Enchanter's Echo

by Anise Rae

  “I couldn’t fix your heart. No one could have.” Merida folded her hands in front of her, the calmness of a healer surrounding her.

  “So what…Aurora whipped up a fresh heart for me out of metal?”

  She shook her head, still carrying a façade of calm. And it had to be a façade, a mask, a lie, but he couldn’t be still enough to listen for the crickets.

  “No. She already had it. It was intended for someone else, but that person didn’t want it.”

  He gave a hard, bitter laugh. “She has hearts in stock!” He laughed again as it became clear. “Oh, fuck me. It was for Wasten’s wife, wasn’t it? How perfect. A heart belonging to the mate of my enemy.” He clutched at his chest as if he might rip out the offending organ.

  “You’d be dead if she hadn’t replaced it.”

  He was going to die anyway. So was she. So was everyone else associated with this. His mind barreled on, adding piles of corpses to his mental tally. The entire territory would be dead. Because once he and Aurora had been executed, there’d be no one to track and fix this fissure. Someone would find it eventually, once it got big enough. By then it would be too late.

  “Oh, he’s gonna die anyway,” Bull was reading his mind again. The man nodded. “Uh-huh. We’re all dead. He’s gonna let the territory fall.” He flung his hands in the air. “The spoiled heir is turning his back and giving up. Shame. So much for being brave. But what can you expect? He’s too pampered to fight. This phoenix ain’t rising from the dark ashes.”

  Edmund knew what Bull was doing. The man was pushing and prodding, trying to rile him to fall in line and join their cause.

  “You don’t rise from the ashes when you’re burned at the stake for breaking that law. They make goddess damn sure of that.”

  “Well, they’ve already got Aurora. So she’ll be the first to die. She could be ashes already, blowing away in the winter wind. Nothing left of her smile, her glitter. No one came to save her like she saved you. Wonder who’ll be ashes next.”

  Icy chills ran in spikes beneath his skin, their touch so painful he growled.

  “Your brother arrested her three days ago.”

  Edmund squeezed his eyes shut against the news. If Vin had her… “I need a shirt.”

  “Why? You’re gonna go confess?”

  Edmund didn’t answer, but he knew what he had to do. There was no option. Acceptance gave him a steady strength.

  Bull shook his head. “Look. No matter what they’ve done to her, she wouldn’t have confessed.” The sarcastic, bullying tone disappeared, replaced with disappointment and desperation.

  Edmund gave an angry laugh. Bull didn’t know the army’s resources.

  “They won’t know about your new and improved physique. Not yet. Your shields have kept us all hidden. No one out there has seen any evidence of unnaturalness. If they’ve accused her of anything, it’s kidnapping the heir or attempting to murder you. We can say the arrow was just shy of piercing your heart…that she ran away from the sentries with you because she didn’t trust who was out to kill you. She fled to safety behind your shields.”

  Edmund gritted his teeth. “Get me a shirt. And my fucking shoes.”

  “If you can’t accept this, I’ll release you from your vow and you can go back to your castle surrounded by fences and spells. Just, please…can you give me time to get my people out? We’ll leave the Republic.” The man swallowed hard. “We just need time to get out.”

  “We’re surrounded. There is no way out.” His heartbeat stayed steady and sure despite what waited for him. “Besides that, you leave the territory and you’re breaking your vow to protect the junkyard.” The lines on Bull’s temple seemed to darken with Edmund’s words, as if the vow’s power heard him. “A broken vow that strong will kill you. No one will release you from it.” That would have to come from the senator himself. “Where would you go anyway? The Wild West?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You’re a fool then. No one’s safe over there. Chaos energy roams around like wild dogs searching for prey. It’s a lawless place.”

  “I guess we’ll fit right in.”

  Edmund shook his head at the man’s desperation.

  From the small table against the wall, her gold cap sparkled at him, left behind and lonely. He walked over to it and picked it up, shoving the cap into his pocket with the hammer.

