Bound Sorcery: A Shadows of Magic Book Read online

  “What is it?” I asked him.

  “I thought it was the Monarchists that saved you,” he said quietly. “They were the ones who had you when I found you. I thought they’d been keeping you safe all this time, but that doesn’t make any sense. You’d have your magic back by now and Julius wouldn’t have been surprised to see you alive.” He shook his head. “Philip,” he corrected himself. “I keep forgetting. God in Heaven, Philip Allaire had Terric’s ear for years and we didn’t realize.”

  “You knew who he was?”

  “Everyone knows. Well, if they studied the war.” Daiman shook his head. “He was always at her side. Well, your side, I guess. He was her confidant. People knew that if they wanted her ear, they had to win him over, too.”

  I looked away.

  “D’you remember any of it?” Daiman asked me quietly. He sounded like he wasn’t quite sure he wanted the answer.

  I felt my cheeks heat at the memory I’d seen, and I turned my face into the breeze. I took my time before answering. “I don’t know how much we truly cared for one another,” I said honestly. “I think a lot of it was the plan, and just … being two people against the world together. We were both powerful, and young. I was young, anyway.” I looked over at him. “How old is Philip?”

  “Not much older than you, I think.” Daiman shook his head. “I’m not sure. Let me think. He was born in Britain, I think. How he got to France, I don’t know, but that’s where you met him—a while before the assembly. Do you think he gave you the idea for all of it?”

  “I don’t know.” I had been resting my elbows on my knees, and now I pushed myself up. “It doesn’t matter, though, does it? I did it. I spoke to everyone at the Assembly and argued for it. Even if the idea was his first….”

  “You talk about it like you’re still the same person,” Daiman said.

  “I am.” I looked at him, just looked. The wind blew my hair across my face and I didn’t move even to brush it away. I held his brown eyes and felt my heart break. He kept trying to believe that I wasn’t Nicola Beaumont, and that could only hurt him. He kept seeing, after all. He’d seen me with Eshe. He’d seen me kill the flower. He knew who I was, he just didn’t want to believe it.

  If we were wishing for things, I’d wish for the same. But I didn’t have time for wishes.

  “Teach me about wind,” I said quietly.

  He looked away from me, out to the water, and I thought he might refuse. But he gestured for me to stand on one of the rocks, facing back toward the cliff.

  “You can feel life,” he told me. “Wind has a different sort of life, but it’s still life. See if you can feel it—not on your back, but the little pieces that slip around your sides into the hollow you’re making.”

  I nodded and closed my eyes.

  This time, it wasn’t long before I could see the steep hill mapped out in tiny flares of music: ants and beetles scuttling, lichen on the rocks, even the soft, tentative sound of chicks forming in the egg. There was a nest nearby, guarded by an anxious mother.

  I tried not to hear Daiman.

  Now that I knew what to look for, it was hard to try to listen for the wind with so many sparks of life all around me. I was terrified that the second I let my concentration slip, I would unleash my power on all of them. I had to stay vigilant. I had to protect them from me.

  And no matter how I tried to keep myself away from them and listen for the wind, I couldn’t hear a damned thing.

  I stood. I sat. I leaned my head in my hands. I opened my eyes and stretched a few times. I snuck a covert glance at Daiman every time I did, only to find him staring out to sea with a look on his face I didn’t want to try to interpret.

  The sun was high in the sky and I was beginning to get sunburned by the time I gave up. My head was aching fiercely, and I could see a touch of pink on my skin. I clenched my fingers on my knees and tried to summon the energy for one more attempt.

  “Rest for a bit,” Daiman suggested. He was looking over at me now, smiling. “Come walk in the sun.”

  “I have to get this,” I said stubbornly.

  “It took me quite a few months,” he advised. “If you sit still long enough to do it in one go, you’ll get covered in lichen.”

