The Brush of Black Wings Read online

  This time the light tumbled off her in an amber wave and dashed itself against the ruin. The green luminescence sputtered, and the figure in its depths winced. Martise concentrated all her strength inward and glared at her adversary. “You are unwelcome. You are unwanted. Leave this place!”

  More amber light flowed from her, became a weapon. It punched through the invisible barrier and slammed into the luminescent column in the temple’s center. A thin scream rent the air before the green light collapsed in on itself. A lone spark flew out to spatter across Martise’s chest. She stumbled backward as a dank coldness that had nothing to do with winter and everything to do with a crypt, washed over her. It faded before she took her next breath, leaving her shuddering and swatting at her clothes in a frantic effort to wipe the foul sensation off her body.

  Branches creaked above, scraping against each other as if speaking amongst themselves in a language as arcane as the one the entity in the light had uttered. A low resonance vibrated the ground beneath Martise’s feet, and she darted away from the now empty temple.

  A sharp snap sounded in the trees followed by a rupture in the air before her, and Silhara strode into the clearing. Clad in a worn shirt, faded breeches and an apron stained in neroli oil, he was more bedraggled peasant than infamous god-killer. Dried orange blossoms clung to strands of his hair. He wielded a long cane knife in one hand and a dagger in the other. Despite her recent scare, Martise managed a smile. He’d come prepared. What he couldn’t obliterate with magic, he’d cheerfully butcher.

  His black gaze touched on her face and body, looking for injury, before scanning the surrounding wood and the ruin looming behind her. His eyes narrowed. “The forest gave warning. Are you all right?”

  Instead of answering, she rushed him. He gave a soft “umpf” when she wrapped her arms around his middle and squeezed hard. The flat of a knife blade pressed against her back as he gathered her close. Martise took comfort in the feel of his wiry frame, his scent of citrus and matal tobacco in her nose. They overpowered the lingering odor of death that tainted her clothes.

  Silhara went rigid and eased out of her hold. His nostrils flared, and he peered closer at her. “You’ve the scent of the dark on you, my wife, and it isn’t the wood’s curse. What happened here? And who do I need to kill?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Martise shivered inside her cloak. “I don’t think you can kill this with a blade.” She glanced back at the temple. “I was picking parasols and tripped on a tree root. I caught my balance on the first step. A witchlight grew in the temple’s center after that.”

  She described the burgeoning column, the shapes trapped inside it and the appearance of the phantasmic figure with the possessed eyes who greeted her with a raised hand and a strange word. Silhara’s harsh features sharpened even more at her tale. She was on the verge of telling him of her Gift’s resurrection when he interrupted her.

  “Where’s Cael? He should have stayed with you.” His gaze went from tree to tree, looking long into the woodland murk.

  Martise shrugged. “He’s off hunting I think. There didn’t seem to be any reason for him to stay. I thought it safe. I didn’t see any of your safeguards, and Cael sniffed the perimeter. No reaction from him.”

  Silhara eyed the ruin, his scowl deepening. “And none from the ruin until you touched the step.”

  “Only then, and by that time Cael was off chasing rabbits or whatever creatures lurk under these trees.”

  He handed her the dagger and cane knife. “I’ll take a look. If anything bolts out, cut its head off.” He left her gaping at him to circle the temple.

  She held the weapons loosely, certain she’d be more likely to cut off her own toes before she took down an attacker. “Be careful, Silhara.”

  “Always.”

  That was a flat out lie, but Martise held her tongue. She didn’t feel like jesting or teasing at the moment, and she flexed her legs, ready to leap forward and shove Silhara out of the way in case the green radiance reappeared.

  He nudged her abandoned basket of mushrooms aside with his foot and held up one hand, fingers steepled together. Lightning sizzled off his fingertips. He pointed his hand toward the ground and walked a path around the ruin. Steam rose on ghostly ribbons where the miniature bolts fired from his fingers seared the snow-covered grass as he walked. He was constructing a protective circle, one that kept the danger within.

