by C. K. Sorens
A wicked knife sliced a shallow gash across her bicep. His eyes glistened as if he expected thanks for a gift. He thrust her from him with a burst of muscle and magic.
Susan reached for him as she stumbled backward. She was still on his fast track path. Each single step took her as far away as ten. Then he was gone.
She landed hard. The impact forced a rough contraction through her, from spine to stomach and into the bones of her pelvis. She screamed and clawed at the dirt beneath her, desperate to grasp something, to find anything sturdy enough to help brace herself.
“What in the realms….?” Two faces appeared before her wet vision. Every hair in place, clothes well tailored with no accessory to get in the way.
He’d thrown her onto Fae land. Terror clenched her heart as surely as the contractions held the rest of her body hostage. She turned to crawl away, hoped it was the right direction, screamed when the agony penetrated her hips.
“Go alert the council,” one of the Fae ordered.
“Thyia, are you sure?”
“Quickly. I’ll keep your son.” Thyia dropped to her knees even though she wore a knee length dress, perfectly tailored around her own, full-bellied pregnancy. She guided Susan’s shoulders flat against the ground with gentle, insistent pressure, then rubbed the domed surface of Susan’s abdomen.
The Fae woman gasped at the touch, gripped her own stomach as pain radiated through her.
Susan cried out. The strain became too much to bear, and she pushed. Thyia recovered and shifted lower along Susan’s body, pressed her gown up and stripped off her underwear.
Then the Fae collapsed on her own shriek. Susan twisted, saw blood flow past the hem of Thyia’s summer dress. Dark, disbelieving eyes accused Susan.
“What have you done to me? What have you brought here?”
“H-he forced me,” Susan gasped, then growled. Her shout blended into Thyia’s scream.
In concert, two babies cried.
Footsteps added beat to the song, then stumbled to a stop. Susan struggled against the continued cramps to look up and see that which had torn her apart.
There, between the mothers sat a two-year-old boy covered in muck, his eyes a chocolate brown full of warmth for the babies. He seized the foot of one, the arm of Susan’s, and pulled them to his sides like dolls. Thyia lay with a slow, tired lowering of lashes, then stilled.
“No.” The deep bass of the word was a command of revulsion so deep it drew Susan in. A male Fae looked on in horror, his long white locs still swaying with his abrupt stop.
Susan did not understand his words, but she saw the movement on his hands. Ink a shade darker than his skin, V’s connected with each leg to the ones above, patterned and spaced like scales or armor. A Fae was casting a spell. It would be against her daughter.
A daughter the wicked Wizard had left to her. Not his. Not theirs. Hers.
Pleasant heat flushed beneath the pain, and she desperately wanted to hold the source of that comforting warmth. Her little Ember.
She pushed up to fall back down, another contraction ripped through, her body eager to finish the birth as a flash burst throughout the clearing with the heavy sound of lightning splitting air.
One baby stopped bawling. Susan’s breath ground out. Her heartbeat redoubled with life when she saw it was her newborn who still keened, the other as limp as her mother.
The toddler screamed.
Susan blinked through her tears, focused through the blur to see him hug the babies, head bowed. He scrunched his face in concentration and air wavered around him as if superheated, though he didn’t have tattoos to betray his magic.
The second baby regained her breath, stuttered into a frightened cry. The transparent, blurry wave arched toward the man who cast it. His Ink gathered in palms thrust out as a shield against his own spell.
He threw the power away as the Wizard had thrown Susan, only with less intent. The energy hit the woman who had gone for help. Her skin paled, and she collapsed to the ground.
“Mama?” The boy opened eyes no longer the color of dark chocolate. They had lightened and sharpened into amber glass. He looked at the small girls next to him, left the babies he saved for the mother he would never know again.
More footsteps thundered their way, Fae scouts she’d seen as they hunted, others dressed like the man, wrapped in heavy, patterned wool.
“Wist. What is this?” one woman asked.
