Veil of Thorns

by Gwen Mitchell

  “Probably nothing,” Vika said, but that dangerous edge was in her eyes again.

  Bri tentatively reached out. Her fingers grazed the statue’s cheek. Nothing happened.

  “Silly child,” Vika said testily, “touch it with your magic.”

  Bri frowned. Hedvika saw her as close to an equal now, only untrained. But that would change as soon as she discovered how inept Bri was at wielding her power. She thought of the spell she used to light candles—the first one she’d memorized—and the way she had used her magic to reach out to Lucas.

  She took a deep breath and reached for that well of power deep within. She felt something respond, but it was thin and wispy, a limp noodle.

  “You are not even trying!” Vika placed her hand over Bri’s.

  It felt as if a door tore open inside her. A flood of effervescent energy rushed in to fill the hollow space at her center. Power swelled in her chest until it crested and spilled out her fingertips.

  “Like that.” Vika released her.

  With the magic still flowing, Bri closed her eyes. She suddenly was the man on his knees. She could feel his sweaty knuckles tucked to his forehead, the tremor in his body as the trees rustled and cracked behind him. Something large was hurtling closer.

  She watched through the kneeling man’s eyes as a giant beast loomed above him, half-man, half-bear. It roared in his face, and the man prayed silently. A soft touch came at his back, just before a bolt of lightning rammed through his chest.

  Bri hissed and yanked her hand from the statue as if she’d been burned, then doubled over, that lightning bolt of pain echoing through her skull. Her vision went spotty.

  “What did you see?” Vika asked, all patience as she placed her glowing palm against Bri’s forehead.

  “Nothing,” she said a little too quickly.

  Vika’s eyes narrowed.

  “I mean I don’t know. It was only a split second.”

  “A memory?”

  Bri shook her head. “Only an impression. His last few seconds.”

  As if this answered all her questions, Vika turned and strolled back toward the palace.

  “Do you think the Soul Eater might have used the same curse?” Bri asked as she caught up.

  “Perhaps. If the mortal’s soul was forced out of his body.”

  It had to be. Kean was stone, the statues were stone. Kean’s soul was somewhere else. The souls of the statues were… wherever they were. Bri shuddered thinking of them all floating somewhere in that endless grey for eternity. What had become of them? What would Kean become if she failed and left him there?

  “But there are many curses that could do the same thing.”

  “And counter-curses?” Bri added hopefully.

  “Likely not.”

  That pit of dread in her center yawned open, and she reached out for something solid to keep her from folding inside-out and disappearing. “But all magic has counter-magic.”

  Vika chuckled. “The world is not so black and white as the Synod would have you believe. Many demon curses have no counter-spell, just as many Khaos poisons have no antidote.”

  Bri sighed. If only she’d known more about magic—all kinds of magic. “If the Skydancer bond is demon magic, why doesn’t Lucas know of it?”

  A pleased smile curled Vika’s lips. “The Synod erased all knowledge of it after they tried to exterminate us.”

  “Why? Why are we such a threat?” Were they simply trying to purge the world of all demon magic? She could see them doing that. They would probably feel justified in doing so.

  “They do not want their blind followers to know the truth of Zyne origins, so they make up pretty stories and silly rituals. We are a threat to their power because our very existence disproves their lies.”

  Bri’s brow furrowed. “What lies?”

  Vika gave an exasperated sigh. “The lie that witches are the most powerful beings in three realms. The lie that our souls join the heavens. The lie that magic must be controlled and hidden away. Take your pick.”

  She took a moment to digest that information and ended up with more questions percolating in her mind. Clearly there was no love lost between Hedvika and the Synod. It was understandable, given her history. “Then why didn’t they kill me when they had the chance? Maybe things have changed.”

  “Yes,” she answered with a shrewd smile. “They have grown weaker. Desperate for every scrap of magic. They cannot risk wasting you. They have forgotten what we are, and that is the sign that the time has come—we can finally rise.” A halo of butterflies circled her head like a living crown.

