Visions of Magic (40 page)

“Close your mind to her, Shea,” he shouted even as he was swept into the cage. Instantly, the white gold barred door slammed shut on him. His eyes flared with fury, but the anger was directed at Kellyn, not Shea. His hands fisted around the white gold briefly, but he let go a moment later, no doubt feeling the drain of his powers. “Damn it, Shea, let me out before it's too late!”

His voice sounded far away, muffled, and Shea knew it was because she was losing herself in the dark magics. She felt as if she were trapped in a slow spiral, traveling ever downward, becoming a part of the darkness itself. And a part of her loved it. Craved it.

Her gaze locked with her Eternal, though, and she somehow managed to gain a tenuous grip on her own inner strength. She looked at Torin, but asked Kellyn, “What happens now? What happens to him if I go along with you?”

He became a pillar of fire within the white gold cage, but the flames were a pale echo of what they usually were. And she knew he would never be free of that cage unless
she
freed him.

“Nothing,” Kellyn said, strolling toward the trapped Eternal with a smile on her face. “Absolutely nothing will happen to him.
Ever.
” She tapped her fingernail against the white gold bars and made a face at the instant yet tiny drain on her power. “I did the same to my Eternal. Trust me when I say it works like a charm.”

“Where is he?” Shea asked, still fighting the lure of the darkness. “Your Eternal. What did you do with him?”

Kellyn whirled around to face her, a wide grin on her face. “I dropped him into the ocean,” she said and chuckled a little at the memory. “Right now, the oh, so pious Egan is enjoying the view at the bottom of the sea.”

Shea shot a look at Torin and she saw his eyes fill with pain and fury.

“Remember,” Kellyn was saying, “they are of the fire. Water will restrict and dampen their powers and the white gold bars are a continual drain. They can't drown, because they're unfortunately immortal”—she looked disappointed—“but they can be contained. Eternally—no pun intended, of course. You are the only one who can dispose of
your
Eternal, Shea. I'd do it for you, but some things are simply out of my control.”

Shea heard the madness in the witch's voice and knew that if she continued to listen to the dark magics taking her over, she would soon be no better.

“You'll see,” Kellyn assured her. “Besides, it's not as if we're
killing
the Eternals. We're just putting them where they won't be able to interfere in our business again. And with the mating ritual unfinished, his soul will die and he'll never be a threat again. It's all very easy, Shea,” she whispered. “All you have to do is say ‘yes.' ”

The word echoed in her mind. She tasted it, tasted the aftereffects and looked into her own soul to see if that was who she really was. Her gaze shot to the curve of the stairwell leading to the chapel and Haven beyond. But no one was coming to help them.

This was her test, Shea thought. This was the moment her soul had spent eight hundred years preparing for. The moment when she would discover if she had grown, evolved—or if she was no better than she had been on that long-ago night.

She shifted her gaze to Torin, trapped in a cage, his immense strength and courage locked away by a crazy witch with delusions of grandeur. His eyes shone at her. The emotions he directed at her were clear in his gaze. Faith. Love. Beacons in the darkness where she battled for control of her own destiny.

His voice rippled through her mind and she felt the power of him within her. The branding tattoo on her skin burned with a fire that reminded her of who she was. How far she had come and how far she still had to go.

Her fingers played across the glossy black surface of the silver she held and she smiled at the Eternal who had so completed her. With his help, she could resist the call of the darkness.

She would not bow down to greed again. She would not play the puppet to dark powers. Would not give up all that mattered in a quest to find the ephemeral. Would not succumb to temptations of the past that would destroy the future she wanted so badly.

“Catch!” she shouted and tossed the black sliver to him. Instantly, he shoved his arms between the bars of white gold, called the fire and captured the Artifact in the flames.

“What are you
doing
?” Kellyn's shriek of fury pierced the air.

“What I have to!” Shea answered, whirling around to lift both hands and push her powers at the black-haired witch. Fire flashed from her raised palms as it had on that first day so long ago. Only this time she was in control.

With a howl of rage, Kellyn disappeared.

Shaking from head to foot, Shea dismissed the witch and raced to Torin. She focused her powers on the locking mechanism and when it sprang free, Torin stepped out of the cage and she threw her arms around him, holding tight.

He held her with one arm while he balanced the Artifact in a ball of flame in his free hand.

“You had me worried for a moment or two,” he said finally.

“I had me worried, too,” she admitted, kissing his throat, his jaw, then going up on her toes to plant a hurried kiss on his mouth. She could trust him with her whole truth. He had seen her face her demons and win. She grinned up at him, feeling the sweet rush of peace race through her. “But I did it. I'm okay.”

“More than okay,” he told her, pride shining in his eyes. “Where'd you send Kellyn?”

She looked over her shoulder at the empty inner yard of the castle. “I'm not sure,” she said. “My powers aren't cohesive enough to tell yet.”

Torin frowned and grabbed her hand. “She's a teleporter. So wherever she is, it won't take her long to get back. We'd better finish this.”

 

Inside Haven, Torin felt his breath leave him as he stared at his witch. She was transformed into something more beautiful than he could ever have imagined. Here, in the sacred halls of Haven, the Artifact was neutralized and the witch who had reclaimed it had become, at long last, what she was meant to be.

Shea wore the traditional robe, baring her left breast proudly as she moved with the regal dignity of a queen. She was the living, breathing epitome of pure, untainted magic. Her hair, skin, clothing were white and glowed with a brightness equaled only by the sun. On her bare breast her branding tattoo dazzled with a flaring, inner light.

She was literally the essence of magic, the power of creation and life. She was
female
in all her power and glory. Her green eyes shone with a strength of purpose he'd never seen there before and his pride in her knew no bounds.

