Twisted Legends: Twisted Magic Book 4

by Kaye, Rainy

  I scowled, trying to make sense of it, as we made our way deeper into the cave.

  “Oh, shit,” Randall said, but his voice held breathless awe. “Saf, look up.”

  I tipped my head back to look where he was staring. My light did not reach the ceiling but fanned over us like a glowing umbrella.

  Far above, the rock ceiling sparkled with long branching lines of golden lava, as if the cave had been repaired with kintsugi.

  The night sky had never been as beautiful.

  “That’s—” I started.

  The blinding light flashed. A hulking dark form curled in the back of the cave snapped across my vision before the light scorched my retinas. Stumbling backwards, I blinked back the water welling in my eyes as my sight struggled to return. My sole slid from under me and I dropped to my ass on the rock.

  Before I could shout—anything, for any reason—the light flashed again. The two images overlaid in my brain.

  A creature, not unlike a scorpion the size of a school bus, stood against the back wall of the cave, facing us.

  I scrambled backwards, my magic extinguished. The rocks bit at my palms.

  On the third flash, I realized the scorpion-monster was blinking from its curled tail like a firefly.

  We must have arrived at mating season.

  Fantastic.

  I scrambled toward the cave exit, not bothering to try to breathe.

  In another flash, the monster released its jaw. A roar reverberated off the rocky walls. The beautiful display above trembled.

  Orange filled my vision, and a gust of heat rolled toward me.

  The path on the ground hadn’t been dirty. It had been scorched by the lava-spewing monster.

  I jutted forward, thrusting out my palms, as the lava tide rolled toward us. My shield went up and out, straight to the ceiling and into the rock walls with a solid thud that rattled the cave. The ground below me trembled. The lava rolled into the shield and sloshed around like a tide before slowly ebbing.

  I scurried to my feet, darting out of the cave. As we made our way down the rock toward flat ground, a laugh bubbled up my chest.

  Two weeks ago, I was warming up coffee with magic. Now, I had just stopped a tidal wave of lava from a scorpion monster in a pocket world.

  Jada was wrong. Magic was incredible.

  And it was mine.

  Randall waited up ahead until I caught up with him.

  “Feeling okay there, Saf?” he asked.

  I put my arms out at my side. “Never better. Did you see that back there?”

  “I saw we were nearly toasted marshmallows,” he said evenly.

  I stopped, tugging his arm for him to face me.

  “But we weren’t,” I said, breathless but not from exertion. “That’s the thing. We were just fine.”

  His gaze searched me over, but I could tell he was holding back. I just wasn’t sure what he was thinking.

  “My magic is free here,” I said with a gush of happiness I felt down to my core. “I can do anything I want. Anything we want. It’s like this place removed all the restrictions, all the fear, all the—whatever that keeps my magic from being everything it could be. That it should be. My magic is just part of me here.”

  “You can’t…” He hesitated. “Saf, can you not control your magic…back home?”

  My shoulders drooped, and I released my hand. I had never asked him what he knew about Jada and my magic.

  “No. Even when it’s mine, it’s not.”

  “I don’t understand,” he said softly. “You do many amazing things.”

  “I can’t control it,” I said, and heat flushed my cheeks. I hadn’t hidden the truth, but I hadn’t laid it all out, either. I had assumed Randall understood—he had been in tight with Jada, after all—but that might have been a bold assumption on my part.

  “Why, though?” he asked, and even though his voice was kind, gentle, I bristled. He must have noticed, because he reached out and rubbed the side of my shoulder. “It’s not a big deal. Let’s just go find the keys so we can finish saving the world and get back to binge watching TV shows.”

  My spiky defenses lowered. Randall had been my companion, my partner, long before the dark witches and mages had arrived. He had been the one I texted in preemptive need of being rescued. He had been the one to keep my company while I stayed up all night with meandering research.

  He had given me thousands of tiny tokens over the years, figuratively and literally.

