by Nichols, TJ
No one mentioned rest until they reached a small shaded stream that bubbled up from the ground. It was barely a pace wide, but it was the best thing Angus had seen in a long time. He lay on the ground and stuck his face in the cool water. Then he rolled onto his back.
Something circled overhead and flew back toward the hills. Angus sat up and pushed his dripping hair off his face so he could track it across the sky. Someone had been watching them and was reporting their location.
Water dripped onto Angus’s shoulder. He was sunburned despite his shirt, but he didn’t care. They had made it. He wanted to lie down and appreciate being alive, but he had no doubt that he’d have to face Cadmael all too soon.
“I vote we stop here and wash and rest for the rest of the day.” Lizzie undid her shirt and then glanced at Saka.
Everyone glanced at Saka as though they expected him to say something like “We must keep going.”
Saka dropped the ropes of the sled he’d been pulling. “They know we are here. We have earned a rest until they come.”
Wek sighed and dropped the ropes to her sled. The trainees smiled and sat. Like Angus, they were sunburned and tired. But they’d made it. They had survived the walk across the desert. They would find out how safe their sanctuary was in due time. At the moment the shade and the water and the plants were something out of a dream. Angus lay on the bank with his feet in the water, and his wet clothes clung to him.
Terrance lay down next to him. “I would kill for a toothbrush, a wheel of cheese, beer, and a shower. In any order.”
Angus ran his tongue over his teeth and then his hand over his face. “And a razor.”
“It’s not that bad.” Terrance propped himself up on his elbow. “Just needs a trim.”
Angus pulled a face. The scruff would come off the first chance he got. “Do you still have that bottle of mead?”
It was the moment to celebrate. Angus didn’t know what was going to happen when they met the tribe or when they crossed the void to the Mayan Empire. He didn’t care right then.
Terrance sat up. “Yeah. I think it’s on the sled.”
He got up and came back a few minutes later. Everyone gathered around in their wet clothing. They were all streaked with grime, but they smiled for the first time in too many days.
Terrance handed Saka the bottle. “Do you want to do the honors?”
Saka shook his head. “Let Angus.”
Angus took the bottle of blood-warm mead from Terrance and undid the foil around the top. He hoped it hadn’t spoiled in the heat, but when the cap came off, it smelled sweet, with a whiff of alcohol. He took a sip, decided that it was still good, and had a bigger drink before passing the bottle to Terrance.
Lizzie drank, shivered, and grimaced as she handed the bottle on to the two other trainees who’d survived the walk. Wek and Saka pulled faces, but neither of them turned down the bottle when it made a second round.
They drank for those who hadn’t made it—for Dustin and Norah, for the trainee who’d been shot trying to cross the void, for Jim and the others who’d been killed on missions for the underground. Their small group was all that was left of the grand experiment—an experiment that had clearly failed, at least in Vinland.
No one knew what to expect from the Mayan Empire, but they had a chance. That was reason enough to celebrate. The bottle went around a third time. The taste was thick and cloying in his throat, and the alcohol hit his stomach and bloodstream hard. The sharp edge of the world smudged, and he leaned against Terrance, who wrapped an arm around his waist.
Saka’s grin was wide and unrestrained. Angus didn’t have to force a smile. Saka leaned forward and kissed him with a quick brush of lips and nothing more. Saka drew back and looked at Terrance. Terrance shrugged and then hugged Saka and pressed Angus between them. Angus didn’t even care that, for a moment, he couldn’t breathe.
Lizzie and Wek joined in the group hug, and so did the others.
It was only then that Angus realized how desperate everyone had felt and how well they’d locked it up to avoid making the others feel worse.
Someone laughed, and Lizzie started to cry. The bottle made a final round.
A few mouthfuls of Solstice mead, and Angus was already light-headed. That’s what the Solstice celebration should feel like—joyous with the promise of Spring and new life.
They had a chance to start over and fight back, to return the stolen magic and bring Spring to Vinland.
Blood for the Spilling
Sheets of ice are spreading across the human world, ushering in an ice age as the magic drained from Demonside turns that world into a desert. Angus and reluctant warlock Terrance have defected from Vinland to the Mayan Empire—a land of dark and potent magic. But the Mayans aren’t offering sanctuary for free.
Nor is the world willing to stand back as Vinland attacks, and the backlash will affect all magic users.
Mage Saka has no tribe. He is now just another refugee fleeing the dying Demonside. He knows the conflict brewing now will be worse than the first demon war. Countries are banding together—not just against Vinland, but against all magic. Where will the powerful Mayan Empire stand?
Angus might have the power to fight Vinland and the Warlock College, but the cost will be terrible. Saka is torn between helping Angus and stopping him. And Terrance would do anything for Angus, but he’s terrified of the man Angus is becoming, even as Saka is warming to the idea of a relationship between the three of them.
No matter what choice they make, victory will be bittersweet, and when the ash settles and the snow melts, nothing will be the same.