Under the watchful eyes of Mairi, Damyn and Torin, Shea walked slowly across the great hall, lit by the wall torches. Shadows and light flickered wildly around the room, dancing over Shea as she carried the black silver in her cupped hands.

There was no danger now.

She had passed her test.

She had reached Haven.

Without hesitation, she lifted her hands to the first of three fire cages, set the shard of the Artifact into the flames and stepped back. Bowing her head, crossing her hands over her heart, she began to chant.

The earth shook, sparks erupted from the flames and the bright light that had encompassed Shea slid from her to the cage surrounding the black silver. The flames, enriched by pure magic, burned even more fiercely and the dangerous shard was locked away.

The empty fire cages beside hers flashed with dancing flames and Shea knew that there were more cages behind these first three. All were flashing with fire, all awaiting the Artifacts that would be returned to Haven.

As the light left her, Shea was once again herself and yet so much more. She felt changed, but in a way that made her proud. She'd accomplished what she had set out to do. She'd righted a wrong, found the love of her life and won immortality to boot.

The test had been hard, but the rewards were tremendous.

And she couldn't have done any of it without Torin. Without the other half of her soul. Without the mate who made her life worth living.

She smiled at Mairi and Damyn, inclined her head in a gesture of respect to the once and future High Priestess of her reborn coven, then walked slowly, deliberately, to Torin.

He'd had faith in her even when her own faith had crumbled. He'd remained steadfast and loyal even when she had had no right to ask it of him. He had loved her through the eons and had waited for her to become what he had known she could be.

Outside, the full moon shone down on the castle where all of this had begun so many centuries ago. And in Haven, there was a sense of fulfillment as the first debt was paid.

Shea felt as if she and Torin were the only two people in the world. She wrapped her arms around her mate's waist and held on to him. The warmth of him felt so right. The heat of her bare breast pressed to his naked chest burned through her and she welcomed the mating burn as the tattoo completed itself. With her task finished, the thirty days at an end, the mating was fulfilled.

Closing her eyes, she let the moment register so that she would always be able to draw it up in memory and recall the instant she and Torin had at last become one forever.

She had come so close to losing him that she couldn't bear the thought of being apart from him. Not even for a moment.

“It's done, Shea. Your promise has been kept and you are the most amazing woman I have ever known.”

“
Our
promise was kept, Torin. And I am the woman who loves you more than life. More than eternity.”

The branding tattoos on their skin suddenly erupted into a flash of fire and heat, scorching them each with an inner blaze of eternal warmth as the images were seared into their skin for all time. Their mating was complete at last.

They each held on to the other and when that blast of heat ended, leaving them shaken but still linked together, Shea rested her head on Torin's broad chest. Smiling, she whispered, “Your heart's beating.”

He took her face in his hands and kissed her with the promise of forever between them. “It beats only for you, Shea. And now we have an eternity together.”

“It won't be nearly enough,” she said, smiling through the sheen of tears blinding her.

“Never enough,” he agreed.

Mairi sighed, reached for Damyn's hand and smiled at Shea and her mate.

“Can you feel it?” she asked, her eyes shining with expectation. “The very air shivers. The second sister is Awakening.”

T
eresa Santiago opened her arms to the sky as if welcoming a lover. The storm raged overhead, and its energy and power filled her like long-dammed water rushing onto a floodplain. She felt it all and gloried in it. The sweep of sensation, the pulse of strength.

Lightning flashed and its charge slammed into the ground at the feet of the tall woman who stood amid the white-hot bolts like a pagan god.

Snaking across her eyes, whipping around her throat, her long black hair flew out around her in the charged atmosphere. Her fingertips practically vibrated with power as lightning danced to her whims.

Electrified white bolts cracked across the black sky, then forked into the desert floor. Sand geysers erupted all around her as energy sizzled and burned. Thunder roared. Clouds roiled. Juniper and manzanita dipped and swayed with the wind. Behind her, the ocotillo plants waved their skeletal limbs, scraping at her back like a demon demanding attention.

But she ignored every distraction—including her own apprehension. Exhilarating as it was to command nature in such a way, a part of Teresa cringed, horrified at what she was now able to do. The lightning danced, plowing into the earth at her feet, again and again. Every cell in her body sizzled from the near contact. She felt as if she too were electrified, and that small horrified part of her wanted to run and hide from all of this.

But she held her ground. She couldn't turn her back on the very legacy for which she had been in training most of her life. Now that it was here, magic opening up inside her, she would simply have to find a way to master it.

Four days ago, she had had the first dream. A terrorfilled nightmare in which flames chewed at her skin while demons howled and crowds cheered. She'd jolted from sleep in a sharp panic, her own hair wrapped around her throat like a noose as she gasped for air that wouldn't come. She had known then that her
abuela
's prophecies were coming true.

Then the magic appeared. Small things at first. Sparking a match without striking it against something. Approaching the television and it coming to life. Lightbulbs shattering at her touch. Streetlights blinking out when she brushed against the pole.

And today . . . she had followed her instincts, somehow
knowing
that the lightning was calling to her. At the first sight of a storm on the horizon, a deep well of power had opened up inside Teresa, as if it had been waiting for nature's fury to completely awaken. She had driven into the desert outside Sedona, Arizona, to meet that storm head-on. To walk into the maelstrom and somehow master it.

For more than an hour now, she had worked, pulling down the lightning, trying to direct it to specific targets—because what was the point of having the power if she couldn't control it? And in this time, when witches—and even those
suspected
of witchcraft—were being locked away or worse, she needed that control. Her new power would make her a magnet for disaster. She had to be able to draw on her own strengths to protect herself and those she loved.