by Poppy Flynn
The two witches stood in front of her, the ministrations complete.
“It’s time to send you back now. It will feel just like a regular transportation and hopefully we’ll manage to transfer directly to your turret, but it’s not an exact science because there are so many safeguards over the academy. Fingers crossed!”
Fingers crossed? Seriously?
“Wait!” Seren insisted, shaking that last thought away and surging to her feet. “You can’t drop a bombshell like that without giving me some details.”
“There are no more details,” Allurielle told her while Brigid shook her head sadly. “That’s as much as we’ve seen.”
“Unfortunately, those who have fallen to the dark side are privy to the same,” Brigid added.
“But how am I supposed to know what to do?” Seren implored, panic slithering like wildfire through her veins. “What if I get it wrong?”
“Follow your instincts, Seren Starlight,” Brigid advised as both she and Allurielle faded into the void betwixt and between the sentient worlds. “Pay close attention to the Sabbat’s of the Wheel of the Year. We will help and guide you where we can.”
Seren reached out as if she could hold on to what had already vanished as Allurielle’s last words rang in the ether like a lost whisper.
“And always watch your back.”
“Seren? Seren!” The familiar voice calling her name, along with the wet tongue that was slobbering over her, brought Seren out of her unconscious state, although she couldn’t quite work out why Siarl was licking her.
She opened her eyes slowly, only to be confronted with a furry, orange face. Siarl had turned into a fox? Shuddering spell books, things really were getting loopy. Maybe she’d just go back to sleep.
“Seren!” Siarl called out to her again. “Wake up, pet.”
He was calling her pet, when he’d somehow morphed into a fox? No, this was all wrong. “If you’re going to be a fox, you should at least be a silver fox,” she told him, her words thin and strained.
‘I think she’s delirious.’ Now that was Carrot’s voice. Maybe the two of them had become foxy pals.
Someone shook her shoulder, and she flinched against the unwanted intrusion. What was it with everyone today? Why wouldn’t they let her sleep? Not that this bed was very comfortable, she felt like she was laying on cold, lumpy stone.
Still, she wanted to find out if her dreams would allow her to be a fox too and run off to play with all the other little fox’s.
Warm fingers brushed the hair out of her eyes and off of her forehead before trailing down to cup her cheek. The gesture sent a frisson of heat spiking through her body.
That wasn’t right. Foxes didn’t have hands.
She felt a sensation that was like flying, except without the broomstick. She felt secure and protected. “This is a great way to fly,” she mumbled.
Except she didn’t know where she was flying to. Maybe she ought to find out. Flying was not the kind of thing a witch should do when she was asleep. That was a recipe for disaster. She knew this from experience, and it wasn’t a very nice one.
Half opening one heavy eyelid, Seren came face to face with a black and white… what? “Is that a chessboard?” she wondered out loud. Maybe this was all one cutthroat game of chess and the protagonists were simply trying to steal all the pieces and shout ‘Checkmate’. The eery insight had her opening both of her eyes, suddenly alert as she realised that was exactly what this was. Metaphorically speaking.
Besides, this was no chess board she was looking at. For a start, it had buttons.
Looking up, she realised she was in Siarl’s arms and he was carrying her somewhere.
“Glad to see you’re back in the land of the living,” Siarl said lightly. He smiled, but she could see the strain that was etched around his inviting mouth.
Seren groaned, all of her aches and pains hitting her full force now that she was fully conscious. “What happened?” she asked, still not convinced that it hadn’t all been some kind of lucid dream, just like the off the charts sex had been.
This entire day had been kinda surreal.
Chapter Twenty
With the initial shock and following awkwardness of their reunion over - if it could be regarded as such - Siarl went off to use Seren’s shower.
It had been quite a surprise to see his usually pristine suit dirty and muddied with wet stains on the knees, even given all the other weird shit that had happened today.
While he cleaned up, Seren conjured herself a nice hot bath, complete with privacy screen, right there in the corner of her bedroom. She didn’t have the energy to stand but to lay, soaking, in the fragrant, heavily treated water, as it soothed her aching bones, was heavenly.
It seemed far too soon when Siarl finally announced that he was done, but at least he’d had the foresight to do a bit of conjuring of his own. So, when she finally emerged from her room, dressed for comfort in a fluffy teddy bear onesie, he had two bowls of steaming beef stew with crusty bread set up on her tiny table.
Siarl raised his eyebrows and gave her a curious once over as she crossed to the sofa where she curled up, ready to eat dinner on her lap and sod any hint of decorum. Being dumped unceremoniously like a sack of potatoes onto the cobbled floor of her work room after Brigid’s specially obscured teleport had only added to all of her other aches and pains.
It was almost enough to make her laugh.
Yeah, with her fuzzy pj’s and her hair scraped into a messy bun, she was a far cry from the seductress he had accused her of being. Was that really just this morning? It felt like a lifetime had passed.
Over the hearty food they shared their experiences and filled the gaps in each others’ knowledge.
