Endless Magic (4 page)

I pulled my hair off my neck and into a high, messy bun. The tattoo at the base of my earlobe sent an iridescent finger of light down my neck like a colorful shadow. I touched my finger to the small snake, curled around eating its own tail and rubbed at it. The illuminated blue still shined with me, just like the blue smoke. Even without magic I was still an Immortal. Even without the strength of my supernatural electricity I was still meant to be ruler of this kingdom.

Getting rid of my magic was immature and rash. I realized that now as I stared at my reflection in the mirror. I needed my magic to win this war. I needed it to stand up against Lucan and fight for the rights of my people. I would not let another victim die because I was too mortal to save them.

I shook my head and forced myself to focus. It was time to go, ready or not....

I opened the door of the bathroom and found Kiran and Sebastian in a heated conversation that silenced as soon as I stepped through the door. The moment felt so plainly tense and awkward, I almost retreated right back into the bathroom.

“It's not like that, and you should know me well enough not to assume otherwise,” Sebastian growled at Kiran, getting the final word in.

“Kiran, I promise, I won't be difficult anymore. I'm going to get my magic back, you can trust me,” I explained before he had the chance to lecture me.

His dark blue eyes bore through me from across the room. He had that same look on his face, the one that I couldn't identify and I shifted uneasily on my feet.

“Good,” he replied, walking toward me until we were only a foot apart. “I shouldn't need to explain to you how much I'm risking tonight. If my father were ever to find out that I let you come face to face with your brother, he would kill us both. Is that understood?”

I nodded, feeling the gravity of his words.

“Please remember, that you need your magic, Eden. And not just for the sake of those lives facing death tomorrow, you're too.... You're very delicate like this.” Darkness passed over Kiran's face and he reached out and touched his thumb to my revealed tattoo, subconsciously.

“Let's go!” Sebastian popped his head back into the room and Kiran came back to himself, clearing his throat and dropping his hand.

He turned on his heel, leaving me to follow after him. Sebastian held the door for Kiran and then for me.

Sebastian and I walked side by side down a dark hallway after Kiran. It was a back hallway, out of the main areas of traffic, and something that servants would use to stay discretely out of the King's way.

“Sebastian,” I whispered, curiosity winning over the need to stay quiet. “I thought the only way for Immortals to die was for another Immortal to take their magic and then kill them.”

“Yes, that's true,” he agreed, his voice equally as soft in the dark corridor. After a while of walking through a maze of hallways and dimly lit passages we came upon a dark stairwell and descended into the blackness.

“Then how did that sword almost kill Lilly's mother?” Even my hushed voice echoed off the narrowed walls of the stairs, my question reverberating into the dark void and repeated a dozen times. The stairwell wound around with stone walls rising on either side and with no alternate exits except for the top of the stairs and wherever it was leading us to at the bottom.

“It's magic, Eden,” Sebastian explained gravely. “Their swords hold ancient magic, so that when one is stabbed with it, it opens an unsealable wound that drains the victim's energy. The original Titan army made them from those Immortals that King Derrick murdered first. They are made from the blood of our people to take the blood of our people.”

“That's awful,” I nearly choked on the words. I remembered the first time I saw the swords, when I met the Titans taking names at the gates before the All Saints Festival last fall. I thought them decorative and ornamental, not lethal, not drenched in the innocence of an oppressed people.

“Warn her Sebastian,” Kiran instructed from a few stairs below us.

“Eden,” Sebastian obeyed immediately, “we have to walk through the prisons. You have to remember that the only way to help these people is to get your magic back. You cannot save them now; you cannot even speak to them. We have to be absolutely inconspicuous, even from the prisoners, or we will never make it to your brother. All right?” he finished sweetly, coddling me with gentle explanations.

I nodded my head and reaffirmed my resolve to get to Avalon. I had to trust Sebastian, trust that I would be able to save these people if I got to my magic.

At the bottom of the stairs we walked through a crumbling arched passageway. The stairwell was uncomfortably dark, and the darkness of the prison we entered turned oppressive. Even without magic I could feel the weight of a mystical force that would strip away the energy of any Immortal spirit.

I gripped Sebastian's hand, allowing him to pull me along, but even he slowed his step and seemed weighed down by the presence of an unknown force. And then I remembered that his magic would be restricted too. Kiran, Sebastian and I became equal in this place.

The prison smelled terrible, the filth of countless Immortals bathing the rough dirt ground and cold stone walls in thousands of years of captivity. The air was cold down here, frigid and stale. I shivered from the oppression though, not the temperature. This would truly be a miserable, hopeless place to be imprisoned.

We stayed close to a stone wall that lined the length of the jail. I clung to Sebastian but I could faintly hear Kiran move his hand along the wall and use it as a guide. My feet stumbled over the uneven terrain and I struggled from the long, exhausting walk.

I felt Sebastian slump from the effort of moving without his magic and then shiver involuntarily. I wondered if being down here reminded him of the months he lived without magic or if it was the thought of so many tormented souls that bothered him now.

We turned a corner and the invisible oppression grew worse. I could hear the moans of the prisoners in their cells, crying out for reprieve or water. If Titans were down here, they did not make their presence known and so the deeper into the prisons we walked, the louder the cries for help grew.

I shuddered from the chorus of voices that rang out in a unified agony. Tears streamed down my face as I recited Sebastian's instructions in my head over and over again, remembering my purpose, remembering the greater goal. I could not help them now, but soon, very soon, I would set them free from this tyrannical bondage. Sebastian tugged on my hand, pulling me along with him, passed the desperate voices both young and old, and through the heavy air of the prison physically weighing me down.

