if it were in front of her all over again. Its thunder had silenced everything. When it had receded, it left the screams and moans of the dying in its place. Her mind processed the memories like snapshots of sounds and sights, Merida dominating many of them, begging, pleading, demanding her help. Around them, fate’s chaos squeezed them together, binding Aurora to her future.

  “I heard you have a sweetheart.” Izzy said, oblivious to the horror that held Aurora’s mind. The waitress was another survivor of the bomb, her scarred fingers just one of her souvenirs. “If it’s true, then he isn’t worth cleaning your sheets for if he doesn’t come in here with you. A man ought to take his woman to breakfast the morning after, feed her something sweet to remember him by.” Izzy smiled with tight lips. It was hard to catch the other woman in a full smile. “You seen Bull?”

  A few days after the bombing, Bull—Izzy’s brother and current leader of the junkyard gang—had insisted Aurora and Merida fix his sister’s crushed hip and legs when he’d learned what they’d done to Lily. One month later, Izzy had been the first person to move out of the forest and live with the rest of society despite her illegally enhanced physique. Although Aurora had nightmares on a regular basis about Izzy being exposed, the brave woman didn’t seem worried in the least.