  He laced his fingers with mine as he guided me down the rock slope, toward the ground spotted with long-frond plants that pulsed with lava pulled up from the sloshing fire that rolled under the earth.

  “That was pretty badass,” he said, his tone light. “I mean, that might be the next thing to being actually invincible.”

  “When I can throw it up that easily,” I said, but the annoyance had left my soul. I reveled in my freedom. “If it can stop that much lava, I wonder if it’s completely impenetrable.”

  “We know it’s heat resistant, for sure,” he said with a laugh.

  “That monster—” I missed my step, and my sole slipped from under me.

  Randall pulled me forward, into him, to break my fall. With his arms around me, he half guided, half dropped us the short hop down to the ground, and we tumbled back into a frond plant. Despite the lava veins, it was cool to the touch, and the fronds gave easily, cushioning us from the hard ground. The sword lay nearby, just out of accidental poking reach.

  I remained tucked against Randall’s side, turning a little to stare up at his face.

  He grinned down at me, and he cupped the back of my head with his hand, stroking my hair. “I’m glad you’re getting the chance to enjoy your witchiness here.”

  Warmth shimmered through me, and I imagined it like the lines of fiery lava in the top of the cave.

  “If only it would work like this back home,” I said, but my gaze locked onto his lips, my mind blanking of any real thoughts.

  “Having a little is better than none at all,” he said, his voice tight.

  I started to reply about unreliable magic, when I realized that he had changed the topic.

  My brain stalled.

  What had he meant? A little of what was better than nothing?

  A little of—

  Before I could complete the thought, he pulled me in for a kiss. Our lips met, and the fire in the ground had nothing on the heat that welled up in me. Need pulsed through my body, and I scrabbled for the recollection of where we were before I did something entirely unladylike.

  His hands shifted down my back as I sank deeper against him. He slid his tongue between my parted lips, and the heat that washed through me scorched my brain.

  I crawled on top of him, straddling his waist as he deepened the kiss. I traced my hands along his shoulders before wrapping them around the back of his head. I couldn’t think, couldn’t even remember I needed to think; I burnt up in the fire and nothing had ever felt so amazing.

  When the kiss broke, I wasn’t sure which of us had pulled back. My lips hovered over his.

  “Hey,” I said, breathless, and then stole a look up at him.

  Fire danced in his eyes, a shimmering dark need ignited from long burning embers.

  My heart sank.

  A little bit of Jada. A little bit of her is better than nothing.

  Loathing roiled in my chest. I shoved off from him, pushing to my feet, and in the same instance, forced down all the horrible feelings crumpling my face.

  “Saf?” He stood, the plant bouncing back as if we hadn’t been frolicking in its midst. “Are you…I’m sorry.”

  I didn’t reply.

  He started for me but seemed to think better of it and pulled back. “I thought—”

  “Let’s just go,” I snapped.

  He hesitated, then grabbed up the sword as I strode forward. He didn’t have a sheath for it, so continued to carry it at his side, though he already seemed comfortable enough with the wea
pon.

  Randall, always full of surprises.

  Randall, always so typical.

  “Saf, I thought you were feeling it,” he started again. “I thought that—I’m sorry. Fuck, I didn’t mean to—”

  “It’s fine,” I said, trying to sound neutral but failing. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  I couldn’t in good conscience let him think he had somehow unwittingly forced himself on me—that was far from the case. I had been there for the moment, all into it, stupidly forgetting who he had once been. Who he always would be.

  He matched my stride. “Then why are you acting like you would throw me into a lava lake if there was one?”

  “It’s nothing,” I said, and then clamped my jaw. Now was not the time to have this conversation. Maybe never. There hadn’t been a good time in all these years. “Let’s just get to the fuckin tower so we can get to the fuckin keys so we can get back to watching fuckin TV.”

  Tears welled in my eyes and they burned streaks down my cheeks.

  Everything in this goddamned place was on fire.

