Greta gives me a prolonged once over, her sharp eyes seeming to crawl over every inch of me as though she’s trying to see into my very soul. When she finally meets my eyes, she holds my gaze for several long moments before speaking. “Well, I am very glad that youaresitting here today, Your Majesty. And if you’d forgive my forwardness, you’ve done a terrific job with Leisel. I’m honored to serve you both.”
Ifeelthe shift in her demeanor, feel the beginnings of fondness for me begin to take seed within Greta. I even sense the slightest shift in her loyalty; not as though she’s turning her back on Camden, but more so that she now feels loyal to me as well. Although it’s not my end goal, it’s a start.
Score one for the witches.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Iend up spending the entire day with Claude, getting to know the castle’s live-in witch doctor. Apparently, a hybrid of his brand is in short supply these days. As an offspring of a strangely chosen fated match between a male wolf shifter and female witch-wolf hybrid, Claude made it clear that he understood a thing or two about odd and seemingly conflicting pairings as soon as I met him while we walked to the perimeter of the castle’s lands.
While he was teaching me warding sigils of a much higher caliber than those I’ve learned from my books, he offered to give me a few pieces of advice learned from his parents, and I declined as diplomatically and politely as I could because I currently havezerointerest in getting along with Camden. I’m pissed off by his manipulation last night and this morning, so I’ll gladly leave him miserable for life. I had ranted to him about how much I despise shifters and gave him all the reasons why, and his response was to kiss me in places I had never dreamed of, thereby strengthening our bond. I’d admire that level of cunning if I wasn’t so vexed.
After I learned how to create the necessary wards from Claude—an intricate conglomerate of sigils to be placed around thepremise of the castle grounds and activated with various spells—it takes the better part of an hour for me to create and activate the first sequence of sigils. The incantations are in Latin, which Claude was surprised to learn I’m already fluent in. That doesn’t make the spell work any easier; the only thing I’ve ever been able to do with my magic—other than summon a very destructive fire that I much prefer to keep locked up—is some minor mending, warding, and odd-out spells taken from the text of ancient books. Suddenly, I’m practicing the highest forms of magic with none of the necessary education, and doing sosuccessfully, albeit with a great deal of effort.
It takes hundreds of individual sigils to create a wide enough shield to protect the vast land the castle and other royal buildings sit on, and each sigil requires an extensive magical ritual, as well as my blood. The symbols themselves need to be drawn in my blood, activated with a spell, put into the proper place in accordance with the other sigils using yetanotherspell, and then reinforced with a final incantation.
By the time I’m putting the final ward in place, night has fallen over the castle grounds. Claude has decided that standing is overrated and is sitting on a nearby log with a small fire he created crackling in front of him, and I’m pretty sure I’ve lost at least a third of my blood in the last hours.
“His majesty will not be pleased when he sees you,” Claude says, though his voice is resigned.
He’s spent half the day trying to get me to slow down, with very little success on his end. Evidently, Claude is worried that Camden will rip out his throat if I return to the castle in a worse state than I was when I left. Several hours ago, he insisted we stop for the day so I could rest; I asked him if he believed the vampires were spending their time resting after losing one of their royal family members. The arguments stopped after that.
“Aren’t there some rules of etiquette that say you shouldn’t speak to someone of my station with such insolence?” I respond mildly.
Claude lets out a soft snort. “If there’s anything today has taught me, it is that you, child, could not care less about royal etiquette.”
Considering I spent our first hour of casting cursing a blue streak every time I made a mistake, I can’t really blame his assumption. I don’t bother telling him not to call me child; compared to Claude’s many centuries of life, I’m essentially still an embryo to him.
“Quite the contrary. In fact, I spent the morning convincing Leisel’s nanny to give me etiquette lessons—fuck.”
My hands, shaky from the amount of blood I’ve doled out, falter in the intricate tactile gestures that go in tandem with the incantation required to transfer the sigil from its place on my arm and to the air, where it will complete the net of warding that’ll keep the castle safe from any and all types of intrusion. The other sigils I’ve created thus far are visible, glowing a faint white, and suspended in a large, interconnected web of glowing white threads made of pure protective magic.
“What were you saying about etiquette lessons?” Claude asks dryly.
I flex my hands, shaking out my fingers as quickly as possible. If I don’t move the sigil from my skin to the net before the blood dries, I’ll have to redo it, as the ritual requires fresh blood.
“If you were powerful enough to cast an effective warding, we wouldn’t be here,” I snap, before cringing at my own words. They’re unnecessarily cruel. The castle has obviously stood for quite some time with Claude’s protection; it isn’t his fault that the opposition’s heating up.
I turn to look at Claude, ready to apologize, but pause when I see his expression isn’t angry or pained; it’s thoughtful.
“You’re right,” he agrees, surprising me. “Perhaps that’s why Camden found you when he did, just in time for an attack that could’ve ended in several royal deaths. Fate does like her tricks.”
I frown, sensing something more to what he’s saying. “What do you mean?”
Claude’s gaze falls to the flames. “In shifter culture, it’s bad form to use magic to find one’s mate. Doing so is considered a snub to the gods—as if we don’t trust that events will unfold as they’re intended to. Many believe it brings bad fortune. A few days before he found you, Camden requested I perform a ritual to locate his fated mate; my compliance was reluctant at best because I’ve seen the fates punish shifters for impatience. Instead, your arrival—though by no means simple—has already proved a blessing.”
“To you,” I say under my breath, because being here has by no means been a blessing to me. I miss Aesara desperately, miss having a simpler life free of the many current complications. I had my fair share of difficulties, but they were difficulties I knew how to handle.
“In time I think you’ll find it’s a blessing to you as well,” Claude replies, apparently having heard me.
“Perhaps,” I murmur doubtfully.
“Finish up so we can head back,” Claude says. “Camden will already have my head in a basket for commandeering your entire day. I won’t dare make you late for dinner.”
Noticing that my blood’s gone dry on my arm, I sigh, reach for the knife resting in my pocket, and cut into my palm again. I let out a small hiss at the pain of renewing the wound I’ve been using as my blood source all day before using it to retrace the sigil on my arm, which is barely visible with the firelight.
Then, holding my hands out in front of me, I begin speaking in Latin while going through various tactile gestures. The sigil starts toglow red before peeling off my arm, delicately floating through the air, and finding its home in the center of several other sigils. The strands of the glowing white net that connect the other sigils reach for the new sigil, twining around it and turning its red glow to white, mirroring the others.
“You might want to shield your eyes for this part,” Claude says, just as a ripple travels through the entire net that encapsulates the palace grounds, stretching far out of sight.
