Endless Magic (7 page)

“I'll tell you, but I want your word that no one will die today. I want your word that you will honor your side of this arrangement. I have my magic back, no one dies,” I worked very hard to maintain the measured tone masking my utter hatred for this man, knowing that today was all I could ask for.

“No one will die today by my hands or my edict, you have my word,” Lucan promised, nodding his head, while the corners of his thin lips curled into an evil snarl.

“It is not the task of the taker, but the one who has lost the magic; they must reclaim it on their own. The other person, the person who took the magic, has to be willing to let it go, but they cannot physically give it back. It doesn't work like that, only the initial holder of magic can recover their own. It is as hard on the person pulling their magic out as it is for the person who has to let it go. Once the stolen magic has bonded with the blood, it is nearly impossible to separate the two. But with patience and hard work, it can be done,” I finished enthusiastically, having just gone through the experience myself.

“There, that was easy, Eden,” Lucan's forehead creased in self-satisfaction. I shivered from his thirst for control, and from his desperation to own everything in this world. “You're going to comply now. You know what's at risk. You understand that every decision you make, every thought in that pretty head has consequences. If you step out of line again, if you so much as roll your eyes in defiance, I will break you. I will round up everyone you hold dear and take their lives as if I were blowing out a candle!” He finished by stepping forward and screaming in my face.

He stepped back, composing himself. His expression, a reflection of hatred and disgust only moments ago was masked with a cool tranquility that read stately and forgiving. My stomach lurched at his ability to retract his wrath in seconds, at his manipulation of forgiveness and benevolence.

“The Summer Solstice is approaching,” Lucan continued. “In one week, the Citadel will be filled with Immortals ready to enjoy the feast and the newly engaged couple. I have taken the liberty to include your engagement celebration during those days and I expect you both to be on your best behavior. However, Eden, I speak to you specifically. If you do not utterly dote upon my son, if your eyes leave his for even a moment, if your hand finds even a reason to leave his grasp, if there is any reason why my people will not assume that the two of you are so exhaustively in love that you cannot for even a moment be separated, then for an engagement present I will start this all over. I will line the prisoners up one by one and toast each of their deaths as a special matrimonial tribute to you. Let us not play games any longer, child, you are a prisoner here. You will bend at my every command or the people that you love so dearly will die at your expense. Do you understand?” His voice turned sinister, he stood over me a menacing presence and all of the teenage rebellion in the world could not have stopped me from shrinking in fear. I was face to face with pure evil, a man that would kill an innocent Immortal just to keep me in line, just to keep up the pretense that his son had claimed his love interest.

“I understand,” I whispered, not able to dispel the terror from my tone.

Even as my hands trembled with fear, and I fought against the urge to step back behind Kiran, my purpose was strengthened. I would play Lucan's game. I would obey his commands, and pretend to love Kiran for the sake of his kingdom and I would wait. I would wait until that perfect moment when prideful and reveling in a united kingdom he would forget that I was his enemy. He would forget that I wished him dead, and plotted his downfall. I would strike when he was comfortable, when his aspirations for his kingdom and bloodline seemed to be in his grasp. I would take his life with the same callousness that he took so many others and I would end his bloodline so that mine could rule in its rightful place.

Kiran turned his eyes on me and watched me for a few moments. He stood in pensive silence, while I fidgeted uncomfortably from the intensity of his gaze. Hardness crossed his face in an expression that sent a shiver tingling down my spine.

“No, I absolutely do not trust her,” Kiran confessed in a cold tone that stole the fresh warmth of my magic in a heartbeat.

“Is that so?” Lucan asked, amused by his son. “Then she will be bound, unless you object?” Lucan turned toward his son gauging Kiran's reaction, but his face remained a stoic statue of indifference.

“Of course not,” Kiran scoffed.

I shifted on my feet wanting desperately to protest, to voice my outrage and then run from this place. But I thought of the lives holding on by mere threads of miserable existence buried beneath this room and stood my ground. I tipped my chin in firm resolve and stopped my feet from shifting. I knew this life would not be easy, I had talked myself through death a thousand times; I couldn't let something as simple as binding, whatever that meant, let me question my purpose.

