Golden Stair (16 page)

He trailed off, unwilling to even say the words out loud. He didn’t deserve to say them, not after what he’d allowed to happen to Ivy.

“You love her,” Kirill said quietly.

Adonis nodded. “I came here today and the witch was waiting. When I got into the tower, she attacked me. The next thing I know, I’m falling over the edge and landing in a mess of thorns.” He gestured to his face for emphasis. “Her mother must have somehow found out I visited Ivy.” He sobbed and tripped again. This time he tore his arms from Kirill and Irina’s grasps, crumpling to the ground and slamming a fist against the dirt. “It’s my fault she’s gone.”

Someone knelt in front of him in a whisper of velvet. Fingertips brushed his shoulders, and Adonis expected it to be Irina coming to comfort him. The hands closed on his shoulders in a solid, vise-like grip and lifted him up.
Kirill.

“Adonis,” the vampire said calmly, “we are going to find her. First, you are going to come home with Irina and me and my healer is going to attend to you. After that, I promise you, we
will
find Ivy.”

Despite the misery clouding around him, Adonis couldn’t help the small rush of warmth he felt in his heart to hear the vampire so serious in his assurances. “Kirill, you amaze me. I do believe your wife has been a wonderful influence on you.” His shoulders sagged. “Unfortunately, there’s no way you can know what the witch did with Ivy. This tower has been here for Ivy’s entire life, not more than an hour’s ride from the castle, but no one ever found it. Her magic is strong. What hope—”

“Adonis,” Kirill said sharply. “Do I seem to you to be a man who likes having a debt hanging over his head?”

The corners of his mouth made a valiant attempt at a smile. “No.”

“No. I am not. And if it were not for you, I would not be married to Irina right now.”

Irina sighed, a soft affectionate sound. Adonis heard her kiss Kirill, a small gesture of reciprocation for his moment of vulnerability. Despite his misery, Adonis couldn’t help but feel a warm wave of happiness for the vampire and his wife. He never would have guessed when he’d met Kirill that the vampire would fall so hard for such a kind-hearted woman.
Opposites attract, I guess.

“Believe me when I tell you, we will find the girl,” Kirill finished, his voice barely a shade hoarser after the kiss.

Adonis stumbled to his feet with Kirill’s help and allowed the vampire to lead him.

“How did you two get here so fast?” Adonis asked suddenly.

“The gargoyle opened the same gateway he used when I came to Nysa to request your assistance, the one that led to your chambers. From there, it was just a matter of following your summons.”

Adonis’ heart clenched. “The way I’m moving, it’ll take us forever to get back to the palace.”

“No, it won’t,” Kirill assured him. “I took the liberty of bringing a mirror with me. The gargoyle has already locked onto it as a gateway, just follow me and we’ll be in
Dacia
before you can say ‘I don’t look before I leap.’”

Adonis opened his mouth to let loose an appropriate comeback, but a shiver of magic passed over him, cutting him off. In his weakened state, the tingle of energy touched him like a bolt of lightning and he jerked and fell against Kirill’s body. The vampire steadied him and kept moving.

“Was that the mirror?” Adonis asked in surprise.

“Yes,” Irina answered. “You’re in our bedroom now. Back up a bit and feel around for the bed, then lie down. Klement is going to look at your wounds.”

Even with all the cuts on his body screaming bloody murder, lying down felt like a slice of paradise. He lolled his head from side to side, trying to force his sluggish brain to remember what he was supposed to be doing.

“Prince Adonis?” a strange masculine voice said. “My name is Klement. Can you tell me more about what happened to you?”

Someone stepped closer to the bed. The smell of eucalyptus tickled Adonis’ nose and he sneezed.

“Bless you,” the voice said.

“Thank you.” Adonis cleared his throat, trying to fight off another sneeze. “I, uh… I fell onto some brambles.”

“Natural or magic?”

“They were summoned by magic, but I’m not sure if the brambles themselves were magic or not.” Adonis gestured to his face. “I never saw them.”

“They looked like ordinary thorns, though thicker than one usually finds growing naturally,” Kirill volunteered.

“They smelled natural, just wood and the dust of the stone they scraped against when they encircled the tower,” Irina added.

Something gooey touched Adonis’ skin and he jerked away. “What the blazes was that?”

“It’s all right,” Klement assured him. “I’m rubbing a healing balm on your injuries. It won’t hurt at all.”

Adonis wrinkled his nose as the healer proceeded to cover his body with a thick, oily substance. Klement removed Adonis’ tattered clothes as he went, occasionally enlisting Kirill to cut something away.

“After that soaks into your skin, the wounds will be healed,” Klement told him gently. “Your eyes, I’m afraid, are a different story. From what I can sense, and from what you’ve all told me, I’d have to say that the brambles you fell in weren’t natural flora—they were an extension of this witch’s magic. I can heal your eyes so they are whole again, but I can’t restore your sight.”

“Summon Isai,” Kirill commanded.

Adonis winced as whatever the healer had put on his skin tingled. It was as if he could feel each cut closing, a sensation not unlike having ants crawl all over his skin. He squirmed on the bed, trying to get his mind off the sensation.

A sudden swell of magic announced the wizard’s entry. Adonis winced at the amount of power pouring against his skin. He didn’t need his eyes to see the wizard’s astral projection, it
 
pulsed a miasma of greens, purples, blues, yellows and reds, all threaded with an arc of black roiling like a living serpent. It reminded Adonis of Ivy’s aura, that first time he’d met her. Though Ivy’s aura had been pure golds, oranges, and reds, it had beamed just as vigorously against Adonis’ senses. In that moment Adonis would have killed to get his sight back, just so he could get a good look at the man behind that aura. He wondered if Kirill had any idea how much power Isai really had.

