Maddox’s cheeks reddened. “Quiet.”
Samara, her gaze distant, smiled now. “I see much adventure in your future, Maddox Corso, and I see . . .” Her smile faded. “I see . . .” A strangled gasp caught in her throat.
“What?” Magnus drew closer to her, alarmed by her strange reaction to the boy. “What do you see?”
Her mouth was open, moving, but no sound came out. Her neck jerked back and forth. Magnus reached out and held her shoulders, trying to steady her, but she was rigid to the touch.
Then she blinked, and when she opened her eyes, they had turned pitch black.
Magnus was on his feet in an instant, his chair screeching. “Let go of him, witch!”
Samara released Maddox’s hand and shot up to her feet, staggering backward. She pressed her hand against her eyes, her chest heaving.
“What’s wrong with her?” Maddox’s voice shook.
Magnus put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I don’t know.”
When Samara pulled her hands away from her face, her eyes had returned to their regular shade—an indigo blue. Her gaze fixed on Maddox, and there was no friendly curiosity there anymore.
There was only naked fear.
She pointed at the door. “I want you to leave.”
“Me?” Maddox stood up, looking at Magnus with confusion. Magnus could only shrug at him.
“Leave,” Samara said again. “I sensed the dark magic within you, and I will not let you contaminate my home with it.”
“Dark magic? I . . . I have magic, magic I don’t completely understand, but I would never harm anyone!”
“Leave!” she screamed, snatching the obsidian blade off the table and storming toward him.
Magnus moved between them.
“Don’t you dare,” he growled at the woman. “Whatever you may think you saw has no bearing on my visit here. You’re the one who insisted on telling our fortunes, witch. You told them. And now I need you to do what I came here for.” He nodded at Maddox. “Wait outside.”
Maddox didn’t argue this time. He left, closing the door behind him.
Samara trembled from head to toe. “I’ve never seen anything like it before,” she whispered. “A darkness spreading out like black wings to cover the world in its entirety. A feeling of loss, of emptiness . . . of destruction. That boy . . . that boy is a demon.”
Magnus knew many superstitious people, from the high priest who led the weekly prayers at the palace temple to kitchen maids who wore silver amulets against evil around their necks. Even his mother, Queen Althea, wore a gold ring she felt brought good luck and fortune to her life.
Considering the woman had been married to the cold and brutal King Gaius, Magnus thought she’d begun wearing such a ring far too late.
His mother believed in demons, but Magnus did not. And even if he did, Maddox Corso certainly wasn’t one of them.
“Do you want me to return to the old woman and tell her you failed?” he asked softly, hoping to coax action from this witch with such a threat. “What do you suppose might happen then?”
Her gaze snapped to his. “You don’t have enough magic yet to return.”
Didn’t he? The thought was alarming, but the old woman had warned that if he failed he would never return. “Do you know that for sure?” he bluffed.
The color drained from her beautiful face. “Do you even know what I’m about to do?”
“No. And I don’t care. I just want you to do it.”
Samara stared down at the obsidian blade. “I am her slave, you know. I exist only to do this one task for her. I can’t use my magic for anything else. Once, I was the most powerful witch in all of Mytica. Now, I am a courtesan who hides under another name, another identity, so the goddess can’t find me.”
“Valoria,” he said, still stunned to use the name in such a context.
She nodded, searching his face. Magnus could tell she was looking for answers he didn’t possess. “Valoria was jealous of me—jealous of any witch with strong elementia. I was sentenced to death, but that woman—that old woman who sent you here—she sent another to help rescue me just in time. Now I must do as she asks until the day I no longer have any magic left to give to her. And that is the day I will die.”
Magnus didn’t want to hear this. He didn’t want to feel badly for someone he didn’t know, someone who had lived a thousand years before he’d even been born.
Yet there was so much pain in her voice as she told this short tale to him. Her story pulled at something deep within him.
“I’m sorry . . .” he began, not sure what to say.
Samara shook her head. “We’re all trapped in lives we didn’t choose, aren’t we? There is no escape. Not for you, not for me, not for anyone.”
He shook his head, feeling his cheeks grow warm as frustration rose up inside of him. “I’m not sure I believe that.”
“You’re young.” She nodded with understanding. “You’ll learn.”
“It’s a lesson I don’t want to learn.”
“Only a fool refuses to accept reality.”
No, she was wrong. Magnus could change his life completely if he wanted to and leave his memories of his father far behind him. He could run away and not look back, like he’d urged Maddox to do.
Life was a series of choices—conscious choices—that defined one’s life.
Even by not making a choice, one was still choosing.
However, this woman either didn’t realize that or didn’t believe in such a possibility.
Samara sat down at the table again and held the obsidian blade in her hands, raising it like an offering. She closed her eyes.
And then Magnus felt . . . something. A stirring in the air, similar to the unrest before the coming of a storm, one that raised the hair on his arms.
His heart pounded as he watched the witch summon her magic, the black shard she held beginning to glow with amber light.