Chapter One
The city of Uxmal was spread before Angus like a feast he could see but not taste. He was too high above the roads and trees to do much more than glimpse the ant-like inhabitants. That didn’t stop him from leaning over the balcony of the high-rise to peer as far in either direction as he could. Uxmal seemed to grow out of the jungle. He was used to neat parks scattered among gray buildings, but Uxmal seemed to be the reverse, with buildings scattered among the greenery.
The structure was smooth, and the distance between balconies was too great for him to climb down. Climbing up was also out of the question, so escape from his accommodation seemed impossible. Magic tingled across his skin, but he wasn’t sure how to use it to escape, and even if he could get out, he didn’t know where he was going and he’d eventually have to find a way back in. But he was tired of being trapped indoors when there was a whole city to explore. He leaned farther out until his balance was more precarious than was safe, but nothing he’d done recently was remotely safe.
It had been dangerous to defect from Vinland, even without the trek across the desert of Demonside. He winced and tried not to let the pain of Norah’s and Dustin’s deaths tear open the still-fresh scab.
His fault.
He’d led them.
The other Vinnish defectors, including Terrance, had been separated when they arrived on the human side of the void, so he didn’t know if everyone else was still alive. Were they all isolated? Were they even in Uxmal?
He drew in a breath of heavy wet air. The humidity clung to his skin, and the heat was a blanket he couldn’t throw off. He slapped at an opportunistic mosquito, and blood smeared his forearm next to the scar where a beetle larva had been cut out some months before. He tried to work out how long it had been exactly, but the time he’d spent walking across the desert in Demonside and then the days spent here recovering and being questioned had blurred.
The color had gradually returned to Angus’s eyes. By the time they reached the demon tribe that worked with the Mayans, his eyes were barely blue. Terrance’s had been pale gold. And the other trainee warlocks who’d thrown their lives into his hands, had they recovered fully? Had Terrance? He didn’t even know if Saka was alive. He rocked back away from the edge of the railing in case falling became a temptation.
The people who came to see him ignored his questions. Everyone se
emed to think he was a spy for Vinland, and he hadn’t been able to summon Saka, because the room was full of magical dampeners.
He moved to the far left of the small balcony and leaned out to catch a glimpse of the grand, glassy temple. From a distance it appeared to be made of smoke, but he knew it wasn’t. The priest, the Mayan equivalent of a warlock, Cadmael Och, had answered that question in detail. If Angus were found guilty of being a spy, he’d be killed there. It appeared the Warlock College in Vinland hadn’t lied about the Mayan Empire’s love of human sacrifice.
The Warlock College also hadn’t mentioned that the Mayans were using magic at a level Angus had never dreamed of—and he was seeing only the barest glimpses. When Cadmael sifted through Angus’s thoughts, there were no side effects, but there was also nothing he could hide. The carefully constructed bubbles around his relationship with Saka had been stripped away.
At least the damage the college had done had been healed. While Cadmael might be the priest in charge of questioning defectors, he didn’t seem to want them to suffer, which gave Angus a small amount of hope. He wasn’t in chains, and the apartment wasn’t a filthy cell, even if he couldn’t leave because the fall would kill him.
He glanced down at the ground and willed the dizziness away, but his heartbeat increased. He wasn’t going to jump, but he wanted to get out and see more of the city. Where was Uxmal on a map? How far south was he? Or was he near the border of Vinland?
Where were Saka and Terrance and the others?
He spun away from the railing and stared at the glass door. All that waited for him on the other side were the empty rooms of his apartment. He was done with resting and sleeping and tired of answering the same questions—questions they had probably already stolen the answers for when Cadmael sorted through his mind like it was a library for browsing.
He closed his eyes. For just five minutes, it would be nice to feel safe. As though he didn’t have his neck in a noose and weren’t waiting for the chair to be kicked out from beneath his feet. For several breaths he didn’t move. If he went in, the magical dampeners would press against his skin. The humidity and the heat were more bearable.
He pressed his nails into his palms and squeezed a little harder. It would be so easy to draw blood… and do what?
He couldn’t magic up wings.
He couldn’t do anything but wait while the world froze over and Vinland and the Warlock College locked up all magic until demons and Demonside died. Even if there were no demons, magic would need rebalancing. He still didn’t understand why the Warlock College was so against rebalancing. The free flow of magic was better for everyone. Wasn’t it?
The door to his apartment opened. They never knocked when they came to talk to him. What would it be today? He’d been hauled before Cadmael in the middle of the night, hooded and questioned. He’d been brought food and questioned over a meal. While a demon with the face and antlers of a deer looked on, he’d been treated by a doctor and questioned by a woman he could only assume was a priestess. They were always asking the same questions, and he always gave the same answers—the only answers he had.
When they didn’t want him to know what was going on, they spoke in a language he couldn’t grasp. Yet they all seemed to speak Vinnish when they needed to.
Priest Cadmael stood in the doorway as though unwilling to step onto the balcony. His lilac pinstripe suit and yellow tie were almost subdued… for him. Angus still wasn’t used to the color. Everyone wore color. The walls were painted and patterned like the Mayan city was a demon village. Nothing was left white or sterile. “It is time for a testing.”
Angus uncurled his fingers and wished he hadn’t been so keen to leave his room.
