Bound Sorcery: Shadows of Magic

1

Branches snapped under my feet and whipped at my face. My breath dragged into my lungs like fire as I ran. My muscles were ready to give out, but I couldn’t stop. That was the one thing I knew: I couldn’t stop running. The moment I stopped, I was dead.

My ankle rolled as I hit a patch of uneven ground and Sarah grabbed my hand to yank me up. She was in better shape than I was, she had the breath to ask if I was okay, but her lips were pressed tight together. She shook her head at me not to let any gasps of pain escape. No words. No more sound than we had to make. Her hand clung to mine until she was sure I was running on my own.

The dull ache in my ankle stabbed with every step, but it was only one more twinge of pain. In the past hours—days? Weeks?—I had run until my legs quite literally gave out, slept on rocky ground, woken to screaming muscles and pushed myself to run again, and become accustomed to the pangs of hunger in my stomach. A rolled ankle was only more of the same.

I didn’t know how long we had been running, and I couldn’t remember why we were running in the first place. I didn’t even remember how I had met Sarah. That memory was lost somewhere, somehow.

All I knew was that Sarah was my only defense against whatever was stalking us.

The forest was so dense that we stumbled into a clearing before we realized what it was. A hawk screamed above us, an unnatural sound somehow. My blood ran cold and I pushed myself into a sprint.

Keep running, keep running. The moment you stop, you die.

We never made it to the other side of the clearing. The hawk arrowed down to hover in front of us and we skidded to a stop. Before my eyes, it changed to a man. He dropped lightly to a crouch and stood, his eyes fading from a hawk’s yellow-orange to a human brown. He wore a uniform not unlike Sarah’s, well-worn and padded, with the hilts of a few knives glinting in the dim light.

Bradach. Sarah spat the name. Her blonde hair glinted in the moonlight. She was trying to be angry, but it was clear even to me that she was terrified. The confidence she had worn like a second set of armor, the whole time I knew her, seemed to shatter.

The man didn’t bother with a greeting. Hand her over.

Sarah didn’t bother with pleasantries, either. The explosion came with no warning, blasting from her hands and into the man in front of us. The air wavered and burst outward, and I screamed as I was thrown backwards. Locked on the ground, I struggled to catch my breath. It seemed very much as if the earth had leapt up to clobber me in the torso. I couldn’t tell if the stars I was seeing were real or not.

"Come on! Sarah dragged me up, none too gently. We have to move!"

We ran back the way we had come. It seemed colder now, the trees rustling with a breeze I couldn’t quite hear. Once, I thought I heard the howl of a wolf, but I wasn’t sure if I heard it in my ears or my mind.

I don’t understand. The thought kept pounding into me, making my breath come short with terror instead of exhaustion. I don’t understand, I don’t understand. I didn’t understand any of this, and my strength was failing me.

And it didn’t matter whether I understood or not. I could die just as easily from things I didn’t understand as things I did.

When I finally slumped to my knees, too tired to go on, I could feel the tears hot in my eyes.

"I can’t—I can’t." I tried to stand and my legs refused to obey me.

Sarah’s shoulders slumped. The all-black uniform she wore, close-fitting and dotted with sheathes, was torn and dirtied. She, too, looked exhausted. She was swaying where she stood.

I’m sorry, I whispered.

It wasn’t…. She shook her head. It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I never should have brought you here, the forest is where he’s strongest.

I stared up at her wordlessly.

Listen to me. The magic must have drained her, because she barely got the words out. Look at me, Nicky. Listen. If I die, you do everything you can to get away from him.

If you die? My voice came out too high. I tried to push myself up again and this time, I managed to stumble to where she was. We’re not going to die, right?

Stupid question. I knew we were going to. It was one of three things I knew in the whole world: that, my name, and Sarah’s name.

She didn’t bother answering my question. You fight him, she told me fiercely. You fight him with everything you have. Be smart, Nicky. Choose your time, hit him when he’s weak. He won’t kill you outright when he takes you, okay?

How do I kill him? I was sniffling now. I hated that, and I wiped at my eyes. I think I can run again, we should go.

It’s too late. Her voice was quiet. I didn’t realize it was … him. We were never going to outrun him in the long run.

Who?

Daiman Bradach. She swallowed and looked away. I’m—I’ve only been—he’s the best of them. The Hunters. I’m not a match for him.

I stared at her, shaking. This couldn’t be real. She couldn’t be giving up.

I will give you as much of a chance as I can to get away, she told me simply. "Take it. Run as fast and as far as you can, and remember what I told you."

But I don’t know how to kill someone! I don’t have … I’m not like you.

"You have magic. She took my face in her hands. It’s in there. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be hunting you, and I wouldn’t have been assigned to protect you. That magic is how you’ll fight him."

