Magic Unchained n-7

by Jessica Andersen

  Then, suddenly, the shaft of light nearest them brightened, as if the sun had been cloud shrouded and now burst fully to life. Then it brightened further, went supernova. Sven shifted to put his body in front of hers, and Cara lifted a hand to shield her eyes, scared yet somehow not as scared as she probably should’ve been. When the light dissipated, a figure stood in front of them, man shaped but genderless, with thick skin that stretched over bone and sinew, and featureless black eyes that stared, unblinking, at her and Sven.

  A nahwal!

  She gasped, but Sven’s fingers tightened on hers, warning her not to back away. So she held her ground, staring at an entity she had never, ever expected to see for herself. Creatures of the barrier, the nahwal contained the collective ancestral wisdom of the Nightkeepers. Some held the experiences and personalities of the strongest magi of each bloodline; they passed messages to their descendants and could be both help and hindrance. Others were all-knowing and could answer questions, while some were cruel and vicious. This one’s forearm lacked the coyote glyph, which meant it didn’t belong to Sven’s ancestry, but it wasn’t volunteering information and hadn’t made any move to attack. So what was it? Why was it here?

  “Are you the Father?” Sven asked quietly. “Are you the one we’re supposed to resurrect?” A shiver raced across Cara’s skin at the thought.

  “No. I am his messenger.” The voice was a descant of many, as if a church choir were speaking. “The seer is blind and deaf, but the information must be passed, and here you are among us, son of the coyotes. So it comes to you.”

  A message! Hope flared, tightening Cara’s throat. “What information?” she whispered, not sure whether the nahwal would even acknowledge her.

  It kept its featureless black eyes fixed on Sven, but answered, “In order for the Father to arise, the magi must bring the screaming skull to Che’en Yaaxil on the cardinal day.” Then, shifting its attention to her, the nahwal said, “That was one question. You have two more.”

  Cara gaped, first because the creature—the nahwal!—had acknowledged her, and then because of what its question meant. “You’re a three-question nahwal!”

  Rabbit had killed the prior version of the oracle, defending himself when the creature went rogue and attacked him. The Nightkeepers had searched long and hard for another, needing the answers it could provide if it chose. The “if it chose” was an important caveat, though, because the answers given by the prior three-question nahwal had been riddles at best, useless at worst, and almost always seriously obscure.

  “Is that your question?”

  “No!” she said quickly. “That was a statement, not a question.”

  “Careful,” Sven said in an undertone. “The last one had a temper.”

  “No shit,” she said, anxiety pushing her tone sharper than she’d really intended. Blowing out a breath, she whispered, “What should I ask?”

  “Request not of others what you must decide for yourself,” the nahwal said flatly. “These are your questions, not his. Ask for your true heart’s desire and the answers will be yours.” Its eyes bored into her, reaching inside as the thing said, “What do you want, winikin? Ask it of me now… but ask wisely.”

  Cara suddenly had to swallow hard, choking down the bitter thought that she didn’t remember the last time someone had asked her what she really wanted. She wasn’t even sure she knew anymore, and boy, did that suck. This wasn’t the time for selfishness, though, either in questions or dreams.

  Her mind raced, bringing a skim of panic. What should I do next? she thought frantically, but didn’t say it aloud because it would be too broad a question. How can we get out of the cave? she thought to try—she might feel solid and real, standing there in the lush cave, still hanging on to Sven like she had the right, but in reality their bodies were far away, drowning. Maybe even near death. But she hoped—prayed—that the nahwal’s message meant there was a chance she and Sven would make it back to the magi. Why didn’t I get my mark? she almost asked, because the nahwal was talking to her, not Sven, and that had to mean something. Unless it didn’t.

  Think! This was a shared vision, a shared message. Focus on the details. There wasn’t enough to the message for the brain trust to work with, was there? Taking a deep breath, she said, “What does this screaming skull look like?”

