Malignant Magic (Medicine and Magic Book 3)

by SA Magnusson

  “You’ll see.”

  The pressure continued to build, and I could barely keep my eyes open. It was painful, and as it squeezed, I struggled against it.

  “You need to relax,” Aron said.

  I tried, but despite every effort, my body raged against what was happening to me. The pressure continued squeezing me, the power of whatever spell he was using pushing on me. Instinctively, I pushed back, using my magic, but Aron touched my arm.

  “You can’t do that,” he said.

  “What am I doing?”

  “You’re holding us here,” he said.

  “Holding?”

  He nodded. “You have to relax. Release your spell.”

  It took an effort of will to do it, and I didn’t bother telling him that I had no spells and that my magic was different than his, that I didn’t require spells the same way mages did.

  Tamping my magic down was harder than it used to be. There was a time when I was able to hold it down, and I could ignore it within me, but after having used it as often as I had, it flowed. I still remembered how to suppress it, and I used that knowledge, sealing it within me.

  The pressure continued to build around us. I could barely hold my eyes open.

  Pain squeezed.

  And then it was gone.

  I opened my eyes, uncertain what had happened. All around us were trees, and within the trees were the strange glittering shapes that I had seen the last time I had been here.

  “How?”

  “This is the kind of spell I am not supposed to use. This is the type of spell your grandfather is not supposed to use,” he said.

  “Then how do you know it?”

  “I know a great many things I’m not supposed to know,” Aron said.

  He got out of his car and I followed, heading into the woods—and toward Solera’s home. The air had a stillness to it, and the change in location and the scents around us was jarring—and so different than what had been near the basilica.

  “Is she here?” I asked.

  “She can go nowhere else. The question is whether she will appear before us.”

  I looked around for signs of Solera. The last time we were here had been different, guided here by her ferryman, and likely in such a way that she had known we were coming long before she had appeared to us.

  “How are we going to find her?”

  “The same way we did before. We remain here, searching for her.”

  “Aron, we don’t have time for that. With what’s taking place back by the basilica, we can’t simply wait for her to appear in front of us.”

  “With Solera, we don’t often have the opportunity to force her to appear.”

  I followed the path, ignoring Aron. She had been near the strange pool of water at the center of the island before, and when I reached the clearing with the pool of water in the middle of it, I paused. There was no one here, no sign of Solera, but I needed to find some way for her to know we were here. It was likely she had recognized our coming, especially if she was connected to the island as Aron believed that she was.

  Pulling on my magic, I began to make a circle around the outside of the clearing. I was two-thirds of the way through it when I heard her voice.

  “Do you intend to open a portal here?”

  I turned to see Solera standing at the edge of the woods. Had I continued with my circuit, I would have run into her. It was almost as if she intended to create a barrier and obstruct me from making the complete circuit. I had no intention with my magic and was only holding on to it, but circles had power. Would completing the circle somehow take some of her power for myself?

  “I don’t intend to open anything. I came for your help.”

  A dark glimmer flashed across her face. “There is a price for help.”

  “I don’t intend to pay a price, either.”

  “Then you’ve come for no reason. I’m unwilling to help.”

  “A Great One is here.”

  Solera stood with her hands clasped in front of her, watching me for a long moment. “Is that supposed to impress me? The prison wouldn’t hold indefinitely.”

  Prison? “I don’t know if it’s going to impress you or not, but the fact that there is a Great One out, loose on the world, should bother you.”

  “And why should it bother me?”

  “Because he seeks to cross over the Veil and attack.”

  “He wouldn’t be able to do so.”

  “He attempted to use the shifters.”

  She frowned, cocking her head. There was a surge of soft power, a warmth that pulsed from her, and then she shook her head. “The shifters did not assist in this.”

  “They didn’t assist, but they were trying to.”

  “Trying and succeeding are very different things.”

  “He will succeed if he continues to do this. He came to the city and intends to use the neutral ground.”

  “He would not be able to use the neutral ground. He would have to have some sort of conduit for him to make the crossing.”

  “Such as a shifter alpha?”

  She pitched her mouth in a frown. “He should not be able to use the shifters in this.”

  “You keep saying what he shouldn’t be able to do, and I’m telling you what he is doing. I’ve seen it.”

  “Are you certain about what you’ve seen? You don’t have a great amount of experience within the magical world. You said so yourself.”

  “I saw what he did, just as I saw the way he attacked Ariel.”

  “Ariel should not have been in any danger,” Solera said.

  “Why?”

  “Just know that she should not.”

  “And if she was?”

  Solera watched me. “You came here to question me like this? You understand there is a price.”

  “I understand that he intends to attack the fae queen. That’s why he wants to make the crossing. If he succeeds, what will happen to the other side of the Veil?”

  “Nothing that hasn’t been happening for centuries.”

  “What? War?”

