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

I was resting. Not really sleeping. Just lingering on the edge of consciousness, with my eyes closed and my body still. My legs hummed, my back hurt, and my chest felt tight. Four claimings in a row was my limit. I would need to practice more. It wasn’t the distance—I could’ve claimed a ten-mile chunk with no problems. It was the sequence of it. Every claiming took a big bite out of my magic reserve.

Unfortunately, the roads weren’t straight. There were places where they veered a little from the safe zone, which slowed us down. Given a straight shot to the hill, I would’ve tried to claim it all in one go.

Around me, our small party had gone to ground. There was a trick I’d learned early in childhood when my adopted father would drive me into the wilderness, drop me off with a knife and a small canteen of clean water, and expect me to make my way back on my own. The best and fastest way to recover was to lay completely flat. Heather’s archers were forest people. They’d stripped off their gear, lain down on the road, and gone to sleep.

The shapeshifters had sprawled out as well, but unlike me and the archers, they were still fresh as daisies and most of them were munching on their supplies and talking.

“Should he be climbing that?” Curran asked next to me.

I opened my eyes halfway. Our son was scrambling up a big pine like an overgrown squirrel.

“It’s in my territory. I claimed a circle three hundred yards in diameter.” I yawned. “He can feel the magic. He knows where the boundaries are.”

“You should sleep,” Curran told me. “I’ll keep watch.”

“One hour,” I told him.

“One hour,” he agreed.





Curran’s warm hand touched my arm. “Time to get up, baby.”

“It hasn’t been an hour.”

“No, it’s been two.”

My eyes snapped open. I sat up and groaned. There was no fucking way.

I looked up at the sky. Definitely past noon. Damn it.

Curran studied me, his gray eyes concerned. “Do you need more time?”

Yes. About twelve more hours. A solid meal and a soft bed would be lovely as well. But we had another four miles to go, and the sun was rolling across the sky.

“I’m good.”

“We can wait another hour.”

“No need.”

He nodded and put a small rectangle wrapped in foil on my lap. “And before you ask, I gave one to Conlan already.”

I raised my eyebrows.

Curran walked away and crouched by the shapeshifters sitting in a loose circle in the middle of the road.

I unwrapped the foil. Chocolate.

Best husband ever.

“We’re almost there,” Curran said. “There will be a fight. There will be other shapeshifters. For those of you who missed the first fight, they are different. You won’t be facing gray wolves. You will be fighting dire wolves, prehistoric cats, and possibly giant bears. In their warrior form, they’re larger, stronger, and faster than most of us.”

I took a bite. Almonds. Oh my God.

“One on one, in a contest of brute strength, we lose.” Curran’s voice was reassuring and steady. “But they fight on instinct, like animals. They’re brawlers. We are trained killers. They will mark each of us for individual duels. We will not oblige them. Stay calm. Think. Remember your training. Look out for each other.”

“I know you’re trained,” Keelan said. “Because I trained you. Don’t embarrass me by getting killed by amateurs.”

A light laughter rippled through the circle.

Keelan flashed his teeth in a happy grin. “You are a unit. They’ve never encountered shapeshifters like us. Organized warfare. It worked for the Romans, it will work for us.”

“Pick a battle buddy,” Curran said. “Stay close to them. Watch out for them, watch out for the others. Take them two on one when you can. If you see someone in trouble, jump in. Remember, the people we’re fighting may not have a choice in this fight. Kill if you have to, disable if you can.”

Isaac walked over and crouched near me. “I want to show you something.”

I popped the last of my chocolate into my mouth and got up.

He led me off the road into the brush. Ten yards into it I stopped.

The forest here was different. Gone were the mast-straight pines flooded with sunshine. These were much darker woods. Denser, with huge aspens and massive birches vying for space with balsam firs and cedars. Hemlocks spread their green branches. Honeysuckle, yew, and gooseberry bushes crowded into the rare patches of light. The air smelled different, clean, without a trace of salt or ocean, and spiced with a hint of Christmas conifers.

Wow.

“This way,” Isaac said.

I followed him deeper in. We rounded a huge balsam fir. Ahead the forest parted, as if someone had cut a perfect circle out of the green growth. In the middle of it, a jagged stone thrust up and out of the forest floor, like the rib of a mountain. On top of the stone lay a body in tactical camo.

Isaac took another step forward, and I put my arm out in front of him. We had reached the end of the safe zone.

The body lay bathed in sunlight, perfectly preserved. I could see every detail: the blond hair, the face of a man in his thirties with two-day stubble on his chin, the eyes opened wide, gazing at the sky. He didn’t look dead. He looked like a man who had decided to take a break after a long trek through the woods, except for the sword thrust into his chest, the Order’s mark on its pommel.

No animals had touched him. No insects swarmed above him. The forest had formed a perfect ring to avoid him. Just the rock, the man, and the red symbols scratched into the stone and traced with blood.

“Jeremiah?” I asked.

“You remembered.”

“Of course I did. Knight-Defender Jeremiah Gardner. The first man taken out of your team.”

“When this is over…”

“I’ll find a way to get him off that rock, Isaac.”

The knight-pathfinder nodded and looked back at the body. “Not too much longer,” he promised. “I’ll come back for you.”





12





The magic of the forest slithered in twisting currents, boiling at the borders of my safe zone. Thick like syrup, deep enough to drown in. We were at the center of the forest’s power. It gnawed on the edges of my narrow claiming, trying to sink its teeth in and failing. The trees had grown thick and tall, their branches reaching for each other over the road, blocking out the sun above our heads. We were moving through a green tunnel.

Conlan slipped through the column, edging dangerously close to the boundary, lingered there for a few moments, and wove his way to my side.

“Mom.” His voice was barely above a whisper.

“Yes?”

He shifted into the language of Shinar seamlessly. “You’re stronger than it, right?”

“We will soon find out.”

He looked at me wide-eyed. That wasn’t the answer he was looking for.

“Raw power is important, but there are times when training matters more. And you, although you are only eight, are better trained than whoever claimed this land.”

He looked at the woods.

“Remember what your father said about the other shapeshifters?”

He nodded.

“It’s just like that. Look at it, Conlan. Yes, that’s a lot of magic, but feel how haphazard and uneven it is. Now feel the power of my claim. When we painted our house, we didn’t hurl paint cans at the walls. We dipped a roller and covered it evenly.”

He looked at the woods again, and then at the road in front of us. His shoulders straightened. He raised his head.

“This is why we train,” I told him in English. “With magic, especially, it’s about control. A blood spike the size of a needle, thrown at the right moment, can kill the enemy before they ever get a chance to hurl a giant boulder at us.”

He smiled and fell back into his place by Jushur.