Perhaps this war against the Dark One was not as futile as she had feared.
Yet she had to tell Bram everything. She couldn’t lead him ignorantly toward danger. “The working of magic together has its own perils. So many ways it could go wrong, the damage it could wreak . . .”
“The Devil doesn’t frighten me. This doesn’t, either.” She shook her head. “With a single stray thought, we could become trapped between the mortal world and the realm of magic.”
“Every tactic has its risks.”
She saw he would not be dissuaded. “We shouldn’t attempt anything here.” Though they were high above the city, impossible to see from the streets below, they were still exposed. To the elements. To the possibility of the Dark One’s watchful spies taking notice. Bram was new to working magic, as well. She suspected the task would need silence, privacy, and some measure of security.
“Home, then.”
He said the word as if it was their home, not his. A remnant of warmth filtered through her—in her life, she had led a peripatetic existence, hunting magic, searching for power. She never sought such a place. Too confining.
It did not feel so now.
He motioned for her to proceed him through the doorway in the cupola. She shook her head at the gesture but glided past him. A ghost required neither courtesy nor decorum. He certainly hadn’t shown her much before, and she did not expect it.
Small though the gesture was, however, its deliberate use gave her another pulse of warmth. As though she was not a specter, but a woman. A woman who deserved respect.
What man might believe this? Against all probability, the man turned out to be an inveterate sinner.
They sequestered themselves in the chamber that Bram used for combat practice. Even without her magic, Livia sensed his strength imbuing the room. They needed all of his resilience for the forthcoming task, and here he was confident, focused. He paced through the chamber, pushing all the furniture and practice targets against the walls. His movements were assured and unhesitating. If he held any trepidation about attempting to work magic, none showed.
The same could not be said for her. Outwardly, she kept herself composed, directing him to give them as much space as possible—with unknown variables, anything might happen—but inwardly, she was uneasy. She’d spoken truly. Should either of them let their concentration waver, she and Bram might become prisoners of the Ambitus. As she had been for over a millennium. A terrifying thought to be trapped there again.
She had helped Whit cure Zora of a demon’s poison, but Whit hadn’t any magic of his own. He’d been her corporeal hands. There, the danger had been only the loss of Zora’s life. So much more hung in the balance with what she and Bram would attempt.
It was not his skill or unfamiliarity that troubled her. The unknown was her. During her life, she had been a student of magic, always learning, continually acquiring. She had never been a teacher, nor given to sharing. Powerful families had brought their daughters to her, hoping she would impart her knowledge, yet she hoarded everything—her power, her learning.
The seeds of her avarice now bore fruit. She was an untried teacher, utterly green.
Even if she could teach Bram how to invoke and use magic, the dangers were rife. How might she accomplish this? What if her own greed was their undoing?
“Stop worrying.” He shoved a large musical instrument against the wall, its legs scraping on the floor.
“I am not,” she shot back.
He gave her a look that said her protestation failed to convince him.
“This will be challenging,” she finally acknowledged. “Not only the perils of using magic. As a teacher, I’m . . . unpracticed.”
“Good to know you’re inexperienced with something.” He had removed his coat to move aside the furnishings, and he wiped his forehead on the full white sleeve of his shirt. “Mind, experience in a woman is an excellent thing.”
“Thank the gods I have your approval.” Yet his teasing strangely lessened her apprehension.
“What else will we need?” Hands on hips like a captain surveying his troops, he glanced around the chamber. “Black candles? The blood of a goat?”
She shuddered in distaste. “Props are for amateurs.”
The grin he gave her would have made a mortal woman tremble with want. Fortunately, she had no pulse to race, no breath to sigh. No wonder so many females leapt into his bed. Between his smoldering gazes and raffish smiles, only a dead woman could remain immune.
He had never smiled for her. Not until that moment.
“Again,” he said, “I give thanks for your experience.”
“Between the two of us, there is not a speck of innocence.” She steadied herself. “Let us begin.”
He moved toward her, unhesitating, the black of his unbound hair as dark as the shadows. They faced one another. She did not miss the way his gaze moved over her in swift, appreciative perusal, lingering briefly on her breasts. A man could not resist looking at a woman, regardless of whether the woman was alive or dead.