  “It is the size of a man’s fist, made of obsidian, and looks as you would expect it to from the name.” There was no tone or inflection, no hint that she’d asked the right or wrong question. Sven, though, tightened his fingers on hers and gave the shallowest of nods.

  Taking too much solace from that, she said, “What is the location of”—she stumbled over the ancient words—“Che’en Yaaxil?”

  “We are there.” The nahwal gestured to the subterranean pool and almost ethereally beautiful surroundings. “It is an hour’s walk from the tomb of the First Father. That is your third and last question.” Sunlight brightened through the opening once more, limning the nahwal with a white halo.

  “Wait.” Sven held out a hand to the ancient being. “What about me?”

  The halo brightened and blurred, forcing Cara to squint and then look away. From within the flameless white fire, the nahwal’s multitonal voice said, “I will not take your questions, mage, but I will give you your answers: The vision belongs to both of you; it is how you want to be seen. And this is your charge: Do not waste the gifts you are about to receive.”

  Hope flickered. What gifts?

  “What gifts?” Sven asked as if reading her mind. But even as he got the question out, the nahwal’s image grew thin and began to fade. “Wait. Come back!”

  “Gods go with you both.” The multitonal voice was soft, almost wistful.

  The pillar of light flared brightly, reaching out to surround them in a warm wash of energy and a thundering, shuddering noise that sounded like an off-balance clothes drier running at top speed: a syncopated thumpa-thud-thumpa-thud that sent Cara’s heart into her throat.

  What was happening? What were they supposed to do next? “Stop,” she cried. “Stop this!”

  Sven shouted something, but she couldn’t hear him over the noise, could only hang tightly on to his hand. THUMPA-THUD-THUMPA-THUD!

  On the last thud, the ground shuddered beneath her feet and her palms burned sharply as the cuts reopened and split wide. She cried out in pain, and then with shock as the blinding light winked out and they were suddenly standing on a featureless gray surface, surrounded by a huge mass of fog that churned around them with a deep-throated, windy roar.

  She gaped, paralyzed by helplessness as the mist became tendrils that snaked out, reaching toward her and Sven.

  “Get back!” He lunged in front of her and called a shield spell but nothing happened; he cast a fireball and cursed as it failed.

  Standing there in warrior black, unarmed and shouting into the fog, he looked at once majestic and vulnerable, and her heart shuddered with a sudden gut-deep certainty that this would be the last time she would see him like this.

  “Sven, don’t!” She reached for him, but just as her fingertips brushed his sleeve, the tendrils whipped around him and yanked him forward. Her heart stopped and her voice broke on a shattered scream of, “No!”

  He shouted and fought the mist’s inexorable grip, lashing out with magic that fizzled as it was cast. Twisting back, he reached for her with one hand while warding her off with the other. His eyes were tortured, his face stark with horror. “Cara, I—”

  The tendrils yanked him into the mist, and he disappeared.

  “No!” She bolted after him, but stopped after only a few steps because she was suddenly, utterly sure that he wasn’t just gone from sight, but from the vision, the plane, wherever the hell they were.

  She was alone—she could feel it on her skin and deep down inside. And with no magic, she had no way to get back to her body. She was trapped, locked into—

  Movement snaked into her peripheral vision and she spun in a defensive crouc
h, then screamed when a foggy tentacle latched onto her thigh, burning with cool fire. Another wrapped around her in an instant, dropping on her like python coils; they slid and tightened until she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but scream as she was dragged into the mist.

  Terror lashed through her. The fog was all around her, and then, gods, inside her—a terrible invading presence. It filled her up, pressing inside her chest and her skull as if searching for something and not finding it. The head and heart were the seats of a mage’s power, but she was no mage. As if suddenly realizing that, being angered by it, the fog seared through her, burning and tearing. Agony! She screamed, fell onto her side, and curled fetal as blackness washed across her vision and her entire world tunneled down to the presence inside her, the burning pressure in her head and heart. Weakness washed through her. Impotence. Then anger, because she didn’t want to be weak anymore, didn’t want—

  Blackness overcame her, shutting down her systems and leaving only a last despairing cry to echo through her fading self: Help me!