While Siarl seemed like his usual, reticent self, she couldn’t help feeling like this was different, somehow.
She knew he’d been convinced of her demise, and she could tell it had upset him. But there was something else going on in that overthinking brain of his, and Seren found herself unsettled by it. So much so that it caused her to abbreviate her own experience and skirt around the goddess’s participation, ever mindful of the warning to keep her involvement a secret.
While she was used to Siarl keeping her at arms-length because of propriety, it felt like there was something more to his current demeanour. She didn’t believe that he’d been corrupted, but suddenly confiding in him completely didn’t seem like the best thing to do. The weight of that decision settled heavily on her heart.
“What did she use?” she asked curiously when he told her how some conveniently positioned sorceress had come to his aid. Seren was more than relieved that Siarl hadn’t come to any harm as a result of their mind link, but she couldn’t help being suspicious. For a start, Siarl should have been safeguarded just because he’d been in the municipal building, the most protected place in the entire magic realm.
“Dellah? Just a basic mind freeing spell,” Siarl replied with a shrug like it wasn’t important.
“Really?” Seren exclaimed in surprise.
That another sorcerer had come to his aid in the nick of time with exactly the right spell to counteract the predicament seemed a little too convenient for her sceptical brain.
How did she know?” Seren queried with a frown, pushing even though she knew it would irritate him. Well, tough.
“What do you mean?” Siarl asked, still buoyed with praise for the other sorceress.
“How did she know to use a memory spell? Anything could have been wrong with you.”
“Well…” Siarl paused in consideration. “I never really thought about it. I was just relieved that she freed me. I’m pretty sure she saved my life.”
Saved him from her. Seren read between the lines with uncharacteristic bitterness.
No! She told herself, she wasn’t jealous. That’s not what this was about. Was it?
“That doesn’t make sense.” She tried to sound reasonable but wasn’t sure she pulled it off. “Surely und
er the circumstances, with no knowledge of the situation, a desist spell would have been more appropriate, or even a protection spell.”
“I don’t really understand your issue, Seren,” Siarl replied and she could hear the coolness creeping into his voice.
“It just seems like a bit of an odd coincidence to me, Siarl, that’s all,” she stated obstinately.
“She’s an extremely experienced witch,” Siarl insisted, the praise clear in his voice.
Unlike her, Seren added what he didn’t say, then immediately chastised herself.
Stop it. Just stop second guessing everything. She was tired after an extraordinarily exhausting day, and this was exactly what these people wanted. To divide and conquer. Well, she was made of stronger stuff than this and she refused to be distracted.
“Maybe, but she also conveniently severed our mind link. Right when I was calling out for you to help me.”
Of course, she’d also been proclaiming her love, convinced she’d never see him again, so perhaps she should be relieved to be spared that humiliation.
Siarl just shrugged and jammed his hands into his pockets, the way he always did when he was uncomfortable. “I think you’re jumping at shadows, Seren, and seeing conspiracies that aren’t there. She simply helped a fellow elder on the Mage Council.”
He shook his head and Seren could all but see the distance growing between them. “Any consequence arising from that couldn’t be anything more than an unexpected side effect.”
“You really believe that, Siarl? Even after she tried to stop you from coming back to the academy?”
“Please Seren,” he said disdainfully, and she felt his increasing detachment like a physical blow. “She was just trying to make sure I was okay. It was a nice thing to do.”
She tried once more to get him to see sense. At least to acknowledge what might be going on. “Come on, Siarl, please! Look at the bigger picture here,” she pleaded. “You get a bogus message calling you to an emergency that doesn’t exist, which conveniently gets you out of the way while I’m being attacked.”
Seren paced the floor, the pitch of her voice creeping up with each sentence. “You’re alerted to the problem through our mind bond, which is also conveniently erased by a witch who just happened to know the right spell to use.”
She could see the annoyance building on Siarl’s face as she continued, but she was determined to get him to see her point of view. Or at least get it out there. “Then the same witch tried really hard, to stop you from coming back to where I desperately needed your help.”
“Seren, stop it!” Siarl demanded and the sound of his words, like the direct shot of a bullet, brought her to a standstill.
She’d lost him. She knew it as surely as she knew her own name.
He scowled. “You’re being ridiculous.”
The colour drained out of her face and her chest felt tight. Seren gritted her teeth and blinked rapidly as she struggled to keep the harsh prickle of tears that pressed against the back of her eyes from spilling over.
“There is nothing going on! You’re on some random flight of fancy and you’re jumping at shadows, that are. Not. There.”
And the bullets kept being fired, just like the staccato volley of his words, each one finding their target.
Seren felt herself shrivelling under his derision and for the first time she realised she had been ‘more’ when she was with him. His belief in her had raised her up to a higher level and made the pair of them more than just the sum of their two halves.
Except now he was taking that away, and she was nothing again.
“In Coven’s name, just let it go and concentrate on producing some work of a decent standard that will allow you to graduate and get on with your life.”
He strode purposefully to her door, not even looking back as he tossed out his final words. The ones that left a hole in her heart.
