by Lucia Ashta
And Oliana would’ve been willing to bet their parents owned at least one copy of a book of dark spells. Their parents couldn’t resist knowledge and refinement of their magical powers. Even if they never intended to use the dark spells, they’d want to study them. They’d need to, because that’s the kind of magicians they were. They were the best, and to be the best, they’d have to understand what kind of spell an opponent might conjure against them.
So when Oliana set out to look for a book of dark magic before they left the castle, she knew she’d find it. She just had to look in the right place.
But Irele Castle was tricky and uncooperative. It morphed from one moment to the next, its rooms and hallways never in the exact same place, its hiding spots constantly on the move. It was the ideal place to hide something because chances were high that it’d never be found. The castle had rooms where things went to disappear and never resurfaced. It had passageways to different worlds and bottomless pits that a magician could fall into and never reach their end.
But Oliana was doggedly persistent.
She’d composed her face into a mask of innocence and asked Albacus to teach her a spell she could use to locate something lost in the castle. Before he grew suspicious, she told him of a doll she’d long ago lost into one of the lava pits beneath the castle’s hallways that she intended to see returned.
With a home as mischievous and uncooperative as theirs, a locator spell was genuinely useful, and Albacus gave her what she wanted, as he was prone to do. And just in time. Oliana hadn’t bothered recovering her doll, but she’d had a premonition she’d need a locator spell. Like Mordecai, she followed the subtle promptings that pointed her in surprising directions. She rarely understood the reason for her unusual actions when she was taking them, but she nearly always did later.
Like this morning, when she’d used the locator spell to find the book, concealed in a compartment tailored for it in a hidden panel of a bookshelf. She never would’ve found it without the spell. The small bookshelf that lined a window in her parents’ study had never drawn her attention before, the books visible on it some of the least interesting in the magical world. But behind the dull bait lay the forbidden… the dark and the dangerous.
A shiver ran through her shoulders that had nothing to do with her grief for Damien, even though her brothers would interpret it as a signal of her sorrow. She no longer thought of him as dead—she wouldn’t, not if she was going to be successful in the casting she was preparing to undertake.
The book hadn’t detailed the consequences should anything go wrong with the spell, should her connection to the elements not be strong enough when she called on them, should her resolve waver as she said the words, or doubt creep in. She understood this spell was dangerous, and she didn’t need the memories of her parents stories to figure that out or the hastily scrawled words in the margins of the book that read: “This spell carries grave consequences. Ye should not cast it unless ye are prepared to accept them, and if ye do not understand the consequences, then ye certainly should close this book immediately and not even read this spell. Heed ye this warning.” It was just as well that the book didn’t describe the spell’s “grave consequences,” because she would’ve performed it anyway.
She was decided. Perhaps she hadn’t been when she and her brothers set out from the castle, but once she laid eyes on Damien’s body, so still, so lifeless, she’d known what she had to do, and she knew she’d find the strength to do it. Their love for each other would give her the courage she needed.
But she’d have to continue to be smart about it. Her brothers wouldn’t expect her actions, but they’d catch on quickly once she started, no matter how she positioned her body or her skirts. Powerful magic could be felt by those sensitive to it—the air around the casting magician seemed to charge, as if it were an animal coiling to strike. A spell as powerful as this one would build power quickly, and once it did, her brothers would charge to intervene, to stop her before she could do what she was determined to do.
She’d bring Damien back to life, and she had the skills—no matter what her parents or her brothers said about her inexperience—and the book she needed to do it.
Faded gilded letters were still legible against the cover. The Elementes of Darke Magyke.
Chapter 6
Oliana didn’t have to turn to sense her brothers’ eyes on her back, she could feel them boring a hole in her from behind, her guilt mounting at her deceit. She had to force her body still to keep from squirming and revealing her discomfort at what she was about to do. Her brothers had always only done what they thought best for her. Even if she didn’t always appreciate their methods, she understood their choices were for what they perceived to be her well-being. They’d take her lies hard and interpret her actions as a personal affront to them. Because she understood they wouldn’t approve of her bringing Damien back from the dead.
They’d consider it a personal failure that she’d do something so contrary to everything they’d ever taught her. Though her brothers’ beliefs were often contrary, they agreed on one thing, what they considered a fundament of all good magical practices: Magic was based in the balance of the four elements, and in their careful combination. In the absence of balance lay the unnatural, the dangerous, the aberrations they dedicated their lives to avoiding.
She could hear their words already, they were so predictable. Albacus and Mordecai were both enthusiastic about magic to the point of obsession, but they differed in their approach to it. Albacus was more reserved, he kept more to the letter of spells than their brother. Mordecai heeded the spirit of the spell more than words scrawled across paper. But neither one of them would try what she was about to do. Once the light of life extinguished, there was nothing a witch should do to relight that spark.
