“Gee, thanks,” I muttered, feeling even more guilty than I already was.
He rolled his eyes. “Yes, you were instrumental, but do you honestly think she wouldn’t have found another way? If she really wanted to block Christina’s powers, she would have found a way with or without you. Don’t forget I checked that bracelet over too and saw nothing wrong with it.”
“Good point. So you’re equally to blame here,” I teased, and he scowled at me.
“Not equally. Not even close. But dwelling on the past doesn’t help now. Let’s get this shit over and done with so we can get back and help the boys with Simon.” Austin dug in one of the concealed drawers and pulled out a hand-carved, metal-tipped quill pen that had belonged to Yoshi and the last Ink Mage before him and so on and so forth.
Any further discussion was cut short as the council started appearing within portals of their own, each looking grim. The spell Austin had used to summon them would have clued them in to what was going on.
“An execution so early in your tenure,” Emerald, one of the oldest council members, commented as she arrived, tossing her green dreads over her shoulder. “Where’s your girl?”
“Not here,” Austin snapped, and Emerald raised her pierced brows at me.
“It’s been a rough few weeks,” I explained, giving her a little headshake to tell her to drop it.
She gave a small shrug. “That’s cool. I liked her, though. It’d be nice to see her again. Have you given these three their last right of appeal?”
“Not yet,” I replied. “You can do it if you want. We’re in a bit of a hurry.”
She nodded, walked over to the three ziptied mages, and tore the duct tape from their mouths one at a time. The brutal sting was the least of what they deserved. “Speak.”
Laden with so much magic, that one word made the chalice in front of me tremble. I fought down a smirk when the three prisoners each visibly lost the air of cocky arrogance they’d been maintaining the whole time we’d held them captive.
“Anton,” one of the men blurted. “Everything we did was under his orders. He’s the head of our coven, and we had no choice but to obey.”
“Well, that was easy. Of course, it’s also a big old steaming pile of bullshit considering if you’d come to your Mages and confessed, they would have protected you.” Emerald turned back to us with a broad grin. “I’ll go pick Anton up. I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear hard evidence against that worm once and for all.”
She flickered out in a portal, was gone barely long enough for the remaining four council members to arrive, and then was back with her hand wrapped around the slimy, duplicitous necromancer’s neck—that very same piece of shit who had supplied golems to Simon and challenged us during our initiation.
I rolled my eyes internally. Somehow, I’d known he would be involved.
“Thank you for coming,” I greeted the council with Austin at my side. “I hope you don’t mind, but we will make this quick; we still have more to deal with tonight.”
“Please verify guilt for youselves,” Austin invited, waving a hand to our now four prisoners, and the council did as asked. Each one of them approached the men and repeated the same spell, one which caused any party guilty of crimes against the ruling Mages to glow green.
When each council member was satisfied, we made quick work of the ritual. Austin used his quill to draw a simple line of ink down each man’s chest. The spelled ink made a messy task easier, slicing through flesh and bone to expose the still beating heart while the guilty mage screamed soundlessly.
Grinding his teeth loud enough for me to hear, Austin reached inside each open chest cavity, removing their hearts with his bare hand and placing them on a silver platter… which he then presented to me.
My stomach twisted, but not with disgust. With hunger. These men—especially Anton, the necromancer—they were not weak in magic. I could smell it in their blood, and my fangs descended with ease.
Tension thrummed through my body as I raised the first heart to my lips and bit into it. I wasn’t a cannibal; that was just revolting. Nor did I eat flesh. But touching my fangs directly to the heart blood was akin to sending a mass email to all mages under our command. They would know of each one of these deaths and understand that when we made a law, we stood by it. Anyone who disobeyed would be punished.
It took all of my self-control not to actually consume the magic-laden blood, and by the time I was done with all four hearts, I wanted to vomit or scream or… something.
But it was a small price to pay if it meant no other mages would try and harm my Kitty Kat.
17
WES
“Hello?” My voice echoed through the heavy fog as I looked all around me. Wherever I was, it looked similar to my unrefined dreamscape, but still somehow different. More substantial somehow.
Shadowy figures appeared somewhere in the distance, and my heart pumped a little faster. Definitely not my dreamscape, then.
“Hello?” I called out to the figures. “Can you hear me?”
“Of course we can hear you,” a middle-aged woman scolded as she came into clearer view with the fog parting around her and her young companion. “You’re bellowing out here loud enough for the heavens to hear you.”
“Sorry,” I replied with a sheepish smile, feeling my cheeks heat with embarrassment. “I was just a bit… confused. Can you tell me where we are?”
The woman’s brows shot up, and the young girl beside her giggled into her hand.
“You mean to tell me you don’t know you’re in Caora? Just where exactly have you come from, then?” She seemed half bewildered and half amused. Like I had lost my sanity or something…
Oh shit, don’t tell me I’m in a mental institution and this is all inside my head.
“Uh.” I started, running a hand through my hair nervously. “I don’t really know how I got here; the details are a bit fuzzy…” In fact, when I tried to think about anything past Kit leaving to go to the grocery store, it was all just black. “But I’m from America.” The look the woman gave me was totally blank, as if I had just spoken in tongues. “Uh… Earth?”
Her eyes widened, and I swear her face paled a little even as the young girl grinned broadly. “You… you want to tell me you’re from the human realm?” she spluttered, and her wording triggered a memory of what I’d been studying.
“Human realm, yes! That must mean I’m in the badbh realm?” I grinned, and she continued to watch me like I was an escaped mental patient.
It was the little girl who responded first. “You sure are!” she enthused. “Welcome to Caora, human. I’m Briana; it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
She stuck her hand out for me to shake, but the woman slapped it down before I could return the gesture.
“I think you’d better come with me,” she told me in a shaking voice. “This is… unexpected, to say the least.”
My face slammed into the ground, and I tasted the bitter copper of blood and defeat in my mouth.
I’d failed.
My first attempt to pass the graduation trials and gain both my Badbh ring and my freedom, and I’d failed. The rules stated I wasn’t permitted to try again for another six months, and it was this that had me punch the dirt in frustrated anger before pushing myself back to my feet.
Across the small arena, my nemisis and tormenter, Gaelin, smirked back at me.
“Wesley Reed,” the ancient leader of Caora intoned, commanding the attention of everyone present and breaking my glare away from Gaelin, “you have failed. Return to the place of learning and continue to seek higher knowledge.”
I wanted to shout and argue, but I already knew it wouldn’t do me any good. Not with the Badbh. Instead, I ground my teeth together and gave a respectful dip of my head before slinking out of the ceremonial chambers, feeling very much like my tail was between my legs.