The Darkest Magic (A Book of Spirits and Thieves) (35 page)

Maddox took one step forward.

“Valoria!” Cleiona called out. Maddox froze. “Damen is alive.”

Valoria snapped her gaze to Cleiona. “What did you say?”

“You heard me.”

Valoria smiled her wicked grin again and scoffed. “That can’t be. He’s dead. I saw him die with my own eyes.”

Cleiona shook her head. “The girl you’ve taken captive? She was sent here by Markus to bring me this information. Damen is in her world. He’s there to play with it, like a cat toys with an injured bird before tearing off its head.”

“
Markus?
” A sliver of fear slid through Valoria’s green eyes. She shook her head. “No. I don’t believe it. I can’t.”

“Are you sure? Are you so sure that you’re willing to risk everything? You know what’s at stake if you’re wrong.”

Valoria turned to Becca. “Is this true?” she snarled.

Becca nodded. “Yes.”

“You came here from another world, the same world in which Markus lives in exile?”

“Yes. That’s right.”

“Becca is Markus’s daughter,” Cleiona explained.

Stunned now, Valoria’s eyes grew wider. “Tell me more. I need to know more! Where is the golden dagger? Where is the book that the witch-boy and his father stole from me?”

Cleiona laughed, deeply and without humor. “I’ve just told you that the greatest evil of our world is back from the dead, and you want to know where you can find a dagger and a book? Your obsession with power continues to disgust me.”

Valoria glared with narrowed eyes as the ground began to rumble. In mere moments, the earth cracked and splintered, dividing both armies as it spread between the goddesses.

“Be careful with your words, sister,” Valoria hissed. “Or today will not end well for you.”

Cleiona narrowed her gaze and flames suddenly shot up from the crack in the ground before disappearing just as quickly. “Do not be vain in your display of magic today, or you will be the one cowering at the end of it.”

Valoria scowled before turning to regard Becca again.

“What does Damen want?” she demanded. “Is he coming here to seek vengeance?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“Have his powers subsided? Is he still a threat? Is he still capable of destroying worlds, breaking them apart and crumbling them to dust as if they were clumps of dirt in his fist? How did he manage to survive? There were witnesses to his death; he couldn’t have fooled us. Eva wouldn’t have let him live, knowing what he was capable of.”

Becca shook her head, her face pale. “I . . . let me answer as much as I can. I want to help, but I confess I don’t know everything.”

“Worthless girl,” Valoria hissed. “It’s obvious that Cleiona has trained you, taught you how to respond to me so that you might manipulate me. I refuse to listen to another valueless word that comes out of your lying throat.”

“You hear that, little girl?” Goran spoke into Becca’s ear, making sure he did so loudly enough for Maddox to hear. “Her Radiance says you’re worthless.”

She shook her head. “But wait. I said I can—”

With a sharp twist, Goran snapped Becca’s neck. He let go, and her lifeless body fell to the ground in front of him.

In an instant, everything in Maddox’s world went dark. Everything—the goddesses, his father, the murderer, the dueling armies standing atop the cracked earth waiting to do battle—except Becca. She was all he could see. Everything else became meaningless.

“Becca,” he found himself whispering. “Get up. Please, get up.”

But he knew it was in vain. Becca Hatcher didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Her eyes were open, glossy, and staring directly at him.

She’d come here to help. To try to save her world from evil, despite how frightened she must have been when Markus proposed that plan to her. And now she was dead because of Maddox. Because of Goran. Because of Valoria.

His mind was blank of everything except those few simple truths.

“Maddox!”

He could hear someone shouting his name as if from underwater. The shouting kept on, over and over, until finally he made out Barnabas’s voice. He kept calling out, his voice pitchy and filled with panic. “Don’t get any closer to them. Whatever you want to do right now—don’t! Please, don’t do it!”

But it was far too late for that warning.