  He offered me a hand, and I winced as I stood. I tried not to hobble as we made our way down to the beach, but once we were there, I felt far better. I pulled off my boots so I could walk barefoot on the sand, and Daiman joined me with a grin. When I took off for the water, I heard him laugh as he followed.

  We splashed into the shallows. The water was warm on my bare feet, and I didn’t care that it was soaking into my jeans. There was sun and water, and I was entirely happy.

  Until I turned, and saw Daiman.

  He was walking quietly, hands in his pockets, and staring down at the ripples the water made on the sand. He hadn’t said a word, but he didn’t have to for me to see how worried he was.

  “Daiman?”

  He looked up guiltily, and gave a forced smile. “Yes?”

  “You’re worried.”

  He looked around as several children raced past, shrieking something about pirates and stolen shells. His face softened when he looked at them, but he looked sad.

  Did druids have children? I wondered.

  “I’m worried about the Acadamh,” Daiman said finally. “If Terric’s still alive, they should be safe enough, but … things are moving fast now, and I’m not sure they’re prepared.”

  “You’ve warned the druids, right?”

  “As well as I could.” He shook his head. “I don’t know if they’ve gotten the message yet. I don’t know if they’ll get it in time. And I’m afraid to contact the Coimeail.” His face twisted and he dropped his head back.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’ve never … broken with them before. On anything.” He opened his eyes and looked out at the horizon. “I served them because I believed. I brought skills to the Hunters that they didn’t yet have. I want to trust that right now, they would understand about you, about what Philip is doing—and I don’t think I can.”

  I stayed silent. I wasn’t sure they could trust him about me. Daiman seemed sure that I shouldn’t go back to stand trial, but who was he to decide that? Who was I to decide that I deserved a shot at redemption?

  “And I can’t forgive them,” Daiman whispered. “I brought them children. Children, Nicky. They were helpless. I told their parents that the Acadamh was the one place they’d be safe and some of them were just murdered as soon as I was gone.”

  “Maybe Philip was lying,” I said quietly.

  “Terric admitted it,” Daiman said flatly. “It was the truth. I know why he did it, and I want, so badly, to believe it was the right thing to do. But I brought them back there, Nicky. I promised them a good life. And I brought them to their deaths.”

  He dropped his face into one hand, and I suddenly wondered what we looked like from the shore. A couple breaking up, perhaps?

  I wanted to wrap him in my arms and I knew I couldn’t. I stayed still, the wind blowing my shirt against me, my hands clenched into fists. There were no words that would make this better. Daiman knew none of this was his fault … and he still couldn’t absolve himself.

  “It’s going to be made right,” I told him quietly. “All of it.” I walked to his side, feeling the current dragging at me. I laid my hand on his arm. “It’s going to be made right by you.”

  He looked down at me, and I felt a little flicker of something like fear. I’d never seen his eyes that way before.

  And then it changed. His head jerked around.

  “Run,” he said tersely.

  I cast a look over my shoulder and froze. There, walking across the water toward us, was a figure in a dark hooded cloak, staring right at me.

  26

  “Nicky, you have to run.” Daiman was trying to put himself in front of me.

  “Like hell.” I couldn’t match his arm strength, but I was quicker than
he was. I got in front of him and gave him a Look. “He’s here for me.”

  “That’s why you need to run!” he hissed at me.

  “That’s why you need not to get caught in the crossfire,” I shot back. “Sarah died for me, Daiman. I can’t—” My throat closed up before I could say the words. I can’t bear to lose you, too.

  The messenger drew to a halt some yards away. I saw him scan the beach with a faint sneer, but no one there seemed to notice him at all.

  “Tell me what you want and leave.” I tried to channel my old self, and from the way his head jerked around, I almost thought I managed it. I stepped forward, fists clenched. My head was up and my shoulders were down, and I tried to behave as if I had a gorgeous velvet robe on, not sea-stained jeans.

  I was Nicola Beaumont, and I was willing to bet this messenger knew it.

  He did. He held up his hand, and I was pleased to see him swallow nervously. “I mean you no harm,” he told me simply. He held out an orb. “A message, from Philip Allaire.”

