Page 34 of Mistake of Magic
“I imagine it’s how he survived Mors as long as he did,” River says. “The qoru feed on their slaves’ energy, but because Coal’s is turned inward, they couldn’t tap it.”
My whole body tenses. Tye pulls me from my seat beside Autumn to press me against his chest, his pine-and-citrus scent brushing over me.
“Then there is the power of opposites,” Autumn continues. “The notion that combining different things creates a stronger whole than combining similar things. You can do more with a bow and arrow than you can with two bows or two arrows alone.”
“What does this have to do with me?” I ask.
“If Coal’s magic is all inside,” Autumn says, “I started wondering if Lera might be his opposite—able to manipulate only outside magic. It would make sense, since humans have no internal magic.”
“She used my magic in the first trial, then,” River says slowly. “And just now, she used Shade’s to heal Coal’s back.”
A shiver runs through me. “I’m a parasite?”
“No, a symbiot,” says Autumn. “The bow to the males’ arrows. That’s what I’ve been chasing after you to explain. But when I arrived and saw the runes on Tye’s neck, I realized it was even more powerful than that.” Leaning forward, Autumn flips through her book to a drawing of a five-corded rope that circles in on itself. “Quint magic is based on a power of five. A combination of five strands that creates a stronger whole than each one could alone.”
“But our mark has four cords, not five.” I swallow. “One is missing.”
“Not missing, Lera.” Autumn grins. “Simply opposite. A complement instead of a duplicate. The males’ power is represented by the four cords, yours by the knots that the cords make. It isn’t a new concept, just one that Lunos hasn’t seen before.”
“And here I thought I knew what ‘new’means,” Tye mutters.
Autumn taps her book. “I mean that it’s been theorized. Predicted. Speculated about enough to be given a name. Didn’t the man holding you, Lera, think the fae were coming for him?”
I frown, nodding slowly. “Zake believed he was destined for immortality. I don’t think he thought it through more than that when he built his estate at Mystwood’s edge.”
The female grins. “I agree. But he likely was basing his delusions on old tales, legends that once came out of Lunos but morphed and changed since. Your rune has four cords because the fifth power, you, is the weaver who ties everything together.”
22
Lera
Iwake in a sweat. My sheets are damp, the memories of the dream still imprinted in my mind.Shackles. Pain. A gray-skinned thing with too-long limbs and needle-sharp teeth inside a lipless maw.
My heart races as I sit up, blinking into the darkness of my bedchamber. There are no shackles here. No monsters lurking in the shadows of this luxurious room, with its four-poster bed and finely carved dresser and pitcher of fresh water beside the washbasin. A dream, that’s all it was. A nightmare. Like the nightmares I sometimes have about my old master, Zake, just different.
I swing my feet to the floor, the down comforter sliding off the bed with them. I consider picking it up but walk over and splash water on my face instead. The cool liquid beads on the pitcher’s side, wetting my hands and shaking away the last of the nightmare. I sigh in relief, my mind once more mine. And normal.
Reaching inside me, I search for the magic I wielded healing Coal’s back. There is nothing there. Not an empty well—just nothing. Stars take me. Something that is so real and potent one moment shouldn’t be allowed to simply not exist the next. Maybe Autumn can explain—
A bolt of terror flashes through me, my heart leaping, the pitcher of water nearly falling from my hand just as the images come again.My wrists burn, but I know worse is coming. A great, unbearable pain determined to make me howl—
I gasp and stumble to my bed, feeling the silken sheets, the intruding nightmare gone with the same sudden efficiency as it came. Bloody damn stars. I rub my eyes with the heels of my hands. There is no pain. Not now, not waiting for me. However real the visions felt, they were not real.
They didn’t even make sense, in retrospect. Themein my visions was determined to bear torment in silence, a point of pride that I little bothered with when Zake came after me. I had more important things to worry about at that point than whether I screamed.
I freeze, ice gripping my neck. I little cared about taking a beating in silence, but there’s someone in this suite who cares about that very much. Whose past those images fit all too bloody well.
Coal.I pinch the bridge of my nose. My body has echoed River’s magic, and Shade’s. But Coal’s? Coal’s magic is different. Inside him. And now it’s dragging me inside him too.
The milky pink eyes. The stench of decay. The promise of a lash—and worse.
Stumbling from my room, I walk down the short hallway and cross the common room to Coal’s bedchamber, my bare feet tapping softly against the stone floor. No wonder he wanted the one isolated room. My shoulders tense, the evening chill peppering my nightshirt-clad skin with goosebumps.
If I’m right about the nightmares and what I think caused them, the Coal I’ll find behind his closed door will be little happy to see me. Granted, I’m unlikely to have a better reception if I’m wrong.
Gathering my resolve, I knock. Softly at first, then louder. Then I give up the pointless exercise and push open the door.
“Coal?”