When the elements drew to their natural end in a human vessel—for the four elements fueled every living human body with life—there was balance even then. Everything that had a beginning also had an end. The four elements that gave well-being and life while balanced, abandoned the body after death to rejoin the energies of the world.
The four elements were infinite. They didn’t die, they only transferred from one container to another, from one state to the next. They were beyond the scope of humanity, and therefore it was why they could be the source of all magic in the world.
Oliana understood that injecting a body no longer meant for life with the four elements that had abandoned it would be exactly what her brothers deemed an unnatural use of magic. But neither one of them had ever loved another the way she loved Damien, and they hadn’t experienced loss the way she had.
There would be ramifications to her actions, certainly. The four elements and the magic they engendered required balance. If a sorcerer took a bit from here, then magic required that he give a bit there. It was how it was. Every spell had a price when its elemental building blocks were constantly striving to be in equilibrium.
But she’d pay the price this spell required of her, and she’d pay it happily. Whatever it was, it’d be better than facing an entire lifetime without Damien at her side.
The dire warnings scrawled in the spell book were only for witches with much to lose, for those who wished to weigh costs and benefits. But she’d already lost the most precious thing she could. Cautions were useless once she’d lost her greatest blessing, the one person that had made her feel special, not like an eccentric freak of a magician hidden in a mad castle on the top of a mountain.
Damien had made her feel like a girl, a woman even. With all the time she spent working with the fire element, it was Damien who sparked real life into her, who awakened passions and desires within her that she hadn’t known. He taught her what it meant to really live, to embrace life and make the most of it. To run and to laugh and to kiss and to pull in the full breath of life. Most of all, he taught her to love, and in her love for him, she discovered love for herself, something she hadn’t realized she was missing.
He
was the only way for her. She needed to find her way back to him, back to herself.
Enough delay.
She shook the guilt and the sensation of her brothers’ watchful gazes from her back. She pulled in a shaky breath and began.
The sooner she had Damien back, the sooner she’d feel whole again. She wouldn’t let her parents marry her to Lord Willard. Damien’s death had cemented that. She wouldn’t live without him. If she had to give up her title and dowry, she would. But she’d keep her magic, and with her magic she’d always have the ability to make better whatever happened to them in their married life.
She pretended to scratch her calf and slid a small pocketknife from her stocking, grateful she’d taken the time to read through the entire spell before stashing The Elementes of Darke Magyke in her skirts. None of the thousands of spells she’d practiced had required that she give her blood. But then, none of them had infused life into death. An offering of blood seemed appropriate, she supposed. As with everything in magic, there was always something to give in order to receive. If she had to give of her blood to revive Damien, it was something she’d do.
She ignored the urge to look over her shoulder to check on her brothers and Damien’s family, but it’d only look suspicious, perhaps not to Damien’s family, but to her brothers it would. They knew her well, too well sometimes. Despite her precautions, they’d sniff out that she was up to something.
She hunched further into her bent knees, cementing the ruse. Normally she stood to do any spell. It always felt better to access her power and the elements through the fullness of her height. But nothing was ideal anymore.
Enough, she told herself. She was delaying. She was thinking and preparing too much, when she already realized what must be done. Whatever the cost of the magic, of her brothers’ anger, she was prepared to deal with it. So get on with it, before your chance is gone. Henrietta had warned her that her father would only give her a short time with his son, and she was surprised Albacus hadn’t given her some speech about decorum and what kind of impression she was giving to this village family.
The time is now.
And before she could hesitate any longer, she sprang open the knife, cringed at the snapping sound it made, and sliced across her open palm, pretending to adjust her posture. She swallowed a gasp of pain—for what was a bit of physical pain compared to the pain that ripped apart her heart?—and watched, mesmerized, as a line of deep crimson beaded up from the pale smooth skin of her palm.
She left the knife open, worried about the sound of closing it, and set it next to the book on the ground. The blood began to well in her hand and she had to hurry. Soon it’d fall on her skirts, and it was meant for the earth.
She began to read the spell, softer than any other time in her life, even though it was the most important enchantment she’d ever read. She was used to reciting castings in a strong, firm voice. It helped lend the spell precision, her parents told her. But this spell was already shaping, and it was precise as the cut of a knife, and far more powerful. Already, she could feel it. Which meant that her brothers would too. She had the advantage that they didn’t expect this, but they’d realize what she was up to before long.
As long as it was after the point, which every spell had, when they couldn’t stop her.
She whispered hurriedly, pushing away any more thoughts. Her focus narrowed, and she embodied the witch she’d been training all her life to be. Powerful enough to handle the spell she read.
Earth that giveth and supporteth life,
and that also taketh it away,
I offer ye my blood, the blood of my life,
and weave it with the body which lingers in death.
