Magic Claims (Kate Daniels: Wilmington Years, #2; Kate Daniels, #10.6)

“He never gets angry.”

Oh, you have no idea.

Conlan looked back at the woods. Logic told me that he was only eight, but it didn’t seem that way. I was his mother. I gave birth to him, I have raised him, and yet there was something about my son that remained beyond my understanding. Sometimes I wanted to open up his head and see what was going on in there. But then all parents probably felt that way at times.

“Do you feel the magic of the claiming?”

He nodded. “It feels welcoming. It feels like I’m home. Like safety.”

“Good.”

Erra had told me that it was supposed to feel like that. The Shar was an ugly beast, but it affected the members of my family in different ways, and children experienced it the least. For them, being in their parent’s territory brought feelings of safety and content. They knew they were protected.

It would be another decade or so before Conlan might want his own territory. Or he might never claim one. Erra hadn’t until she’d settled at her current base in California, and even then, she’d only claimed the immediate area around it.

When Erra and Julie had left Atlanta, my aunt had gone as far west as she could while staying on the same continent. She was giving me a lot of room. My father and she thought not in years but in centuries. They expected me to claim territory and grow it. Fortunately for everyone, I was a champion when it came to failing parental expectations.

“Come with me,” I told Conlan.

He followed me along the top of the wall toward the gates. Two men waited by the stairs leading up to the wall, Jushur and Rimush, wearing identical green and gray garments, a kind of tactical uniform on the crossroads of modern military and ancient assassin. They each carried two curved swords, one on each hip, and bows on their backs.

They looked up at me. I nodded, and the father and son came up the stairs.

I pointed to a spot slightly behind me and to my left. “Stand here.”

Conlan moved to it.

I raised my hands, dropped the magical cloak that obscured my power, and let the flow of magic fill me. It surged through me, through every cell, through bone, muscle, and skin, like a light beam entering a prism, and then it poured out of me in a golden light. I had become a glowing beacon.

On the street everything stopped. People stared at me, some in awe, others in alarm. Luther, my friend at Biohazard, had put it best. Magic was wild and unpredictable, and humans, who always had trouble with chaos, searched for ways to understand and codify it. They tricked themselves into thinking that some things were impossible because it made them feel safe. Without my cloak, I was that impossible thing. The very idea that a person with that much magic could exist shattered the established illusion of safety. Some found it exhilarating, others feared it, and some sought its protection through service. I was a great and scary beast, and it was warm and safe under my wings.

Jushur took a knee.

“Jushur, son of Kizzura, the first of the Eyes and Ears, the Fourth Blade of Shinar, declare your intent.”

Jushur spoke, pronouncing each word with deliberate exactness, as if carving it into stone.

“I swear upon my honor and my soul to pledge my life to you, my queen. I swear to protect and honor you in victory and in defeat, in times of famine and in times of plenty, and even if the entire world turns its hand against you, I will serve as your shield. I shall place your life above my own and speak nothing but the truth to you. My blade, my mind, and my soul are yours.”

He'd modified the oath. The bit about not lying was ad-libbed.

“Do you swear that you are free to make this oath? That no other has a claim on your loyalty?”

“I do.”

“I accept your oath. I shall protect and honor you in victory and in defeat, in times of famine and in times of plenty. I will never forsake you for my own gain. I will care for you until the moment you pass from this world. I will defend you as I defend my own life, and your deeds in the service of our common cause shall be recorded and made known so our descendants may honor and celebrate your life. I shall treat you not as my servant but as my valued friend, who stands at my side. My oath to you shall be true until the end of my days.”

Jushur’s eyebrows rose. I also went with a nonstandard oath because if I accepted someone’s allegiance, I’d do it on my own terms. There would be no queen and servants. There would be a brotherhood of equals, or as close to equals as they would allow themselves to be.

“Do you accept my pledge, Jushur, son of Kizzura?”

“I do,” Jushur answered. “With all my heart.”

I reached out. The golden flood of magic bathed Jushur. The oath was symbolically sealed.

He continued to kneel.

“You don’t need my permission to rise,” I murmured.

“This might take some getting used to,” he murmured back. He got up and stepped back.

“Rimush, son of Jushur, the ninth of the Eyes and Ears, the Seventh Blade of Shinar, declare your intent.”

Rimush swore the same oath. I accepted it and pulled my magical protection back on. The show was over.

“Your father would not approve,” Jushur told me.

“He never does.” I turned to Conlan. “Jushur and Rimush are our people. If something happens to your father and me during this battle, it’s your responsibility to safely get them out of danger. Jushur is an older man, and he might need your help.”

Jushur and Rimush bowed their heads.

Conlan blinked and bowed back.

“Do you understand?” I asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good.”

Uncertainty flared in Conlan’s eyes. Up until now he hadn’t considered the possibility that his father and I might not make it. It was a lot for an eight-year-old.

“Where would I go?”

“You would go to your sister and your grandmother. Jushur knows the way.”

“What about Darin?” he asked.

Darin had volunteered to join our party, and Curran had let him. His merman side gave Darin faster reflexes and enhanced regeneration, and like his father and uncle, he was really good with a bow. But more importantly, Darin wanted desperately to fit in, and he had decided he belonged with us and the Wilmington Pack. Curran and I were fighting for the lives of Penderton and our future home; Keelan, Da-Eun, and the other shapeshifters were fighting for the future of the new Pack; and Darin was fighting for himself.

“If there is a chance to save Darin, I’ll make sure he is safe,” Rimush said.

On the street, in front of the gates, the shapeshifters and archers formed up behind Curran. He looked up at me. Our gazes met. It was time.

“Your father is waiting.” I nodded in Curran’s direction.

Conlan took off down the stairs.

Jushur and I’d had a conversation this morning. He and Rimush carried Roland’s water necklaces. When broken, the necklaces would teleport them and whomever they were touching to the original source of the water. Teleportation was risky and dangerous. It was the last of last resorts, but if Curran and I both died, they would get Conlan out of there. They would grab Darin too, if they could get to him, and take the boys to California. Erra and Julie would take it from there.

Of course, for that to happen, the forest would have to kill me and Curran first. Conlan had guessed correctly. We were both angry.

“Sharratum,” Jushur said softly.

Getting him to call me Kate in private was harder than convincing my father that democracy was a valid form of government.

“It’s not too late to change the plan,” the older man said. “Nobody, in my memory, has ever attempted what you are trying to do. The magic drain may be beyond what even your body can endure.”

“There are some things that I won’t tolerate,” I told him. “I won’t lose another civilian to the forest. They are done killing these people. It ends today.”