Lucan snapped his finger and a Titan disappeared into the hallway.

“Kiran, I've been meaning to ask you, what happened to the Transmogrifier from yesterday? When Alexander returned to clean up the mess, he said that she was gone,” Lucan inquired of his son casually, while his eyes scrutinized Kiran's reaction with expert skill.

“I had Talbott take care of her,” Kiran explained simply.

“We can always count on Talbott,” Lucan smiled genially at Talbott who had yet to move from the doorway.

The Titan returned carrying similar handcuffs that had chained Jericho when Talbott handed him over to me. I remembered how tired Jericho was, how suppressed his magic was because of the iridescent metal that bound his hands. I swallowed my fears, and bit my tongue, working as hard as I could to silence my objections. I wasn't worried about the lackluster magic or the exhaustion caused by the restraining metal, nothing could be worse than no magic. I believed that. But the inconvenience of having my hands constantly tied together was more than I could handle, and I felt it was completely unnecessary. How would I change shirts? Take a shower? They couldn't seriously believe I was going to let them get away with this.

“No, absolutely not,” I stomped my foot and crossed my arms defiantly when the Titan holding the handcuffs approached me. I tucked my wrists under my arms and held them tightly to my body.

“Don't make this difficult,” Kiran sighed, turning away from me and running his hand through his hair.

“Are you kidding me?” I scoffed, backing away from the Titan who now wore a satisfied grin across his face. “You cannot possibly expect me to wear those! I won't be able to do anything!” I whined, beseeching Kiran rather than Lucan.

“That's the idea,” Kiran mumbled.

I clasped my hands behind me, willing to physically fight for my freedom and walked backward away from the approaching Titan who seemed to think this more of a game than an ordered task.

“I'm not going to do it, plain and simple. The consequences of disobedience were made clear, I don't need to have my hands tied together to do what I'm told.” I bumped into Talbott who blocked the escape route behind me. He gently placed his hands on my wrist, but the threat was there, the silent warning that he could hold me down if he needed to.

I searched for Sebastian, hoping he would take my side and stand up for me, but he was no help. He stood in the corner of the room, staring down at the floor, and if I didn't know better, trying to hide a smile that was very close to turning into a laugh.

“It's too uncomfortable! How can I possibly pretend to love Kiran with those.... those.... things around my wrists!” I stomped my foot again, only this time a ripple of magic dispersed across the floor, causing the ancient stone to tremor underneath us. I shrunk further into Talbott, embarrassed by my temper and understanding that I was in no way building my case.

“She has a point,” Lucan smirked, the corners of his mouth disappearing into his cropped goatee. “Cut them in half.”

The Titan walked toward me with slumped shoulders, his face falling with obvious disappointment. He didn't say anything but held out the handcuffs in front of him, stretched out so the chain that linked the two cuffs was straight. Talbott, standing close behind me, drew his sword and sliced through the thick metal swiftly. I screamed involuntarily, afraid of the fast blade only inches from my skin. The metals clanged together and a surge of magic like hot sparks burst forward before the handcuffs were separated, each dangling a short chain from them.

“Satisfied?” Kiran asked, rolling his eyes.

“Really?” I mimicked his sarcasm but held out my arms while Talbott and the other Titan fastened the cuffs around my wrists. “Yes, I am totally satisfied with this arrangement. I love wearing heavy metal handcuffs around my wrists and I especially love when my magic is restricted.”

“Are you really not going to take any of the blame? Have you forgotten what was at stake just an hour ago? Or what my father has threatened you with?” Kiran stepped forward, outraged by my biting humor.

“Kiran's right, Eden,” Lucan intervened, amused by his son's assertion. “Handcuffs or not, if you even breathe in disagreement, I will make you personally choose which prisoner will die first.” Lucan silenced me, but I possessed no more will to fight against him. He turned to his son, “Kiran, she belongs to you; keep her under control.”

