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Carnon moved to join me at the coffee table, kneeling opposite me with a smirk. “Are you asking me to touch you?” he asked, pinning me with a green-eyed look that I could best describe as molten.
I rolled my eyes. “Yes,” I ground out. “Don’t be an ass about it.”
“I swear to you, I am not trying to be an ass,” he said, placing his hand in mine. It was warm and calloused and familiar, and I silently chastised myself for the warmth that flooded me at his touch. “I have no desire to break the blood bargain by letting you trick me into touching you romantically without permission.”
“It’s lucky that being an ass comes so naturally to you then,” I said, holding our joined hands over the center of the pentagram and whispering the incantation to bind an agreement. Light flared from the five candles, and I winced as a tiny stab of pain lanced the back of my thumb.
“The spell is cast,” I muttered, blowing out the candles.
“Interesting” Carnon murmured, running a finger over the tiny imprint of the crescent moon that was burned on the back of the thumb without the ring, twin to mine. “I assume this will disappear when the bargain has been fulfilled?”
“I think so,” I said with a shrug. “This is the first time I’ve cast a binding spell.”
“Any time you wish to experiment, Elara, I am happy to oblige,” Carnon said. He looked at me in a way that made it clear that his preferred experimentation would not be magical in nature.
“I’ll pass,” I said acerbically, standing and smoothing my skirt and feeling more than a little awkward about how to proceed. “What now?”
“Now,” Carnon said, standing gracefully and pinning me with a meaningful look, “you begin to fulfill your part of the bargain. We need to figure out this magic in you. The Daemon Lords will have questions, and we need to be prepared with answers.”
“Honest answers?” I asked, following him as he rose and headed for the doors, Akela padding after him. The giant wolf had watched my spell casting closely, and now he sniffed at the crescent moon on Carnon’s hand with interest.
“Convincing ones,” Carnon said with a wicked smirk, gesturing for me to proceed him through the door.
“Where are we going?” I asked, following him down the moonstone hallway and past the tapestry that hid the servant’s entrance. I supposed that now he was no longer hiding his identity from me, we could travel freely through the castle.
“To the best place I know to learn about magic,” Carnon said, throwing me an impish look over his shoulder.
I followed him down several winding staircases, each room growing more ornate as we traveled closer to the main floor of the palace. During my tour with Akela, I had been too upset to really pay attention to my surroundings. Now that I had time and the mental capacity to look around, I realized that this place was nothing like I imagined the palace of the Demon King would look. Everything was gleaming moonstone and tasteful furniture, potted plants and garlands of flowers. Beautiful stained glass windows lined the hallways as we walked, and the soft glow of the stone lit the darker areas with warmth.
“It’s so…” I said, searching for the right word to describe the palace as we moved from room to room. “Bright.”
“Did you expect fire and brimstone and shadow?” asked Carnon, looking amused by my inept description.
“Yes, actually,” I said, pausing to admire a carved relief depicting a huge, horned being surrounded by creatures of the forest. I ran a finger over the horns, so similar to Carnon’s, and then over the carved figure of a strix.
“Cernunnos,” Carnon said, pausing behind me and leaning forward so that his breath tickled my ear. He was careful not to touch me, but I could tell he was pushing the boundary of what our agreement allowed. “The Horned God.”
“Cernunnos,” I repeated, running my fingers over the carving of a wolf. “It sounds a little like your name.”
Carnon chuckled. “Well I was named for him, so my mother would be pleased to hear you think so.”
“You were?” I asked, turning to look at him and realizing he was standing barely an inch from me, looking down with his usual smirk and a raised brow. The longer side of his hair fell a little over his forehead, and I was tempted to reach up and brush it back. My stomach flipped again, and I cursed the organ for a fool.
“I was,” he rumbled, also seeming to be somewhat affected by our proximity. “When Artemis came to me at my birth, my mother knew I would be king one day. She chose the name to honor the deity who would grant me my power.” Carnon reached past me, stroking a finger over the figure of his god.
“Artemis came to you at birth?” I asked, feeling a little caged by him, but having nowhere to move. He stepped back suddenly, and I took a steadying breath.
“Yes,” he said, turning and continuing down the hallway. I followed, Akela padding beside me. “I told you, strix guard the gates to the Darklands. I,” he added, gesturing to himself, “am the king, and therefore the gate. The strix choose the heir to the throne and guard them for life. It’s an unbreakable bond.”
“What do you mean, you’re the gate?” I asked, frowning at his back as he stopped before a pair of moonstone doors twice his height and carved with images similar to that of the relief. “And what kind of bond?”
“Later,” Carnon said, shooting me another look. “Keep your voice down in here.”
Before I could ask why, Carnon pushed open the huge doors to reveal the most incredible collection of books I had ever seen.
My mother had told me about libraries, but she had never taken me to the library in Ostara, the witch capital, for fear of my grandmother’s meddling. This room was far grander than anything she had ever described to me. Shelves upon shelves of books in thousands of colors and shapes lined the walls, and I gasped in wonder as I took in the space.
“I dare say there may be enough books in here to satisfy even your curiosity about demon culture and history,” Carnon said quietly, looking down at me with a faint smile.
