AllFreeNovel
Share Us
That energy poured out of me, splashing down onto the floor. Normally, letting that much magic go in one solid blast would cause some mess or another, but instead, as soon as it hit the carefully drawn lines and runes on the floor, it began winding through them.
They lit up in long, looping waves as the brilliant blues, golds, and reds of the energy I called upon coursed through the illustration, as if carved into the floor itself rather than just drawn on. I wondered if the others could see what I saw, sense what I sensed, or if Luci and I were the only ones who could see the art happening in real time right in front of us.
Time stretched out, impossibly long, yet seeming to go faster and faster until my circle was completely full in a flash. Power simmered in the air around me, amplifying my connection to my magic, my connection to everything.
I spoke in rote words, but not in my own tongue. I was using the ancient spell-speak that had been the language of our predecessors. I knew what I was saying, as I’d had to tweak the spell myself. I had my once coven to thank for my fluency in the long dead language, as it was an extensive part of my schooling with them. Half the power of magic was in remembering the old ways and being able to call upon them when needed. But even though I knew what I was saying, that didn’t mean it was any less foreign to me, echoing around my head and soul like a song I’d heard before, but only once in a half-faded memory.
With Kai behind me, Darla in the corner, and Luci nodding along in approval, I forced myself to hold steady. I stressed the syllables I needed to, expelled my breath, and dragged oxygen in on cue.
The spell built in kind, responding to what I wrought, building, and building, and building. To my magic half, a lightning storm was being created in the room, but to my wolf half, it was as if the place were completely normal. It was a strange dichotomy, but I was counting on that difference to give me an advantage over the curse. It couldn’t overwhelm me with magic because of my wolf, and it couldn’t blindside my wolf because of my intrinsic connection. My mixed blood was going to be my savior.
At least I ardently hoped so.
The magic bucked beneath my grip, trying to wrest itself out of the circle containing it, but the markings were complete, and the binding was inescapable, forcing it to do my bidding.
I’d expected an explosion of power when my curse was finally exposed, or even a sudden sinking feeling as the air turned frigid enough to see our breath, or a violent lightning crack as my curse was forced into corporeal form.
It didn’t happen anything like that, though. Instead, the ground began to lightly hiss and sizzle, as if someone were frying a pan of oil. For a moment, that was all that happened, until a thick, oily, black smoke rose from the ground, congealing like actual liquid within the bounds of the circle.
The oozing black tried to cross over the edge toward Luci, no doubt eager to be free of the containment keeping it at bay, and when it couldn’t get over the edge of the circle, it doubled back toward Kai and me.
But I’d been more than prepared for that particular mode of attack, and the roiling, oozy onyx hit the edge of the innermost circle, then recoiled as if it’d been burned.
Good.
I continued to pour everything I had into the circle, weaving the strains of my curse-eating curse, as I liked to call it. Born of the magic of three separate bloodlines, born of desperation, it was the most meticulous and solid spell I’d ever made—with considerable help from Luci, of course.
I couldn’t say the exact moment that the curse suddenly swelled, but one moment it was just a churning fog of malevolence, barely an inch or two off the ground, the next, it was suddenly rushing upward in a funnel of swirling darkness. I watched, captivated as it slowly solidified into a hulking, vile figure, more demon than any humanoid.
It was an impossible abomination of violence: no flesh, no bone, just churning darkness taking on physical form. It snapped at me, its teeth longer than my arm. However, its fangs bounced off the protection of the innermost circle.
“Now, Kai,” I hissed, taking the deepest breath I possibly could—one that went all the way down to my belly. “Hold on and give me everything you can.”
I felt him nod before his fingers dug more tightly into my side, but it wasn’t painful, not even remotely. Instead, it was a strong reassurance that he was there and was always going to be. No matter what I needed, no matter what he needed, it was Kai and Ayla all the way.
So, I reached out with my magic, enveloping him with it and diving deep into the simmering energy he happily poured into me. Combining our energies together was like the opposite of interacting with the curse of the Shrouded Shriek’s magic. Instead of neutralizing me and making my magic feel unresponsive, it elevated me, making the spell pop and react with virulent energy.
I needed every drop of that energy, however, as I mentally began to constrict my curse around the curse.
It found me and, oh, how it fought. It slammed itself into the sides of the magical circle. It tried to throw itself at Kai and me. It burst into flames and filled the air with rapidly spinning brimstone, would switch to some noxious, roiling gas, then different shadowy beasts that weren’t quite real and yet most certainly were lethal.
It tore at the spell I wove around it, trying to slither out of the web. It ripped at strands when it could get its hands on them, and when it did, those strands would wither, and I’d have to make a new one.
But with Kai’s help, I could make them faster than the curse could destroy them, so I put everything into doing just that. It didn’t matter that it hurt or that it made my head ache and my teeth buzz in an awful way. The only thing that mattered was binding it with my curse.
“As you have haunted my flesh, I shall now haunt yours!” I announced, dropping out of the ancient tongue to address the curse directly. It was now twice as tall as I was, the many horns nearly touching the ceiling, and it had several dozen yellow and red eyes splayed across its miasmic form. But I didn’t let it intimidate me. I stared it down and kept going without missing a beat.
“I curse you now, my Malignant Shadow! You have caused endless pain and hurt my entire life, but this curse will feed on every dark, cruel, and twisted thing you’re comprised of. It will scrub every part of you from existence until, finally, I am free of you!”
It stamped its foot before the limb exploded outward in a cloud of dust, only for a massive tail to try to slam in the barrier protecting Kai and me. I flinched, but I didn’t drop the spell.
Instead, I pushed. I pushed as hard as I could, dumping every ounce of magic as well as energy from Kai into tightening the bonds of the curse. Tighter, tighter, tighter.
Finally, with sweat dripping down my face, and my entire body beginning to shake, I had enough magical bonds wrapped around the swirling beast to pull with one magnificent yank. The curse snarled, letting out a truly nightmarish sound, and began to buckle under as it slowly, slowly began to compress.
It was still a struggle to keep going, to yank and bend the spell to my will. The curse fought, shrieking like a banshee, phantom, and nightmare combined, but bit by bit, it was mummified in the constraints of my magic.
“With these bonds, you are sealed, and you will never hurt another again!”