He could refuse, but they’d drag him off to whatever it was they wanted him to do anyway. At first he’d refused to talk. The old habit of keeping college secrets was hard to break, especially when the Mayan Empire was considered an enemy.
Both countries used demon magic. They were more alike than different. The Mayans took rebalancing very seriously, and Cadmael had been disgusted by the college. Angus didn’t need to speak his language to understand that. His expression and tone said all that was needed.
Today he’d come to Angus instead of having Angus delivered. Was that a new approach to get him to say something?
He had nothing more to say. “What kind of testing?”
“You are a priest among your people, no?” Cadmael smiled, but it was the kind of smile that promised to trip Angus if he weren’t very careful.
He had no idea if he was passing or failing—a refugee to be granted sanctuary or a spy to be put to death. At least his death would go toward stopping the ice sheets that were smothering the world. Maybe it would even bring rain to the drying Demonside. Cadmael wouldn’t let his blood be spilled without it being used, but it was grim comfort.
“Warlock,” Angus insisted. He wasn’t sure of the difference between a priest and a warlock, and he didn’t want to make false claims. Cadmael had never taken the hint and referred to Angus as a priest, which kind of implied more training and responsibility than Angus had ever wanted when it came to demons and magic.
“Your abilities with your demon and anchor will be assessed.”
His heart lurched. “I get to see Saka?”
Saka was alive. His heart gave a wobbly flip, and he had to fight to keep the smile from his face. For five minutes with Saka, he’d do anything Cadmael asked, even for just two.
Cadmael nodded. “He is your demon.” The smile was sly.
That was the trap. Humans weren’t better than their demons. “And I am his warlock.”
The slight inclination of Cadmael’s head was the only response he got. Should he just start using the word priest? He didn’t feel like a priest. He didn’t know enough to be able to claim that rank. Priests were well-regarded in much the same way that warlocks were well-regarded, or so it seemed. Everyone deferred to Cadmael, but maybe that was because he was head of the Intelligence Temple.
Outside Angus’s room, two green-uniformed soldiers waited. Both wore knives. Arrowhead patches marked their ranks.
Angus slipped on his sandals and followed Cadmael. He expected the cloth hood to be put over his head, but no one approached him. He was getting to see Saka and the city?
Fuck. That could only mean one thing. He was about to be cut open like an overripe fruit and bled out in the temple.
He swallowed and glanced at the soldiers and then at Cadmael. His heart beat fast, as though readying to flee. But if he ran, where exactly could he go?
He couldn’t go home. The Warlock College would torture and kill him.
He couldn’t hide in Demonside, because it would gradually drain him, and hiding in Uxmal was impossible. His red hair and fair skin would make him stand out. He lacked money, papers, and everything he’d need to live as a citizen.
So he was in limbo with no country and no home. He existed because Priest Cadmael allowed him to until his usefulness ran out… which was today.
He wasn’t dead yet. There was still time to do something, but his brain refused to give him anything remotely close to an idea. At least he’d get to see Saka again.
In the foyer of the building, the woman on the desk didn’t even look up. Two more soldiers stood by the door. Maybe this place was some kind of prison. On the street the heat and sticky air assaulted him. It was hard to believe that Vinland was icing over and Demonside was drying when even the air here needed wringing out.
No cars traveled the road. Instead, some other vehicle, like a bus that ran on a track, transported people to where they needed to be. But they weren’t getting on. They were apparently walking and in the direction of the smoky-glass temple.
Soldiers walked the footpath in pairs, but no one seemed bothered by their armed presence except him. He wasn’t used to having so many military people around.
Demons, some scaled, some feathered, and some with antlers—kinds Angus had never seen before�
�strolled along the footpath, and no one looked at them either. He tried not to stare.
But everyone stared at him as though they knew exactly what he was.
Defector.
He was the enemy.
He lowered his gaze to the path and kept up with Cadmael as the soldiers walked behind. To escort or protect him? Or both?
Across the entrance to the temple, something was written in gold glyphs. He didn’t get a chance to memorize them or ask what they said before they entered. The cool of the temple was a relief, and the eyes of the Mayans no longer watched as though expecting him to do something awful.
The inside of the temple was gray stone, and the walls were decorated with vivid scenes that probably had meaning. But to Angus they were just scenes of people and demons and death.
He fully expected to be taken to the top to meet his fate. Instead Cadmael opened a door and ushered him into a room that was empty except for a hooded man sitting on a chair. The hood didn’t matter. Angus knew who it was. He had to stop himself from running over and pulling off the hood. This was the first time he’d been allowed to see any of the warlocks who’d fled Vinland.
It had to be a trick or a trap. His feet remained rooted to the floor, and he was unsure what he should do. He glanced at Cadmael, seeking a clue but got none. The door closed, and the soldiers remained on the other side. Cadmael paced the room, his footsteps soft as a snake slithering over stone until he stopped close to the man.
Cadmael tapped the man’s blue-shirted shoulder. “This man betrayed you to the college. He reported on you to the underground, brought you into their treachery. His loyalty changes depending on the breeze. Yet he is your anchor.” He shook his head, and a crease formed between his eyebrows as though he couldn’t understand. “That is all that is keeping him alive.”