Spirit Binder (23 page)

“It really doesn’t matter what you believe once it comes to pass. It doesn’t matter who Theodora chooses to bed, perhaps the three of them will come to some arrangement, but Hugh is her destiny, whether they formally bond or not.”

“We are formally bonded. You’ve all seen the mark.” Ren thrust out his marked arm to gesture at Theo’s mark, which prickled lightly in response. “There is no disputing it. The choice has already been made.”

The Chancellor laughed, more than a little cruelly. “It is interesting really, that you are powerful and yet have no understanding of magic. I imagine that’s because you cannot feel it. How could you possibly be the partner for someone who is spirit manifested?”

“That particular argument has been going on for twenty-six years, Chancellor. Let’s just leave it. Clasp on it, boys. Tomorrow we might all be dead.” It was odd that Dougal chose to be the rational voice in this moment; perhaps he just liked to be constantly contrary.

Ren, looking as if he hated every second of it, responded to the command in Dougal’s voice and thrust his arm out toward Hugh. Only Hugh hesitated.

“You know what you have to do, Hugh,” the Chancellor chided. “What is necessary to ensure Theodora’s safety. What destiny demands.”

Hugh slowly turned to look back at Theo. The firelight caught in his eyes, and, for a moment, she saw the wolf he’d become in the forest. She wasn’t certain what he sought or what he found in her face, but he turned back to grasp Ren’s arm.

Except then, they didn’t let go of each other. A sort of squeezing tug of war ensued.

Dougal sighed, then laughed, but it was the Chancellor’s laugh, which sounded like all his greatest desires had just been fulfilled, that chilled Theo.

She stepped forward to intercede between the men, but Bryan stepped in front of her to hold her back. “Bad time, Lady Theo,” the boy warned, and though he couldn’t actually physically restrain her, she chose to follow the boy’s instinctual advice.

Ren shook Hugh off by slamming his open hand on Hugh’s chest. Hugh stumbled back but didn’t fall.

“Ren!” she cried, for he’d used far too much strength against Hugh. Her cry caused Ren to pause with his hand on the hilt of his sword.

“This is who you dally with?” Ren accused. “I doubt he can even use that pretty sword at his hip, and he certainly couldn’t match me!”

“He doesn’t need a sword to defeat you or defend Theodora.” The Chancellor’s voice was low and dangerous.

Hugh sighed and closed his eyes as if not looking forward to the challenge the Chancellor had just offered. Theo suddenly felt as if they were playing a game, all set up by the Chancellor, and perhaps Dougal, given that he seemed so out of character. That this was a forced pitting of Ren and Hugh against each other. It had started the moment that Dougal and the Chancellor had seemingly coincidentally arrived in the yard.
 

“Oh, he’s a mind mage, is he? You’ll see how well that works on me.” Ren accepted the Chancellor’s challenge and actually beckoned toward Hugh, who was still standing with his eyes closed.

The Chancellor didn’t answer. He simply looked to Hugh.

The silence stretched. Dougal laughed, “Well, boy, do you have some magic trick to throw?”

“Do you want her or not? Not everything can just be handed to you.” The Chancellor’s voice was so low that Theo barely heard him.

Hugh twisted his neck left and then right. He crouched low on all fours. She knew the second before he did so that he was going to change, in front of all these people. It was some big reveal, orchestrated by the Chancellor: a power play. She opened her mouth to call Hugh back, but the air around him churned and the spirit in him glowed brighter and brighter, so bright she had to cover her eyes.

She heard something tear, painfully.

And a dragon was standing in the middle of the practice yard. At least that was what she thought it was. She’d only seen pictures and, unquestionably, dragons didn’t actually exist … did they?

A few quickly muffled screams came from the gathered warriors as they fell back to give the dragon room. Ren and Dougal also stumbled back, and Bryan, inexplicably, clapped his hands together and jumped up and down.

The dragon lowered his massive head until it was even with Ren’s. He was scaled in red and black armor. She had to stop herself from touching him, though Bryan didn’t seem to share her caution.
 

The dragon snuffed a puff of smoke out of his nostrils into Ren’s face.
 

Coughing, Ren drew his sword.

The dragon displayed its teeth, which were bigger than Ren’s blade.