  “I just want to know where I stand with you,” he said, and in any movie, he would have grabbed my arm here, spun me around, forced me to confront him.

  But Randall wasn’t a douchebag, and I hated that about him right now.

  Pressing my lips together to seal in the sob, I turned to him.

  “Who am I to you?” he asked, open and honest.

  “Jada’s boyfriend,” I said, and my throat stung as it constricted around the words. “You loved her.”

  Randall paled. The sword hung loosely at his side, and he took a step backwards. “No.”

  “Oh, please don’t,” I said, with an irritated wave of my hand. Inside, I cracked apart, chunks of my soul falling into a dark abyss that had opened under me. “I was there.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” he said, voice hoarse.

  “I was there,” I reiterated, sharply.

  “There was…There was a lot going on back then,” Randall said slowly, but he couldn’t even look me in the eyes.

  That was all I needed to know.

  “I remember it clearly. Randall, following my sister around like a dutiful swain. Always at her heel, at her beck and call.” I grimaced as his jaw tightened. I tried to soften my words, because they weren’t entirely fair. “Look, I get it. Jada is sweet and fun and charismatic. People flock to her for a reason. She was—is—amazing. You were her boyfriend. I understand why you loved her so much. But I just—I can’t. I can’t ever, ever look into the eyes of the man who once doted on my sister so much. I just can’t.”

  I lifted my hands and let them fall at my side.

  This situation wasn’t his fault. I just wished our past hadn’t gone this way.

  It wasn’t fair that the one person who filled my heart also drained my soul.

  “Safiya, I care about—”

  “Don’t,” I said, holding up my hand. “Please, just let us finish this quest. I don’t have the energy for both this conversation and finding the keys, and only one matters.”

  I turned and strode toward the tower. Now that the words were out, there was no more pretending—to anyone, including myself. No more sleepy what-if fantasies. No more harmless swooning. No more wondering if someday I could just get over my aversion to his role in her life, even though I never could.

  Randall may have been a shameless puppy, and that did prickle my skin with irritation at the thought, but it wasn’t the full reason, not the true one.

  I could never live up to Jada. We might be twins on the outside, but inside, I was the weaker of the two, the quieter, the less endearing. People had been drawn to her, even the other kids at our school. Fiona had remained at my side, my one truest friend, but everyone else brushed past me to revel in all things Jada.

  I had long accepted my role, maybe even found some joy in it, but I couldn’t wake every day aware that my other half knew there was a better version of me out there, one he had loved and lost.

  I would not be a consolation prize.

  We walked in silence, save the occasional sharp intake of breath of Randall preparing to argue, but then deciding against it. I would not have even heard his contemplation if it weren’t for the unearthly stillness of the air as the chitter hum fell back into the far distance.

  A glowing orange crescent swept across the horizon. I stumbled in my step, preparing to turn away from a sudden rising sun. A second past before I realized the horizon did not boast a celestial body.

  A few cautious paces up a gradual incline revealed a growing lake of fire, an expanse of molten, barely moving lava, its far edge touching the shore that gave way to the tower.

  The tower jutted into the sky so high, even from here, I had to tip my head to see the crown on top. Beyond it, a set of wide flat steps led up a slope to a stone platform. On the platform loomed four stone figures, three-story tall sculptures of long forgotten deities who looked out over the lava lake with a granite gaze.

  Three statues had their hands folded in their laps; the fourth, at the end, had his hands raised in front of him, palms out toward us. I winced at the intrusive thought of the statue blasting us with some arcane energy even I couldn’t harness here.

  “They look vaguely Babylonian,” Randall said from next to me, but not close enough to reach out and touch even I wanted to, which I didn’t.

  “Not nearly racy enough. Captivating, but Otilia had said to go to the tower. The keys are in there, apparently. Who knew there really was a lava lake here?” I squinted at the shallow valley between the tower and the statues. Boulders walled in one side of the valley and at the bottom nestled clusters of small buildings. “Are those houses?”