Sebastian squeezed my hand tighter, as if preparing me for something extra terrible. The air began to thin, but just barely. I could feel the other side of this torment only steps away but not before we walked by the last cell.

I could hear him inside, the soft whimpers of a little boy. His faint cries for help and his childish voice joining the crowd of others asking for relief. The Guard gave him some mercy and placed him on the outer border of the cells, but still his suffering remained evident and his helplessness heartbreaking.

My hand flew to my mouth, stifling the scream that so desperately wanted to escape. I looked back, into the darkness, determined to rescue the small child that no more deserved to be down here than any of the innocent Immortals living under Lucan's inhumane reign.

Sebastian grabbed my arm before I could take a step toward the little boy, my feet moving without my permission, unwilling to walk by that level of disgusting suffering. Sebastian shoved me through another arched passageway and I stumbled forward, falling into Kiran's arms. He leaned against a cool stone wall finding his breath and reached out his hands instinctively to catch me.

The knowledge of what was down here and the memory of that little boy's soft crying were suddenly too much. I buried my face in Kiran's chest, simply because he was the nearest warm body, and my emotions boiled over. He held me to him and patiently let me cry. I stayed as quiet as I could, but I couldn't escape the haunting depression that consumed me.

After a few minutes, Kiran straightened up, coming back to himself and recovering the extent of his magic. He put his hands on my arms as if to comfort me, but then instead, pushed me into Sebastian as if depositing the burden of caring for me to his cousin.

Sebastian caught me, but I was over the raw memory of our journey by now and stood up to find my composure. We stayed there for an awkward minute more, while I wiped my eyes and cleared my throat and the boys counted the seconds waiting for well-rehearsed timing.

And then at exactly the same moment, Kiran and Sebastian walked through another archway. A few feet into the corridor, Kiran pressed against the stone wall in movements that reminded me so clearly of Amory that I had to catch my breath and work to stay the sweeping grief.

My heartache over my dead grandfather was not as constant as it used to be, but when it did come, it was violent stabbing to a broken heart. The sorrow came swift and consuming, memories suddenly too painful to hold.

I recovered by repressing the thoughts and focusing on Avalon and the task at hand and then followed Kiran through a secret doorway that opened from his touch. Once Sebastian was through and the secret passageway closed again we were left in utter darkness. The quiet of the room was so still that it rang irrationally in my ears.

A soft glow of gray magic, an orb barely brighter than the darkness of the passageway, lit up our surroundings for just a moment before it was used to light a torch. The fire burst to life at the end of a stick and was then used to light two others that were passed to me first and then to Sebastian.

I lifted my torch to take in my surroundings and realized we stood in familiar territory. We had entered the cave where a rushing river once flowed. A river that, until my destruction of the tunnel entrance over a month ago, would have had to be paddled against backward for several hours for us to escape.

Sebastian and I followed Kiran to the ledge of the platform and to the rusted ladder that led down into a dried riverbed. Kiran jumped over the side of the platform, not bothering with the ladder, but I was too nervous to follow suit without my magic.

I handed my torch to Sebastian and then swung my legs over the side, turning around and crawling down the shaky ladder that creaked against my weight. My feet reached the bottom of the ladder, and with no other place to step and the darkness obscuring how far the jump down would be, I hesitated nervously in place.

I heard an aggravated sigh and then in a curt British accent, “Just hang on to the last rung and I'll help you down.”

I followed Kiran's instructions, holding weakly to the last rung while he reached up and placed his hands on either side of my waist. Once I was confident he had me, I let go of the ladder and he gently placed me on the ground, his hands not lingering on me for even a second longer than necessary.

After Sebastian jumped down to join us, we started walking upstream, or what would have been upstream if the river had not drained. I found it very surreal to be walking this same ground, without magic and with Kiran. It somehow felt contradictory to anything else I experienced yet.

“This used to be a river,” I commented quietly after what felt like hours of quiet walking. I was tired of the silence, the loneliness, and felt like I should be giving Sebastian and Kiran the tour.

“I know,” Kiran remarked dryly.

“What happened to it?” Sebastian asked curiously, and suddenly I was too embarrassed to explain I was the one that destroyed the entrance so that I wouldn't lose my resolve in offering myself in place of my brother. I annihilated any chance of escape because I convinced myself I was marching to my own death and I couldn't give myself an option of turning around. Then all my plotting, all my planning backfired.

“You know, obliterating the cave was absolutely ridiculous,” Kiran scolded, turning to me with a look of pure irritation on his face. “It has really made my life unnecessarily complicated.” He was so annoyed with me that I actually found him entertaining.

“I'm sorry, your majesty,” I mocked gently, “I assumed I was the only one that used this entrance.”

“And that's exactly your problem, isn't it?” Kiran turned, walking backward and chiding me seriously. “You only, ever, think about yourself.”

I gasped at his accusation, feeling as though my very presence with him testified of self-sacrifice for the good of others. “How do you know about this exit anyway? What are you using it for?” I questioned, turning the attention off myself.

“Let me remind you, Bastian, your loyalty is to me first, no matter how special of a relationship you two have.” Kiran's voice was cold and biting, leaving Sebastian even quieter.

“Fine,” I challenged, not giving Kiran the opportunity for the last word, “but someday soon, you'll have to tell me.”

“Oh really, and why is that?” Kiran glanced backward at me, his eyes flashing turquoise in the dim light of his torch.

“Because I'll be your wife and all. I mean, then, it will be your obligation to tell me!” I reasoned, believing in my argument completely.