  Martise might have found comfort in his actions save for the fact he was inside the barrier with the ruin. Oblivious to his risk and her fear for him, he closed the circle and climbed the steps toward the temple’s center.

  Even in boots, his tread was soundless as he traversed the interior. His lips moved in silent conversation while his hands sketched patterns in the air. Martise recognized the motions—summoning spells, revelation enchantments. He sought to coax out whatever might linger there. His efforts were fruitless. No witchlight reappeared, even when Silhara ran his hands across the engraved circle and traced the mysterious carvings on the columns.

  He frowned at Martise. “It’s silent. Dead.”

  His statement held no accusation, but Martise crossed her arms and returned his frown. “I know what I saw.”

  Silhara’s lips twitched. “I believe you.” The faint smile disappeared in favor of his usual dour expression. “This is a false silence. Something waits here—lies low and comes alive at the opportune moment. Right now it wants to stay hidden. You didn’t recognize this demon’s word?”

  She shook her head. “No. The language was either too old—”

  “Or not of this world,” he finished for her. Silhara made another circuit of the ruin’s interior. “I’ve explored this temple many times and never sensed a presence before.” He paused and cocked his head, his gaze enigmatic. “You said the witchlight appeared when you touched the step. What haven’t you told me?”

  Her rediscovered Gift thrummed inside her, a presence she once thought herself fortunate to be rid of. She feared it and all it stood for, but a small part savored its return, and she was reluctant to reveal its resurrection, even to the man who understood its power and would slay anyone who tried to use it against her.

  She motioned to him, growing more uneasy the longer he stayed within the barrier circle. “Come away from the ruin. Call Cael back.”

  Silhara scowled. “Martise...”

  “Call Cael, Silhara.”

  To her relief, he ceded the argument and stepped across the circle of melted snow and burnt grass. A hard winter wind cut through the trees, whipping long strands of black hair mixed with white across his face. He closed the distance between himself and Martise and reclaimed his weapons. His dark eyes remained on her face as he sucked his lower lip between his teeth and whistled loud enough to make her ears ring.

  They didn’t have to wait long. The magefinder loped into the clearing and immediately skittered sideways from the ruin, tail tucked between his legs. Fur rose in a stiffening ridge along his back, and he growled low in his throat.

  “He senses something now.” Silhara watched the dog before turning to her. “He didn’t do any of this when you first arrived?”

  Martise shook her head, waiting for the inevitable reaction from the magefinder as he slinked closer to them. His hackles rose even higher, extending to the ruff of fur that bristled around his neck. He circled her, brown eyes now crimson and glowing as he breathed her scent through nostrils stretched wide and quivering.

  Silhara’s eyebrows rose. “What is this?”

  Martise hugged herself. “I don’t think my Gift was destroyed at Ferrin’s Tor.” Silhara’s swarthy features paled at her words. “I think you drained it almost dry. What remained hid deep, so deep even Cael couldn’t sense its presence. Something in the ruin could. When I touched the step, whatever waited in its center awoke and awakened my Gift as well.”

  She wanted to glance away from Silhara’s stare. He had a way of nailing one’s feet to the floor with a look, and in those sloe
-black eyes she saw both unease and cold-blooded calculation.

  “Are you sure? We’ve tried to call it forth since Ferrin’s Tor, to no avail.”

  She rubbed her arms, fighting off a chill that froze her bones from within. “I’m sure. Whatever lingered in the temple didn’t leave of its own accord.” She described the power that dragged her toward the ruin, the entity’s strange command, her Gift’s manifestation, first as a bolt that split the tree and then as a wave and a spear that attacked the radiant column until the green light blew out like a candle snuffed.

  Silhara listened without interruption, his eyes more often on the ruin than on her, for which she was thankful. He remained silent when she finished. While Martise didn’t much care for him vivisecting her with his gaze, she wished he’d say something.