Lucan leveled his son's gaze, silently commanding that Kiran carry the burden of reining me in. I expected him to protest, or even simply accept his father's order, but the look of pain that crossed his face made my stomach jump in fear. I wanted to run from the room, not for the first time during this exhausting interchange, but this time because of Kiran, not his father, or even the stipulations to my prison sentence. My throat tightened and my palms started sweating, locked in the heavy silver bracelets that weighed my magic down and reminded me that Kiran's hate for me infiltrated his magic so thickly that the thought of dealing with me was painful for him. I shuddered involuntarily and Kiran turned his eyes on me, the painful expression replaced with the one that I simply didn't understand.

Lucan snapped his fingers and the Guard followed from the messy study. “You have a week to figure out how to love each other again,” Lucan called, stern and serious.

My shoulders fell and my chest heaved in the breathlessness of panic. Prickles of heat stabbed the underside of my skin and the room lost focus. I acutely remembered what it felt like to be in love with Kiran, how I looked at him with utter adoration, how my stomach fluttered with every one of his touches, how his mouth passionately pressed against mine to take all of my soul in a shared breath. But those feelings were gone. My eyes were opened, my stomach sick with the memories of his betrayal and my lips dry and lonely, a side effect of neglected captivity.

I crossed my arms in the middle of the damaged study, and stomped my foot, a defiant gesture directed at my own stubbornness. Lives hung in the balance, the fate of others rested in my ability to perform, in my talent to disguise my true feelings and turn them into a charming act. Lucan wanted the kingdom to believe Kiran scorned Seraphina for a second time because of me, that we were madly in love, that the future of the kingdom was solidified in our two perfect magics coming together in a kind of perverse treaty. If Mrs. Woodsen were here, she would be so very worried for the future of the Immortal race, knowing it was left in my shaky and incapable hands. She would have remembered how I stumbled through prose and poems and how my acting skills were less effortless and more.... terribly awkward.

From the silence in the room, the thick tension that stifled my breathing and set the hairs on the back of my neck straight I understood I was not the only person afraid of my ability to mislead. Hiding my feelings was, in reality, something I had never been capable of before.

I hoped the memory of walking through the oppressive prison would be enough to start a fire inside of me strong enough to be confused with unquestioning love. I turned to Kiran, hoping for encouragement, but he was wearing that look again, the one that turned his deep blue eyes all too intense, the one that set his mouth in a straight, hard line so devoid of his trademark smirk that a ripple of fear worked slowly from the bottom of my hairline to the base of my spine.

“We are going to need to practice,” I stated simply. I wasn't the only one that needed to work at fake affection.

“I suppose you're right,” Kiran sighed, sounding exhausted. He ran his hand through his tussled hair, the tell-tale sign he was frustrated with me.

I determined in that moment that no matter what happened during our engagement party, no matter how much I hated Kiran or his family, I would not be the reason someone died. I would play my part perfectly and without hesitation until Kiran himself believed I was in love with him. I would continue to play Lucan's game until the moment was right, until the opportunity arrived to kill him. Or Kiran. Whichever came first.

Are you Ok?
Avalon opened our shared consciousness and I breathed with relief.

The morning had been a whirl-wind in Lucan's office and between reclaiming my magic from Avalon and then having it stifled again from the handcuffs, I entirely spaced out the open communication I shared with my twin brother.

Yes.... No.... I don't know anymore, Avalon. At least no one is going to die today.
I sunk heavily into one of Kiran's leather chairs and turned myself toward the picture window. The sun glistened brightly over the greenery and tumbling mountainside, its rays like long fingers shimmering through the glass pane and onto Kiran's wood floor. I trailed my toe across the warm sunlight and sighed wistfully at the idea of stepping outside this castle and tipping my chin into its magnanimous warmth.

And for that, we are grateful. What's your plan here Ede? What do you want us to do?
Avalon tensed with concern for me. I recognized the feeling, the despairing hopelessness and consuming anxiety. I remembered what freedom felt like while my twin was captured, held prisoner, tortured....