Magnus strained to look at Maddox, thinking he might use his strange magic again to render Livius unconscious. Maddox’s hands were fisted, his face a grimace of concentration. But his eyes darted back and forth, seemingly uncertain.
Livius shoved Magnus back from him, his attention moving fully to the boy.
“Your magic still doesn’t work on me, does it?” His grin looked more like the baring of a predator’s teeth. “Lucky me.”
“Let Magnus leave. It’s not his fault the moneylender’s men came for you. It’s your fault!”
“I’ll deal with you later.” With a shove, he sent Maddox stumbling backward, and—in a repeat of recent history—Maddox hit the back of his head against the stone wall and crumpled to the ground, unconscious.
Magnus stared down at his friend, then turned a look of fury on the man. “He’s a boy, and you treat him like a rag doll!”
“He gets what he deserves.”
“No. No one deserves treatment like that. Not from anyone.”
Magnus told hold of the obsidian blade. Was he prepared to kill today? To fight Livius to the death?
As if he had any chance against someone like this. Someone cunning and cruel and ruthless—nearly as much as the king himself.
For a moment, Magnus wished he too could be so ruthless. It would be of great help at a time like this.
He cast a last look at his friend, Maddox Corso, the witch boy with a fortune dark enough to scare a powerful witch.
But Maddox had a good heart, one that Magnus envied. And he hoped—he prayed—that what he’d told Maddox might make some small difference.
He didn’t have to put up with abuse from this horrible guardian.
He was strong. So strong. Magically strong. But even without magic, no one had the right to bully him. Especially not a sniveling coward like Livius.
Please, please let him remember that, Magnus thought, his chest tight.
Livius drew a sharp dagger from the sheath at his belt. “I’m going to carve out your eyes. But first, I think I’ll remove your lying tongue.”
Magnus glared at the man with defiance. “Will you do the same to Maddox?”
“No. I need him alive and well. But he will be very sorry for trying to escape from me today.”
Magnus looked at Maddox, willing him to rise from the ground, willing his eyes to turn black with magic.
Willing him to turn Livius into ashes that would blow away with the evening wind.
But Maddox didn’t rise.
“Farewell, my friend,” Magnus whispered. “And good luck.”
“What did you say?” Livius demanded.
Nothing you deserve to hear, Magnus thought.
“You want to kill me?” Magnus leveled his gaze at this pathetic man who felt the need to bully and torment someone he thought was lesser, weaker, to get what he wanted.
He made coin from Maddox’s magic. But did he really have no idea what Maddox might be capable of?
“Oh, I do,” Livius confirmed. “It won’t return my eye, but I know it will be so very satisfying.”
“Then kill me,” Magnus snapped. “But you’re going to have to catch me first.”
With a last pained look at his fallen friend, Magnus turned and ran as fast as he could, knowing he had to beat both Livius and the sun in order to get back home.
And run he did, as fast as he could—even faster, he thought, than when he’d chased the runaway horse. The soles of his heavy boots, meant more for trudging through snow and over ice, pounded the dirt road. His muscles ached, his legs screamed, but he ran as if his life depended on it—and it did.
When he cleared the city limits, he chanced a look over his shoulder. Livius hadn’t yet given up. He pursued Magnus, albeit more slowly than he had before, thanks to his new injury.
It would have to be enough.
You shouldn’t have taunted him, Magnus chastised himself as he gripped the blade.
Oh, but it had been far too tempting to dangle meat before the face of one who thought himself the most dangerous beast in the land but who was really nothing more than a quivering coward beneath it all.
Because that’s what Livius was: a coward who blamed others for his own mistakes.
Pathetic.
Magnus’s head still spun from being knocked unconscious, his limbs screamed for mercy from being used to their full capacity, but the stinging in his hand forced him onward, along the stone road that led from the city back to Lord Gillis’s villa.
But Livius was starting to gain on him.
He couldn’t think about that. He could only think about how low the sun was, now only a sliver of light at the horizon as he drew closer to the cliffs.
The villa was in his sights. Thank the goddess he hadn’t forgotten which direction to run and, in his daze, headed south instead. There was nothing in the south that interested him. Only the west. Only the villa that perched upon the cliffs overlooking the sea—an expanse of silvery water that reflected the sinking sun and, with it, Magnus’s last remaining hope that he could return to his home.
He stumbled as he entered the villa’s grounds but righted himself immediately, thankfully not falling to the ground. That would surely be the end of him.
The gardens engulfed him, but the sound of insects and birds, the sweet scent of the flowers and trees, the bushes shaped into mythical creatures—all blurred together as he rushed through.
Magnus had only one target in his sights: the statue of Valoria.
Twenty paces away. Fifteen. Ten.
A glance over his shoulder showed him that Livius was only an arm’s reach away, his lips drawn back from his teeth in a violent scowl.
Magnus slapped his bloody hand against the statue a mere moment before he felt the crush of Livius’s arm around his throat.
And then Livius disappeared.
The garden disappeared.
And Magnus now had his right hand pressed to the surface of the crumbling, ice-covered remnants of the goddess’s statue.