  Sven jerked awake, heart hammering as he blinked into pitch blackness. “Cara?”

  She lay in his arms, with her body pressed against his and their legs intertwined, a soft, yielding layer of moist sand beneath them. But she didn’t answer, didn’t move, barely even breathed. Her cry for help echoed in his soul, but not aloud.

  “Motherfucker,” he grated. The words echoed in the pitch-black, bringing back the sound of stone all around him, water nearby. He didn’t need the inputs to know where he was, though: the coyote cave. He was back in his own body, out of the vision and returned to the earth plane without her, spit there by the gray vortex. Its whirling power had been incalculable, searing his veins with a strange magic that had felt like the familiar bond times a million, as if he weren’t just bonded to Mac; he had become Mac, if only for a moment. Even now, that same feral power expanded his senses, sharpening his instincts and making him feel like he could do anything, fight anyone… except his own fucking selfishness. Because he might have held on to her in real life, but in the vision—where she’d been depending on him to get them safely back—he’d left her behind.

  He snapped the spell word to light a foxfire, and it blazed instantly, bigger and brighter than his usual, amped by the power that thrummed through the coyote cave. The ceiling had returned to its original position so the animals hung high above the coyotes, and the water had drained away, leaving just a thin river that circled around the central altar. The entrance was still sealed, though, and the magic was thick in the air, heavy and expectant. And Cara lay against him, her breathing far too slow. Her dark hair was a stark contrast against the milk of her skin and the startling white stripe, making him think of Sleeping Beauty, poisoned apples, and evil queens. Only he was no prince, and it was going to take more than a kiss to wake her up.

  Pulse thudding, hoping like hell this would work, he went for his knife, cut his palm, and let the blood fall to the sand as he whispered, “Pasaj och.”

  There was a burning in his blood, a jolt in his soul, and the wild magic snapped and snarled within him. But there was no sense of movement, no mist, no vision. Instead of jacking in this time, he stayed stubbornly inside a body that suddenly seemed not to fit quite right. And instead of calling her back or sending him into the barrier after her, the spell called something else instead. Sparks kindled in his gut and his blood heated, and he was suddenly so very aware of her curves, and the way they fit somehow despite their differences.

  Her breath feathered across his throat, bringing a low growl from the gray fog inside him—one that shimmered to life as thought-glyphs: Want. Take. It wasn’t Mac’s inner voice, though; it was his own. And although he’d told himself a thousand times why he couldn’t take what he wanted, he couldn’t remember any of the reasons right then; he could only wrap her tighter in his arms, pull her closer to his body, and ride the fierce surge of possessiveness that suddenly burned in his veins. His senses heightened and his skin grew sensitive as his cock hardened and the urge to mate took hold. He wanted to have her, hold her, bury himself inside her. He wanted to feel her clawing at his back, wanted to hear the sounds she made when she came. And then he wanted to come himself, lose himself inside her and steep his scent into her pores, marking her as his own.

  Don’t. It’s sex magic. The words seemed strange, as if coming in an unfamiliar language from a part of himself that was so much smaller and less important than the flames that raced through him, a mix of power and desire, and the sharp ache that came with having denied himself for so long.

  “No, damn it.” He wasn’t going there, didn’t dare even touch the fringes of the electricity that sparked between them. She was magic, power, glory, and goodness all wrapped up in a tiny yet perfect body, but he knew better than to even take a taste, not knowing whether he would be able to force himself to pull back and not take it too far. She was his weakness, after all.

  Sacrifice isn’t supposed to be easy. The reminder might have come in the nahwal’s many voices, might’ve come from deep within Sven himself. But it blazed with new certainty, bringing the knowledge that this wasn’t just a test; it was a chance for him to be there for her as he’d failed to be so many times before.