Once again the edges of his world darkened to black. Ice flowed through his veins, his limbs, penetrating every inch of his body until he was certain he’d never feel warm again.

In a violent flash of rage, Maddox tore his gaze away from Becca’s broken body to look directly at Goran. The assassin stared right back at him, foolish defiance in his eyes, the marks Valoria had given him visible on his arms and throat.

This man killed his mother. And now he’d killed Becca. He’d broken a young girl’s neck as if taking her life was no different than swatting a fly.

He narrowed his gaze, channeling all that icy rage into a single, cold-blooded thought.

Die.

And with that, Maddox crushed his heart.

Without a sound, without a single gasp for breath, Goran dropped to the ground.

Maddox had a moment of regret that it had been far too kind a death for such a demon. He should have concentrated harder, made him really suffer. To have heard Goran scream for mercy, to have watched him squirm with unspeakable pain before taking his final, torturous breath—that would have been much more satisfying.

“Maddox!” Barnabas’s shouting managed to penetrate Maddox’s shield of anger and death magic.

But Maddox could still barely hear him.

Valoria looked down at her fallen assassin. Her face was ghostly pale as she turned to her army, raising her hands. They took the gesture as a command to charge. They drew their weapons and, with a rising battle cry, stormed toward the gates.

Maddox cast out the bottomless darkness within him. Like a shroud of shadows, it hurtled up into the air to cover all of the men who dared take any steps toward him. They were all his enemies. Every single one, by their very presence on the other side of Cleiona’s gate, had a hand in Becca’s death.

As the shroud of shadows enclosed them, the army froze in place, swords and battle-axes in hand.

One by one, every last soldier dropped to the ground, kneeling for a moment before making their final fall, as if showing allegiance to a new leader.

Maddox shifted his gaze to Valoria, the only one left standing beyond the gates. The only one who still lived.

“I didn’t want this,” Valoria said, shaking her head. “I didn’t command him to kill her. I didn’t know—I had no idea that you were this powerful. Please, Maddox. Spare me.”

Was the goddess admitting that his magic was strong enough to kill her?

Did she truly fear him?

The thought was incredibly intriguing.

“Maddox, please, spare her . . .” Cleiona’s soothing voice came from behind him. “I know quite well how many wrongs she’s committed in her life. I do. But she’s my sister.”

Maddox turned his gaze away from both of them and looked out at the field of dead before him. He searched the bodies calmly, stopping when he found her. He walked past the gates and went to kneel at her side, where he found his mind utterly blank of rational thought. His world was now completely shrouded in shadows, even the part of the world where Becca lay.

Her lifeless eyes stared up at him as he took her limp hand in his.

He could feel how much magic he had left inside of him. It truly seemed to have no end. He focused this magic on her, and the effort it took—the sheer will it took to concentrate—was much greater than it had been when he’d unleashed that darkness upon the soldiers.

It took far more effort to coax life out of hiding than it did death.

And then Becca gasped the first breath of her second life.

BECCA

B
ecca opened her eyes. She smiled and tried to focus on Maddox. On his handsome face, his crooked nose, his messy hair. And his . . .

And his jet black eyes.

Jet black, just like Damen’s.

Becca scrambled away from him. “Maddox! What happened?”

“Good. It worked,” he said, his voice strangely cold.

“What have you done?”

“Let me help you up.” He offered her his hand. She stared at it, frozen, for several moments until, not knowing what else to do, she took it. He pulled her to her feet.

On her way up, she saw the bodies. She winced and shut her eyes against the image, but then forced herself to open them and look around. A wave of sheer horror washed over her as she took in the sight of a thousand men lying on the ground around her, not moving, not breathing.

Maddox sent a dark look toward Valoria, whose hands flew to her throat as she began to sputter and gasp.

“No,” Becca gasped. She clutched his arm, her frantic thoughts
swirling in her mind. “Don’t. No more, Maddox. You’ve done enough.”