  Solera smiled at me. “Do you think that I’m here because I enjoy your world? No. I’m here because I have no choice. I was sent here.”

  “Why were you sent here?”

  “I was sent here to ensure that certain alliances were maintained.”

  “What sort of alliances?”

  “The sort your existence proves have not been held the way they should have been.”

  “How so?”

  Solera smiled at me. “Still searching for someone to give you answers rather than finding them yourself.”

  “If I knew of any way to find answers myself, I would be willing to do it, but there aren’t any answers I can get.”

  “Not any answers you think you can get, but in that, you would be incorrect.”

  “What do you think I can learn?”

  Solera smiled at me. “You should return. If you are as concerned about the shifters as you say, you don’t have much time.”

  “Just tell me where the Great One escaped from so we can return him.”

  “There are many Great Ones, and if one of them has been freed, each of the disciples may follow. If that’s the case, trapping them here might be the only thing that can be done.”

  “And what if we can’t trap them here?”

  “Then they will not be allowed to cross the Veil. She will not allow it.”

  “Who? The queen?”

  “The one who has the power to prevent any openings across the Veil.” Solera looked over my shoulder. “You should have known better than to bring her here, Archer.”

  “There wasn’t a choice.”

  “There’s always a choice. Are you ready to make yours?”

  She started toward Aron and I ran after her, holding onto my magic as I did. As I reached Aron, only a step behind her, a surge of power built.

  Solera’s eyes widened and she spun, sending magic surging into me.

  I pushed back again
st her, holding magic. Power poured out of me.

  It took a moment for me to realize I had completed my circle.

  Had she not known what I was doing?

  The circle was made unintentionally, but now that it was formed, I could feel the connection to the pool at the heart of the clearing. That pool reminded me of the power I felt within the circle on neutral ground.

  “You have a connection to the Veil here.” Voices whispered at the back of my mind, telling me about the connection, the power, and making promises to me.

  I ignored them.

  Solera attempted to slam power into me again, but it was much less than what she had managed previously.

  Either she was weaker or I had somehow sealed her off from her connection to that power.

  “Release it,” she said.

  “No.”

  Solera attempted to build another spell, and as she did, I ignored it again. Holding on to this power filled me and allowed me to resist her.

  She turned her attention to me and stalked closer, forcing me to take a step backward. It placed me on the inside of the ring that I had walked, and when she reached the boundary, she could go no further.

  “Release it.”

  “Not until you answer my questions.”

  “You would force me to answer? Is that how you think you can get what you want?”

  I glanced at Aron. He watched me, an unreadable expression on his face. His jaw was set and I could tell he worried about whether I was making a mistake. As far as I could tell, I was, but this was the only chance I thought we had to get answers, and if this failed, she would have no reason to tell me what we needed to know. It happened by chance, but I knew enough to seize that chance.

  “I’m not trying to force you to do anything. All I want is an answer to the question. How do we return them to their prison?”

  Solera shook her head. Power built from her and she attempted to strike at the barrier again and again, but each time she tried, she failed.

  “I’m going to hold this until you tell me, and I suspect that with the connection I now have to the other side of the Veil, I can draw enough power to confine you.” The sudden widening of her eyes told me that my suspicion was right. “All I want is an answer.”

  “There is no way to return them,” she said. She took a step back, studying the circle as if she could come up with some way to overpower it before deciding that she couldn’t. “If they’ve escaped their prison and are here, there is no way for you to return them.”

  “How do we stop them?”

  “You can attempt to confine them, but even in that, I doubt you will be successful. Confining one of the Great Ones in this land will be difficult, especially without the necessary strength, which even you don’t have.”

  I turned my attention back to her. “Can we stop them?”

  “Have you been able to stop them so far?”

  “I’ve only faced one. He restored himself every time he was injured.”

  “That’s what makes them so formidable. They have the ability to heal themselves much more rapidly than any other creature you might face on this side of the Veil.”

  And if they could heal themselves, then there might not be anything for us to do to stop them.

  “Even with the mage council and the Dark Council working together, we can’t stop them?”

  “Even working together. It’s possible that you might get lucky, but…” She shrugged. “Now, if you don’t mind?”

  An idea came to me, but it would be difficult, if not impossible.

  Could I hold onto this power?

  “Aron. Get the car.”

  He nodded once and raced off through the trees. I heard the steady rumble of the SUV as he returned, crashing between the trees and driving through the barrier. Did I allow him through or was there something about his magic that simply let him pass over?

  Solera just watched me. “You think you can hold onto this?”

  “I will try.”

  “You will fail. And when you fail and my powers are returned to me, you will have made yourself a dangerous enemy.”

  “We don’t need to be enemies. All I wanted was answers.”

  Solera glared at me.

  I climbed into the passenger seat, closing the door, and glanced over at Aron. “Can I hold onto this?”

  “I don’t know. You have to be the one controlling the spell.”

