The Scorned Page 2

  “You ready?” Daelon asked. There was no mark of sickness in his features, not since that last wave I’d provoked with my healing attempts. The poison lay dormant like a predator camouflaged and poised to attack again without a moment’s notice.

  But I remembered what Lucius said, his words rooted too deeply to forget them for too long.

  I give him a month or two before he loses his body. His mind could go much sooner.

  Daelon faltered as I stared at him. “I can’t have you looking at me like that every time you see me.”

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry.” I reached for his hand. “I won’t. I promise.” The urge to wallow in helplessness and fear bubbled up, but I buried it with an easy swiftness.

  “I believe in you, Áine. Not in him. Just as I always have.” He pulled me to him, and I had to fight off tears for the hundredth time today. He tucked my head under his chin, his fingers trailing down my back. “We will win. In all ways, including this one. And I feel fine when you all aren’t trying to heal me. Like now, I’m totally fine. I can’t feel anything wrong with me.”

  I could see it, though, when I pulled back. Just the faintest tinge of shadowy black like a film over his shield. The poison itself had an aura, a magickal imprint of madness and death. I almost wished I couldn’t detect it at all, that it was hidden behind his shield like the rest of him—where I could ignore it and pretend it didn’t exist.

  I swallowed down the taste of metal and decay.

  “How are you feeling?” Daelon asked, brushing his knuckle across my cheek.

  “I’m afraid that our new coven doesn’t fully trust me. Or at least the group that saw me talking to Lucius,” I said.

  Daelon frowned. “That would be ridiculous. You were sick, and you were protecting Charlie. Just like you protected the entire coven by lending all of your power for the ritual and to close up the portal.”

  The portal that Prairie’s sister Emerson might’ve gone through. The portal with beasts from another world that were attracted to my light. I still didn’t quite understand the trees’ and Winnie’s premonitions about Iciera as an intersection between worlds, nor did I think it was particularly relevant to us right now. From what I could understand, Iciera’s place between dimensions was unsustainable. Its liminality made it a hub for the weird and the otherworldly, which was yet another reason the land would be safer without my presence. It would also be safer when it returned to its rightful place in Aradia—when all land was once again free and untainted by the Shadow King’s evil.

  “What do you think they saw, Áine?” Daelon asked, tilting my chin up. I could nearly feel the pull of his side of the soul bond, reaching for me and parsing through my muddled energy.

  “I don’t know,” I whispered. I let out a breath, looking away from his intense eyes. “That I’m not who I’m supposed to be. That if I was forced to make a choice between you and Aradia, that I would pick you.”

  Daelon shook his head. He opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off. This time when I met his eyes, I matched their intensity and then some.

  “And I fear that’s what they think of me because… they would be right.”

  Daelon didn’t speak for several breaths. “You don’t mean that, Áine.”

  My power stirred, and my heart pounded hard at my blasphemous admittance. “Would you not do the same?”

  He lowered his hand from my face, and now it was his turn to avert his gaze.

  “Exactly,” I said bitterly.

  “You made me a promise,” he said, fear swimming in his eyes. “You said I would never see him take you from me.”

  I swallowed, but the lump in my throat only grew.

  “Either way, we’re doomed. Because if I choose Aradia and lose you, I’d be useless to this cause. I told you I wouldn’t be able to do any of this without you—that there’s no better world out there without you in it.”

  “And if you choose me, he will never let you go. He will never let you liberate his cities and free the poor souls in his dungeons, to restore the realm and bring back balance before he destroys the entire universe.”

  His words should have sobered me, but they didn’t. All I felt was the burnt taste of chaos, the beginnings of a storm that raged on and on.

  “Then we can’t make it to that point,” I said.

  “We need a third choice,” he agreed. The energy between us was palpable now, the scorch of the soul bond breaking through his shield and consuming me with warmth and certainty. “The impossible, remember? That’s what you’ve always been capable of, the magick you’ve always cast, and that’s what we will do again.”

  “Together,” I said.