Maddox regarded her with disbelief, as if she’d committed some terrible betrayal. “You’d protect someone like her? Someone who’d stand by and watch as that monster Goran snapped your neck?”

She touched her throat. The twist, the crunch, the darkness . . . She remembered now.

Oh God. Dead—I was dead! He killed me!

Her heart thundered painfully in her chest as shock threatened to silence her.

She forced herself to speak, to put her thoughts of what had happened aside for now. “Maddox . . .” She tightened her grip on him. “I don’t give a damn about her. I’m trying to protect you. Stop it! Please!”

Finally, her frantic pleadings got through to him. He looked at her with a somewhat calmer expression. “Very well.”

Valoria wheezed. Becca watched her stagger back from the gate, nearly tripping over a fallen soldier. She turned again to Maddox.

His eyes were still black. “I killed them all, and it was so easy. Too easy.”

Becca touched his face, forcing herself not to be afraid of him. “It’s all right. I’m all right now and . . . and you are too, right?”

Cleiona stepped forward until she was face to face with Valoria. The two sisters stood about a dozen paces away from Becca and Maddox. “You know what this means,” Cleiona said, her expression grim and pained at being so close to her sister.

Valoria nodded stiffly. “I suppose I do.”

“It’s the sign we’ve been waiting for.”

“That
you’ve
been waiting for, you mean.”

Becca strained to listen to their quiet conversation. What had they been waiting for what? For what Maddox just did?

Had they known the truth about his magic? How it was connected to Damen’s?

Barnabas stood only a few feet away from her and Maddox, still holding on to Al’s canvas sack. His body was rigid. His jaw was tight. He’d said nothing since Becca was brought back, and now his attention was not on the two goddesses but fully on Maddox.

Cleiona’s guards remained behind the gates, their swords sheathed. They stood at attention but made no move to cross the threshold before them.

“You honestly don’t care that Damen is alive?” Cleiona asked. “That he’s out there, wreaking havoc somewhere? He could return to Mytica and exact revenge on all of us. Consider
that
before you go back to your throne and try to pretend this never happened.”

Valoria said nothing, though her brow was deeply furrowed. Cleiona scowled impatiently, then turned her back on her sister. She flicked her pained gaze to Barnabas for only a moment before she regarded Maddox.

“I need to show you something. Will you come with me?”

After a moment’s hesitation, he nodded.

Becca took his hand in hers as the goddess led them past the somber fleet of her guards and soldiers and back inside the golden palace. She turned to look at Barnabas as he silently trailed after them along a golden corridor. Their eyes met for a moment, but then Barnabas looked away.

“I had to do it,” Maddox told his father softly, glancing over his shoulder at the man. “All of it.”

Barnabas nodded. “I know,” he said sadly.

He glanced again at Becca, and she could see the bottomless worry in his eyes. And fear. Fear she knew was meant for Maddox.

They followed Cleiona deeper into her palace, and in the
silence of their procession, Becca fell into a daze. Was this all really happening? Or was this merely the first stop on her journey to the afterlife?

No. No, it was too soon. She wasn’t as strong as she pretended to be, especially not now. She was the same scared little girl now that she’d been at Damen’s mercy, tongue-tied and uncertain.

She’d been dead.

Dead.

She slid her hand over her throat—the same throat Goran had crushed. She stumbled, and Maddox caught her arm to keep her steady.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She tried to find her breath, her composure, but they both slipped away from her grasp. “No.”

His expression tightened. “I’m sorry.”

She shook her head back and forth until she felt dizzy. “Don’t be sorry.”

A piece of art on the corridor wall caught her eye: a tapestry depicting a golden hawk that she’d noticed when they’d first arrived at the palace. She stared at the beautiful details and the texture of the fabric.

She tried desperately to concentrate on something real, something concrete. Anything to keep her from giving in to the panic swirling inside of her that made her want to run away from this place, as far as she needed to go to forget what had just happened.

