Page 3 of Forgotten Arcane (Broken Ashes #6)

Neith

I mmediately, I glance down at my wrist. Unlike the iridescent, sparkly, and delicate tattoo from the unicorn, this one is the opposite.

It’s black for one, and the thicker lines are outlined in gold, which honestly looks like real gold. It’s incredible.

When Ed said that it would be on the inside of my wrist, that’s not quite what he meant.

The mark takes up the entirety of my forearm and is incredibly detailed.

It’s in the shape of a diamond and divided into quite a few different sections.

One of those sections has runes inside, that much I can recognize, but that’s the only section that looks vaguely familiar to me.

The other sections appear to have different symbols and languages in each one, and I don’t understand any of them.

That’s not the only difference in the sections either, each one is also a different size and shape, and the longer that I stare at it, the more I find. It’s so fucking detailed.

Ancient.

I don’t know how I know that, but this symbol screams ancient magic. Long forgotten magic, and it makes sense, it comes from the Gods, of course it’s going to be ancient.

It’s brutalist in its design, and quite frankly, I absolutely love it.

I look over to the guys and find them all in a similar position to the one that I’m in, and looking at me to make sure that I’m okay.

“Damn, that literally knocked me on my ass,” Coen mutters.

“Same man,” River replies, as he gives up on sitting up and falls backward to stare at the ceiling.

“That was intense,” Raiden adds, his eyes still glued to his forearm and studying the new bond mark.

Doc cricks his neck, still sitting on the floor as he asks, “Is everyone feeling okay? Did anyone hurt themselves when they went down?”

“I went down pretty hard on my knees,” Reed says as he rubs one of them. “I don’t think it needs healing though. My own healing is working on it.”

“Yeah, I went down pretty hard,” Van adds.

Ransom smirks, “I had a soft landing.”

“Yeah, because you landed on me,” Griff retorts, making me laugh.

When he mock glares at me, I snap my mouth closed, trying to hide my smile as I say, “I’m sorry, are you okay?”

Griff’s glare turns into a smile, “Yeah, I’m good.” He glances at his arm, where I can see the same design as I’ve got. “This is a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be.”

“It’s pretty fucking awesome though,” River grins as he pokes his.

When he was younger, he was absolutely that kid who saw something suspicious or gross and poked it with a stick to see what it was.

Raiden nods, and looking absolutely fascinated, adds, “I haven’t seen most of these symbols before, and I don’t recognize the languages either.”

Coen peers closer at his, “They look ancient, I don’t imagine that many people would recognize them.”

“That’s not really surprising, the Choosing has been around for thousands of years,” Reed adds thoughtfully.

Ransom smiles as he looks over Raiden, “I bet you’re itching to get into your library and look into some of the languages, aren’t you?”

Raiden’s smile widens, “Of course.”

“I must say that I’m surprised that you’re all talking,” Ed interrupts with his eyebrows slightly raised as he watches us closely.

I jump slightly. I had completely forgotten that he was here, which just goes to show how out of it I really am, because how could I forget about Ed?

“What do you mean?” Doc asks curiously.

All of us are more than content to stay on the floor for a while longer.

Ed smiles, “Well, usually people are out cold for a few minutes at least, and then take a while to be up to talking. None of you lost consciousness, and you all seem to be recovering quite quickly.”

“Thank goodness for that,” I mutter.

“Would you like to know what magic you have all been gifted?” Ed asks with a twinkle in his eye. It’s not hard to guess what our answer is going to be.

“Yes, please,” River replies for all of us, bouncing up to a sitting position and then continuing to move and wriggle even though he’s still sitting on the floor.

“Do you need us to get up for that?” Reed questions, “Because I don’t think I’m quite ready yet.”

“Me neither,” Coen agrees.

I still can’t believe that he’s here, and with us.

“No, you’re all good where you are,” Ed replies with another smile, “If you give me a moment, I will see what you’ve all been given.”

We’re all silent as we wait for Ed to tell us what magic we’ve been gifted, and Coen wriggles closer to me and threads his fingers through mine, squeezing them tightly.

My whole body practically sings at the contact.

I know that we’ve got a lot to sort out, I know that there are going to be some complications thrown our way, because Coen killed Kylen and that’s not how dragons work, he had good reason, and Draith is reasonable, but it could still get a little complicated.