  “Rise?” Bri didn’t want to consider what Vika could possibly rise to. She was already the absolute ruler of her own domain—there wasn’t much room for growth.

  Unless she planned to expand that domain.

  The butterfly crown drifted away, but the feral glint didn’t leave her eyes. “If you are here, there must be others the Synod did not destroy. At least one other. Don’t you see? We are meant to find our last sister, so that we can be a coven again.”

  Coven. The word fell like a stone through the bottomless well of Bri’s heart, never reaching bottom. She managed to whisper, “I already have a coven.”

  Vika’s laugh was completely dismissive and totally final.

  “When you fully come into your power, you will understand. You need a coven of equals. We are not meant to be alone, Bri. We need a counter-balance.” The smile slid off Vika’s face and her expression was empty as she stared straight ahead. “I have been out of balance for so long.”

  She came back to herself and looped her arm through Bri’s. “But now you are here. Together, we will do wondrous things. Just wait.”

  Bri didn’t have an articulate reply. Her heart did go out to Vika. She couldn’t fathom the loneliness of being the last of your kind. The paranoia after being hunted to the brink of extinction. The hatred she harbored for her would-be executioners. All of that, left to fester in isolation for centuries. It was no wonder the White Wood was treacherous and deadly, as was the enchantress.

  “In the meantime, I will teach you what magic I can, starting with glamour. You’re such a drab little thing.”

  Bri wrinkled her nose. So that’s how she does it.

  “You will walk through the garden daily and practice as I showed you, starting at the edges and working your way in. Push harder. Try to see more.”

  She wanted to ask why but decided to save her questions for when it really mattered—Vika seemed to have limited patience for them. Bri needed the practice anyway, and she craved something to apply herself to that she might actually accomplish. She’d learned more in a few minutes with Vika than she had in months with Councilor Amin. And if she wanted access to Vika’s more advanced spellbooks—possibly even the divan—she would have to prove an apt pupil.

  Vika slowed as they approached the obsidian fountain at the back of the main cavern.

  Water dripped from the icicles lining the ceiling, but now Bri could see that there were spears of midnight crystal beneath the ice, nested in a carpet of sparkling geodes. They glittered like the starry night sky, reflecting the light of the glowing tree.

  But there was no reflection of the lights in the fountain’s pool, which remained still as glass despite the water dripping into it from above. Bri leaned over it, mirroring the girl at the far end, but there was no reflection in the black water. Her brow creased in puzzlement, and she wanted to reach out and touch the surface to see if it was water or glass.

  Vika’s voice came from over her shoulder, and she straightened.

  “I planted this dream tree from a seed I carried from my home in Galatia through all of my journeys. The Celts burned its mother. I remember the flames reaching for the light, consuming it, the way the mountains eat the sky when the sun sinks behind them.”

  Bri sighed, unable to fathom such a long life, to be so overwrought with memories. Talking to Hedvika was a bit like talking to an Oracle. She supposed being
ancient was essentially the same problem as seeing multiples histories and futures in your mind—too much input. She looked at the tree again. “It’s beautiful.”

  “They used to grow atop magical nodes. Have you ever seen one?”

  “No, but there is a lot I haven’t seen. The Synod may have some. They keep magic like this secure.”

  Hedvika’s smile was bitter as she stared into near space. “They wouldn’t be able to keep one alive. It’s wild magic. Like us.” She turned and focused on Bri. “We were revered once, you know. Witches spent their whole lives waiting for a mate to return and claim them, to elevate them to glory. Whole covens worshipped us as fonts of power. Zyne families married their daughters off to demon lords in the hopes of a Skydancer someday gracing their bloodline.”

  Bri was reeling from what she was hearing. Where and when had this alternate history taken place? On earth? “What happened?”

  “What always happens when power is too accessible to too many. Factions. Uprisings. Wars. Eventually the Synod was established to bring order.” Vika sat beside her and nodded. “The beginning of the end for our kind.”