“Don’t get too close,” she said, “or I may accidentally heal that wound on your hand. Without that, you won’t be able to return.”
Magnus moved away from her until his back pressed up against the door, and he watched with disbelief as her face began to change. Her beauty faded, her dark hair becoming gray and brittle. Wrinkles snaked across her face like cracks in dry earth. Her back became hunched, her cheeks gaunt.
Finally, the glow ebbed away, and she opened her eyes, now a faded blue.
“It is done,” she said.
Magnus didn’t move, couldn’t speak. All he could do was stare.
She smiled wearily at him, this woman who now appeared to be centuries old. “Don’t worry, young man. It’ll take some time, but I’ll recover. My business would suffer if I didn’t. Now, forgive me for not getting up, but my bones are weak. Take this.” She raised the obsidian blade off the table, her wrinkled eyes narrowing. “And remove yourself from my sight forever.”
Chapter 5
Maddox was waiting at the bottom of the stairs for Magnus, his arms crossed tightly over his chest.
“What she said about me,” he began.
“Ignore it,” Magnus told him.
“How can I ignore it? She looked at me like she was afraid of me!”
“That woman is afraid of everything.”
“It doesn’t mean she was wrong. She saw so much . . .”
Magnus didn’t really know this boy, nor did he need the burden of feeling like he wanted to protect anyone apart from his sister.
Walk away, and pretend you never met him, he told himself. He has nothing to do with your life.
But he didn’t do that. Instead, he grasped the boy’s shoulder hard enough to draw Maddox’s full attention.
“I only met you today,” he said, “but I’m no fool, despite what that witch might think. She’s wrong about you. I’ve met ev
il people, those who would bask in the pain and destruction of others. Those who should be feared. Your guardian is one of them; my father is another. But you are not.”
A breath caught in Maddox’s chest. “How can you be sure?”
“I just am.” Magnus looked up at the sky. The sun had sunk in the west, but there was still plenty of time left before sunset.
Time for choices. Time for possibilities.
“I know you don’t want to return to your guardian,” he said.
“I have to.”
“No, you don’t have to!” The boy’s insistence on his lack of control over his own life both pained and frustrated Magnus. “What you need to do is realize what you want in this life and . . . just take it. You are the one who controls your destiny, not your guardian. Not anyone!” Magnus rubbed his hand over his mouth, thoughts and plans rushing through his mind about how he could help this boy who was so different from himself and yet so much the same. He glanced up at the sky, dismayed that the sun was quickly descending in the west. Now that he had what he needed, he had to return to Lord Gillis’s villa with haste. “I don’t know if it’s possible, truly, but if there’s a way, perhaps you could come with me. If you want to escape Livius, I can guarantee you there is no better way.”
Maddox was silent for a few stunned moments. “I thought you hated me.”
Magnus raised his eyebrows. “Why would I hate you? I have no reason to. You didn’t steal from me.”
“I could come to your kingdom of snow and ice? Really?”
“Like I said, I don’t know if it’s possible—but if it is, you would be welcome there.”
Hope flickered in Maddox’s dark eyes, but as quickly as it appeared, it faded. “I can’t leave my mother behind. Livius will be very angry, and if I’m not here . . . he knows where to find her. I need to protect her.”
Magnus understood how Maddox felt about his mother—that need to ensure her safety at any cost. He respected it.
“Very well. Then you need to get her somewhere safe, somewhere he won’t find her. It’s possible.”
“You really think so?”
“Maddox, my friend, if it’s possible for Valoria and Cleiona—” He frowned at the name of the goddess, whom he’d heard some Valoria dissenters refer to as the “Golden One.” Before they were sent to the dungeon, that is.
A golden light; a moth to a flame.
The young princess in the south was also referred to as the “Golden Princess.”
He shook his head to clear it of such irrelevant thoughts.
“Magnus?” Maddox prompted.
Magnus tried to focus only on the boy before him. “If it’s possible for the goddesses to exist side by side with mortals, then yes, I think it’s possible that you can escape the clutches of Livius.” He smirked at the thought. “Perhaps you should do as Samara said—get a snake to bite out his other eye.”
Maddox laughed nervously at the suggestion. “Perhaps I will.” Then he sobered. “Did you get what you needed from that strange woman?”
Magnus pulled the obsidian blade from underneath his shirt, moving it around so the sun glinted off its black surface. “I hope so—which means that it’s time for me to go.”
Maddox nodded. “Of course. And I wish you a pleasant journey back to your kingdom, your highness.”
Magnus eyed him. “You still don’t believe me about that.”
“That you’re a prince?” He grinned. “Not at all, really.”
Magnus found himself grinning back. He glanced over Maddox’s shoulder as he saw someone approaching from the city center. Magnus’s smile quickly disappeared.
Kalum from the tavern approached him.
“I thought I’d find you here,” the man said.
“As you’re the one who gave me directions, I’m not surprised.” Magnus narrowed his eyes. “If you want more coin, you’re out of luck.”
“No, actually I came to make a visit Samara.” Kalum’s gaze was locked on the blade. “Seems you didn’t give that pretty piece to her after all, did you? Decided to keep it for yourself?”