“An aberration I could not stop. I tried, and it backfired--” the Fae choked on the words, gestured toward the dead bodies. The newly arrived Fae woman recoiled, horror on her face.
“You dared to use High Magic?” she demanded.
The grieving Fae cleared his throat with a pained, angry growl. “It was necessary! Do you not sense the child’s blood?”
The woman narrowed her eyes, then hissed and she turned away from the scene.
Exhausted, Susan curled over the cramps in her stomach. Gentle echos let her know she was done. She scrambled at the ground, gripped her daughter and pulled her from the horror of gore and dirt, the warmth of her baby fighting against the chill of fear.
Tears cut down Susan’s cheeks. She wished she’d stayed in that dusty shelter, wished she’d cared earlier about the protection of herself and her newborn Ember.
“Bring them to Center,” Wist ordered. “There is nothing else to do. We shall bind the child.”
}|{
They had forced magic on Susan. Their magic scarred Ember. Susan had stumbled back into the place she would call home, a tattooed baby in her arms. The Wizard never visited again.
But she’d heard him tonight.
“No.”
Susan gripped the roots of her hair, pulled hard enough until the pain helped her separate what was inside her head and what was not.
That had been the dream. The dream of knocking. The dream of his voice.
Magic had no place here. She’d forbidden it. It only dared to appear while she slept.
Knock knock knock.
Sobs rattled through Susan’s ribs. She’d felt it, the vibration against her forehead.
“It’s time.”
His words. Muffled through the door. Or through time. She wasn’t sure anymore.
Susan opened the door, chin high, bottom lip quivering.
Empty.
Except the shadows moved.
Down the slope, the shape of a man crossed the road and disappeared into the tree line.
She gripped the knob in one hand, the blanket held at her neck. It could be a trick of the moon or some teenager out playing tricks. Maybe her nightmares had somehow left her head.
Susan stepped out onto the concrete steps. She fought queasiness at the prospect of this hide and seek game, a game that could be entirely in her mind.
Only one way to find out.
28
Ember
Ember crashed to the ground for the twenty-seventh time. Her shoulder popped when Brandt hauled her to her feet and glared at her for slowing them down.
“Can’t you walk?”
Ember grit her teeth. “Yeah, I can even run or sneak away from jerks trying to catch me after I slam their faces into cars.”
“Then fading do it. We don’t have all night.” Brandt didn’t rise to the bait. This timeline might actually be important. Whatever ‘business’ he had with her had to finish before this creepy mage showed up.
“Sure, no problem. Tell you what. Free my hands and I’ll jump right to your tune.”
Brandt growled and shoved her forward. Ember yelped when her foot landed lower than expected, balance lost, and she toppled down a hill. She groaned with pain, rolled to a stop, too stunned to scramble away before Brandt jogged to her side.
“Good hustle, mutt, and I didn’t even have to untie you.”
Blood tasted bitter. Her tongue swelled from the cut of her teeth. She spat into the rubble. Brandt hoisted her up. The torture in her shoulder weakened her resolve, and she cried out.
&nbs
p; “Get your feet under you, damn it,” he grunted when she slipped.
Well, getting badly injured would slow them further. Ember just wished Brandt had gotten the twisted ankle instead.
Brandt forced her to march on. They cut through yards. Brandt cursed whenever he had to find a way around a fence, Ember tied up and too wounded to climb over. Her favorite were the brief stretches of street they got to cross. The flat, even surfaces didn’t hide garden tools, raised roots or other nighttime traps.
When they turned to walk along a street instead of across it, Ember heaved her head up. She recognized one of the rare sections of maintained pavement where trees grew on each side. The last time she’d been here, cars had lined the road and faced the edge.
Brandt released her near the boundary. She plunged to the ground, let him think he’d been her sole support as he approached the invisible wall. Ember slid backward toward the shoulder, watched Brandt raise his hands with intimate knowledge of where the barrier began. One fist, one knife, and he tapped as softly as a prayer.
“It’s almost over,” he declared.
He turned to see her dig her feet into the dirt and run up the slight rise to the woods.
