The fight came closer. A vine lashed out and gripped my ankle. I kicked down on it with my other heel as Kaippa bit the thing. The vine jerked and let me go.
“But that will leave Hekla and Lucus on the wrong side of the shield,” I said. There was no way I could get over there and cast right in the middle of the fight. Vines would grab me immediately.
Hekla scrambled for the shotgun, but Aurelio dragged her back, wrapping vines around her wrists.
What about my instinct? What was it telling me? I forced the chaos of the room to fall away from me and held absolutely still. Nothing. I almost gave up and simply followed Kaippa’s suggestion.
A twinge of apprehension touched my mind and fluttered in my stomach.
“I’m listening,” I whispered to my mage blood, to the power that had run through my mother’s veins, through Aunt Viv’s veins, the link I would always have with the first two women in my life. I saw Mother’s wide smile as we made cookies and felt the touch of her hand on mine. My ears picked up the sound of Aunt Viv’s mellow voice at night, telling me all the stories that would someday become my reality.
A rush of knowledge swept over me, the feeling Lucus had been trying to get me to notice all this time. Two words from the memory Lucus had shown me of the night the Mage Duke cursed them ran over my thoughts—unforgiven heart. But what did it mean? My instinct said to think of everyone I cared for, all of them. Hekla and Lucus too. My ancestors, a thousand voices in a thousand languages, whispered into my head and heart and told me to search out more mages, to find help, a mentor who would teach me how to release my power so it didn’t overwhelm my physical body.
“Think of your loved ones, now and long ago,” the voices whispered, “Take the fae, the human, and the vampire to those who would aid you.”
Glancing around the chamber to take in every person’s face, I threw the spell book open, the scent of salt and charred herbs rising, then slammed my palm against a wrinkled page.
A new voice—feminine and oddly accented—whispered through my mind. “Tell him he is forgiven. He is released.”
Amethyst lightning exploded from the book and branched across the room in jagged arcs, gripping me, Kaippa, Lucus, Baccio, Aurelio, and Hekla.
The castle shook. A crevice split the painted ceiling, separating the winged fae and ruddy-cheeked humans. A sharp, sickening pain dragged through my bones, twisting my muscles and tendons, trying to break me apart. A scream ripped my throat. Lightning crackled across the room as my magic battled the piercing agony.
I knew this pain. This was the darkness of the Mage Duke’s curse.
Shaking, snapping apart, being torn in two by the curse and my magic, I envisioned my Aunt Viv, Mom, Hekla, Titus. And Lucus. Words of power pealed from my lips, alive and sonorous with magic.
“Break the binding my kin has cast! Let the past be in the past!” My body thrashed with power, lightning and thunder cascading through the chamber around me, pounding the walls in time with my heart. “Blood of my blood, I break you!”
Magic washed the room in bright lavender, blinding me, blinding all of us, I was sure, as a wind coursed across my face, tangling my hair and stinging my cheeks. The last thing I saw was Lucus’s fierce gaze, locked on me. As my heart drummed the syllables of his name, Lucus’s lips formed three quick words. Stay with me.
Chapter 29
I woke on a bed of dewy grass, a henge of stones and a dozen oaks circling me. Wiping cool water from my face, I stood on shaking legs and found Hekla.
“What happened?” she mumbled into the tall grass smashed by her face.
I pulled her up, hating that her shirt was ripped open at the shoulder and checking her for wounds. “I guess I did a thing.”
She looked around and rubbed her arms. The pearly light of sunrise glittered across the dew and cast shadows around the towering stones. “Yeah. I’d say you did. Where are we?”
“Unsure.” I stopped pestering Hekla because I wasn’t finding any obvious injuries.
Lucus got to his feet beside Aurelio, Baccio, and Kaippa. “Coren?” He looked around wildly. “What spell did you cast?”
Hekla’s eyebrows disappeared under her blunt cut bangs. “You have so much explaining to do,” she said to me. “That castle…” She shook her head. “I looked again, in the place you asked me to look that first day, and it wasn’t there until suddenly it was. A purple light glowed over the castle, and I could see it. Seriously though, you have a truckload of explaining to do.”
“Yeah, well, where did you get a shotgun?”
She waved me off.
Baccio stared at me, his gaze branding my skin. “She is a mage, and she has cursed us again. What have you done, witch?”
I flexed my fingers, willing my magic to show up for a second even though I felt like I’d run a marathon on nothing but snack cakes and hope. Amethyst light sparked from my palms.
Hekla jumped. “Super cool! Also, I might pass out.”
“Same here.” My magic was going to zap me soon. My blood pressure was dipping.
“No,” Aurelio said, urging Baccio out of the henge. “I don’t think she cursed us, brother.”
Kaippa was oddly quiet as he joined them, striding into the bright light of the sunrise.
Aurelio and Baccio traded a look, Baccio’s face smoothed of anger for once and Aurelio’s lips parted in