Magnus didn’t reply.
Kalum raised a brow. “You said it’s priceless, yes?”
He’d have to be blind not to see the greed on the man’s face. “Not in the way you’re thinking.”
“I’ll be the judge of that, boy. I could use a priceless treasure in my hands. What use do you have for it at your age?” The man clenched his fists. “Give it to me.”
“No.” He gripped the blade hard enough that the sharp edge of it bit into his hand.
Kalum’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t make a fuss about this, boy. I always get what I want.”
“So do I,” Magnus replied tightly.
The man lunged toward him so fast he wasn’t able to dodge Kalum’s fist connecting with his jaw.
Kalum grabbed the front of his shirt and slammed the back of Magnus’s head hard into the stone wall behind him. Stars exploded before his eyes, and his vision turned fuzzy.
Magnus sank to his knees, watching as if in a dream as the obsidian blade fell from his grip to the ground. All he could do was watch as the man picked it up.
Watch as he eyed it appraisingly, his lips stretching back from his teeth in a self-satisfied smile.
Watch as the man’s head whipped toward Maddox, who stood nearby, his expression etched in fury.
“What are you doing, boy?” the man gasped. “What . . . are . . . you . . . ?”
Kalum dropped the blade, and his hands flew to his throat as he staggered back from Maddox.
Maddox didn’t speak. He simply stood there, his hands fisted at his sides, his shoulders tense, his gaze fixed upon the man.
And his eyes . . . Was it only Magnus’s imagination or, for the briefest of moments, did they turn completely black? Black like the witch’s had?
Magnus’s headed pounded. He struggled as hard as he could to keep his eyes open until, finally, everything went black.
• • •
His head hurt a lot. So did his jaw.
That was his first thought as he slowly blinked open his eyes.
Something covered him, something stiflingly warm.
It was a cloak, but not one that belonged to him. This one was thin and poorly made, but it seemed familiar.
“Finally,” Maddox’s voice greeted him. “The prince awakens.”
Magnus’s eyes focused, and he saw the boy sitting a few paces away with his back against the stone wall. “The man . . .” he managed.
Maddox nodded to his right, where the man who’d tried to rob him was lying.
“You . . . you killed him.” Magnus’s voice wasn’t much more than a series of rasps.
“Killed him?” Maddox regarded him with shock at the suggestion. “Of course not. He’s unconscious—luckily longer than you were. Although I did bind his hands, which should slow him down some. I think this belongs to you.”
Maddox held up the obsidian blade.
Magnus couldn’t believe his eyes. “You didn’t steal it.”
“Why would I? But I will trade it for the return of my cloak.”
Magnus forced himself to sit up, pulling the garment off of him and handing it to Maddox. “Gladly.”
Without hesitation, Maddox took it and gave him back the blade.
Magnus felt the oddly comforting weight of it in his hand.
Then he gave Maddox a wary look. “What you did to that man . . .”
Maddox regarded him, his mouth a thin, tense line.
“That was your magic—the same magic that helps you vanquish spirits.”
Maddox nodded. “It was.”
His eyes widened. “You really are a witch boy.”
Maddox grimaced. “I don’t really like that name, but yes. I guess I am.”
“What else can you do?” he asked, ready to believe now in miracles he never before thought possible.
“I don’t really know. What I did to him . . .” Maddox nodded at the unconscious man. “I have no control over it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I’m useless, really.”
“Far from it,” Magnus muttered, eyeing the boy as if seeing him for the first time.
A demon—one capable of the darkest magic. That was what Samara had said when she’d tried to tell Maddox’s fortune. What she’d seen.
Magnus still refused to believe it. There was nothing remotely evil about this boy—nothing at all.
He suddenly realized his wounded hand had begun to sting again, the pain of the mark the old woman had cut into his skin far worse than his injuries from the attempted thief. He looked down at it to see that it had begun to bleed again.
“How long was I out?” he asked, cringing as he made a fist to keep from dripping blood on the ground.
“Quite a while.”
Magnus’s chest tightened as he looked up at the darkening sky. The sun had lowered behind the buildings, and the sky had turned to a deep orange. “It’s sunset.”
“Nearly,” Maddox confirmed. He studied Magnus’s wounded hand. “You’re bleeding badly. Should we find a healer?”
Magnus lurched up to his feet so quickly that a wave of dizziness hit him. He had to brace himself against the wall to keep vertical. “I have to go. I—I’m sorry!”
Before he could start running down the street and toward his destination, he realized someone else now approached.
The familiar man wore a black cloak, a murderous expression, and a bloody cloth tied over his right eye.
Chapter 6
“There you are, you little bastard,” Livius snarled.
He grabbed Magnus by the throat. Magnus tried to reach for the blade he’d tucked under his shirt again, but, still weakened from the scuffle with the thief, he failed.
Maddox was at his side in a heartbeat. “Leave him alone!”
“Benito took my eye,” Livius hissed. “And this little thief will pay for that loss with his life.”