Isai came closer to the bed, the push of his power preceding him, and Adonis had to grit his teeth against the pressure. Something swished in the air above his head and then someone sighed.

“The healer is right, his sight was robbed by magic. Unfortunately, the person who cast this spell has great power—and an ongoing power source.”

The man’s voice boomed through the room, not in tone, but in sheer force of power. Adonis fought the urge to grab his head to keep it from exploding. How did Kirill bear to hear this man speak on a daily basis?

“Are you saying that someone is continually, actively, powering the spell?” Kirill asked.

“Yes. Or, more likely, the spell is tied to the witch’s familiar, a powerful creature who doesn’t actively use its own magic, and instead allows another being to use it as a power source, or a focus. The witch could have pulled energy from her familiar, tied it to this spell, and then left the bond to keep the spell going.”

“Adonis, did the witch have a familiar?” Irina asked him.

“I never saw the witch before today, and I was too surprised to notice anything.”

“Well, tell me what you know of the girl then,” Isai said impatiently. “Chances are, the daughter will have similar magic. You’re an incubus, can you describe either of their astral energies?”

“She’s beautiful,” he blurted out. “I’m sure she’s a descendant of a sun elemental, her aura is outrageously powerful. When the sun hits her, she glows and her eyes turn to pure light. She has golden hair that’s so long it trails the ground below her tower.”

“Did she ever say why she kept her hair so long?” Isai interrupted.

“No. But if it’s like every other choice in her life, I would say it’s because her mother wouldn’t let her cut it.”

“And Ivy has a great deal of power, you say?” Isai pressed.

Adonis nodded and winced as the gesture tore open a string of wounds. He sucked in a sharp breath and breathed out cautiously. “Yes. She has a great deal of power, she practically vibrates with it.” His mouth dipped into a frown. “Although…she claimed her power was limited to healing.”

Klement cleared his throat. “There are a great many healers who have strong power.”

Adonis offered an apologetic nod in what he assumed was the healer’s direction. “Yes, of course, but I would have to say, none of them compare to Ivy. Actually, she was pretty insistent that she wasn’t that powerful at all. But she was wrong, or mistaken. I’m an incubus, if there’s one thing I know, it’s power.” He fought not to look at Isai when he said it. For whatever reason, he got a strange feeling around the wizard. It just didn’t seem in keeping with Kirill’s practical nature to let someone that powerful get so close to him.

“Isai, I know that look. What have you thought of?” Kirill demanded.

“It would be nearly impossible,” Isai said, his voice distracted as if he were lost in thought.

“What?” Adonis pressed.

Isai exhaled loudly. “When I was a young man, there was a story that a witch had stolen the child of Adelpha and Nikias. Adelpha was a descendant of Apollo, though not so close as to warrant any particular attention from her immortal ancestor. The witch lived next door to the couple. During Adelpha’s pregnancy, she was struck by a ravenous hunger for rampion, a plant that grew in copious amounts in the witch’s garden. She resisted, but soon her health deteriorated to such a point that Nikias stole some of the herb, fearing his wife would die without it. Instead of ceasing, Adelpha’s hunger grew stronger, though her health did improve. Nikias kept returning to the garden until finally he was caught.”

“I don’t like where this story is going,” Irina spoke up.

“Indeed you shouldn’t. The witch demanded the child or else she would bring the entire family before her coven and they would be judged harshly for their theft. Nikias agreed. There are many people who believed Adelpha’s hunger was caused directly by the witch, but none could prove it. The witch took the child and vanished, never to be seen again.”

Kirill cleared his throat. “I may be able to help here.”

Adonis barked out a laugh. “Why am I not surprised?”

“This happened in Nysa,” Isai scoffed. “I studied there centuries ago. How would you have heard the story?”

Adonis’ eyebrows rose. It was unusual for a servant to speak to their master with that sort of scornful tone—and he imagined it was even more unusual when that master was Kirill.

“I didn’t hear the story,” Kirill snapped. “But no one gains that much power in such a short time without being noticed.”

Especially when there’s a power-hungry vampire seeking ways to overthrow his father.
Adonis had a moment of sincere gratitude for Kirill and his far-reaching aspirations. There were few men in any of the five kingdoms who could claim to be as nosey as the Dacian prince. Fewer still who were that nosey and lived to snoop another day. There was a rustle of clothing and Adonis could imagine Kirill straightening his clothes, gathering his wits as he debated how much information to share.

“It is no secret the most powerful witches are those who have attained a familiar,” Kirill finally said calmly. “Well, there was a rumor of a witch, a woman of very common roots with little more than some minor earth magic, who one day began to grow in power. Within a few years, a string of dead witches showed up. Rumor was, the witch was killing off her peers, the ones who had looked down on her before her fortuitous rise to power.”

A soft zing of metal chimed in the air and Adonis guessed Kirill had taken out a blade and was toying with it. He further hypothesized that playing with a weapon when there were no enemies in the room was Kirill’s way of covering when he was being forced to reveal more than he wanted to. He leaned forward to hear the next part.

“Some of the covens suggested stealing the witch’s familiar in an attempt to return her to her former modest level of power.”

Adonis choked, desperately swallowing the burst of disbelieving laughter that had threatened to erupt. He knew better than to call Kirill’s plan out.