  “You’re not leaving the territory, Bull. No one’s leaving.” He could picture her fleeing through town, chased down by sentries. Those men didn’t fuck around. If they’d caught her…well, hell, she’d turned herself in to the army. To Vincent. He reached out with his vibes, a long arm that could always connect with his brother no matter how far apart they were, no matter how hard Vincent tried deflect him. But Vincent’s presence was a faint blur on the other end, barely there. He pushed harder, straining for the connection. It had never resisted like this. Was it the heart blocking him? It pumped louder and harder, different from the old one, every swish of his blood energized by her touch.

  He broke off the vibes. “Where’s her landline?”

  “It’s not working. None under the shield is.” Bull dove back into his topic. “Please, Lord Rallis. I’m…begging…for your mercy. Let me get the girls out at least.” Energy swirled through the air. “I release you from—”

  “Stop!” His shout powered against Bull’s cast. Energy collided and reverberated through the room. Aurora’s tools shook against the wall, their clacking a drum roll to his announcement. “Everyone stays put. Except you and me.” He would have gone alone, but the fissure stabbed at his gut so hard he didn’t trust himself to make it on his own.

  * * * *

  A helicopter shot through the air like a meteor, flying over the barren fields of the farmland that graced the majority of Rallis Territory. Edmund raced beneath it in the opposite direction, driving Aurora’s car that was covered in blood...his blood and white rose petals. Where the hell had those come from?

  Though they’d stopped at a landline booth on their way, no one had answered at the army’s headquarters. According to the men ready to attack the shielded junkyard, Vincent was at the farm with the enchantress. Though the soldiers had lost communication, too, they’d been wise enough to let the heir leave. A huge escort trailed behind him.

  Bull wrenched around in his seat, following the vibing bird’s path. “Wonder where they’re going.”

  “Some place fast.” The speeding black streak was an ill omen. Edmund stepped on the accelerator and shot down the highway. He zipped around a Non farmer’s tortoise-slow tractor, a lifted snow plow in the front. The land blurred as he pushed Aurora’s car faster, though he still hadn’t reached its top speed. He was certain she’d designed the engine. Why she’d made it so ugly on the outside was a mystery.

  “Can you not go any faster?”

  Despite his mage sense tuned into life vibes on the road, Edmund didn’t dare look away to sneer at the man. “The car could but, no, I can’t. We’re not going to do any good if we die on the way.”

  “Caution from Monday of the ’yard? That arrow drained your zest.” No hint of respect colored Bull’s voice.

  Edmund spun the car into a right turn, barely making it. Gravel pinged the dented, rusted metal of the old convertible. He didn’t slow. Another two turns and the farmhouse driveway was on the left. He squealed in, accelerating to the scene in front of him.

  Every soldier in the yard turned his gun on them.

  Vincent ordered them to stand down. Edmund ignored them all as he jumped out of the car, his metal heart suddenly racing at what lay before him.

  In front of the old farmhouse, Aurora huddled over in a ball, chest to her knees, her head drooping, her hair hiding her face. Her body, the little bit that was covered, shook from the strain. Her bare feet hovered an inch over the snowy ground as if she’d escaped gravity. Dark power surrounded her, closing in on her, smaller and smaller. Death ate away at her energy, w
hile a platoon of soldiers, including his brother, looked on. They stood beneath the sprinkle of her glitter as the death chamber sucked it out of her.

  Edmund reacted. Without thought. Without the caution Bull had just accused him of. Without fear for the consequences. He set his true power free.

  Shockwaves rippled. The death chamber exploded, the noise shattering against his eardrums. Regret feasted on him in the same instant.

  “No!” The word roared from his chest. What had he just done? She was next in line to be destroyed. His vibes would touch her skin and she would be no more. He held out his hands, reaching for his cast as if he could pull it back.

  And he did.

  His destruere spell stopped.

  Edmund stumbled as the force of his hard yank caught up with him. His power settled back beneath his skin before he regained his feet. Somehow, he’d smothered his spell. The death chamber was gone as if it had never existed, but nothing else was hurt or damaged. That was a first. He’d add it to his mental list of problems to address later.

