by Ana Calin
He taught me the fetching spell, and magnetizing my hands to receive the object—for when I find the Pearl of Riches. He helped me amplify my telepathic abilities, and channel healing energy to my palms, which went smoothly. Telepathy is an innate talent of mine, he said, and with healing I have some experience. But I could do it a lot better if I had full command over my sea powers.
Scrying is the last magic that would bring something of use into this situation, and the glamour tricks won’t be of much use either, but...It hits me.
I close my eyes and think of Zillard. I run my hand once over my face, without touching it, and create a glamour.
If the Sea Witch is watching me now it’s not the dried out shell of a woman in the desert that she sees, but the seductive Zillard Dark, son of Hades. Sooner or later, she will have to check in again.
When she does, the sun is rising. I raise my face to it, letting the first rays warm me up. That’s when I feel her watching me. She would be confused, of course, but only for a few moments. The confusion won’t last long, so I use the little strength I still have, and do what I do best. I murmur a love spell that needs only small amounts of water. I call on what’s left of the water in my own system. It won’t be very powerful, for that I’d need the Sea Witch here, so I can bind the spell to her blood, but it will do to pique her interest.
But I’m afraid the spell is too weak, because there’s too little water in my body. If I use any more, I’ll die. But then it works. I feel it zap her heart, like a current restarting it.
The sun darkens, transforming into a black hole within a ring of fire, a black hole that approaches. It opens up to swallow me, blowing the hair from my face, my rags flapping around my body. I open my arms and let it take me.
The portal sucks me in and drops me on all fours on what looks like clay. Humid air attacks the dryness in my throat, making me cough. When I get more or less a clear head, I realize that my hands don’t look the way they did earlier in the desert. There, they were pruned, dehydrated to the point where I must have looked like a monster. Here, they look normal.
“You’re powerful,” I hear the witch’s raking voice. I raise my eyes to a corpulent woman in a black corset that showcases voluptuous breasts, her skirt black, and strangely frayed at the rim. When the frays start to move, I shriek back. The woman grins, revealing white, razor-sharp teeth behind painted red lips. This isn’t a woman, this is a beast.
“You used a glamour, and a love spell on me. A love spell that worked. Never has a love spell worked on or for me before, and trust me, I even commissioned quite a few—the last one for your grandfather, of course.” She looks at me out of bulging eyes with super small irises, her hair like a wild white broom.
“I had to get your attention somehow.” Using my throat comes surprisingly easy. I take my hand to it, touching smooth skin. “The desert. It was only an illusion?”
“What better prison than one’s very own mind, if the illusion is masterfully created.” She walks on the tentacles that form her black dress, and sits down on a cushioned stool in front of a make-up table. Behind it, a big studio mirror flashes the spotlights lining its frame, and I can see her better. My stomach turns. Her skin is a greyish-white, like a corpse, and the smell of rotten fish wafts over. She waves her hand at the mirror.
“Through this, I can see into my prisoner’s mind. And I’ve seen a lot of minds, but none of them ever captivated me the way you did now.” She gives me her abnormally large grin that makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck. “Clever of you to use that half-incubus hunk, Zillard Dark. Delicious young warlock. If only he weren’t a soul eater.”
Her scary eyes bulge at me.
“Fascinating inventions, the mirrors. If you’d had more time with Zillard, I’m sure he would have taught you this trick, too. But I forget. It’s not that incubus you love. It is the King of Ice, the handsome warrior, Lysander Nightfrost.”
My heart twists. “I don’t love Lysander. Lysander robbed me of my powers. He is the reason I was looking for you. Zillard says you’re the only one who can lift the silver spell.”
“I can lift the spell.”
“Will you do it?” I stare into her face like I actually mean it. I think part of me truly does.
“Tell me something little princess,” she says, full of contempt. “Do you think I’m a complete idiot, to give the only living descendant of Poseidon complete power over the seas?”
A bitter taste forms in my mouth. “Maybe the throne isn’t mine to cede, as you say, but with my power, I could support your claim to it.”