But if you can’t—

Maybe you can. She smiled at me. You have to try, Nicky. They’ll take you away and lock you up and make you their slave if you don’t.

I couldn’t seem to make the tears stop dripping down my face. I don’t want you to die for me. I don’t want anyone to die for me.

It’s all right. She took one of my hands and rubbed it to bring the warmth back. I could see tears in her eyes, but she was smiling. I got to live free, my whole life. I got to fight for something important. And if I die tonight, I’ll know I died giving you a chance to get away.

And then her face changed. Her eyes focused on something behind me. Hello again, Hunter.

Monarchist. The man’s voice had a wry humor to it.

I turned to look at him. He was beautiful, in a terrifying sort of way. His face looked like it was carved by a master sculptor, every feature perfectly imperfect—a faint bump in his nose, his smile crooked, his lips a little too full. He looked a lot like Sarah, I saw now. It wasn’t anything about the features—she was small, with a heart-shaped face, everything about her round and sweet—it was the way his eyes looked so, so much older than his face. Something in me whispered that I had seen a lot of people like that before, but I couldn’t remember where.

He gave me an absolutely terrifying once-over, though I thought I saw curiosity in his brown eyes. Then his gaze returned to Sarah.

So will you hand her over, or do you intend to fight again?

What do you think?

He sighed wearily. I always forget how devoted your kind are.

My kind. Sarah gave a bitter laugh. "Nicky, run."

I barely got out of the way of the explosion—hers or his, I wasn’t sure—and I took off into the forest with every ounce of strength I had left. My legs were shaking and my throat felt so raw that I could taste blood.

I wasn’t going to make it, but fear kept me going until I heard a scream.

Sarah’s scream.

I had left her alone.

My feet took me back faster than they had taken me away. It wasn’t about strength or stamina now, it was about the fact that she was dying—for me. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair. And I knew I had the key to all of this.

I burst out of the brush to find him standing over her. A line of blood ran from her mouth and she had her hands up to form a shield out of thin air.

She was pouring everything she had into it, but it wasn’t enough. His power, like dancing bolts of lightning, was forging ever closer to her, and I knew exactly what was going to happen when it reached her.

I’ll go with you! The words burst out of me. I didn’t give myself a chance to think.

His head jerked up and the lightning stopped. His chest was heaving, and his eyes narrowed as if he thought this was a trap.

I’ll go with you, I repeated. I held my hands up.

"Nicky—"

I couldn’t look at Sarah. I let my eyes lock on his. Please, I whispered. Please just let her live. She was only trying to protect me. But I’ll go with you if you let her live.

He straightened up, those gorgeous eyes looking at me as if he could peer all the way down into my soul.

I’m not lying. I gave up my promise to Sarah in a rush. Just let her go. Please.

He wanted to trust me, I could tell. He was close to believing me, and I poured all of my sincerity into my gaze. I’m not lying. My lips moved but nothing came out.

I was so tired.

Whether or not he would have listened, I never got to find out. Sarah launched herself up off the ground with a yell, heedless of my scream to stop. I saw the flash of steel in one hand, runes glittering along the blade as she made to drive it into his chest. Power arced along the length of the dagger, making ripples in the night air.

She never had a chance. The moonlight around us turned liquid and flowed to cover him, so bright I screamed in pain. My head jerked away and I staggered away, hands over my eyes, and when I looked back up again, Sarah’s blood was seeping onto the leaves and the Hunter was staring at me, almost sadly.

Absolute fury filled me.

You didn’t have to kill her! I threw the words at him in the too-silent forest. "She was only here to save me from you!"

I was too angry to think about what I’d done, and the mess I’d gotten myself into, but he wasn’t. He didn’t waste his time with answering me. Roots sprang from the ground to twine around my arms and legs, holding me in place as he stepped over Sarah’s body. His hand rose, fingers hovering over my forehead, and for a moment, all I could see was him. I could feel the heat of him, see a tangle of something behind his eyes—uncertainty?

Whatever it was, it was gone quickly.

Sleep. His voice was low, and one finger touched my forehead lightly, burning like a brand.

The roots released me as I fell into his arms. My mind was still awake, trying to scream bloody murder for him to put me down, but my body was limp as he carried me away, and though I tried to keep my gaze fixed on Sarah, my eyes drifted shut without my volition and locked me in darkness.

2

Iwoke to a crackling fire and the smell of food.

I sat up before I remembered where I was. Maybe I thought Sarah had found something real to eat, instead of just berries and leaves. Maybe I thought the past days had never happened at all. Certainly, my muscles felt better than I could remember them feeling in….

Well, as long as I could remember. I would have thought that would be more disconcerting, but my mind seemed determined not to let me dwell on my missing memories.