  He stooped down, his lips nearly at mine. There had never been more intensity between us, devotion and understanding strong enough to brave any war.

  “Together,” he said.

  I met his lips in a frenzy, sucking the energy right from his skin before I could stop myself. I let the sweet taste of love and the tart taste of desire wash away all doubt, all pain, everything dark and cold and cursed. The essence I pulled from him reminded me that I was his, and he was mine, and there was no force in the universe strong enough to change that. His energy was everything sturdy and solid, like tall redwoods in a sacred forest, and it slid into my body like a cool autumn breeze tinged with smoky firewood. A flash of the cabin we first trained in passed through my mind’s eye, when everything was confusing and yet blissfully simple—and I clung to those moments I spent with him, alone and not yet touched by Lucius and his fucked-up games.

  He tangled his hand in my hair and pulled me back. “Greedy little witch,” he scolded with a smirk. “No more.” He brushed his lips across my neck.

  I paled. I shouldn’t have taken anything from him. Not with the poison still in his system—he needed every ounce of his strength and life force.

  He raised his head. “It’s okay, Áine,” he said. “I’m okay.”

  I nodded. “Do you want anything from me?” I asked.

  “I want many things from you,” he said with a smirk. I clung to the normalcy of his boyish charm like a lifeline, the primal dominance in his gaze soothing all worry. “But not now, and certainly not your energy. You need all your strength to get us to the Coven of the Aurora Aurea.”

  I wasn’t emotionally prepared for Ruth and Jesco’s send-off. The coven gathered in the field where we performed Ostara’s ritual, the High Priestess and High Priest rooted in the center of the crowd where they projected their voices with magick. Daelon and I were late, but the other witches immediately parted and ushered us forward to the front of the circle. We sat, and I clutched Daelon’s hand tightly as the swell of fear, grief, love, anger, and determination crested all around us. He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me close, and I pressed my hand down into the earth to let the plant fibers send trickles of comfort and stability.

  “Families are going to be separated. I myself have not been away from Jesco for longer than a week, not since we were handfasted over a century ago,” Ruth said shakily. Her hair was in a long braid, as silvery as her crescent moon headpiece and shawl wrapped around her shoulders.

  For the first time since I’d met her, Ruth lost her words. Her sobs were as fierce as everything else she did, racking through her features. Jesco’s composure crumbled soon after. He pulled her into his chest, and the mournful energy of the crowd reached its peak. They stayed like that for a moment, and I saw how brightly their bond glowed as it fused their auras together.

  Ruth regained her strength, resuming her speech. “Jesco and I don’t have two different souls, bonded together.” She shook her head. “No. We share but one. And when he goes with our new friends to battle, I will be there too. As will all of us who stay. We will be here, lending our strength no matter the distance, preserving our home until our loved ones return.”

  Ruth’s pain hit me like a tsunami, so hard and fast that it knocked the air from my lungs. Of course, Jesco needed to go, and she needed to stay. Each group needed a spiritual leader, and the land needed a scholar of Icieran ritual and magick. No one knew more about this land than Ruth. And we’d known from the beginning that Jesco was always going to take up arms and make his way to the front of any battle.

  My eyes fell to their intertwined fingers and then back up to the slick wet of their slightly wrinkled cheeks. Jesco looked at Ruth like he was seeing the splendor of a sunrise for the very first time in a world that had only known darkness. Ruth’s aura reached out to his as she continued to speak, to arm her people with hope and faith in a path they could not see, and it melded with Jesco’s until it was indistinguishable. One singular soul, just as she had said.

  I looked at Daelon, and I knew I couldn’t let what I was feeling show on my face. He met my eyes, and I showed him my unending love, my faith in our cottage by the sea. I hid the fear as thick as cruel poison, the crippling terror that I would lose half of my soul.

  He kissed the side of my head. I tuned back into Ruth.