“In that case all fae lords would unite to shut you down. Your support isn’t worth much.”
Okay, this isn’t going how I planned. I look around, starting to think of ways to escape, with or without the Pearl of Riches. We’re inside a cave with ribbons hanging down from the ceiling, a bed with fluffy pillows in a far alcove, and many colorful bottles and vials on rock shelves carved into the walls. Behind the Sea Witch, in the darker length of the cave, there’s a table that seems made of clay, heavy with magical items.
“I need some water,” I manage, my throat tight with panic. I can feel my control slipping.
The Sea Witch snaps her fingers, and a sparkling carafe floats in from the back. She sends it towards me, using magic that I’ve been practicing with Zillard, too. I grab the carafe with both hands and drink greedily. The rivulets escaping the corners of my mouth seem like a terrible waste.
I drink my fill and wipe my mouth on my sleeve. The Sea Witch watches me with keen interest, as if she’s never seen a creature quite as interesting before.
“They say you’re half human.”
“I am.”
“Fascinating.” She turns to the mirror and picks a lipstick. “The power to command all seas flows through your veins, even though you’re only fifty percent magical creature. I would have expected your human blood to dilute that power. Like magic is diluted in all hybrids. Well, in those not produced by fated mates.”
“What do you mean, ‘not produced by fated mates’?” I have to keep the Sea Witch talking while I activate my senses to track the Pearl of Riches, and then get out of here ASAP. I can feel the sea really close, its salty scent tantalizing my senses, so I should be able to create a portal once I have it.
“Haven’t you heard?” she says. “Winter and sea fae tried re-creating the primordial Court of Ice and Sea by mating with each other, in order to produce hybrids with power over both elements. But to do that, they had to ignore the call of their natural mates. Problem is, it’s those natural mating bonds that produce the best possible offspring. What the forced sexual alliances brought was, well, like I said, hybrids with dual, but diluted powers.”
I just have to ask her. “Does that work with chosen mates, too? For High Fae, who can select their mates, I mean? Do those unions produce powerful offspring?”
“High Fae rarely choose mates that they don’t fancy in the first place. If they fancy them, they’re good matches.”
“The one I’m asking about might have chosen someone he didn’t like. It was an accident.”
“Now you’ve piqued my interest.” She comes over on her tentacles, and God, it looks eerie. “If you tell me who you’re talking about, I might let you live longer.”
“My father, and my human mother. He...” I decide to replace their story with my own. “He made a blood oath to her after she aided him in a fight, unaware that it would make them bonded mates as well.”
“If that’s the case, then you’re indeed the best possible case study.” She takes my hand, regarding it like a priceless artifact in a museum. She traces the fine, almost unnoticeable silver drawings under my skin with her finger. They light up under her touch, only to fade again when she moves along. “Set free, you would wield the entire ocean power, so that power wasn’t diluted. Your other magic, that’s not bad either. You’re half human and half fae but I think with training, you’d make a pretty good black witch, too.�
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She sounds almost impressed, but I shudder. Black magic scares me. I only learned some from Zillard because I didn’t have a choice, not really. It was my only means to protect myself.
“Little princess,” the Sea Witch says darkly as she takes distance from me, floating into the shadows, where only the large whites of her eyes remain. “If you only knew how that love spell saved you. Maybe it can even buy your freedom—if you give me Zillard Dark.”
The Sea Witch and Zillard? “You... you want his love?”
She laughs, the sound raising the finest hairs on my nape. “Love? I’m thousands of years old, little princess, I don’t believe in worthless illusions such as love.”
“That’s what I thought,” I mumble through my teeth, trying to push the image of my sort-of-brother Zillard in bed with this octopus.
“A night of lust will suffice,” she says, zapping me with it. “Maybe two. But in those hours I want to feel all the might of his dark, twisted lust.”
No!
“I can’t give Zillard to you. What I did, it was nothing more than a hat trick, something to get you to pull me out of the desert.”
