Inked Destiny

It wasn’t too late. Not yet, though he could guess what the magical channeling was doing to the seidic changeling who’d made this possible with her ink. In the end, this might cause her death.

* * *

Jacko tried to use the car to get to his feet, but left only a smear of blood against metal next to concrete blocks and rusted axel. His thoughts drifted, sliding into the past with the memory of stabbing a shank into the last guy he’d killed in prison.

What was the motherfucker’s name? His thoughts blurred. He could remember the blood wet on his hand and wrist.

Reality blurred, he looked down and blood gushed out faster, his heart pumping hard at seeing the gut shots, his fingers splayed across his stomach though his intestines were leaking out.

Motherfuck. He dug into his pocket for his phone, hearing Cyco say, “I’m about finished my business. You done?

“Jacko! Jacko!” The shout brought him back. He shivered. Fear coming when he realized he was shaking, so cold now he couldn’t feel his legs anymore. Couldn’t actually feel much of anything.

Motherfuck, they weren’t going to find him curled up in a ball. They weren’t going to say he went out like a pussy. When they talked about him, they were going to say he was a man.

“Dead. Guy showed up.” The words were slurred but he kept going, forcing more of them out. “I took him out. Need you to finish Cathal Dunne.” Couldn’t believe the asshole had survived the launcher attack.

“Him. His woman. Anybody else who’s with him.”

“Good,” Jacko said, the phone dropping away as the numbness spread and all awareness ceased.

* * *

Etain opened her eyes to tranquility, if facing a Dragon could be tranquil. It rose from the water, creating a ripple, and in that ripple Etain saw Eamon on his knees, body bowed, rigid, his image thin, appearing more apparition than solid man while Cathal—

Agony engulfed her at seeing him prone, still, sightless eyes staring at nothing.

There is always a price to pay. He is human, mortal born, not created to be conduit or vessel for magic.

“No!” she screamed, the sound of it reverberating, making her aware of the ebb and flow, the serration of her own heart, still beating while Cathal’s was silenced.

Clever changeling. The sigil of servitude appeared, writ in the air like a fiery brand. It’s what I can offer you now. There’s still time for your human. Take it and return to him, transformed into what you were meant to be.

Trust me to do the right thing, the words spoken before racing to Cathal mocked her now, everything inside her saying no price was too high to pay for Cathal’s life. But those moments when she’d lost control of her limbs, when the ability to speak had been choked off at the Dragon’s will, were too visceral.

This servitude was another name for slavery. And that slavery would extend to him.

Not slavery. The honoring of a promise. The righting of a wrong.

At what ultimate cost? In the water Eamon continued to fade, as if her touch was draining him of magic and gift, his accusation ringing in her ears that the lives of those who depended on him as Lord would worsen because he’d tied their future to hers.

“No,” she said, concentrating on the complex shapes Eamon had painstakingly taught her, building the sigil segment by segment in the hopes it would allow him to get free of her.

* * *

Sire!” Liam urged again, enough control finally returning that Eamon was able to speak.

“No.” The answer came from his heart, more gasp than word.

Liam’s face reflected understanding and grief even as he moved to disobey, willing to give his life for his lord’s. But Myk and Heath reacted as well, as if anticipating it, grabbing Liam, risking his gift, struggling though that struggle lasted only moments before Etain’s body stilled in human death and the flow of magic abruptly stopped.

Eamon felt as though his own heart had been ripped out of his chest. Searing pain spread through him, growing in intensity as moments passed instead of the barely perceptible seconds that had marked his own change, the tattoos on his arms inert, nothing more than ink, giving him no way to call her back.

“Fight, Etain, fight.”

* * *

The lake, the Dragon, the burning sigil and the complex one she’d been building disappeared in a white burst and an echo of pain. Nothingness followed, an inky blackness that drained into the vines on her arms, and in its wake she again faced the Dragon—except this time there was silence. So she was dead now too.

* * *

Cage smiled when the water began churning violently, smoke rising from its depths along with bubbles and blackened debris. The thrashing continuing, creating a whirlpool that sucked them back in. A light show of color only he could see as a Dragon battled to regain a human shape, to make sense of facts and divergent realities, though those born in this rare, rare manner were born old.

Behind him Derrick sobbed, the slow scrape of his body marking his determination to reach his lover even now. Quinn had chosen well. Or the seidic had with her ink.

Cage turned away from the water, using his true speed to reach Derrick, offering comfort with a whispered, “He lives, and so will you,” before offering merciful oblivion with a spelled charm he’d gained from Eamon.

* * *

In front of Etain, the water rippled again. Only instead of images of Cathal and Eamon, the slaughter at the bar was replayed and she felt the phantom flare of heat at her wrists and along her arms, burning hot and fierce as Vontae and his killer became aware of each other. I woke and you shared in my awakening. Not your gift to see the endpoint of magic. Mine.

The sigil representing servitude flared between them again. Take it and you can find the killer you seek.

Even to find justice for the innocent, she couldn’t. “No.”

* * *

Eamon couldn’t accept that he’d lost her. Physical survival from the change itself wasn’t what he’d feared. Not for her. Not for any changeling. Death came by his judgment.

Too much time had passed. Transformation was marked in seconds, not minutes.

He pressed her palm to his heart as if he could will magic into her, could use it to summon her back, praying in that moment that the Dragon did indeed exist, and that Etain merely visited at the shore of the lake she’d drawn.

Liam knelt next to him, freed now that the danger to Eamon was past. “Let me attempt it, Lord,” and despite the wild struggle and intended disobedience, Eamon trusted his third, but said instead, “Cathal first,” in the hopes it wasn’t already too late.

Liam reached out and placed his hand above Cathal’s heart. Once, centuries earlier, Eamon had felt the punch of magic that was Liam’s gift.

An explosive gasp signaled Cathal’s regained consciousness.

* * *

Etain staggered and went to her knees as if she were an insubstantial piece of wood suddenly tethered by an anchor tossed into the ocean.

The scene in front of her wavered. The Dragon roared, the sigil of servitude melting into flames encircling her.

So your Elven lord has chosen to save the human. For another of the seidic it would be enough. But not for you. I can hold you here. You were born on the shores of my lake and bathed in its water. You aren’t only of Elfhome and Earth.

Trust. There hadn’t been time to show Eamon the picture. Hadn’t been time to discuss the sigil at the corner of the playing card.