  She took his weapons a second time when he left her side to approach the ruin once more. This time, his tone was snappish; spells cracked off his lips and sparked from his fingers. Martise sensed his fury, saw it in the tiny bolts of lightning that shot through the miasma of spellwork he built to encase the temple in a cage of lethal wards. Anything that tried to break through would get more than a warning shot. These wards were meant to kill.

  He left the clearing, pausing long enough to retrieve her basket. A grim smile touched his mouth as he handed her the container. “I missed a morning’s tupping, and you battled a demon because of these. They’ve caused too much trouble to leave behind.”

  She handed him the knife and dagger in exchange. “Those wards won’t hold forever.”

  Silhara shrugged. “They’ll hold long enough for me to return, raze the ruin and cleanse the ground. I’ve more important things to see to at the moment.” He lifted a hand to trace the outline of Martise’s face with one calloused finger. “Can you still feel your Gift?”

  She leaned into his touch. “Yes. Alive and well.” Her Gift flickered inside her, a low-burning flame brought to life after years of extinguishment. She feared its return—almost as much as she rejoiced in it.

  As if he sensed her euphoria, Silhara’s mouth turned down in a severe frown. “Martise, this isn’t a good thing.”

  She sighed. “I know.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Gurn’s pleased expression at the sight of a basket full of mushrooms darkened when Silhara put away his weaponry and announced “We have a problem.”

  Martise gave the servant a reassuring smile as she shrugged off her cloak and left it on a chair to follow Silhara out of the kitchen. “It’s not as bad as he makes it sound.” She scowled at the disbelieving snort echoing back from the doorway. “Ignore him, Gurn.”

  She jogged out of the kitchen and caught up with Silhara at the base of the stairs. He turned a flinty stare on her when she tugged on his sleeve. “It isn’t a doomsday prophecy, Silhara.”

  His mouth tightened. “Isn’t it?”

  With the power of her Gift singing through her veins, Martise found it impossible to see its return in the same grim light. She said nothing more as he ushered her up the stairs ahead of him, his hand warm on her back.

  Once inside their bedchamber, he lit the brazier and closed the shutters that led to the balcony. His eyes gleamed in the semi-darkness. “I don’t want to be punched straight off the balcony just in case your Gift is no longer friendly to me.”

  Martise winced. He’d coaxed awake the magic inside her several times in the past. It had always responded like a lover, except once. Then he had been possessed by another and choking the life out of her. As with the demon in the ruin, her Gift had risen to her defense in the most punitive fashion. Silhara still complained of aches and pains brought on by that confrontation.

  He stood before her, smelling sweetly of orange blossoms and almost shimmering with anger. “From what you’ve described, your Gift’s resurrection isn’t just a low spark ignited; it’s a bonfire.” His brow knitted, enhancing his ready scowl. He plucked gently at her sleeve, his touch light, reassuring. “You know my opinion on seer-bonding, but I need to know how much is returned to you. The choice, however, remains yours.”

  She stepped closer to him until his shadow, cast by the brazier’s red light, enveloped her. “Ah, the fine manners of a courtier,” she teased in an attempt to lighten the grim moment.

  Silhara didn’t crack even a hint of a smile, though she caught a brief glimmer of humor in his eyes. “No need to be insulting,” he said.

  Martise coiled one of his shirt lacings around her finger. “I trust you. You know that.” She tugged on the lacing.

  He nodded and slipped an arm around her waist to draw her against him. “Let’s see if your Gift will embrace me or throw me across the room like a sack of grain as it once did.”

  “You weren’t yourself then.”

  “An understatement of colossal proportions.”

  His free hand slid along her neck before burying itself in her hair. His lips were soft against her forehead, the incantations he spoke on her skin breathy caresses that alternated between hot and cold, leaving gooseflesh on her arms and hot spots on her shoulders. The spells enveloped her, and she opened to them, quaking in Silhara’s arms as his presence and his sorcery sank into her, overwhelming every sense.