She fought the impulse to preen. After all, when she had been alive, many words praising her beauty had been spoken. She was no stranger to a man’s approving stare.
But it was this man’s gaze that filled her cheeks with the echo of warmth.
What she needed now was focus, not the silly flutterings of a female craving masculine attention.
“When I had full possession of my magic,” she said, “locating someone was a simple matter. All living things have their own distinctive energy. A kind of light and sound unique to them alone. To find them, I searched for the flame of their psyche, followed it much as a ship is guided by a beacon.”
“Sounds abstruse.”
“Only in the telling. The doing becomes a matter of instinct.”
He frowned. “In this, I have no instinct.”
“We’ll create it.” She struggled to determine what she ought to do next, how to go about the utterly foreign process of developing someone else’s magic. Some people, women especially, made for gifted teachers. She was not one of them. To teach was to steal from herself, or so she’d believed. Even now, the compulsion to hoard gripped her. She had to mentally pry her fingers from their vise, clutching knowledge close.
“To work magic, one must first find one’s own power.” She hoped her voice sounded far more confident than she felt. “Close your eyes. Let your gaze fall inward.”
He hesitated for a brief moment, then did as she asked. She also closed her eyes. Before, her magic had always been close to the surface. She could call upon it without thought or effort. One did not tell one’s heart to beat. Now, she had to recall what it was like when she had been a young priestess in training, learning how to harness the native magic within herself, and fan the spark into a flame.
“Deep within you resides magic,” she continued. “It’s strange, and foreign, but you oughtn’t fear it. Allow yourself to reach for it. Allow it to come into being.”
He exhaled through his nose. “No damned soldier ever followed such a strange command.”
“This damned soldier had better,” she growled.
“I ought to call you Madam General rather than Madam Ghost.”
“Concentration,” she snapped. “Do not make this more difficult than it already is.”
“Apologies, Madam Ghost General.”
She clenched her teeth. “Just be quiet and still your mind. Search for the gleam of magic within. It is unique to each being.”
“Not me.”
“Most especially you. Think of the talents you possess, the skills distinctively yours. Leading men into battle. Beguiling women into your bed. Your art with a sword. You see them now, don’t you? These gifts?”
A pause. And then he rumbled, “I see them.”
“Follow them. Use them to guide you toward the magic inside you. It resembles a key, shining deep within you, as though at the bottom of a well. Look for that.”
She must guide him toward his magic as she searched for her own. Thank the goddess, he obeyed, falling silent.
Now she had to heed her own directive. Finding one’s magic meant utilizing magic, a painful irony. At the least, she possessed enough power for that. When she had been a girl first learning the mysteries of serving in the temple, the head priestess had revealed to her the existence of true magic. It was a secret hidden from most of the world. But the true magic dwelt within her, and she must train herself to find it, calling upon her native power to guide the magic within her to greater strength. She summoned that power now.
There—just as she had said to Bram. A gleaming key. It didn’t possess the same strength as it had before, however, its radiance dimmed.
“I see it.” Surprise threaded through Bram’s voice.
“Hold onto it,” she said, urgent. “Hold it tight.” She must combine their energy, something she had never truly attempted before. The Druid priestess and Egyptian slave had been her victims, their magic stripped away forcibly, and by her greater power. Now she must find another way, a gentler means.
Gentle was foreign to her. Yet she reached out to Bram with softer, searching hands. A careful coaxing forward. She wanted to touch his flesh, but could not. His psyche, his energy, these she could touch. A strange hesitancy danced through her, slowing her movement. Never had she shared such a communion. Always, she had been solitary, proud. This would not leave her unaffected.
She almost recoiled when she came up against the shimmering edge of his psyche—they had shared memories, thoughts, but this was even more intimate.
"Sinner’s Heart" отзывы
Отзывы читателей о книге "Sinner’s Heart". Читайте комментарии и мнения людей о произведении.
Понравилась книга? Поделитесь впечатлениями - оставьте Ваш отзыв и расскажите о книге "Sinner’s Heart" друзьям в соцсетях.