  I almost turned and tackled Daiman to get him out of the way before I realized it wasn’t another plague orb. The magic inside this one was completely different—I could see that even at a glance.

  I went to go take the orb, and then remembered who I was. I held out my hand imperiously.

  The messenger came to drop it into my palm … and disappeared.

  I didn’t even have the time to ask Daiman what I should do with the orb before it activated. An image of Philip hung in the air in front of me. He was no longer windswept and desperate, he was entirely composed. He smiled confidently at the image, and his cloak and blond hair ruffled picturesquely in an unseen breeze.

  I moved slightly, and his eyes did not follow me. Content that this was a recording of some sort and not him actually seeing me, I relaxed slightly.

  “Nicola.” His voice was smooth. “I fear I have frightened you. Eshe and I … never saw eye to eye on many things, as you know. I was hurt that you sought refuge first with her. My anger was nothing more than that.

  “I have learned since we first spoke that you were kept from me by dissident elements within our own people. They brainwashed you. They stole your birthright and your memories from you, and I swear to you that they will pay for what they have done.”

  In the image, one long-fingered hand clenched into a fist. He was wearing black leather gloves, an exact match to his breeches, with a tunic and cloak of a deep blue that almost glowed. It set off his coloring to perfection, as he had planned it to do. Even his expression seemed practiced.

  I could not say if the emotion itself was sincere or not.

  “I see now that I scared you,” he told me. “With your memories gone, I was no more than a strange man claiming your heart. My love, it pains me more than I can say that this was stolen from us.”

  I looked away. I could not tell what I felt, though it seemed hard to breathe all of a sudden, and I was very aware of Daiman at my side. When the twist and tumble of emotions resolved itself, however, I saw it for what it was: the slow pound of anger.

  I’d seen Philip drag me onto a bed, tell me carelessly that he loved me for my power and my ruthlessness and no more, that he cared more for our plan than for me. The pretty words he was saying now were an act. They weren’t real.

  “Turn it off,” I said to Daiman. “I want to—how do I turn it off?”

  “Come back to me, Nicola.” Philip’s voice continued, that elegant tone perfectly practiced. “Come back to us. We will wait for you to remember. No one shall lay any claim on you, but let us shelter you from those who would do you harm. Let us unlock your magic so that you may work with us to bring down our enemies.

  “We have set your plan in motion. You may not remember it yet, but this is the deepest desire of your heart—one of the deepest desires, anyway. Trust me to tell you that much.” His tone was far too intimate now. “I will give you the world you dreamed of, Nicola. Nothing can stop us now, it is too far for Terric and his little sycophants to do anything.

  “But you should be here with us to witness it. It is in your name that we do this, Nicola. It is your birthright. It is your magic.” He stretched out a hand to me. “Nothing can keep us apart, not now that I know you are alive. Come to me. Come to Venice, to where we first met—and watch this diseased world fracture to make way for the new world we will build.”

  The message vanished and I threw the orb. It was a reflex, but Philip had held this, had made it. I didn’t want it to touch my skin.

  I turned to Daiman, and saw terror in his eyes.

  “It can’t be stopped?” he asked me. “Is it true that it can’t be stopped?”

  “I don’t know.” I shook my head helplessly.

  “He said it was your plan.” Daiman gripped my arms and turned me to face him. “Think, Nicola.”

  “Nicky.” I wrenched myself out of his grasp.

  “We don’t have time for that,” he snapped at me. “Think. This was your plan, it was your magic. What is he going to do? What do we need to tell Terric?”

  “I don’t know! I don’t know anything!”

  “It’s in there,” he insisted. “All of the memories are in there. You can remember if you try. We need you to remember.”

  I stared up at him, breathing hard. There was nothing in his eyes now but urgency. He didn’t even see me anymore—just the woman I’d been. The woman Philip had known.

  And no matter how much I’d known that was coming, it didn’t make it hurt any less.