Brandt’s shout sent a rush of frightened energy to her legs. She lowered her head, desperate to find a place to hide amongst the trees. His footsteps were too loud. She dropped and rolled, stopped moving at the bottom of a wide redwood. Stayed still and held her breath.
He passed her, vibrating in rage. Ember trembled, shock convulsed through her muscles, threatened her stomach.
Then he was back, flashlight bright, and found her.
Brandt left behind any gentleness. He hauled her up with his fist in the roots of her hair. She sobbed as he forced her forward.
“All this time and you could have ended it. But I’ll be the one, and everyone will know it tomorrow.”
Ember gasped, desperate to regain control, needed to get away, to delay. Brandt’s helper might come soon. There was a chance he wouldn’t be evil. She swallowed her pain, bowed her head. Blood thumped behind her closed eyes, and she clenched her teeth against the acidic rise of nausea.
“I’ve had a day without the damn Fae spell blocking my brain to think about this,” Brandt panted. “Obviously, you want us all trapped here, but I wondered why you would stay. I mean, you get to watch us suffer, to force us to pretend we can work together with the mages, but then I thought, well, maybe you can’t keep the bubble up if you’re not in it, too.”
Like a sack of flour, Brandt hefted Ember forward, swung her until her body cracked against impenetrable air.
“Brandt,” she wheezed. “Brandt, I can’t do what you’re asking. I’m not—”
“Yes you can! I’ve seen you do it, if you remember.” He stomped away from her, swiped sweat from his brow. “I brought you here so your outsider friends won’t be close enough to stop this. Not before I watch you shatter every inch of this fading dome.”
The last dredges of Ember’s energy poured out in waves of horror.
“I cannot.”
“Damn it, stop telling me that! You did it. You do it. You did it to me!”
“Yes.” She swallowed past her dry, swollen tongue. “One person, one small door.”
“Make it bigger. An arch, whatever.”
“Even if I could, it would close in seconds. Too fast for a car to pass.”
Brandt stared at her, not comprehending and certainly not believing. His fingers adjusted along the wooden handle of his knife as he struggled to figure out why she hadn’t done what he wanted.
“You tossed me out.”
“It took less than a second. Think about it. You tried to return immediately, remember?”
“Because you closed it.”
Hot tears pricked Ember’s eyes when he raised the knife toward her face.
“Brandt, please. It doesn’t work that way. Believe me.”
His lips curled in a sneer. He approached with a speed too fast for her bruised brain to comprehend, lifted her rag doll body.
“Or I’ve been too nice and you don’t get it.” He shoved her against the barrier, her cheek flattened and her lungs compressed with his weight against her back. His left hand tangled in her hair, pressured her bones onto the unforgiving surface. Once she was secure, he sliced through the ropes, not taking caution with her skin and cut into the base of her palms.
Ember’s hands hung by her sides, useless pendulums he expected her to use.
“Do it now, mutt. Open the damned door. We’ll see then how big you can make it, how long it will stay. Or I’ll just stick this knife right in your throat. Maybe killing you is the real answer.”
The effort to turn her palms against the barrier proved monumental. Her fingertips slipped against the energy. Power crackled, then sputtered out. She bared her teeth and urged strength into fingers numb from being tied up, fallen on, crushed.
Tap tap tap.
Tap tap. Tap.
Nothing.
Her body shuddered with the failure, with her last chance to manage a miracle that put them on separate sides once again.
“I can’t.” Her voice broke. Brandt pulled on her hair to lift her chin.
Tears coated Ember’s cheeks. She didn’t even have the strength to flinch when the weapon’s point touched the ridge of her throat.
“Please,” she begged.
“Have it your way.”
Brandt pulled the knife away, twisted his torso for leverage. Vibrations shattered through her body, blood flared in her veins. Life pulsed in heartbeats at the cut in her brow, the raw skin at her wrists, a wrenching reminder of the life he would take. Blue sparks lit behind her eyelids and she felt an unnatural warmth wrap around her, a poor imitation of comfort.
