Where he would soon be.
Get him out of here.
An audible sound of pain left Reeve’s throat at hearing her voice for the first time in years.
Reeve shook his head. “Gods dammit,” he muttered, feeling that constant pull towards her tighten as she wrapped her Magic around their bond. His stomach clenched, feeling her shred open the spell he himself had cast.
The one meant to protect his people, to keep her far away from him.
He closed his eyes, drifting into the space of their connection, feeling her relentless tug on the Magic that bonded them. In the endless darkness that surrounded him, was Maeve Sinclair. She sat not ten feet from him, with red eyes and swollen cheeks. Too many bones exposed, and her skin void of color, save for the bright purple beneath her eyes. Her dark hair framed her sunken face, as lifeless pale eyes shone across the darkness at him.
Reeve shuddered a breath as he took in the sight of her. He could never have imagined her in such a state. The Witch he once knew was full of Magic and power, her eyes unnervingly sharp and her cool demeanor present at all times. This girl before him now, was far from the daughter of Ambrose Sinclair. This girl was the consequence of so many wrong choices.
He should never have left her that day. He should have taken her then and gotten it over with. Now she was paying for his own pride and fear.
“Get him out of here, Reeve.”
Her broken whisper echoed across the nothingness twenty times over before it grew silent in the connection of their minds once more.
Reeve shook his head, which lay in his hands.
“Gods dammit,” he muttered again.
Reeve gasped as a moonlit darkness snapped before him, and the vision of her vanished. Spinel rubbed against his arms as Magic visibly crumbled in the distance, his own Magic, across the Black Deep. He ran his hand along Spinel’s back, petting him as he made a promise to himself: this time, he would not lose her.
Chapter 21
Explaining what being a Magical felt like had always been impossible for Maeve. She had no frame of reference for what it felt like to be human. Normal. Without blood forged in power. She’d never been able to grasp the magnitude of strength she carried, or the physical weight of what ran through her that granted her supernatural ability.
Until then.
Now she was starved.
Her fingers felt rotten. The center of her chest was hollow. Carved out. A heavy weight, oppressive and constant, locked on the edges of her mind. A solid chain. It wasn’t there before.
“I have to say, I wasn’t expecting you to act with such desperation.”
Mal’s voice was a dark hum.
“I’m not complaining, though,” he continued, her heavy eyes focusing on him at last. “A spell I could have never cast with all that Magic running through you.”
With his hands tucked behind his back and his posture pristine, he loomed over her in the empty room. There were no windows. The only source of light was a small firelight that floated alongside him as he crossed the vast room.
Her own prison cell.
“The thought really only occurred to me after your Elven friend reminded me just how easily I could bind you to me, despite the fact that I vowed to never use my Pathokenesis abilities on you. This works much better. The same Enslavement Curse used on Zimsy.”
Zimsy.
She would vomit any moment, she knew it.
“Unable to disobey me,” he said, dropping into a crouch before her. “It’s unfortunate that I had to use Magic to assure it. You had so many opportunities to get in line.”
“Zimsy didn’t deserve that,” she said, her voice cracked and sore.
“Perhaps she did not deserve it, but you most certainly did deserve to watch.”
A nightmare. This was a horrible nightmare. She buried her face in her knees, the images of Zimsy and Abraxas, their blood pooling on the marbled floor.
