High heels click on the marble floor, a stiff breeze removing bones from the High Priestess’s path. She passes me without so much as a glance and moves to step in front of Botis’s glass prison.
She takes in the three High Demons seated behind the lecterns and then turns to wink at Botis. Fear rips through my entire body as she turns back to Cozen with a haughty look.
“Yes, I do have a contract with Botis the Murk,” Sorrel Adair finally confesses, and everything in me wants to explode and implode at the same time.
Rogan’s dad, the High Priest, walks confidently past me to join his wife, but I don’t focus on him, as I fully freak the fuck out. I have to get out of here, but I have no idea how. This trial was pure bullshit, I was never going to win, and she’s here to make sure of it. I try not to think of all the ways I could be used against Rogan or what Sorrel will do when she finally gets what she wants. If these demons think she won’t come for them and their power, they’re as stupid as I am for not seeing this was a trap.
Suddenly I see Bordow in my periphery. I watch as the asshole blows a mocking kiss at me, and abruptly I’m back in the clearing, grass sticking to my knees, bones calling to my magic, and death thick on the back of my tongue as I watch a bullet pierce the forehead of my friend. I blink and Marx’s face is gone, but Bordow is still there arrogantly striding past me. Something vicious and animalistic takes over. I stop caring about where I am and what they’ll do to me if I give into the drive to hurt this murdering motherfucker. I suddenly want to kill them all, and what do I have to lose? I’m fucked either way.
One second, rage is climbing up my throat so fast that I can’t even breathe, and then the next, my fist is connecting with Bordow’s face so hard that I feel his cheek and jaw shatter. Sorrel’s head snaps in my direction, and I’m suddenly being thrown back by a brutal breeze. It slams me into the blue marble wall so hard that if I hadn’t just called on magic to fortify my bones, the hit against would have broken far more than just my back and skull.
I call on the bones in the room while also looking for a line or something that might get me out of here. Everything feels as though it’s moving in fast forward, and I watch Bordow fall to the ground, clutching his face, as I slide down the wall and tap into all the bones in this room. I can hear yelling and see the three demons rising up out of their seats to try and regain control of the chaos. I will the demon bones all around me to sharpen, ready to put up the fight of my life, but out of nowhere, water somehow fills my airway. My eyes go wide and I lose my focus, my magic snapping back to me like it’s a hand that was just slapped for being naughty.
I try to cough, but nothing I do clears the water enough to let oxygen in. I clutch my throat, scratching at the skin as I drown from the inside out. Frantically I look around for help, and bright orange goat eyes find mine as I fall to my side, desperate and begging for air. Black dots start to cloud my vision, but I can still see both the demon and the High Priestess smiling at me as they stand there and watch me die.
I glare defiantly at Rogan’s mother, fucking Circummancer and her elemental magic. Water spills into my lungs, and my body does everything it can to expel it, to no avail. I see Bordow kneeling on the ground, clutching his face, and satisfaction blooms in my chest.
That one’s for you, Marx.
22
Ifeel like I’m going to shatter my own vertebrae from the force it takes to try and purge water from my lungs. I hack and gag and gasp, bent over and dizzy as Dyad slams his large red hand against my back.
“You will stop right now, or I fucking vow I will hold you in contempt for the maximum sentence outlined in the Accords,” Gremory bellows at the High Priestess, and with a huff like someone just took away her favorite toy, Sorrel Adair stops using her magic on me.
The water immediately evaporates from my chest and throat, and I choke on air as I try to pull it into me. I gulp down huge greedy swallows of oxygen and try to fight the residual panic coursing through me that I’m not pulling air in fast enough. Dyad bends over me, blocking the rest of the room from my line of sight, which is probably a good thing, because I’m shaky as hell from what the High Priestess just did to me, and water isn’t even her strongest element.
Fucking hell.
Despair and anger war inside of me, and I try to get a hold of all my runaway emotions so I can shove them behind a hard mask of anger. I rub at my throat, and Dyad looks me over as I desperately try to figure out how to win against someone who’s never lost before. I feel like I’m playing chess against a fucking Grandmaster and all I know how to do is play checkers. Every time I get close to yellingking me, this bitch is over here cacklingcheckmate.
“I don’t give a shit who you are,” Cozen screeches behind me. “You are not here under the capacity of the High Priestess of Witches, you are a witness in a trial, and you will stand there and shut the fuck up until one of us asks you a question. Am I clear?” she snaps at Sorrel, and I decide I like the white-haired demon.
“The same goes for you, Osteomancer, keep your magic to yourself and obey the rules of this court or face the consequences,” she snaps at me.
And…it seems I spoke too soon.
Dyad moves away from me now that I’m once again breathing, and I catch the frigid glare Cozen is aiming at me. I debate the merit of pointing out that I didn’t use my magic to assault Bordow, I used my fist, but I figure it’s best to just stay quiet at this point. I nod instead, standing up and walking slowly and shakily back to where I was before Rogan’s evil bitch of a mother sent me flying.
I observe Bordow standing on the far side of Botis’s cage, still clutching his face, but my attempts to escape ortake everyone in this room out while tryingjust failed miserably, and all I can focus on is what’s coming. Sorrel Adair is going to tighten the noose and then use me as bait to catch her sons. I know it.
“Now, if we’re done fucking around, let’s get back to the point of this trial,” Cozen snaps, as though everything that just happened was a mild inconvenience and not evidence that this entire thing is a fucking sham.
I stare at the three High Demons presiding over this shit show and wonder if they all have contracts with the High Council too. They start to discuss something between themselves, but I can’t make out a word of it. Looking to my left, I find Botis staring at me hungrily, and it makes my blood run cold. All I can see is Jamie summoning him, and his shadows bending her over an altar stained with countless witches’ blood, as he fucked her and branded another contract into her skin.
I shove away the visual and try to think through the dread that’s starting to weigh me down. If Botis’s end goal wasn’t Jamie, but Sorrel, what would the High Priestess want in order to make that deal? I shake my head at that stupid question. She would want what she’s always wanted, Elon and Rogan’s secret.
I do my best to ignore the demon who’s still watching me like he’s making a list of all the things he’s going to do to me when he gets out of that cage, and turn my attention to Sorrel, who’s focused on the arguing High Demons.
Jamie was clearly the cover. The High Council stole her magic, then dangles a carrot of power, set her up with the demon, and let her loose to kidnap Elon and the others. I’m sure she was hoping that Rogan would trade the information his parents wanted for his brother’s safe return, or she hoped Elon would break from the torture and give it up himself. Sorrel wouldn’t have cared if the demon made a side deal with Jamie for the magic, because the end goal for Sorrel Adair was something more important to her...immortality.
My thoughts swirl around in my head, and I try to lay them all out in front of me in an effort to make sense of all of this, but they don’t seem to fit together quite right yet. The thing that I can’t figure out is what my part was in all of this. Was I really just collateral damage, one more string to pull to get Rogan to do what she wanted?
“Enough,” Dyad snaps at the two other demons next to him. “This is a simple matter of whether Count Botis the Murk violated the Accords. The presence of members of the High Council shouldn’t fucking matter, because the trial is Botis’s, not theirs. This is still within our remit, and that’s fucking final,” Dyad declares, and Cozen and Gremory both close their mouths and swallow whatever was left of their arguments.
I watch them, confused, but I don’t miss the satisfied look on the High Priestess’s face, and it makes my skin crawl.
“Botis,” Dyad barks, “explain how your actions are covered in your contract with the High Council, and do it quickly, I’ve had enough of all the bullshit.”