When he exhaled, his breath created a thick cloud in the frozen air.
“So . . .” a voice cut through his concentration. “It seems you were successful.”
Trembling, either from the sudden and drastic change in temperature or the fact that he’d just escaped death by the span of a single heartbeat, Magnus turned to face the old woman and found he had no words with which to answer her.
Her gray brows rose. “The Prince of Blood is speechless. My, how unexpected.” She gestured to him with her taloned hand. “Give it here, boy.”
Magnus held out the obsidian blade, and she snatched it away from him without a single word of gratitude. Her wrinkled mouth turned up into a smile. “Very good.”
“What will you do with it?” he managed. “Whom will you kill?”
She looked at him, amusement in her faded green eyes. “Kill? My dear boy, killing is in my past. My distant past. This blade—it’s all for me.”
His eyes widened as she pulled back the sleeve of her cloak, then pressed the edge of the blade to her skin, slicing deeply. Crimson blood flowed, dripping to the ground.
Magnus pressed back against the ruin of the statue, certain he was witnessing the old woman take her own life.
She squeezed her eyes shut, the smile still fixed upon her wrinkled face. “I can feel it already,” she murmured. “Samara’s magic is as strong as always.”
Magnus watched with disbelief as the old woman’s appearance began to change, stunned to realize that this was the opposite of what he’d witnessed with Samara. The old woman’s wrinkles smoothed, her skin firmed. Her gray hair turned to ebony, her lips plumped and became the red of fresh roses. She straightened her back, the hunch completely gone. Her smile widened, showing off sparkling white teeth.
And when she opened her eyes, now
framed with thick black lashes, they were a vivid emerald green.
She was, without exception, the most beautiful creature Magnus had ever seen in his entire life.
Yet her left hand was still that of a taloned bird of prey.
“Who are you?” he asked, his throat tight.
“Hush,” she said, her voice now melodious and hypnotic. She took hold of his wounded hand, clasping it in her good hand. “Time grows short. When I heal this mark, you will forget all that has happened today.”
“No.” Magnus attempted to pull away from her, but she was shockingly strong. “I can’t forget. I need to remember—remember what I’ve seen, what I’ve learned, who I’ve met.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” she said patiently. “You will forget. Those whose paths have crossed with yours will also forget you.”
“No . . . my friend—he needs to remember me!” Maddox had to remember what Magnus had told him about changing his life for the better.
The witch shook her head. “It has to be this way, don’t you see?”
“Don’t I see? I see nothing except a selfish witch who thinks she has a say in my destiny.”
“Your destiny? My dear, this errand has been entirely about me. You were simply the tool I used to get what I needed. Trust me, if I could use this gateway myself, I would. The things I would change . . .” She shook her head, her gaze growing wistful. “Far too numerous to count. Now hush and allow me to borrow some more of Samara’s magic to compensate for my own.”
Her hands began to glow with golden light, and the pain from his wound intensified. Still, he couldn’t seem to pull away from her.
Finally, she released him and nodded. “It’s done. Farewell, young man. May your path never cross mine again.”
She turned to leave.
And Magnus desperately tried to hold on to his memories.
But as he watched the wound on his hand heal in mere moments, the miracles he’d witnessed, the magic he’d seen, and the strange new friend he’d made faded from his mind.
Nothing remained except the familiar sensation of ice beneath the thick soles of his boots.
How strange, he thought. Why do I feel so dizzy?
“Magnus!” the king’s sharp voice cut through the frozen ruins. “It’s time to leave.”
Magnus blinked, suddenly weary—so weary he felt that he could sleep for a week. “Of course,” he said.
The king stood nearby, frowning deeply. “Where is your cloak?”
Magnus realized that the cloak he’d worn only moments ago had disappeared. He scanned the area, wondering if he’d removed it without realizing it, but it was nowhere to be seen.
“I . . . I don’t know.”
King Gaius muttered something disapproving under his breath. “It’s irrelevant. Let’s go. Now. I’ve seen enough, and I’m sure you have too.”
Yes, Magnus had seen enough—more than enough. He was ready to return to the palace and put this day out of his mind forever.
Perhaps witnessing the execution of the witch had troubled him much more than he’d thought it had. Why did the king put accused witches to death? Was it simply for the few who believed that true elementia really existed?
Magnus lingered for a moment as his father returned to his entourage and to the guards and carriages awaiting them on the other side of the ruins. He stared at the red mark on the frozen statue, wondering why he hadn’t noticed it before.
Was it blood?
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except returning to the palace and to his sister.
As he started to walk away, he noticed something else.
At the base of the crumbling statue, a few yellow lilies had pushed through the snowy ground.
Impossible, he thought. There were no flowers in Limeros at this time of the year, not in this frigid cold.
Pushing any remaining thoughts of his missing cloak, the miraculous lilies, and a strange sense of loss out of his mind, Magnus followed his father out of the ruins of what was rumored to have been, a very long time ago, a lush, fragrant garden that hid a great and powerful magic.
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Morgan Rhodes, Obsidian Blade
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