“You think your sword is mightier than a dragon?” the Chancellor taunted. “Didn’t think they existed, did you? It took me twenty years to find a specimen, and even then, I couldn’t get the egg to hatch.”
 

“It would take more than a dragon to vanquish Ren,” Dougal said, rather calmly for having a dragon staring at him.

“Shall we test that theory, dragon?” Ren grinned, as he did in anticipation of any fight, as he’d grinned at Theo when they’d crossed steel.

The dragon — Hugh — curled his tail around her and Bryan protectively. She was holding the squealing boy back from climbing all over Hugh. Ren’s face clouded.

“You still don’t understand, Ren-bearer-of-the-mark,” the Chancellor called. ”While Theodora might be the manifestation, or rather fountain, of spirit, Hugh is the reservoir.”

“Spirit,” spat Ren. “I’m not ruled by something I cannot see. Theo needs a warrior by her side.”

“Theo is a warrior,” the Chancellor countered. “What she needs is everything else, and that only Hugh can be. He can be anything she desires.“ Here the Chancellor shifted his gaze from Ren to Hugh. “He can be you.”

The air twisted around Hugh, and suddenly the dragon was gone, replaced by Ren crouched in the sand completely nude, his clothing shredded by the dragon transformation.

Hugh-as-Ren straightened, fighting some sort of residual pain, though perhaps only Theo noticed that the transformations were painful for him. He stood in front of Ren, who’d gone severely pale, though he recovered his bluster quickly.

“Impossible. It’s just a magician’s trick, an illusion. Magic doesn’t work on me,” Ren sneered.

The Chancellor laughed and turned to Dougal. “What do you teach them, all swords and no spirit?”

“The Chancellor is suggesting that Hugh isn’t trying to affect you with magic. He had already, what? Sampled?” The Chancellor inclined his head and Dougal continued, “your spirit. I didn’t know it was possible.” Dougal trailed off thoughtfully and then looked at Theo. “I can see why he was chosen for you. If your mother is correct in her interpretation.”

“What!” Ren exploded. “He is not me! He’s an inferior copy.” He held his marked arm aloft. “He has no mark.”

Theo looked down at Hugh-as-Ren’s well-muscled forearm, the skin so much lighter than it should be, and he, indeed, did not bear her mark.

“Blood magic,” the Chancellor commented. “Powerful, but unreliable, is nothing compared to ordained prophecy.”

Ren looked to Dougal for support, but Dougal just shrugged and headed off toward his troops. Ren then looked to Theo, and for the first time, he looked shaken. “And if I asked you to choose, right now, wouldn’t you choose the man you love, who loves you, rather than some prediction made by an obviously power-hungry father —”

“That is enough!” Rhea’s voice rang out across the yard.

The warriors knelt in-cascade as their Apex approached.

“Hugh! Stop this at once, and put on some clothing. Theodora, you should have been in bed hours ago.” Her mother held out her hand, like she expected Theo to grasp it, even though she always avoided such contact. Theo stepped forward, clasped her mother’s hand, and felt suddenly relieved. Her mother had actually rescued her.

“Why would you do this now, Hugh? Of all times?”

She glanced back to see Hugh — himself again — belting a pair of pants offered by one of warriors. He didn’t meet her eye.

“Or should I be questioning you, Chancellor?” Rhea pressed.

“Things need to be understood,” the Chancellor answered.

“But not tonight and not tomorrow.”

“Yes, Apex.”

“You know I am right!” Ren suddenly declared, and then stomped off after Dougal.

“Are you coming, boy?” Rhea asked Bryan, and Theo was foolishly surprised that nothing escaped her mother’s notice. Rhea pulled her and Bryan toward the castle.

She couldn’t help but glance back at Hugh, who remained shirtless in the middle of the yard, his sword abandoned in the sand. The firelight highlighted his curls as it also darkened his skin. He was taller and slimmer than Ren, but his chest was no less muscled. He was simply built for movement, while Ren was built to be immovable. He met her eyes this time. He looked so tired and so … sad.

I’m sorry,
she whispered in his head.
 

He shook off her guilt and cast a look his father’s way.

Rhea pulled her into the castle and she lost sight of Hugh, but she could still hear him in her head.

You’ll allow me to speak my words. To make my declarations, before you choose him?

Choose him. Like it was all a foregone conclusion.