  Aurora didn’t move, frozen in her little ball and almost naked. He crouched in the snow beside he, reaching an arm around her shoulders. She fell against him, her feet still hovering above the ground.

  Her skin was cold. Her sparkly, light energy was gone, drained away by the death chamber. The only energy that remained on her was one spot on the back of her shoulder, exposed by the skimpy dress. It clawed into her, dark and deadly, a spell he wouldn’t have understood a bare moment ago, not until he’d destroyed a fucking death chamber.

  The small patch vibrated on the same frequency as the chamber. It had been there awhile judging how embedded it was. A few days, at least. It wasn’t fresh.

  The only way this could have escaped his notice was because it had been buried beneath her own power. He had to get it off her before her energy returned, drowning his access to it. Two choices, he thought. Cut it out or risk using his true power again and hope he’d be able to stop it before it ate the rest of her skin.

  Before he could call for a knife, her power flooded in, burying the death spell, and he had no more time. He formed his spell and shot it against her. She flinched, rocking against him, but the evil spell disappeared, its claws retracting until they might never have been. He stopped his cast with his new control. Her skin bleached white where the death chamber had lain.

  If the mage who had casted the death chamber had been here, he would have gladly killed her again and again.

  And if Aurora had needed a new heart, he would have moved the stars to make it happen.

  “Rora,” he whispered. The word came from his soul.

  “I didn’t think you’d come.”

  Her soft, teary admission skewered his gut with its sharp truth. She’d risked everything for him believing he wouldn’t save her. If his heart hadn’t been enchanted, it would have stopped. “I’ll always come for you, Ror, always.” He gathered her closer to pick her up, needing to get her somewhere warm, but he froze at her cry.

  “Hurts. Just let me lay here for a minute.”

  Whitman crouched beside them and held out a refurbished Clothe charm. Its slightly dull sheen gave away its recycled nature. He flicked it and Edmund caught it.

  He activated the charm, wringing every last joule of energy from the thing. It didn’t have near enough for what he preferred, but it would do. Though the burn dress still stuck out beneath her new outfit, she now wore scuffed brown boots, old jeans, and a pink, puffy coat with slightly dirty sleeves. He pulled her hat from his pocket and slipped it over her head.

  Vin crouched beside him. “I couldn’t get it off her,” he whispered. His tone quaked with horror. He put his hand flat on Edmund’s head and rubbed, a quick greeting that summed up the complexity of brothers. Edmund knocked his hand away and spared one second to sneer at his brother. Vin had arrested her. Make him pay. The urge coiled tight. He fought to contain it. Aurora’s safety came first and they were still on dangerous ground.

  Vin’s face shuttered. He got the message. “The High Councilor isn’t here. That spell was implanted. Why?”

  Edmund ran his fingertips over her coat where the spell had been. “I watched the old bitch every moment she was with Aurora.” He spoke through clenched teeth. “She touched Aurora’s face. Twice.” Once for the pledge. Once to freak her out. “She never touched her back.”

  “You must have missed it then. Looked away and she snuck it on.”

  He glared. His fury slipped his hold. Edmund felt it rise into his skin, into his eyes. “I didn’t miss it,” he seethed.

  “Who the hell else could have done it? The High Councilor doesn’t go around and conduct death chamber how to sessions. She’s the only one who’s got the spell. No one’s fucked up enough to steal it.” Vin dared to snap at Edmund’s fierceness. Two things saved him. One, Aurora needed Edmund’s focus. Two, Edmund knew exactly who was fucked up enough to steal a spell from the highest power in the land.

  “The apprentice touched the skin on Aurora’s back during an embrace of peace.”

  Vin grimaced. “An embrace of peace from which family?” He knew the tradition behind such an offering from one ruling family to another.

  “Noble. I witnessed it. But I had no idea death chamber spells could be implanted.”

  Gregor nodded. “Implanted death spells are mentioned in at least one of the old stories. Though something usually triggers it. Like a finger pricking a spindle. Not so in this case. It just activated.”