  Almost sexual in its nature, the seer-bond between them was seduction instead of invasion, and Martise’s Gift surged in response to Silhara’s seeking. Incorporeal, except for the amber light that haloed her body and Silhara’s, her Gift waxed and waned on a gentle tide, coaxed out of the shadows not by threat but by a dour mage’s enticing words.

  The Gift poured out of her like water through a sieve. Silhara gasped Martise’s name into her hair and clutched her hard against him, his wiry frame shivering with the force of its generosity. She tried to speak but could only utter a gasp that echoed his. She sagged in his arms, her vision clouded by the miasma of amber and the crimson light of their two Gifts melding. Every nerve in her body sizzled, accompanied by a yearning for her husband that consumed all thought.

  Somehow they made it to their bed without falling to the floor, only to collapse amidst the bed linens still rumpled from the previous night’s slumber. Frantic hands shoved clothing aside; kisses broke on labored breathing, and Martise’s thighs gripped Silhara’s narrow hips hard enough to make him grunt. His hair, loose and untamed, curtained them in a black shroud as he rose above her only to sink down and slide into her with a hard thrust.

  Martise arched, her hands clutching the folds of his shirt as she matched his rhythm. His features, highlighted by the glow of spellwork and her Gift, drew into even harsher angles, and his eyes rolled back in his head. She buried her face in his neck, the flex of tendons and muscle tight against her cheek as he groaned in release. His hips kept their pace, slowing only when Martise shuddered in his embrace.

  The light of her Gift pulsed around them as her sight, dotted with black spots, blurred. Exhaustion hung on her like a sodden cape, and even the lingering heat of her climax couldn’t chase away the cold seeping under her skin from both the room’s chill and Silhara’s seer-bonding.

  “Enough,” Silhara commanded in a slurred voice. “Enough, Martise. Let me go.”

  She inhaled on a gasp, and her eyes snapped open at the sharp internal crack that set her head spinning. The light surrounding her and Silhara faded. She lay in his arms, held close to his chest. His command had been for her Gift which reluctantly retreated after he broke the bond that bound him to it.

  Once she caught her bearings and the room ceased to spin before her eyes, she found Silhara watching her with a somnolent gaze. Thin rivulets of perspiration marked shining paths from his temples to his jaw, and high color graced his cheekbones. The light of her Gift was gone, but she didn’t imagine the haze of power that rimmed his body in a crimson aura. Martise licked dry lips. “Are you stronger now?” she asked in a breathless voice.

  Still buried inside her, Silhara tucked a hand under her buttocks to nestle her closer to him and maintain their connection. The brief smile he
gave her didn’t reach his eyes. He peppered her face with soft kisses before speaking. “You’ve milked me dry for the moment, and though I should be, I’m not weary. Far from it.” His fingers flexed on her hip. “Yours is a puzzling power. Guarded and miserly with everyone but me. And then it’s too generous. The challenge for me isn’t to draw out your Gift but to keep it from drowning me and depleting you.”

  Her eyelids felt as if someone had tied millstones to them. She’d trade a body part at this moment for a chance to sleep. “Maybe it likes you as much as I do.” She patted Silhara’s arm before succumbing to a yawn.

  “This is serious, Martise.”

  The fatigue consuming her vanished abruptly, as if Silhara had invoked another spell to revive her. She stared at him wide-eyed. His expression was no more severe than usual, his dark eyes no less secretive, but his statement caused her stomach to flip and her heart to pound under her ribs. Curt, grim, and to the point, he’d uttered it in the raspy voice she’d grown to love, but this time it held a thread of something she’d never thought to hear from the Master of Crows: fear.

  She traced the arch of one of his eyebrows. “I know it’s serious. I’m not treating this lightly; I just don’t fear it yet. It’s too new again, almost impossible to believe that my Gift is somehow returned to me.” She recalled the being in the emerald light. “Besides, I’m more concerned with what’s lurking in that temple than what’s lurking inside me.”

  “Whatever it is, it’s obviously drawn to your Gift.” Silhara kissed the space between Martise’s eyebrows and eased out of her. She grumbled a protest when he stood and straightened his clothes.