“It’s past time you finished your studies and moved away from here.”
Chapter Twenty-One
The rejection ripped into Seren even harder than when he had told her, after Yule, that they couldn’t be together. Because at least then she had understood - or thought she understood - that it was simply a matter of propriety. That his position, and his moral values, wouldn’t allow it, regardless of what he wanted.
This though…
This was him deliberately pulling away from her. This was him denigrating her beliefs and distancing himself from her in no uncertain terms.
A tiny seed of hope still germinated within her foolish heart as she told herself it could all just be because the connection that had bound them so tightly had been severed. Maybe Siarl didn’t have any choice in all of this. Perhaps whatever had occurred at the Senedd was designed to achieve exactly this and he was being manipulated.
Except if she couldn’t rely on him to be there for her, then did it really matter how that circumstance came to be?
An irritating little voice inside her head pointed out the truth she didn’t want to hear, and the tiny seed wilted.
Whatever happened; however, it had happened, Siarl wasn’t there for her anymore and the knowledge deflated her like she was a balloon with a slow puncture. Instead, the hope was just fizzling out of her slowly and surely until there was nothing left. She’d been through too much today to weather this latest assault on her emotions.
Seren backed up and flopped onto her sofa, suddenly subdued. Maybe he was right. Why in hellfire was she fighting for a realm that didn’t even respect her or appreciate what she was doing? Perhaps she should just leave them to their own doom.
Or maybe Siarl really was right, and this was all just a figment of her own overactive imagination.
‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself.’ Carrot came trotting over and sat in front of her with exasperation written all over his deceptively sweet, foxy face.
‘The magic realm has been blinkered and lulled into a false sense of security. If witches like you don’t fight for the cause, then the dark forces will get the upper hand and the realm as we know it will be lost. Is that really what you want?’ he chided.
Seren sighed and looked at him, not bothering to move. It had been a hard day, and she wasn’t sure she had any fight left in her.
“I’m just one witch. I can’t stand up to this all on my own,” she told him, tiredly. “If indeed there is anything to stand up to, and I’m starting to believe Siarl is right and I just have an overactive imagination.”
‘You don’t,’ he telegraphed to her. ‘And I think Siarl knows that too. But it’s not safe to speak out loud. The walls have ears… and eyes.’
Seren straightened and spoke to Carrot with her mind. “What do you mean?”
‘There is danger from within and from without,’ the fox replied. ‘But you are not alone. Others throughout the realm see the truth and battle against the oppression of the dark forces who seek to gain control over the magic realm.
‘You know better than to think that such corruption will ever play fair. All your life they have sought to diminish you through various underhand strategies, but you must stay strong and refuse to let them get the better of you. Such is your destiny, Seren Starlight.’
Carrots words worked. All she had needed was a bit of validation, and suddenly Seren felt vindicated.
She was right.
She was right about everything, and there was no way the black arts were going to get the better of her. Not while she had a single breath in her body. Carrot was spot on. She needed to be a little more surreptitious in her plans and actions. And the first thing she was going to do was investigate the newest player.
Dellah Nightshade might have wrapped Siarl around her little finger, and Seren wasn’t sure about her motives. But she’d shown her hand, and now the woman was firmly on Seren’s radar.
Siarl left Seren’s turret and headed back to his personal quarters at a hurried but respectable pace without pausing or looking back.
He had hated seeing the betrayal a
nd rejection in her expressive green eyes and the way she had almost wilted in front of him, but he had more faith in her than she knew, and he was certain she’d bounce back.
It had taken every ounce of his self-control and a bit extra that he didn’t know he had to walk away from her the way he did, but it was for the best.
For both of them.
And his acting skills had obviously been better than he thought they were, judging by her reaction. Hopefully, they were good enough to fool anyone else who might have been watching because there were eyes where there shouldn’t have been, of that he was certain.
This entire charade had been devised to throw them off. It was just a pity he wasn’t able to tell Seren his true intentions. Then she wouldn’t have been so upset and wounded by his words and actions.
Damn, he really needed to stop thinking about that or he was going to end up undoing all the safeguards he’d put in place by going back to make sure she was okay.
It was better this way; he told himself stoically. If she was none the wiser, then she would behave in a thoroughly believable manner towards him. She’d avoid him in the first instance. She’d be stiff and uncomfortable in his presence when she couldn’t. And most of all, she’d be safe.
He thought he might have shaved an entire century off of his life when he’d realised the danger she was in. And his gut response to finding her gone, likely disappeared, like her parents, possibly even dead had almost shredded his sanity. He had never known such depth of emotion before in any of his lives. It had felt as though his reason for living had been ripped away from him and left him a hollow shell of a wizard.
It was Seren’s own familiar, with his wise words, who had prevented Siarl from giving too much away. The bond he shared with the fox, an unexpected aftereffect of the laying on of healing hands, still strong enough for them to maintain a telepathic link, frail though it might be.
Because Seren couldn’t be more wrong. He did, in fact, believe everything that she said.