  “Looks like we found people,” Randall said, sounding as enthused as I felt.

  The last turn of events we needed was humans.

  “We have to reach the tower, but I’m not sure I have a magical solution for this lake.” I flipped through my new and improved toolbox of tricks, but none of them seemed to be a fit for the job. I could at best use a screwdriver as hammer, but I was less keen about that when fiery lava death was the risk.

  “We’ll have to go around,” he said, lowering the sword until it touched the scorched earth. He dragged the tip along a crack, and I expected sparks to flare or the lava underneath to bubble, but nothing of the sort happened. “It’s a lake, so it can’t go on forever.”

  Even though I couldn’t quite see the edges on either side, I couldn’t argue. There had to be another way around to the tower. Moreover, we didn’t have any other choices.

  It was going to be one hell of a walk, though.

  I tasted soot on my lip, and I wasn’t quite sure when or where that had come from. Maybe the dirt itself.

  “No time like the present,” I said. “Or whatever this is.”

  I started across the ground, toward the descent that would lead us around the lake.

  “There you are,” a woman said through a huff behind us.

  I spun around, arms at my side, before raising them. Magic sparked across my forearms and up to my fingers.

  Randall had his sword pulled back ready to swing, however effective the move may or may not be.

  A woman trudged up the side of the hill, her pale dress stained with dark earth and charred at one side. She collapsed to one knee and clutched just above a wicked oozing wound in her bare calf.

  “One of the stupid Fire Souls caught me off guard.” She sucked air between her teeth. “They are entirely out of hand.”

  Randall and I somehow exchanged looks without altogether taking our eyes off her.

  “Why were you out there?” he asked slowly, lowering his weapon at the same pace.

  I let my magic fall back, only because it would take no effort to release it if needed.

  “Looking for you,” she said and then struggled to her feet.

  I started forward to help her, but then caught myself. I had no idea what she was up to, and being wound
ed didn’t mean she was on our side.

  “Why so?” I asked, trying to keep my tone even, curious, but not accusatory. We were on her chessboard.

  “We saw the clouds change.” She glanced upwards, as if hoping they would offer her another reminder or assurance of something I had not yet determined. “We haven’t seen blue in nearly fifteen hundred years. The hands didn’t change, so we knew someone must have come from the outside. Finally.”

  “Blue…Hands…What?” I rolled through the words that didn’t add up.

  She winced and then gestured at her injury.

  “I need to get back to town. The fire will keep spreading in my veins until I can be healed.” Her gaze fell on Randall’s sword. An easy, if slightly pained, smile softened her face, and she sucked in a satisfied breath. “I see you have also met one of the Fire Souls. If you defeated it and took its sword, then we were right about you. Come with me.”

  She nodded toward the distance, to the side, indicating something not in view. Before we could reply, she hobbled in the direction she had indicated.

  “Wait.”

  Randall’s firm tone carried in the stillness, startling me.

  The woman flinched, but turned to him with a patient expression. “We can talk while we walk. Please. I am in a great deal of pain, if I’m to be honest.”

  I hoped that wasn’t the beginning and end of her ability to tell the truth.

  “What are the Fire Souls?” Randall asked, and I squinted at him, trying to decipher if he was hoping to conclude anything useful about our situation, or if he just wanted to file the answer away in his ever-growing catalog of trivia he would never be able to use, even on pub night.

  “They’re the ones who died in the lava,” she said. “Sacrificed, more accurately.”

  “Sacrificed by who?” I blurted, as dark horror opened up in me.

  People were just tossing each other into the sticky infernos?

  “It was an early attempt,” she said, glancing toward the burning yellow lake. “They hoped that with enough blood, enough souls, the Fire King would bless us or release our world.”

  “I guess it didn’t work?” Randall asked, and she smiled up at him, though I couldn’t quite detect the emotion swimming underneath.