  “Iciera’s soul can never be divisible. And as our new friends—no, our new family—has reminded me, nor can the soul of Aradia.” Ruth found my eyes, and I smiled. She offered just the slightest nod. The same tendril of unease was still floating around her aura in contradiction of her words, and I struggled not to let my smile dip into a frown. “Our souls are all one, born from the same spark of love that birthed the vastness of the cosmos. The idea of separateness has always been a challenge for mortals to overcome, ever since that primordial disconnection of oneness. We need our ego, our individuality, to live and make sense of our existence here in the lower realms. But we must never forget that it is illusory, a fabrication, a delusion. Underneath our egos is something nameless and formless, something that cannot be broken apart
or possessed. In the end, when our bodies return to the land, that material is returned back to its oneness. But here and now, we are still one. When we hurt others, we hurt ourselves. What we fear in others, we too fear in our own hearts.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I was instantly pulled to meet a pressing gaze across the circle.

  Wren’s.

  “Hatred will get us nowhere,” Ruth continued. “Recognizing oneness makes radical compassion inevitable, but it does not forbid violence. Nature can be violent when it needs to be in order to preserve balance. Just like witches and humans. The pull to celebrate the bloodshed of violent people will always be tempting—trust me, I’m right there with y’all—but we must always remember who we are, underneath this mortal dance of struggle and love and death and change. No one wins in war. Kill another and you kill yourself.”

  I saw nods in the crowd, and an elder uttered a loud mm-hmm.

  “That bein’ said. We have a right to be angry, and we have a right to be vengeful. There’s a soulless evil that has overtaken this land, an evil that would love nothing more than to destroy all that is good, all that is kind and loving and beautiful. It has obliterated countless souls, and it will seek to do the same to ours. The bodily vessel this evil has possessed must be destroyed, by any means necessary.”

  I clenched a fist, my instinctive agreement creating a powerful gust of wind that rippled across the crowd in a burst of tropical, saltwater air. Countless supportive eyes found mine, auras flashing ethereal light all around. But then I remembered Lucius, clinging to the same song that birthed me and led me here to Iciera, crying in his mother’s arms. This vision came from the place below my ego, the nameless and formless. I took a psychic hammer and boarded that shit right back up.

  That little boy was not the soulless Shadow King.

  “We will destroy him and defeat his armies in order to take back the cities and free all prisoners and slaves. Only then will Áine be able to restore each plot of earth by Selene’s light and the guiding hand of the Great Goddess.”

  Daelon’s hand brushed across my back in soothing strokes, feeding me a trickle of comforting energy with his touch.

  I believe in you, he whispered, his voice a caress. You will do this. You were born for this.

  I knew as much as I hid the fear from my face, there was no hiding it from the soul bond.

  Together, little witch. Always.

  After a parade of tearful goodbyes and a delightfully enthusiastic speech from Jesco about how we were going to kick some colonizer ass, it was time for everyone who was leaving to remain in the circle while the others broke away.

  Susie Lynn and Becca’s begging and pleading had apparently paid off, as they were permitted to leave with us but not to engage in any combat. Now that Melody was pregnant, Calico decided to stay with her, Charlie, and Danny. Wren, of course, was coming with us, leaving the rest of the healers with Iciera. Most of the elders would remain with Ruth to protect the land. Many of the witches who’d frequented Daelon’s training sessions were traveling, although plenty more had attended in order to protect the land from potential attack. Prairie, Ali, Mer, and Skye were all coming, which was more than a relief. I needed them.

  We both did.

  “Ahn-ya!” Charlie squealed, weaving between the moving witches in order to run right into my legs. Her waves of curly brown hair were just as wild as always, her blue overalls scuffed with dirt. Her little hands wrapped around me. “You’re all better.”

  She backed up, and I crouched to pull her in for a hug. When I broke away, I saw Calico, Melody, and her brother Danny had followed her over.

  “You were so brave, Charlie. You saved us all,” I told her.

  “We didn’t get a chance to fully thank you, Áine,” Calico said. Melody looked like she was fighting back tears as she tucked a blond curl behind her ear. “Thank you for protecting her. We will spend our whole lives in a debt of gratitude.”