  “I don’t know that I’ll know how.”

  “And I will have to guide you.”

  16

  Power coursed through me, and it was a strange sensation to have Aron guiding it. He held onto my hand, reaching across the console so that he could hold on to me. His magic mingled with mine, creating a strange warmth that was different than anything I had experienced before when dealing with magic.

  “Why haven’t we tried this before?”

  “This is difficult to do,” Aron said. He kept his hand on the steering wheel and I waited for us to take off, but we didn’t go anywhere. Not yet.

  “What do we need to do?”

  “This is a complicated spell, and the key is focusing on one place and then the other, using your magic to bridge them.”

  “That’s the spell?”

  “It’s not so much as spell as it is a conduit of magic. What you need is to form that conduit and reach across it.”

  I looked out the window. Solera stood just outside the circle. She hadn’t moved, and I worried she would figure out a way to overpower the barrier before we had a chance to get back. Her magic crashed into the barrier, but she didn’t hold onto it with nearly as much power as she did when we had been here before.

  I tore my attention away. There wasn’t anything I could do to stop her, and I just had to hope that I could hold onto this magic long enough to successfully end the battle with the Great One.

  The park. That was where we needed to go. I tried to visualize how that would look, focusing not only on the park, but on where we were now, wanting to bridge the two. It was difficult to hold both of them in mind at the same time.

  “Will I be able to hold this circle even when we’re not here?” I asked Aron.

  “I don’t know. You’re going to have to try, but it’s possible there will be a separation.”

  If that happened, then our hope of succeeding would fail.

  “Do it,” I said.

  Power coursed out of Aron and took control of my magic. “You have to allow me to control it. If we do this, I have to be able to hold onto the magic, but I’m doing it through you.”

  I nodded. He slammed on the gas and the spell formed around us. He squeezed, compressing us, and pain filled me as it had before, though it was amplified.

  I screamed.

  “Hold it,” Aron said.

  Power surged around us and the car shot forward, squeezing through the spell. The pain lingered and seemed to last an incredibly long time. Moments stretched into what seemed like hours. I tried to cry out, but my voice was caught in the back of my throat.

  And then it faded.

  I breathed out. Did I still hold onto the power, or had I lost that connection?

  “Are you okay?” Aron asked.

  “I… I think so.”

  “I have never felt power quite like that.”

  “I think were drawing from the other side of the Veil. Somehow we’re tapping into a store of power Solera has access to.”

  Aron twisted in his seat and looked over at me. “That’s not how her magic works, Kate.”

  “I don’t know how her magic works, only that I somehow sealed it off.”

  Aron pressed his lips together. “Do you still have a connection to it?”

  The same power still filled me. I nodded. I wasn’t sure how, but it was. “It’s still there.”

  “Good.”

  I looked out the window to see where he had brought us. We were in a park, and in the distance, I could see the city’s skyline and the interstate running off to the side. As it was
early in the day—and on a weekday, no less—the park was empty. I knew about the park, but I’d never been here before.

  “How did you know where to go?”

  “You knew,” Aron said.

  “How did I know where to go?”

  “If you did as I suggested, you brought us to the right place.”

  I got out of the car and looked around. The park was mostly green space with some sport fields interrupting the flow. There weren’t any playgrounds, at least not that I could see. Trees grew along the edge of the park. A sense of magic flared nearby. Was it the Great One, or was it something else?

  “Can you find the members of the council?” I asked.

  “You don’t think that you can, wrapped in this power?”

  “I might be able to, but I’m worried about releasing my connection and losing control of it. If we’re going to defeat the Great One, I’m going to need all of this power, and I don’t want to lose it.”

  His magic surged and he pushed it out, rolling across the grassy lawn and toward the rest of the park. “That way,” he said, pointing.

  We had been gone long enough to confront Solera, maybe five or ten minutes at most, but would that have been too long?

  I ran after Aron, holding onto the connection to the magic near the lake. I worried that it would be difficult, but the longer we ran, the easier it became. Simply maintaining a connection allowed me to hold it, and far more easily than I had expected.

  A howl erupted.

  Skittering to a stop, I glanced over at Aron. He wrapped himself in a spell—a barrier—and I wished I could do the same, but I didn’t dare let go of the connection I had.

  “They’re close,” Aron said.

  “You can feel them?”

  “I can see them,” Aron said, pointing again.

  Nearly a dozen mages surrounded the wolf shifter. Their barriers surged together, forming a protective circle. It reminded me of what we’d faced when we rescued Ariel, but this barrier contained an enormous wolf shifter that attacked the barrier. The wolf didn’t move as it attacked, sitting in the center of the circle, but from my enhanced connection, I could feel power surging out from it.

  As we neared, Gran glanced back at me. “You’ve returned.”

  “We went to find answers.”

  “That’s what Barden claimed. I wasn’t sure if I could trust him.”