Page 10 of The Coven of Ruin

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Annoyance flared at Kace’s muffled exclamation. “I’m sick,” she said, “and I don’t want to see you.”

“Please. Come on. I thought you were dead. I’ve been worried—”

Trista chased her need for water to her bathing suite, where she closed the door on any pitiful explanation that Kace could offer her. All she wanted to do was take a bath, wash away the feel of blood and sweat, and sleep for eternity.

When steam drifted from her clean skin and she had dried herself off, she peered back into her bedroom. Kace was gone, the window free of his silhouette. A square shadow laid against the outside sill—a letter. She hoped the wind carried it elsewhere. Exhausted, she dropped the towel and debated slipping in between her sheets as she was, but then her gaze landed on a black tunic.

Trista had folded it neatly and set it on her bedside table. It didn’t quite belong in her drawers, mixed with her stuff, but she couldn’t bring herself to get rid of it either. Before she could think too much of it, she pulled the tunic over her head.

It smelled faintly of lavender and something she couldn’t quite place. Whatever it was made her sigh into the fabric. She waited to see if it would cause panic or memories from that night to resurface. Instead, she was lulled into a sleep that wasn’t filled with mangled bodies and bleeding sand.

Chapter V

Tristatooktwodaysto ensure she wouldn’t have any more unwanted episodes. Kace tried knocking on her window again, but she pretended she wasn’t in her room until he left.

Her matron healer, Elder Sarange, checked on her once with an air of suspicion despite Trista’s best efforts to appear sick in a way that wasn’t just in her head. She had rarely been ill since she was witchling, but Elder Sarange was skeptical of just about everything.

Trista was tempted to take another day just to be sure, but then the deep, resonant tone of the assembly bell sounded three times. Any available healer was to go to the main chamber. It could be anything from a meeting to mass casualties. Not that in her twenty-seven years of being at the Akeso there had been very many instances of the latter. Just as she freed her wild curls from her shift’s collar, another three tolls were followed by a foreboding silence.

When she finally opened her door, the hallway was a flurry of activity.

“Trista.” Eral inclined his chin at her as he waited for three hurried healers to pass.

He was several years older than her and her althea—the person she paired her magic with when the situation required it. Doing so allowed for a more significant outpouring of magic with less strain on the witch. Though neither of them cared much for the other, their magic was most compatible. It just so happened that he was also generally a condescending and egotisticalass.

He looked her up and down in a way that suggested something was out of place, but she managed to fight the urge to pat her clothing and hair under his scrutiny.

“Have a nice vacation?” he sneered.

“What is going on?” Trista asked, falling into step with him and ignoring his inference.

“There was an attack.”

“An attack?” Her heart palpitated uncomfortably as her mouth went dry.

“Demigods, by the sounds of it. They infiltrated a settlement of witches on the outskirts of The Coven of Moon and Bone. Victims are being keyed here as we speak.”

Keying was quite similar to what she now knew of as gating. It was the only way to travel between the covens almost instantly, but it was an old magic that few were capable of anymore. While each coven had at least a couple of mages who could channel an opening, the ability was only used when a coven’s healers didn’t have the space or means to deal with a situation. Meaning the kind of large-scale battles that Witch Country rarely saw in recent years.

The main hall’s doors opened to chaos. Healers rushed to and from their stations, calling for supplies. Magical signatures combined in the space, filling the chamber with flashing light. Elders triaged patients as they came through the shimmering entry. Some were so poor off that they directed those carrying them to the cots blocked off by a black curtain—the area reserved for the dead.

Eral approached one of the Elders, and Trista watched in a detached sort of way as he figured out where they were needed.

“The Black Garrison,” Eral’s voice sounded far away as he stepped in front of her again. “Healer Trista, we need to attend to them.”

She nodded absently and followed after him. The acrid smell of black magic hit her first, and then the metallic tang of blood. Members of The Black Garrison were easily identifiable with their sigil of heart and blade. They trained separately from any other force since Noxa had a way of tainting the user and those around them.

“He’s gone,” Eral said as he studied one mage whose entire right side was sunken in. He was breathing, but barely. Trista put her hand over his chest, her essence pooling in her fingertips as she studied the damage.

“I said he’s gone,” Eral asserted, moving on to check another patient.

It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him, but their opinion differed slightly on what was or wasn’t a waste of time and magic. The paleness of the mage’s flesh gave way to the darkness eating him alive beneath it. He had given his life to wield Noxa—the highest price.

“The gods t-they’re…” The mage shuddered, coughed, and stilled. “Seers.” Rattling breaths punctuated his words.

Noxa, regardless of who wielded it, had its own signature. And though dark magic clung to the mage, there was something else there, too—unknown and festering. Reaching to move his tunic aside, her fingers brushed against his flesh. As they did, the mage before her disappeared, and she was pulled forward and into memory.

A battle took shape before her. The taint of dark magic lingered heavily in the air. She could see the dying mage wield it expertly, even as the witch beside him fell to her knees. He shouted a command, but it was lost in a blast of fire from across the field. The memory dissolved into a flashing onslaught of images she couldn’t quite make out before his life drained from him, allowing her to step out of his memories.