That’s only scratching the surface of what we need to sort out, and the complications that we’re most likely going to have to deal with when we get back.

That’s not even taking into account everything else that we’ve had to put on hold while we’ve been here.

There’s the hybrid problem that we need to deal with, which is more complicated because we’re reasonably certain that the Blue Fucker is behind the hybrids, and he is responsible for the war in Trieneliea, and we have no idea how he is here, but we do know that he is incredibly powerful.

We are also fairly certain that HID has been helping to supply him with supernaturals, and that I was very nearly one of those supernaturals.

All this means that the Blue Fucker knows of my existence, and now that we know who my parents are, that’s a big complication.

I have to assume that he doesn’t know that my parents are the King and Queen of Trieneliea.

Otherwise I would imagine that he would be trying a hell of a lot harder to get his hands on me or kill me.

He would most likely prefer to use me as a bargaining chip against my parents, although I’m not sure how that would go for him.

Which leads me on to the personal stuff.

Dimitri, Pete, Coen, oh, and apparently fucking Kyrous, because the rest of my life isn’t insane enough.

There are the spirit guides, and Winston, I miss my friend, although I now know who my parents are, and he left to go and find out if he could reason with whoever stopped him from giving me information, so that he could tell me who they were.

There’s Sully, and oh fuck, there’s Van’s parents, we just found out that he’s fucking royalty, and we were supposed to go and see them, but we got pulled into the Choosing instead.

I’m sure there’s more that I’m forgetting, but that is more than enough to focus on right now.

My top priority is going to be Coen, at least for a few days.

“Oh my,” Ed says.

His words thankfully bring me out of the very quickly spiraling thoughts that were about to drag me under, and most likely into a sort of overwhelmed hysteria.

“Is everything okay?” Griff asks.

Ed raises his eyebrows, but nods, “Yes. It would appear that none of your Choosing ceremony is going to behave normally.”

“Why am I not surprised?” I mutter somewhat snarkily.

“Is it bad?” River questions with a slight frown.

“No, no,” Ed replies. “It just hasn’t happened before, so it surprised me.

It seems that you have all been gifted with the same kind of magic,” he pauses.

“The affinity with the dead, and death itself. For Neith and Raiden, that means that your natural magic has been increased, and for the rest of you, it means that you now have the magic.”

I already have death magic?

Wait, that’s not the thing that I should be focusing on right now, but it is certainly interesting.

“All of us now have magic that deals with death?” Coen questions, seeming more intrigued than anything else.

Ed nods, “Yes, I would imagine that it will present differently for all of you. No two magics are ever the same.”

“Well, that’s pretty fucking cool,” River mutters.

Ed chuckles, “You should know that it may take a while to manifest itself, it will need to grow fairly naturally, although it will be quicker than most magics. I’m sorry that I can’t give you specifics, but that’s just how it works.”

“That’s understandable,” Van replies, as he stands up and prompts the rest of us to do the same. “We will deal with it, and research as the magic presents itself.”

“Are you all feeling okay?” Ed asks worriedly.

I nod, “I feel amazing actually.”

“I’m just hungry,” River adds, making me smile as he rubs his stomach to emphasize his words.

“You’re always hungry,” Coen retorts with a smirk.

River shrugs, “True.”

The flare of light that accompanied Lucius the first time reappears, and we all turn to where he is now standing. The smiles falling from our faces as we all prepare for whatever he’s going to say now.

“Good news, the Elders have agreed that passing on a message for the moment will suffice,” Lucius says immediately.

“Thank fuck for that,” Van mutters.

We may not be feeling as weak as we should be feeling, but we are still feeling the effects of the magic, and I would not like to travel to an unknown realm to see people that may or may not be our enemy when we don’t all feel one hundred percent okay.

“Indeed,” Lucius replies. He looks at me, “You should know that they will want to meet you at some point. Although similarly to the way that the current Reaper Council works, it could be months before they call on you or they could call on you tomorrow.”

“As a Bonded Warrior team now, if one of you gets summoned somewhere, you all have the right to attend with them. Regardless of whether it would usually be allowed,” Ed interrupts.

“Yes, thank you, Ed, I was getting to that,” Lucius replies.

I’m entirely unsure if he really had the intention to tell us that or not, but I am glad that Ed did because I’m more likely to trust Ed anyway.

“Thank you,” Van says to Ed.