Page 56 of Witchbane

Nick crouched outside the lines and picked up his brush again. It didn’t feel like a tattoo, more like a thick layer of paint. The brush tickled a little. The lines he drew didn’t wrap around me like they did Liam. They were more like chains, or lines, down my arms.

“I hope this doesn’t mess with your wards,” Liam whispered breathily as he watched Nick draw.

“It won’t,” Kiran said. “Or shouldn’t. His magic is a thing of chaos. Who knows? Maybe he’ll blow us all up when he tries to bind you. Would be the perfect end to our miserable existence.”

I really wanted to glare at him, but Liam gave me a soft smile, keeping my focus. I hoped he knew what we were doing. Because me and new magic usually took a lot of practice.

Nick stepped away, moving out of the circle.

“Can we start?” Liam asked looking up.

“If he can do it at all,” Kiran grumbled.

It stung because it was true. I had no idea what I was doing or if it would work. Liam might have endless faith in me, but I didn’t. He raised his hands, holding them up in front of him, fingers spread.

“Take my hands,” Liam instructed. “Focus on me.”

I wove my hands with his, my palms feeling a little clammy but warm compared to the chill of his skin. The lines on the backs of my hands matched with his, looking more like a physical tie than text.

“Remember when you set the pack wards?” Liam asked. “We are going to do something similar here. Focus on the lines. Start with my hands, our hands, and feel the magic. You’re going to fill them with your power.”

“Okay,” I agreed. Wards were easy enough. I tried to think of his symbols like alchemy. It took a few seconds to focus, opening myself up to that inner sight. In my younger days I had thought it was something related to the fox. Only regular foxes didn’t see magic lines any more than regular people did. Perhaps it came from the kitsune? All I knew is that when my gaze refocused, everything had changed. The palace library had become nothing but cave-like walls, barren and gray. Nick still looked older, healthier, but there were lines of power etched around him in a dozen ways. It was hard to focus on him at all as he was so bright. Kiran was very different. Odd since I’d thought I’d been able to recognize glamour. And while he was still big with white hair and dark skin, he looked worn, almost ill with sagging muscle and a handful of faded lines etched in his skin. Part of his body appeared dark, almost as though it were frozen or ill and slowly dying away. A dark swatch of blackness crept its way up his body. The corruption perhaps? How terrifying was that? What would happen when it took him over? I shuddered at the idea of what sort of monster he would become. A dragon? Or something even larger and more terrifying?

His hands were wrapped in light, and that light expanded toward Nick and the many ties binding him. Was that the scion bond? Not a bond or sharing at all, but some sort of ensnarement? Like Kiran was pulling all the strings, with Nick little more than a puppet to be positioned? I gasped at the idea of it, turning my head back to Liam with the horror of that in my head.

“It’s okay,” Liam said. Our hands glowed brightly, the bonds beginning to form there. The lines etched around him, a guide to do exactly what Kiran had done to Nick. Tie him up in my magic?

“No,” I whispered, trying to tug my hands away.

Liam held fast, his grip strong and firm. “Seb,” he whispered. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes.” Him, I trusted just fine. Me, not so much. “But you’re not seeing this like I am. You don’t understand…”

“I do,” he assured me. There was a glow to his eyes, like the light of the bond reflected off them. “Follow the lines. Fill them with your power.”

“It’s enslavement,” I whispered, the words feeling like ash in my mouth. The mate bond hadn’t been like this. It had been a warm wrapping of our souls together. Strong yet equal.

“I am yours,” Liam said.

“I don’t want to control you.”

“No, but you need to control you. I think I can help.”

His reasoning was flawed. How did me having complete power over him, give him an ability to control me? “Liam…”

“Trust me,” he reasserted. “Trace the lines. Fill them with your power. I will do the rest. We don’t have time to debate. I am without water and running out of food. Stuck in a world filled with monsters, while I am only human. This will give me the strength to survive and help carve a path free from here. A way home.”

I sucked in a hard breath, tears dotting my vision though I held them back and focused on his request. “You think you can get us home?”

“I think together we will figure it out faster than doing it alone. Isn’t that why we came here? Together? The forest god said to stay together. No better way than this.”

“Okay,” I said. “I trust you. Please don’t let me fuck this up.” Releasing the power for a ward was much easier than casting a spell or creating some sort of magical door. It was more about opening a flow of energy. A trickle at first, as I traced the lines over our hands, feeling them warm, become almost a physical sensation of heat. Then over his arms, wrapping a delicate weave of metaphysical ropes. I hated that idea, but they looked more like ropes than words now.

It wasn’t until I got to his arms, the lines etching up his shoulders, that I realized his jaw was clenched and his focus intense. “Am I hurting you?” I breathed, pausing, trying to hold back the energy even though it had a taste of the stretch of freedom now.

“Hot,” Liam offered through clenched teeth. “Tattoos burn, you said?”

Not like that.