Whatever the case, my blissful ignorance didn’t last for long. My hands were held together with something that looked like vines, and Daiman Bradach sat across the fire from me, turning skewers of some sort of meat on hot rocks. It was still dark.

You’re awake. His voice was just as disconcerting as I remembered it, sending a shiver down my arms. You slept a long time.

You mean you kept me asleep for a long time. I wasn’t prepared to be nice to him.

He didn’t look up at me, but his mouth twisted slightly. I just sent you to sleep. Your body needed rest. He nodded at my foot, meeting my eyes briefly. I took the liberty of fixing your ankle.

Which would be a very nice gesture, if he hadn’t just abducted me. I stared at the food, mouth watering. I could barely think about anything other than how badly I wanted to eat, but what if it was poisoned? What if it sent me to sleep again? And I didn’t want to look weak.

I needed to distract myself. Thankfully, I had an ample supply of anger.

You killed Sarah, I said flatly. You didn’t need to, but you did. You could have tied her up like me.

A trained sorceress? No. She would never have stopped trying to kill me. There was regret in his voice, but no uncertainty.

Can you blame her? It’s not wrong that she doesn’t want people to be slaves. And … and I said I would, if you would just leave her be. What more do you want from me?

His head jerked back as if I’d slapped him, and his mouth tightened into a thin line. You may have said that, he reminded me, "but she tried to kill me. And slavery is not what the Acadamh does—no matter what they’ve told you."

They didn’t tell me anything but that, I shot back. "And I don’t know what the Acadamh is."

He opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again. You haven’t even heard of it?

It occurred to me that I might well have heard of it at some point, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell him about my missing memory just yet. And then a thought occurred to me. Hit him when he’s weak, Sarah had told me.

I hunched my shoulders and pulled my knees up to my chest, wrapping my bound arms around them awkwardly to play up that I was a captive here. I was in a terrible situation, and he was the reason why—so I was going to make him feel bad about it. I felt a twinge of guilt, acting like this, and reminded myself what he’d done: he’d chased me down in a forest and killed someone to capture me.

All I know is, Sarah was protecting me because you were hunting me. I said the words as softly as I could. For a moment, I didn’t hide my fear, I let him see all of it. We’d been running for days. She was terrified when she found out it was you. I guess she was right to be.

I didn’t know Daiman Bradach well, but I didn’t have to. If I could make him doubt himself, make him sympathetic to my situation, I’d get a lot more openings to find out about him—or escape.

And he did look guilty. He wasn’t, I gathered, the type of man who liked to think of himself as a monster, chasing people down. You didn’t have to run from me, he said quietly.

You killed Sarah when you found us, I reminded him defiantly, and now you’ve got me in these. I held out my bound wrists. I was glaring. I was angry—angry at him for doing this, angry at myself for being scared. I needed to make him feel guilty for what he’d done, and I wasn’t going to achieve that by being obedient. So tell me again why we didn’t need to run?

He didn’t respond to me immediately, and I shifted, trying to get comfortable. This really was a gorgeous little clearing, like something out of a fairytale, with soft moss to sleep on and tiny white flowers blooming under the trees. Beyond the smell of cooking food—my mouth was still watering like crazy—the air smelled sweet and earthy. It seemed jarringly out of place with my current situation.

Sarah died because she interfered with a tradition that must be upheld, he said finally.

’Sarah died,’ I repeated bitterly. I guess that’s one way to say it.

I killed her. Is that what you want to hear? He met my eyes, and his own were flat. His jaw was clenched. He didn’t like killing people.

That was good to know.

I tried not to feel guilty for backing him into this corner. Whether or not he liked killing people, he had killed Sarah. Yeah. That was what I wanted to hear. I looked away. Not that it helps, I guess.

I won’t apologize for killing someone who was trying to kill me, he said quietly. And I won’t feel guilty about it.

I didn’t look back. He did feel guilty, I could tell.

And what she interfered with…. He sighed. "The Monarchists would never tell you the truth about the horrors magic once visited on this world—about the horrors they’re preparing to unleash again. There are more lives at stake than just Sarah’s and yours. You must be trained to use your powers, and you must know the history of magic."

Monarchists. There was that term again. I considered asking what a Monarchist was, and then decided that would be too clear a sign that something was wrong with me. The Acadamh, after all, was something on his side of whatever war this was, but the Monarchists were theoretically on mine. I should know about them.

Right. I decided I’d pushed him enough for now. I shrugged and held out my wrists with their vines. Am I going to learn to do this? Or that sleep thing you did to me?

He looked at me like I was crazy. No.

Why not? I had thought it was a perfectly reasonable question.

You’re a sorceress. He spoke like he was explaining something to a five year old. Not a druid.

You’re looking at me like I know the difference. So much for charming him, but he really was being annoying.

He gave me a look at that, and