  “We’re family,” I said simply. “No debt is necessary.”

  Melody mouthed thank you as Charlie started speaking animatedly.

  “Don’t be scared. Just like we said in the before-time. Only love,” Charlie said. “For people who need it the most.”

  “That’s right, Charlie,” Melody echoed.

  I smiled at her, but my brows furrowed in concentration. I knew now not to ever again underestimate the cooky old witch and her five-year-old sidekick. “You know more than any of us, don’t you?”

  Calico howled. “That’s what I’m beginning to think.”

  Charlie just grinned wide and danced a little on her heels. “You forgot what you were going to do. But you’ll remember. Don’t worry.” She looked away, behind me. “You’ll remember,” she repeated, nodding her head.

  “I’m going to get Emerson back. She’s been in there long enough,” Winnie’s distinctive drawl announced from behind me.

  Charlie rolled her eyes. “She can’t do that.”

  Ruth muttered something under her breath, chasing after Winnie, who had a worn-out duffel bag on her shoulder and stony determination in her features. Her waves of white hair blew all around her.

  “Stay here, just for a minute,” I heard Ruth say to the eccentric witch before walking over to us. “We haven’t said our goodbyes yet,” she said, halting in front of me.

  Charlie made grabby hands, and Ruth picked her up and balanced her on her hip without breaking eye contact.

  “Thank you,” I said. “For everything you’ve done for us. And for…” I cleared my throat. “…believing in me. Thank you.”

  Ruth just nodded, pressing her thin lips together.

  “When we come back, I’ll take you up on that offer to borrow all the records of our coven. So we can rebuild.”

  Daelon squeezed my hand. “Thank you, Ruth,” he said.

  “It’s alright.” She sighed. “I—” She seemed at a loss for words, her aura cycling through too many vibrant colors to count. “Protect our family. Never hesitate to reach out through the astral plane for whatever you need. Things seem to come to you when you need them, Áine. So keep listening. Keep learning. Stay on the path. By Selene’s light, I know in my bones it will lead us all to freedom.”

  I nodded, her words warming me up from the inside.

  “Shiny,” Charlie said, her eyes wide as she stared at me.

  Ruth set Charlie down and gave Daelon and me each a brief hug before chasing after a muttering Winnie again. Melody and Calico did the same, and Danny just waved and gave me a shy half-smile.

  The crowd took back its circular shape as all who were leaving remained and all who were staying dispersed. I glimpsed Prairie saying goodbye to Winnie, her grandmother, pain and confusion rippling through her aura as they spoke. I wondered what Prairie thought about Emerson’s disappearance now. Clearly, she didn’t think there was anything she could do if she was still coming with us.

  Selfishly, I didn’t have the bandwidth to unpack that aspect of the cosmic web of mysteries.

  I no longer feared all eyes on me—the attention and awe of a crowd of witches—as I stepped into the center of the circle. No, there was no fear. Only a fire so bright that with the snap of my fingers it manifested in a roaring circle of spitting orange flames around the perimeter. Daelon cocked his head slightly as he joined me, and when he grabbed my hand, I saw an image of myself pass from his mind to mine.

  It was of me, just now. I looked like the badass warrior I’d wished I’d embodied when the others had been training. The red in my hair matched the red of my short-sleeved top, and they both brought out the flames reflected in my emerald green eyes.

  I looked ruthless. I looked serene. I looked like the Goddess of Battle and Scorn.

  As power overtook me, Cyrus and his island’s energy guided the magick’s direction.

  I met my friends’ eyes across from me in the circle, and I knew they’d seen what Daelon saw. There was no humor on Ali’s face, nor was there light-hearted support on the faces of the others. They each looked at me like I was Hecate, divine bearer of the torch that led lost witches from the depths of Hades to the peak of liberation.

  I signaled for the circle to move closer to Daelon and me. “Everyone join hands,” I said, and my voice boomed with magick and power.