  As the wind blew, Aurora drifted across his chest. He looked down. Her feet, now booted, still floated on air.

  Gregor began a chant. Edmund shot up, pulling a nearly unconscious Aurora with him. Bull charged to his side.

  “He’s undoing the walking on air spell.” Vincent’s words came in a rush. That explained why he barely felt her weight and why she hadn’t collapsed into the snow. “Don’t kill him for casting without asking.” He thumped Gregor on the shoulder for his idiocy. The man raced back toward the farmhouse without a word.

  Aurora slid down two inches as the spell slowly disappeared, but she stayed slumped against him. Another round of rage brewed inside him at her weakness.

  “Then how about killing someone for stripping her naked and putting her in a burn dress?” His roar took his anger with it. He shoved a hard fist of vibes at his brother.

  Vin stumbled back. “She spelled off the mage cuffs, Mun. She’d taken you, with what looked like a mortal wound. I couldn’t sense you anymore! I couldn’t get into your damn shield. I thought you were dead.” His brother yelled back and then changed his tone to matter-of-fact asshole. “Her fingerprints are on the would-be murder weapon.”

  Edmund burned inside. “Enchantresses. Can’t. Harm.” He wrenched her tighter against his chest. She couldn’t harm, but someone had tried to harm her. He stroked her hair as she lay against his chest. “How did the bow get close enough to her that she touched it? Was it Wasten’s?” he asked his brother.

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  He narrowed his eyes at the unexpected answer. Another enemy loomed. “Who then?”

  Vin put one hand on his hip and pointed at Bull with his other. “What’s he doing here?”

  Edmund looked back at him, squinting. “Currently he’s my boss, and he can’t create fissures, in case you were wondering.” No, Bull read dark thoughts and he was likely getting a brainful at the moment.

  “Do you trust him?”

  “Not entirely.” He looked over his shoulder at the man. “Shooting me in the heart would have been an effective plan for you.”

  “Edmund.” Aurora shifted in his arms in protest, loyal to her friend. Loyal to everyone even when she didn’t expect loyalty in return. Goddess, he wasn’t worthy of her.

  The bald man squinted one eye back, as if begrudging thoughts were flitting through his mind. “It would have. Honestly, I thought about it. Not the heart though. I woulda needed you alive enough
to make a decision. Join or die. But this wasn’t me, Mr. Monday. And that’s the vibing truth. Besides, Ror never would have forgiven me.”

  “Join what?” Vin asked.

  Edmund turned back to him. “It’s not our most pressing problem.” Even as he said it, the ache in his gut cranked up. The fissure. “Tell me about the weapon.”

  Vin studied him for a long moment then shrugged. “The energy on the crossbow is dark. When Dane read the vibes on it, he said it reminded him of your energy. Since you didn’t pull the trigger, the only explanation is that it belongs to the other destruere.”

  “Yeah, I think we’d already guessed that part. Until now, he didn’t seem to have it out for me personally. More Aurora than me.”

  Vincent shook his head. “Not he. She. The vibes are female. Dane is certain based on the vibes on the crossbow.”

  “What?” It shouldn’t have been possible. Powers rarely crossed gender lines. He looked down at her, pale and weak. He wished she’d tell him told you so.

  “It rules out Wasten as the would-be killer and he’s not a destruere mage. My men found him during the P.U.R.E. rally. He was next to his wife’s grave. He’s been in the basement for three days. This newest fissure appeared after we’d arrested him. Wasten couldn’t have done it.

  “The destruere is a female.” Stunned, Edmund started flipping through his mind for new suspects…people he’d gotten to know over the last week.

  “This time she’s done a hell of a lot of damage. Not all of my men are bearing up well. And the senator…” Vin shook his head. “He’s not well.”

  Fuck. “My repairwoman has just had the life sucked out of her, so we’re all going to have to buck up for awhile,” Edmund snapped. He ached, too, worse than ever, but he was still standing under his own strength. Aurora wasn’t.