  “But witches survived.”

  “A mere shadow of our former selves. The blood runs thin with mortality. Magic recedes. And as it does, the Synod’s power wanes. Soon their spells will unravel.”

  Unravel? That didn’t sound good. But she thought of the Synod she’d experienced—with the power to bind and compel witches to follow their dictates, the power to collar Kinde into service and siphon their magic to feed Hohlwen, who were also captives. She thought of the Synod that let Vivianne burn with her coven mates strung along the wall of the keep, and the Synod that debated Bri’s future by committee while Astrid and Kean’s lives hung in the balance.

  Maybe their spells unraveling isn’t such a bad thing.

  This new knowledge, if it could be trusted, made her question everything she knew about magic. About who and what she was. A wave of cold flashed across her skin when she realized that was probably exactly how Vika wanted her to feel—lost and alone, with only one hand to guide her.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Though she’d bound him in a blood bargain, Hedvika had set Lucas free. He was free to admit what he wanted, and free to take it—as soon as Bri offered. Free from silly mortal sensibilities.

  So why did he feel so uneasy?

  Deep inside, he knew that Bri would see the bargain as a betrayal, even if their current dire circumstances warranted him seeking forgiveness rather than permission to make such a deal.

  Yet he could not refuse. And, being honest, he didn’t want to. His only regret was the list of rules. He was not to be alone with Bri, could not seek her out, and must remain aloof and distant in her presence. This, according to Hedvika, was guaranteed to accelerate Bri’s feelings. It made no sense to him—wooing a woman by being cold—but he recalled how pulling away from Vivianne initially had made her more dogged in her pursuit of him than ever.

  To quell his own urges and make the distance tenable, he was to spend every night in the forest as the wolf, running off his pent-up frustration, which would only amplify as the moon waxed.

  On its face, the plan had merit.

  He’d run for hundreds of miles through the woods, drunk on their magic. The land here felt old, as the rest of the world used to feel—steeped in power. Now that feeling could only be found at nodes where ley lines converged and strong currents of power intersected and pooled. He suspected there was one nearby, but in all his wandering, he had not found it.

  Still, he felt at home there, amongst the half-woken trees, hobgoblins, and sprites. He could be what he was meant to be without the prying eyes of the Synod or the encroaching world of mundanes.

  Here he could be wild. Here he could be magic.

  His heart throbbed in his chest in time with the drumming of his paws on the earth, and he howled at the moon he couldn’t see but could feel in his blood.

  The land, he might grow fond of. The enchantress was another matter. She was cunning, and no doubt as manipulative and vindictive as Ryder had painted her to be. He could hold his own with her, but he worried for Bri. She was so young and far too trusting.

  And now you have closed her off from her only guide.

  When he returned to the palace, he sat and watched the sun crest over the highest peak in the east. Once the sky lightened, he shifted back to human form.

  Sighing, Lucas held out the last piece of Hedvika’s bargain—a small, teardrop shaped green stone on a silver chain. When wearing it, he would not be able to hear or speak to Bri telepathically. He weighed the lost intimacy against the benefit of absence making the heart grow fonder. And he weighed following Hedvika’s rules against breaking their deal and possibly angering her.

  He put on the damn necklace.

  Keep her alive—that’s all that matters.

  And keep his distance. She was a councilor’s daughter and he was security detail.

  Just another mission.

  That his whole reason for living happened to be riding on.

  He returned to his room, washed and dressed, and fell asleep waiting for her majesty to let him out of his cage for his next trick.

  The vines opened at dusk, and Lucas followed his nose to a wide, marble chamber cordoned off into three different spaces. At the far end was a gathering of musical instruments–a polished antique piano, various flutes and lutes he hadn’t seen in centuries, and quite possibly the most beautiful golden harp he’d ever laid eyes on. In the center, beneath a chandelier of rough-cut crystals, was a long, wooden dining table piled high with a bounty fit for a dozen men.

