Page 30 of Alpha's Magic

You won’t ever know if you don’t try. You have the strength to save yourself. Now use it.

It was his voice—I knew it, and it was so strong and powerful, I turned around to look for him. But no one stood behind me. That voice must have come from inside my head.

Trembling, I held my hands out toward the fires burning inside the carriage and the words sprang suddenly and fully formed into my head.

“Olifactum malus!” I’m not sure how I knew, but I knew the words literally meant, “Return Evil.” I called them out again and again. “Olifactum malus! Olifactum malus!” It occurred to me that it didn’t really matter what actual words I said. It was the intention behind them. For the first time, I truly understood what my father had meant when he warned me about intent.

The world went dim around me as I intoned the terrible words, but the heat was still beating at me and already singeing Asher’s clothes, because the arrows had already done their work and lit the coach on fire. The flames were licking at the ceiling as I finished my spell, but the flames all bent back toward the door of the carriage and away from my husband who was lying half inside the door. Yet none of them flickered, and they began to turn a sickly green color, like the poison. The fire was like a living thing that knew exactly where it was headed as it suddenly flew out the door and headed toward the city.

It was then I smelled the smoke. It was still there, thick and cloying and it had the smell of the fire I burned Grimora’s body in. It was still swirling around the interior of the coach, and I shrank away, thinking that whatever I had done hadn’t worked and this smoke would soon kill us both.

Asher made a strangled sound, and I shifted my eyes to him, watching a snake-like thread of smoke from the tendril of flame going up his nose, choking him. Gods, it was killing him! His whole body was spasming, and I called desperately on whatever dregs of power I might have, tapping into it and calling silently on my fathers—both my own and Grimora, who had assumed that role for me—and begged them to help me. Suddenly the idea for what to do came to me, and I fell down on the floor beside Asher, covered him with my body and cried out one more time, but this time I didn’t even use words. I just pushed every bit of magic I had into it so hard that my head began to pound with the effort and I knew the other magic was fighting me. I didn’t even know how I knew that—I shouldn’t have, and yet it was as clear to me as day.

“No!” I cried out and pushed back as hard as I could, putting everything I had into it.

The smoke began to stream back out of Asher’s nostrils, but it hung in mid-air over us for a long, breath-stealing moment. The heat of it scorched my skin, but I looked up at it defiantly and shook my fist at it, as if it were a real person. From beside me, I sensed that Asher had regained consciousness and was struggling to his knees beside me. His hand reached out and he threaded his fingers in mine. I glanced down at him, and he nodded.

He held on tightly to me and he called out words I hadn’t heard before.

“Sed Libera Nos a Malo!”

This wasn’t my kind of magic. But I repeated it anyway. Each word stung my lips as it flew past them, and I think if Asher hadn’t been holding me so tightly, they might have injured me. My parents had made me attend church as a child, so though I didn’t know them exactly, I thought I recognized them as words that the priests had said in their holy prayers. Deliver us from evil.

We said the words together, again and again, and I could feel Asher’s hand tingling in mine.

His eyes were still blazing, and the power flared up inside him, lighting him with inner fire. Yet I knew he was getting weaker. His voice was still strong, but it wavered now, and began to sound weaker with every repetition.

I leaned toward him, closing my eyes and reaching deep into the ether that my father used to tell me about, searching for my old magic which I knew could heal my lover. My father had taught me what to do. And my magic was there, though diminished and sleeping. Still, what was left of it leapt up to meet my hand when I called it to me, and it surged into my body. It was enough to help me defeat this thing—I knew it! I could feel it racing into me inside my blood and my bones. I aimed our hands, our fingers entwined, toward the evil that was trying to kill us both and spoke the spell one more time, putting everything I had into it. “Olifactum malus!”

And Asher cried out, ““Sed Libera Nos a Malo!”

The flame and smoke quivered in mid-air for another moment and then seemed to roll back in on itself, becoming a ball that shot backward and out the coach door with a sudden whoosh and a roar. I broke away, pushing Asher down on the floor of the carriage and out of harm’s way in case it came back. I went after it, singing out the words, “Malus Retallum! Malus Retallum!” Over and over again. And the evil spell flew back out and away from the coach and up into the sky. It swirled around for a moment like a flock of black crows and then took rapid flight, hopefully back to the one who had sent it to us. I turned to Asher, and fell down on top of him, grateful to be alive.

It took me only a few seconds to realize we weren’t yet out of the woods, because Asher wasn’t moving. He was unconscious, weak and in so much pain that it physically hurt me too. He’d been holding back the poison, not only from himself, but from the others and it had finally begun to overpower him.

I got to my knees beside him and put my hand over the bloody wound on his shirt, high up near his shoulder. I could feel it pulsing with something so shockingly nasty that I pulled my hand away again and had to take a deep breath. I cleared my mind as best I could, placed my hand on his shoulder and closed my eyes, trying to envision the wound.

I imagined it was throbbing with blood and poison, and I went after the poison first. I could feel it creeping down his chest and I thought it had almost reached his heart. I moved my other hand to find the spot and began to send all my energy to it, willing it to leave his body and dissipate. As I concentrated a blue light began to form under my hands and it spread down his arm and into his chest. I imagined the poison in his body to be like loathsome spiders inside his veins. In my mind’s eye, I sank my hands inside his chest and began to pluck out the crawling creatures, one by one. Once I concentrated so hard, the spider’s body squished in my fingers, and I quickly pulled it out and flung the gooey green corruption off and into the dirt beside me. Then I wiped my fingers on my pants and pushed inside Asher again.

I don’t know how long it took. I could have been there for hours for all I knew, taking the spiders out and throwing them on the ground. Then I crushed them under my boot. I had just spotted a particularly fat, ugly spider-thing that had been hiding from me by flattening its body against the sides of a vein. I was reaching for it, when I heard a loud, imperious voice from just behind me. I had been concentrating so hard, I never even heard anyone come up. But now the voice was loud and clear and seemed to be angry as well.

I turned to see an important looking, handsome figure dressed all in royal blue with a circlet of gold on his forehead. The sun’s last rays were shining down on him, as he rode his tall horse right up beside us to loom over me. I shaded my eyes with my hand to look up at him as he scowled down.

“What on earth do you think you’re doing?” the gruff voice demanded. Behind him, a group of soldiers pulled out their weapons, brandishing them at me. The man in front, who looked like a king, pulled his weapon as well and raised it high.

“Get away from him, damn you, or I’ll run you through!”

****

Asher

I woke up to find myself in a soft bed and knew I must be in Harrison’s castle. Right away, I tried to get up and find Leo, but I fell back on the bed gasping for breath. Immediately, Lex appeared at my side, laying a hand across my forehead.

“Slow down, Ash. You’ve been really ill for days now.”

“Where’s Leo?” I managed to say, shocked at how weak my voice was.

“Leo’s fine. He’d been sitting by your bed for the past three days, but Rory talked him into getting some rest this morning.”

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