  Rearing back, he looked down at her for a moment, memorizing the sight of her curled against his chest as if she belonged there. Then, not letting himself hesitate any longer, he clasped her hands in his, aligning their cut palms and feeling the low buzz of the forming blood-link. Here goes nothing, he thought, but what he really meant was, Here goes everything, because in the next instant he dropped all his shields and opened himself to her, holding nothing back.

  Power blazed inside him and flowed through the link into her. Then he flowed through the link, as well, and for a disorienting second, he wasn’t inside his own head anymore. He was in hers. He felt her strength, her determination, her insecurities, her loneliness, and the lifelong fear that she wouldn’t be good enough, that she would let down the people who were counting on her, so much longer a list now than ever before. And each of those things resonated inside him. Oh, holy shit, how they resonated. But although those core emotions were in place, that was all. Her essential self, her full consciousness, wasn’t there. All he could sense was the hollow echo of his own soul as it ate itself from within.

  She was lost in the darkness. Because he’d left her behind.

  Guilt slashed, but he didn’t ease back. Instead, he tightened his grip on the blood-link and focused on pouring his power—his magic—into her. Cara. I’m here. You’re here. You need to find your way back. He thought it like a prayer, sending it into her and hoping to hell it would find her and lead her home.

  Silence was agony. Brutal, crushing defeat.

  He sagged against her, held her closer, tried to wrap himself around her until he wasn’t sure where his flesh ended and hers began. And all the while, he was sending the magic. It rushed from him to her and back again, bringing only lonely echoes and the growing fear that he was too late, that it wasn’t enough, that he’d already—

  Hello? It was so faint that for a second he thought he’d imagined it. But then he heard it again: Hello? Anyone?

  Jesus gods. Relief slammed through him, weakening his defenses even more. “Here! Gods, Cara, yes, I’m here!” He said it aloud, heard it reverberate off the cave walls.

  Sven?

  Yeah. This way. Come toward my voice. He sensed movement in the fog, caught a shimmering outline, a thread of desperate joy as she flung herself at his magic.

  For a second, his essence caught hers and they held on and clung as they had done before, in the vision. And then—thank the fucking gods, she was back, once more fully inhabiting her body and soul, and pushing him back into himself. Suddenly he could taste her on his lips, smell her on his skin, and feel her body warming and shifting against his as she turned in his embrace. And that was no dream or vision. It was real.

  His eyes flew open as
she flung her arms around his neck and clutched him so tight he almost couldn’t breathe. “You came back for me.” Her words were muffled against his throat, her face hot against his skin. “You did. You came back.”

  “Of course.” Pain stabbed that he’d given her such reason to doubt it. He eased her choke hold and rolled them onto their sides, partly so he could pull away and get a look at her, but mostly so she wouldn’t feel the big-ass tent pole he had going in the front of his pants. Hold it together, he told himself. You can do this. Furiously, he shunted the churning, sexual magic to the foxfires, which glowed so brightly they seemed to drip with light. The move leveled him off enough that he could stop himself from grabbing her, though, and bought him enough breath to grate, “Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” she said, but her eyes were locked on his, her pupils dilating. “No.” Her breathing synched with his, fast and shallow. “I don’t know.”

  Her pulse throbbed at her throat, beating in time with his heart and the heavy thrum of blood lower down, where he was hard and ready. Needy. But that need didn’t matter if the desire went only one way. Except that unless he was misreading the vibe that had sprung up between them, the sizzles were going both ways all of a sudden. Magic flared through him, putting red-gold sparks in the air and heightening his senses to an almost painful intensity. And when he shifted to stroke the place where color rode high on her cheeks, his hand shook with the effort it took not to bury his fingers in her hair and dive in for a kiss. But if he took a taste he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop there. He would want a nibble, a bite, and then more. Everything.