“Gods forbid,” I state and walk up the stairs.. She follows me, then turns into her room. As soon as her doors close, I creep back down the stairs, tears dissolving into my eyes.
Despite the years of building a wall around my heart, each brick created from anger, jealousy, hurt, and apathy, occasionally my mother still hurts me with her words.
I shake the pain away, reminding myself that I have Ari, my other sisters, and Drake and tonight, he needs me.
The cold air hits my hot cheeks and tear-pinched eyes as I walk out into the gardens, slide between the vines and wall, then the gate and into the dark street where Drake waves me over from the other side.
“What’s wrong?” Drake asks when I reach him.
“Nothing… I—” I touch the back of my neck, grazing my fingertips over the raised hairs. “I was just thinking about the Harvest,” I lie, then glance up at my house before turning and walking with him down the cobblestone road.
“You don’t have to do this,” Drake says for the thousandth time since we formed this plan.
“Yes, I do.” My mother’s words taunt me as I walk. Lucky. She called him fucking lucky. “If this is the last thing I do,” I say breathlessly. “Then my life will have meant something.”
The music and festivities of the Night Market fade as Drake and I walk across town, hidden under the anonymity of the hoods of our cloaks. No one can place us at the church tonight. Otherwise, by this time tomorrow, our hoods will be replaced by nooses.
“You can still turn back,” Drake whispers before we walk through the wrought-iron gates of the ancient, stone church, illuminated by the full moon. “I know Ari loves you, but we both know she is devout to your father, and the gods. When she hears about this tomorrow, she’ll know we were behind it.”
“She won’t say anything. She’ll never put me in danger like that, even if she doesn’t like it.”
After a quick glance to check we are alone, he pulls down the hood of his cloak, then runs his hands through his rain-soaked hair. Raven-black curls form against his forehead, and his green eyes widen when they finally meet mine. “This is my fight. They’re never going to pick you.”
I avert my gaze to the entrance as we walk through the gates, the heavy metal screeching in protest.
“It doesn’t matter,” I murmur as thoughts of being trapped on Tenenocti Island, forced to kill other witches or warlocks, carousel through my mind. I could think of nothing worse, except for Drake or Arabella being sent there. “Ari and I may not be, but what about Cecilia and Emilia? They’ll be of age at the next Harvest and father won’t be around forever. And even if he is, what about the later generations? This will go on forever unless we stop it. Something has to change.”
He lets out a long sigh. I’m not the only one with young siblings. Like me, he has three sisters. “I just don’t want you to lose control,” he says, softening his tone.
Thick droplets of rain land on my face as I turn my gaze to the cloud-stricken night sky, pin-pricked with silver stars. The icy gusts seep through my black, traveling cloak, and I tighten the fabric around my navy blue dress, camouflaging me against the darkness.
Lowering my voice, I whisper, “I won’t.”
Drake follows me up the path. “You don’t know that.”
“I’ve got it under control,” I state, flexing my fingers as the familiar sensation of decay magic taunts me. Drake has always been worried that the darkness inside of me will somehow take over.
“You’re upset,” he observes.
“I’m not,” I reply, but I can feel his eyes on me, so I relent. “My Mother caught us sneaking back inside.”
His hand lands on my shoulder, and with a gentle squeeze, he whispers, “You can turn back if you want. This could get us both killed..”
I shrug. “It wouldn’t be the first time I almost died.”
“Nor the first time I have to save your ass,” he jokes..
My thoughts flit to his illusion that distracted the Phovus last time. “You helped.”
The corner of my mouth tips upwards slightly, and he brushes his thumb across it, wearing a smirk. “My gods, is that a smile?”
“No.” I clear my throat, then touch the side of my neck. His dimples deepen as he flashes me a toothy smile. There’s something so carefree in his expression that I secretly envy. I assess the face I’ve seen so much of since I was five, illuminated by the full moon. I run my gaze over his tanned, rugged features. The scar from when he’d fallen off a tree when we were children is still visible down one side, but faded, and pink now. His heavy-lidded eyes widen as he watches me, the sparkle within the moss-green irises reflecting my stoic face. His full lips, always tilted, with a ghost of a laugh always etched upon them.
“See something you like, Wildflower?” he asks, using the nickname he’d passed onto me since he discovered my affinity for making poisons from foraged flowers and plants.
“Nothing new,” I tease, my lips forming back into a hard line. “Let’s go. And before you say anything else, we both know I’m not leaving.”
His breath hitches, and he grabs my arm before we can go any further. I cast a brief glance at his hand, where the tattoos come to life, swirling against his skin. Like others in Astraea’s coven with illusion magic, his emotions and desires take form through art. Appearing on the top of his hand, a painting materializes of us inching closer, as if we might kiss at any moment. I see myself through his eyes.
My wavy, long hair dances in the breeze, threads of silver speckled within the brown, and Drake lifts a finger, brushing back a few stray chestnut-colored strands. My glacier-blue gaze fixates on him, my hand on his chest. I can only imagine how it would really feel as I watch the moment play out, his arms tightening around my waist, then gliding down to my wide hips, fisting the fabric of my dress as he towers over me, at least a foot higher than my five-foot-two stature.
As he catches sight of the inked scene, he promptly pulls his sleeve down.
I avert my gaze, then look around at the stretches of cobblestone surrounding the building, shadowed by graywar trees carpeting the entrance with skeletal leaves. Their low branches reach out, casting shadows over pale tombs housing the dead. Among those graves, a well-known presence draws my attention. Deep in slumber, the creature that haunts my dreams rests in its natural feline-looking form, surrounded by dancing wisps of darkness.
“There’s a phovus.”
His eyes widen. “What?”
“The elders must have sent the creature to guard the church.” I tread carefully over the path and our hushed whispers carry into the night. I gaze around as the familiar tingle of death sparks through my body. The memory paints in my mind as I grow closer to the creature, recalling the one that almost killed me—its predatory eyes finding me in the forest.
“It’s sleeping,” I say with a shudder, balling my fists. Drake hesitates, but I push forward. I won’t let fear paralyze me. Facing challenges head on is the only way to survive in this world. “Let’s go.”
It’s rare the elders would use one and ridiculous that the elder coven thinks they can tame one. Phovi are predators, serving only one being, and the God of Death hasn’t been seen in forever. They are supposed to stay in the Darklands, but some walk in our world. I’m not sure if they escaped, or are spies sent here by Death.
Decay magic sizzles under my skin upon thinking of him, like a dull ache that never fully goes away.
Death’s coven practices his magic, but while he has many powers for them to harness, no one I know has inherited the type of magic I possess. As far as I am aware, I am the first.