She maneuvered her skirts, for once grateful for their cumbersome bulk, to continue concealing the book while she made room between her slippers, beside the blanket that held Damien’s body. There, bare earth. She poured the blood that had pooled in her hand onto the ground, which soaked it up unusually fast, the enchantment already taking shape. She squeezed her hand, and more blood dripped onto the earth.
Then she turned her cheek back to her knees, the grieving girl who couldn’t take the sight of her lover for more than a few seconds without crumpling into despair. Her shoulders shook convincingly, but it wasn’t sorrow or pretense. The air was beginning to shift around her, and she had to push away real fright at what she’d begun.
She would do this, she told herself. She had to.
Take of my blood offering to return life to this man,
to the love of my heart.
Let my beating heart set the rhythm to his.
She modified this last part to fit her circumstances. There were always risks in modifying any spell, but the changes were minimal and necessary, for her relationship with Damien was different than any of platonic love. That had to be important.
She opened her mouth to continue reading when she sensed the eerie stillness around her. Like a tangible, dense yet invisible fog, she was building a wall of magic around Damien and her.
Her brothers would certainly feel this. Panic hiccupped in her chest and she sped through the next words.
Fire, ye giveth life to all that lives.
Ye are the spark of all life,
and ye are the spark that extinguishes in death.
Take ye also my offering of blood
and weave the spark of fire that burns within me
with Damien.
Bring him back to life.
An audible hum began to sound around them, like the insistent buzzing of insects.
Even before the screams of her brothers pierced the bubble of buzzing magic she was constructing around them, she realized what she’d done.
But there were some things one couldn’t reverse. Apparently, death truly was one of them.
Now Oliana had no choice but to move forward, and her voice quivered with every word.
Chapter 7
Some spells were a true force of nature. Once they built momentum, there was only one direction they would move—forward—until they crested in their natural ebb and flow. Like a furious raging river, or a consuming fire, or earth that had already begun to rumble, they wouldn’t be stopped until the water rushed downhill, or the fire burned the dry brush ahead of it, or the last of the earth’s tremors dissipated into nothing. This spell was like that, a gust of stout wind that wouldn’t be contained until it had blown with all its might.
Oliana’s spell was now an unstoppable force, and she no more than an instrument of it.
Tears welled in her eyes once more, but this time they weren’t for Damien. They were for her, and for the brothers she loved that she sensed running toward her. All her senses were heightened, as if she’d become nothing more than a corporeal manifestation of the four elements. She experienced the vibrations of their thumping footfalls as if she were the earth they fell upon.
Next she felt the running footsteps of Damien’s father and sister, who were responding to the panicked approach of Oliana’s brothers.
Still, she kept going. She didn’t think she’d even decided to, it was just what she needed to do. She’d set a power in motion that she couldn’t stop. And her lips moved as if they were someone else’s and she was a puppet of a fate she shouldn’t alter.
Water, ye are the flow of all things living.
Ye are the rhythm of life and death, of my life and Damien’s,
woven together through this incantation, now and forever.
Water, spring forth in Damien’s body,
inject him with the force of life,
of my life.
Her words hitched at this last bit, when the realization that she was tying her life, her essence, to that of a dead boy, hit her like a mallet to the chest.
The spell would work and Damien would come back to life. But the life wouldn’t be the one he used to have, it would be borrowed, but not in the way she’d anticipated. She’d assumed he’d borrow time, that the elements would join within him again a
nd animate him. And this they would do, but not in the way she thought. Although the elements existed in infinite abundance around them, they were in balance, and even if this balance seemed arbitrary or random, it was far from it. Everything in nature had a reason.
Including death. Death was part of nature, the natural end to life.
But what Oliana was doing was unnatural, and she finally realized what her brothers meant when they said the balance of the elements, of nature, was the utmost foundation of magic.
She smiled to herself at the sad irony of it, that she should finally learn this most important lesson at a time when she would no longer apply it. She wouldn’t be able to apply it ever. Because everything about her life was changing in a way that went far beyond the loss of a boy she loved.
The elements were giving Damien an extension on life. And they were dividing hers to do it.
The elements that fueled her life were weaving themselves with Damien’s body. They’d animate him with the elements that sustained her life.
And the elements that maintained the life within her body were in perfect proportion and balance to supply life to one body. Not two.
He’d come back to half a life, which was a substantial feat when he’d already succumbed fully to death. But he’d take half that life from her, and she’d given it freely before realizing what it meant—not just for her, but also for him.
“Oliana! No!” Albacus’ words finally pierced the bubble of doomed realization, his pounding footsteps amplified in her mind.
“Oliana!” Mordecai screamed. “Stop! Don’t say another word.”
But she couldn’t help herself. She wasn’t sure if the spell compelled her to keep speaking, or if she responded to what she’d now discovered was inevitable.
Whatever the reason, she couldn’t stop. What she’d set into motion, she was powerless to stop.