  Bri and Vika sat at one end of the table. The bearkin stood beside the fireplace of the sitting room that anchored the other end of the chamber.

  Ryder was perched atop one of the marble columns. He’d given up on the illusion of clothing on the upper half of his body, opting instead for a bare torso with black cape, pants, and boots. Between that, and the bear in his battle garb, Lucas was a bit overdressed in his sweater and slacks but he’d seen Bri’s wardrobe and thought she would appreciate his sense of style. Dressing nicely for her wasn’t breaking the rules.

  He cleared his throat.

  “Join us, wolf,” Hedvika said. “You must be hungry.”

  “Always,” he said, coming forward. Innuendo–also not against the rules.

  Bri tucked her hair behind her ear, and the wavering light of the flames overhead hit her cheek.

  He froze.

  She was…luminous. As she had once described her mermaid form, her hair was fire trapped in red glass, her eyes a smoky green that caught and held the light like wet leaves in the sun, her skin softly glowing. Lips stained with overripe berries…

  She gave him a shy smile, and long copper lashes sparkled against her freckled cheeks. How had he not noticed how long her lashes were?

  His mouth went dry as he recalled how they had left things, the horror on her face. He wondered what she would say in his head if only—

  The knife came out of nowhere. Just a brief flicker of light off glinting metal as it hurtled end-over-end towards Bri’s head.

  Lucas barely had time to lunge to her side, even with his preternatural speed.

  The blade sank into the fleshiest part of his hand, the tip sticking out the back mere inches from Bri’s nose.

  All color drained from her face, and her lashes fluttered, but she remained perfectly composed, appearing only a little dazed. Until she looked up from the blood dripping into her lap, and he saw her eyes up close–wild and terrified.

  The urge to comfort her bucked in him, but he said nothing as he bent to take the bloodied napkin from her lap and wrapped it around his hand as he removed the blade.

  He threw the knife over his shoulder, and it landed inches from the bearkin’s head, embedded to the hilt in the decorative wood of the mantle.

  Lucas tossed the napkin aside and took his seat on Hedvika’s left, across from Bri.r />
  “I did not expect your first move to come so quickly,” he said to their hostess as he fixed himself a plate.

  “What’s he on about?” Ryder asked.

  “A little game between friends,” Hedvika said, winking at Lucas.

  For the first time since he’d entered the room, he looked at Hedvika, and realized she’d changed as well. Softened. Warmed. Instead of icy white and blue, she was pearl and gold and pink, like spring’s first blush. He smiled back and watched Bri to see her reaction.

  She glanced away, ignoring him.

  “I thought it best to establish early that you must be on your toes,” Hedvika said.

  Point taken. He’d been so distracted by Bri’s altered appearance at first—now he recognized it for the glamour it was—he’d forgotten himself. He would not make that mistake again.

  When the three of them were together, Bri was in danger. That was how he must think of it.

  “What’s this game, and how does it involve knives flying at my head?” Bri asked, trying to sound casual, but he could detect the bite in the way she pronounced each word so precisely.

  “Like I told you, Bri–a little game to train him up.”

  A sour expression passed over Bri’s face before she smoothed out her features. “So he’s supposed to protect me?”

  “Don’t worry.” Hedvika turned a charming smile on Bri and patted her hand. “It is nothing he can’t handle. If he’s worthy.”

  “And if he isn’t?” Bri blurted, her voice rising.

  “Then it is nothing I can’t heal,” Hedvika answered, unconcerned.

  Lucas clenched his fists so hard in his lap, he felt his bones crack and heal. The thought of failing, causing her any pain, made him long for another run through the forest. And his instincts were barking at him that it would be much easier to tear Hedvika’s throat out now.

  Bri blinked and snapped her mouth closed. She stared at Lucas and proceeded to make all kinds of funny faces he could only assume were coupled with expletives she was screaming in his head. Or would be, if he could hear her.