“You’ll do it,” she snarls. “You will give him to me, you will put a spell of lust on him, or you’ll join the rest of your family.” The echoes of her croaking voice fill the cave, sending the sensation of cockroaches crawling all over my skin. Her eyes glow like a killer’s in the dark, and her voice sounds of hell. “Maybe we should visit them. I’m sure you’ll take it as an incentive.”
“V-visit them?” I babble. Crippling fear creeps under my skin. But no, I won’t let it take over me.
Tentacles slip under my armpits and coil around my shoulders, pulling me up. It’s the Sea Witch’s black octopus-dress that she can apparently lengthen as much as she likes. She moves father into the darkness, her tentacles pulling me after her, my toes raking the sand.
It’s cold deeper in the cave, a damp chill that seeps into my flesh. I can hear water dripping, so we must be heading toward the sea. The smell of salt and seaweed grows stronger, feeding me vital energy. I feel stronger, even my muscles harden, the sea pumping strength back into them. But it won’t be enough to defeat the ancient Sea Witch. Water is her natural environment, too, not to mention that her powers are at her best, and she’s been around for thousands of freaking years. While I’m chained under Lysander’s silver spell.
The tunnel turns sharply downwards. It feels like sliding down a gutter, until we reach an insulated underwater cave. I can feel the call of the sea all around it.
“There,” the Sea Witch says, moving in the shadows to the side. Her tentacles slither off of me, putting me down on my own feet.
It’s dark, but light reflects off a pond of water at the bottom of the cave, which seems pretty far down. The only sound disrupting the silence is the lapping, echoing against the wet stone walls. A cry rips through it, like that of an animal being stabbed. My back stiffens, and I walk closer to the edge of the platform where I’m standing, looking down.
Fog curls around the pond edges, but I think I see something moving through it. Then something else. Under any other circumstances I would shriek and jump back, which is probably the sane thing to do, but this feels different. Like the moving things are calling to me. I walk dangerously close to the edge. All the Sea Witch would have to do is give me a little push, and I’d fall into the foggy pond at the bottom.
I distinguish small, deformed bodies that look like shrunken, rat-like animals. A set of beady yellow eyes latch onto mine, and the creature releases a gut-wrenching cry. The fog slowly dissipates, revealing en entire horde of deformed beings that cry out at me, forming an unbearable echo, like they’re being massacred.
I cover my ears and force myself to step back onto the safety of the platform, fighting the pull they have on me. They almost make me want to jump. The feeling of belonging to these creatures is overwhelming.
“They are what’s left of the people massacred at the ocean king’s great ball,” the Sea Witch speaks in my head, satisfaction behind her words. God, how I hate her. “The ocean king’s children by his numerous lovers. They are all here now because of your father, you know. The ocean king’s almost-legitimate son. If Poseidon hadn’t hidden him from me, if he hadn’t done the impossible to save him, they would probably still be alive today. Well, not that they’re not alive now, but they’re pretty miserable, as you can see.”
“You devil. You wouldn’t have spared them anyway.”
“Now, now, you don’t have to believe everything they say about me. Why would I still want to annihilate these poor creatures, if I’d had the only one that mattered? I only needed to sacrifice the legitimate heir. You see, that old bastard never married any of his lovers, never intended to, and that meant none of his children had a legitimate claim to the sea throne. Until he met your grandmother. Oh, she had an almost magic hold on him. I suspect that’s why you’re so good with love spells—you inherited her talent.”
I can feel her rolling around me on her tentacles, but I won’t look at her. I can’t lower my hands from my ears until I know the creatures have stopped whining and shrieking, I wouldn’t be able to endure any more of that.
“Now, if your grandmother could enchant Poseidon himself to ask for her hand in marriage, then you should have no problem breathing carnal desire for me into Zillard Dark’s blood. You do tie your spells to the males’ blood, don’t you? That’s the technique you use?”
“It’s the most effective one,” I hiss telepathically.
“But that is a form of black magic, you know that, right?”