With a solid swing, Brandt thrust the blade toward her neck.
Ember’s singular essence flared and exploded into sapphire shards.
29
Nicu
The human and Halfer traveled the road, thought it the fastest path. Perhaps for them.
Nicu cut straight through the yards of houses, leveraged every advantage he owned. He trampled grass, ran across roads. His strength lent ease to small garden fences. Taller privacy boards took only a moment to vault. The ability to sense terrain and see through the dark kept his feet light and his path unhindered.
He broke the tree line, and the world stopped.
Ember, only partially visible from behind Brandt’s larger form. Tears gleamed on her cheeks, eyes closed against the blade threatening her skin.
Wist had ordered Nicu to contain chaos.
Nicu lifted his hands beneath his braids. Fingers pinched the thin metal of the Trimark medallion, one hand on the wing, the other on the pentacle.
The Ternate should not be allowed to bring unforeseen changes.
Brandt pulled back the knife. The threat increased with its distance.
Nicu’s entire purpose was to keep the hybrid girl contained and secure.
Terraborn, Nicu knew control was not always the answer.
He brushed the pendant. The wing fluttered on a hidden seam.
Blue energy blinded Nicu.
Brandt shouted in pained surprise.
Behind him, Branna screamed. The tie that bound them strained in response to his manipulation of the talisman. The medallion wanted to forge a new link between him and Ember, sacrificing the Fae-spelled bond between himself and Branna. Nicu’s heart slammed.
He could not do this, not to Branna. It was not like him to be so brash. He needed to refocus. Breathe.
He snapped the Trimark closed.
He ran despite being blinded by the bright flash of light that corresponded with his slip in judgement and rushed onward to the last place he’d seen Ember Lee. With each step, his vision cleared, and the night filled in.
A bolt of electricity split the sky, rain gushed with a peal of resonating thunder.
Brandt, less than a yard from Ember, scanned the ground for something los
t as he shuffled and kicked with his feet. The knife.
Lightning flashed again, but not from the dark clouds above. The blue streams of power radiated from Ember. Nicu skid to a stop. His heartbeat slowed, his breathing stuttered.
“What in the realms is that?” Devi demanded, pulled forward by Edan who looked on with open amazement.
Ember hung suspended. Her arms at her side, hair spread in a haphazard arch. Sapphire light flowed into and from her body, condensed into white at her chest.
“Close your eyes,” Nicu warned. Another shot of lightning flared through the night, lit upon each freezing raindrop, illuminated the shape of the dome. Nicu felt the echo of concentrated power in his own blood, a gentle fizzle compared to the raw energy running through Ember.
“Oh, gods.” Devi wrenched herself away from Edan and hurried toward Ember. Brandt turned on the Witch, threw an arm out to catch her across the chest. Devi hit the ground hard, kicked at Brandt’s legs.
“Help Devi.” Chase shoved Aaron past Nicu. “I will get him.”
“He’s my fault.”
“Exactly.”
Aaron groaned in frustration, then nodded. He dropped back, waited for Chase to face Brandt. A full body thrust moved the human away from the others. Chase swept a leg, but Brandt held him close, used Chase’s own weight to hold him up. Brandt smashed his brow into Chase’s cheekbone and gained momentum to throw a jab into the Halfer’s gut. Chase turned with it, got his elbow up and into Brandt’s nose, took advantage of the bend forward to propel a knee into his ribs.
“What do we do?” Edan’s words were low in Nicu’s ear. The Fae watched from the side of the road. Branna limped up between them.
“Branna. Tell me.”
Nicu remained still because Brandt was not his responsibility. He did not engage because the barrier was not in danger, sporadic in energy as it was. He did not contain stray magic because the weather itself would mask the actions here from the rest of Trifecta, beings across the city hiding from the intense autumn thunderstorm.
He refused to allow the hybrid girl out of his sight, encased as she was in a pocket of the brilliant webbing of the barrier.