Theo?
he prompted. His voice in her head was weary and heavy.

Yes, Hugh. We will talk.

It was only later, after she’d bundled up Bryan on the couch, already fast asleep, and then crawled into bed herself, that Theo realized having Hugh in her head was exactly what she’d been seeking with Ren, over and beyond the physical pleasure, in the hallway.

∞

When they woke her right before dawn to let her know that the spell to dissipate the darkness cloaking the Preacher’s army was ready, Theo brought her own sword, pricked her own finger, and then left wondering if the spell had worked at all. For such a vehemently opposed step, it was rather anticlimactic.

Oh, the spellcasters had gathered in their hooded red robes, and chanted around a fire built as near to the Preacher’s force as they could get without leaving the protection of the wards. They’d directed Theo to a slab of stone heated in the fire, and she dutifully placed her drop of blood there, but their magic felt forced and hollow, not at all like the abundant spirit that flowed naturally around her every day. She wondered if this dulled disconnect was what magic felt like to everyone else. No wonder they questioned everything and accepted nothing on faith.
 

No matter Theo’s low expectations, when the sun rose over the mountains, it brought light into the darkness that spread from the gates into the valley, and they finally saw the thousands, yes, thousands who stood waiting outside the castle walls.

The six of them, Theo, Rhea, Dougal, Ren, Hugh and the Chancellor, had gathered, arrayed for battle, fortified with magic, armor, and swords on the eastern balcony. Natalie and Bryan had followed Theo around since the spell had been released. She understood their trepidation and had not sent them away. They now stood just behind her. Besides her mother, they were the only non-warriors there as the sun rose. No one else seemed to notice their presence, for all eyes were on the army — if you could call it an army — below.

From this vantage point, Theo could also see what had become of Davin. His body hung from the castle gates, a gruesome warning for their foes. No matter how far she turned her head, it seemed he was always in her peripheral vision.

The Preacher’s force stood shoulder to shoulder, armed with sticks, clubs, and farming tools. Many of them looked as if they hadn’t eaten for weeks, but this didn’t even dent the resolve carved on every one of their faces.

“This group is no threat, even with their numbers,” Rhea assessed. “Without their shield, they are vulnerable to even the most minor of the mind mages we have here.”

Left unsaid was the fact that a mind mage of her mother’s power could cause utter panic in dozens at a time.

“As I have been cautioning you since I arrived, their numbers should give you pause, Rhea,” Dougal said. “With or without great magic on their side.”

“Why?” Ren asked. “They are weak, and yet they have chosen to make this stand. They deserve our answer.”

“What their substantial number tells us is that there is massive unrest, more than I had even heard of, perhaps through all of Cascadia. They want more than they have and are willing to die for it.”

“And when we cut them down, more will come in their place,” Hugh finished Dougal’s thought.

“Yes, exactly. Not even Rhea is powerful enough to alter all their minds.”

“Nor should she,” Theo interrupted her uncle.

“Ah, our moral warrior, how is it that you’ve stayed silent for so long this morn?”

“I’ve been seeking the spirit of the Preacher among his men, as has mother.”

“And what have you discovered?”

“That he is somewhere there.” She pointed to a cluster of tents in the center of the army. “He is a man, and he is magical or has brought very powerful magic with him.”

“I could have told you all of that just using my eyes. The most well-equipped soldiers with the mightiest weapons are arrayed around that grouping of tents. The horses are corralled within easy reach, and only a man could be so disrespectful of so many lives. A woman would be more subtle and cunning with her approach. A woman, if she were powerful enough to create blood shields and tracking devices, might have succeeded by now.”

“We will formally request a parley.” The Chancellor looked to be drafting such a request at his desk. Her mother and Dougal moved from the balcony to read over his shoulder and dispute the wording.

“He will not talk,” Theo whispered, as she surveyed the vast army arrayed in the fields and roads beyond the castle. They outnumbered them three-to-one, at least. Food would be scarce within the week. The enemy looked to have slaughtered a good number of the Chancellor’s cattle and sheep already.

“You don’t bring an army of this size for a talk,” Ren agreed. “Maybe Hugh could turn into a mouse and make his way into the tent for a sneak attack.”

“That would be a long walk for a mouse. Might take me all day,” Hugh responded, amused rather than angry.