“Aunt Miriam didn’t teach me magic in terms of black and white. Her books...” But I stop. It hits me—In secret, Aunt Miriam was a creature of darkness. Her father was Hades himself. That’s probably why she rarely ever taught me any magic. At most she told me things, never showed me. I learned most of what I know from her books, many of which she kept under lock and key. I practiced on my own.
“Say the spell, Arielle.” Now that we’re far enough from the edge of the platform, the creatures have stopped shrieking, and the Sea Witch is using her voice again.
“I would need to be around him. Or, at the very least, I need something of his, so I can hook into his biology.”
“Hmm.” She ponders, circling me like a hideous black octopus with a human upper body. “Would a hair or a fingernail do?” She gives me that skin-crawling, razor grin of hers, but I repress the shudder. I won’t show her any more fear, because the freaking banshee seems to be feeding on it.
“You’re the bigger witch,” I grunt. “You should know.”
Her tentacles coil around my arms again, and pull me back towards the main cave. She lifts her hands in the air, her fingers wriggling, and an iron cage takes form.
Fuck. Iron is deadly to the fae.
“That should hold you.” She tosses me inside, then slams the locks shut. “I wouldn’t try to escape if I were you. Touching iron causes deadly rashes to the fae, from what I’ve seen.” She grins, which speaks volumes about what she’s done to other fae. “The fae’s weakness to iron has baffled wizards and others keepers of knowledge for millennia, because it doesn’t really make scientific sense. There’s iron in your blood. But I can tell you where that weakness comes from, if you’re curious.” She stares at me through the bars out of her scary irises. “You’re sensitive to iron because your flesh is made of a combination of nature’s basic elements, namely air, ice, fire, water and earth—much less earth than human bodies. The elements harm and weaken iron. But, in the composition of your flesh, iron harms them back in the same way.”
She retreats into the darkness, the long black tentacles trailing like an eerie bridal gown.
“I’ll pay a short visit to your friend, Zillard Dark. Nothing to worry about, I’ll send a sleeping spell ahead of me, so he doesn’t get scared. If by some miracle you manage to escape the iron cage, beware. Your sweet family of sea goblins will start a concert
that will drive you to kill yourself. So be a good girl, and wait for me quietly.”
But there’s one thing she doesn’t take into consideration, and that I can use to advantage. I wait until I’m certain that she’s gone, assessing my surroundings. I close my eyes, sampling the energetic vibration of the magic around, searching for other invisible weapons besides what’s left of the original Sea Court.
Her black magic feels like cockroaches crawling over my skin.
Every item in this place has a dark vibe, and most of those vials are locked with protection spells strong enough to blow up the hand of anybody who tries to touch them. I seek the vibration of the Pearl of Riches, stilling my mind, and calming down my body. If anyone could see me now, I’d probably resemble a yogi monk whose spirit travels to other realms.
But I’m very much in my skin, feeling grateful for being only half fae, and for the fact that the Sea Witch didn’t take that into consideration when she tossed me inside an iron cage. If my magic had been purely fae, I wouldn’t be able to use much of it right now.
Surprisingly, I find it easy and even pleasant to put the darker side of me to use, tapping into the inky ripples of my powerhouse. My dark magic blends in well with the Sea Witch’s signature, which makes the discovery of the Pearl of Riches beneath her pillows go unexpectedly smoothly. It’s sort of like putting myself in her shoes—where would I keep it if I were her? Judging by her crib she’s in love with luxury and riches, so she would keep it as close as possible. The moment I spot it my eyes snap open, and a satisfied smile forms on my face.
I stretch out my arm, palm open, murmuring the fetching spell and magnetizing the stone to me. Luckily, it doesn’t have a protection spell on it, probably because the Sea Witch never expected anyone to reach it, since she sleeps with it under her pillow. Besides, it doesn’t look particularly flashy. A small shabby shell travels through the air, slipping sideways between the bars, and landing in my hand. When I open it, it reveals a bright pearl, glowing like ivory. I’m proud of myself.