  “I don’t know,” I said quietly. “I really don’t, Daiman. So if that’s what you wanted me for, if those memories are what you wanted from me, I’m only going to be a disappointment to you. I guess you’ll have to take comfort in the fact that I’ll be a disappointment to Philip, too.”

  But it wasn’t enough, and we both knew it.

  Because we’d been outflanked. There was no way I’d be enough of a druid in time to stop Philip. I’d been brought back too late, and there would be no chance to make up for everything.

  I headed for shore, tears stinging my eyes.

  “Where are you going?” Daiman called after me.

  I turned to look at him. Just for a moment. I couldn’t bear to see his face for any longer than that. “To turn myself in,” I said quietly. “I don’t know who I thought I was fooling. But it’s over, Daiman. We’ll let Terric try to stop Philip, and either way, when this is over … I’ll pay for what I did.”

  27

  He let me go. He didn’t say a word as I walked away, and I told myself that was better for everyone.

  I was crying, though, and no matter how much I told myself that it was childish and completely unhelpful, the tears wouldn’t stop. A few women gave me sympathetic looks, and all I could think was that they were going to go back to their hotel rooms and tell their husbands about the terrible breakup they’d witnessed.

  I wished my problems were that simple.

  I couldn’t get back into the warehouse on my own so I sat out on the tumbled rocks of the hillside and watched the sun drop in the sky. My stomach was growling, but I couldn’t bring myself to do anything about that. Every movement, every action, felt useless.

  I was going to be dead very soon.

  I didn’t know how to feel about that.

  I just knew that I had failed to stop Philip in time, and while it might have been an impossible task anyway, I hated myself for failing at it. I’d set all of this in motion centuries ago like a runaway train and it was out of my control to stop it now.

  Fuck everything.

  I waited while the sun dropped below the horizon and the wind started to get colder. The sand had dried on my feet and the pants had dried on my legs, salt stains and all. I’d come a long way from being Nicola Beaumont, leader of the Monarchists, presumptive ruler of the world. I was just some chick with only the clothes on my back and a price on my head now.

  I heard the footsteps behind me sometime after dark and my heart made a conc
erted effort to leap out of the front of my chest.

  I forced myself to stillness.

  “Terric?”

  “It’s me,” Daiman said quietly.

  “Oh.” I turned my head. I couldn’t see him from here, but I knew he’d stopped in the shadows of the warehouse. “I’m ready to go.”

  “You need to go back,” he said quietly.

  “I know.” I stood up, awkward and barefoot. “I’m not going to fight you. I won’t stab you in the back. I—”

  “To Philip.” I couldn’t see his face. “You need to go back to Philip.”

  I went hot, and then cold. I opened my mouth to speak and not a sound came out of me—just as well, probably, as I had no idea what I would have said. I couldn’t feel my feet on the rocks anymore.

  “Eshe was right,” Daiman said bluntly. “She told you that you had a lot to make up, and you’d never do it without your magic, and she was right.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “No, my magic is death and—”

  “So use it!” His voice burst out of the darkness, raw, and he stepped into the moonlight. I could see his pulse pounding at his throat. “Use it, Nicky!”

  “My power makes plagues, it corrupts life!” I came down from the rocks with my fists clenched. He could yell? So could I. “Tell me how the hell I am supposed to be okay with using that. There is nothing good about death.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” He spat the words. “Have you forgotten everything you told Eshe while she lay dying?”

  I stopped dead. “I don’t … I don’t want—I didn’t know you’d heard.”

  “Those weren’t lies,” Daiman said passionately. “You were telling the truth about your own power and you couldn’t even hear it. Death is a part of life, Nicky. Life is bigger than one person. It is bigger than a snowbell or a rabbit, or even Eshe. Animals die for one another all the time, trees die and break down, seeds crack, leaves turn into loam, fields lie fallow. What makes you think we’re any different from everything else in this world?”

  I stared at him, mouth agape. I didn’t know what to say.