Her chest fluttered wildly, as if there were a frantic bird trapped inside.
My heartbeat
, she thought, pressing her palm to her chest in an effort to steady it. She made a point of deeply drawing air into her lungs and exhaling it out, just like she did thousands of times a day without thinking about it. She had never been more conscious
of the simple tasks she needed to perform to stay alive.

“It’s not much farther,” Cleiona said as she unlocked a door that lead to a long flight of stairs that took them deeper into the palace. A series of torches magically caught fire to help light their way in the darkness.

“You’re trembling,” Maddox said as they carefully descended the staircase.

Becca forced herself to meet his eyes—still pitch-black. “How are you feeling right now?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I feel . . . strange. As if there’s this . . . hollowness inside of me. I don’t know how to describe it. I feel like all my blood has turned to ice.”

“Does it hurt?” Barnabas asked, his voice raspy. He’d folded back the canvas on Al’s sack so that the solemn, serious-looking head could observe as Barnabas carried him.

“No.” Maddox shook his head. “Nothing hurts.”

Becca shivered and glanced at Barnabas, who looked back at her with a deeply pained expression. What exactly had Maddox sacrificed when he’d killed all those men and brought her back to life?

Becca had a lot to learn about magic, she knew, but it didn’t take a sorceress to know that there had to be a steep price for practicing magic this dark.

Cleiona stopped at a stern-looking iron door and turned to face Maddox, Becca, and Barnabas. “Valoria and I are the only ones who know what lies beyond this door.”

“What is it then?” Barnabas asked, his tone a combination of weary and determined.

“A secret.”

Barnabas sighed. “This is not the time for games, Liana.” He frowned. “I mean,
Cleiona.
”

“I’ve told you: Please do call me Liana.”

“It’s not your name.”

Cleiona searched Barnabas’s face with reverence, as if she expected to find a lost treasure somewhere inside of it. After a long moment, she placed her hand against the door. “For a multitude of reasons, Valoria and I have spent many years searching for Eva’s daughter. But Eva didn’t have a daughter. She had a son, and now that son is here inside my palace. Maddox, you’ve proven the incredible depth of the magic that flows within you. I only hope it will be enough.”

“Show us this secret of yours,” Barnabas growled.

She cast him a wary, almost fearful look. “I hope that one day soon you will come to understand that it had to be this way, Barnabas. That it has been necessary for us to guard this secret.”

“Open the door,” he said.

“Very well.” She reached for a small golden key that she wore on a long golden chain around her neck. She slid it into the lock and pushed the door open.

Becca braced herself for whatever horrible truth they were about to confront, but as Cleiona opened the door and gestured inside, all she did was frown. She blinked to be sure she hadn’t missed anything, and she took one step closer, stopping just before the threshold but not crossing it. Behind the door was a small room. In the center of it was a canopy bed made up with pale linens. Otherwise, the room was empty. Becca narrowed her eyes—this couldn’t be the secret Cleiona was talking about. And then she saw it: a figure, a woman, tucked underneath the covers and sleeping soundly.

Barnabas hesitated at the threshold before taking a step inside. He approached the bed, inspecting the sleeping woman. Suddenly, his ruddy face went completely pale.

“Who is it?” Al finally spoke.

Maddox frowned. “Barnabas, what’s wrong?”

Barnabas attempted to reply, but his voice was too choked and raspy.

Alarmed by Barnabas’s reaction, Becca drew closer to the bed. “Who is this?” she said, staring down at a beautiful young woman with long dark hair. Then she knew. She recognized her from her vision about Damen. “Oh my God. It’s Eva,” Becca said.

Maddox gasped and stared down at the woman with unguarded shock.

“Yes, that’s right.” Cleiona came forward and sat on the edge of the bed. “Eva is the only one who can save our worlds. Both yours and ours, Becca.” She paused to let a profound wave of sadness flood her gaze as she looked up at Maddox. “And your magic is the only way to wake her.”