Page 30 of Twisted Magic

Katica hissed like a snake. “You don’t have permission to speak to my familiar!” The darts flew at them again, drilling into the wards, visibly slowing as if meeting molten glass, sparks flying. Jadren pulled on Selly’s moon magic only, separating it from the water magic—which Selly hadn’t realized he’d found a way to do—chilling and thickening the wards, the darts slowing nearly to a halt, embedded in the shield like beads on a gown, the “fabric” of the wards undulating under the onslaught of Lady El-Adrel’s magic. “Fyrdo!” Her voice resonated with command, making the man startle, then shiver all over as if he still had fur, an uncanny sight. “I gave you an order.”

And yet, Fyrdo still managed to resist, gazing around the room and blinking as if trying to focus his eyes. Nic’s maman had been like that, too, after being too long in alternate form. Her eyes never changed back to normal. Selly didn’t know what a goat’s vision was like, but certainly different than human. “I like the new windows,” Fyrdo said, drifting in that direction. “So pretty.”

“Familiar Fyrdo.” Katica’s voice dropped in dire warning. “To me.” One of the darts undrilled itself from the shield, zipping out to bury itself in Fyrdo’s shoulder.

He yipped and jumped, whirling to give his wizard a wounded look, like a puppy unfairly punished. “Why?” he asked, no longer sounding quite so plaintive, a hint of demand in it.

“You’re better trained than this,” Katica informed him coolly. “To me, Familiar. I have need of you.”

Even though the command wasn’t directed at Selly, the ritual words impacted her on a deep level, both erotic and emotional, making her want to kneel and offer everything, and gladly. Keyed into the bonding then, a connection forged by magic and that could be severed by magic. Was this what she meant about familiars craving a firm hand and discipline? Because this felt good, on a deep and foreign level. Fyrdo shuddered, taking a step toward Katica, longing in every line of him, grief in his eyes.

“That’s it,” she purred. “Good boy. Come to me and I’ll reward you.”

Encouraged by Fyrdo’s acquiescence, Lady El-Adrel increased her magic, the darts sending up a high-pitched whine as she used her power more lavishly to drill through Jadren’s wards.

He pulled more magic from Selly, still judiciously, but a stronger draw than before. She understood without him telling her, just how precarious their situation was. Jadren would need her magic to deal the killing blow—a great deal of it, but neither of them knew precisely how much—and if he bled off too much maintaining the wards, they might fail in this ultimate confrontation. At which point they’d be defenseless, at the mercy of an enraged Katica El-Adrel. If Fyrdo touched his wizard, she would have access to all of his magic. As Jadren had dourly predicted, he likely couldn’t win against his mother with the full power of her familiar at hand.

“Dad,” Jadren said, an edge of desperation to his voice that Selly hoped only she could hear. He’d come to the same realization. More likely, he was way ahead of her. “Don’t go to her. Come to me. I’ll protect you.”

Katica let out a hoot of laughter. “He can’t protect you. He can’t even protect his own familiar. Besides,” she added, her voice cajoling, a smile caressing Fyrdo with such intimacy that Selly felt intrusive to have witnessed it, “you’re mine, Fyrdo. You know it in your bones. You belong by my side. You love me, most and best.”

Fyrdo gave Jadren an agonized look, even as Katica’s strumming of the bond to her familiar vibrated into Selly’s bones. How Fyrdo withstood that enchanted summons, she didn’t know. This was entirely new to her, this deliberate pulling on the bond to elicit a familiar’s obedience. Gabriel would never do that to Nic, if he even knew how. She wanted to ask Jadren if he knew how to do this—though she doubted he would either—but she didn’t dare risk breaking his concentration.

“Don’t harm our son,” Fyrdo pleaded with Katica. “I’ll come to you, if you agree not to injure him.”

Katica put on an expression so aghast, so utterly shocked and crushingly disappointed, that even though Selly knew it to be theatrics, she cringed internally along with Fyrdo. Sparks flew dense as fog as the darts drilled deeper into the shield, coming ever closer to their faces, and Selly fancied she smelled smoke. “Fyrdo,” Katica growled, “you forget your place. You do not make bargains with me. You have one job: obey. Now do it!”

The wizard loaded so much power of command into those final three words that Fyrdo fell to his knees, clasping his hands to his bowed head, as if battling a sudden, agonizing headache. Even Selly took an involuntary step forward before catching herself. Through her bond to Jadren, she felt his stab of surprise, the slight faltering of his magic. A dart made it through the wards, gaining speed as it emerged with an audible pop and Selly couldn’t help trying to duck.

She couldn’t have evaded the thing, especially as it unerringly changed trajectory to drill straight for her eye, but Jadren’s hand shot out, taking the full force of the dart into his own flesh. Clenching it in his fist, he opened his hand again to drop the shattered pieces—and drops of blood it had drawn—to the floor. He smiled, a cruel slice of mirthlessness, another echo of his mother. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

“Fyrdo, this is your final warning,” Katica ground out, moving close enough to her familiar to deliver a swift and painful-looking sharp kick to his ribs. Fyrdo barely flinched. “Stand up and serve me or I will make you suffer like you never imagined.”

Selly hadn’t been sure why Katica didn’t simply seize Fyrdo and use his magic whether he complied or not, but now she saw how the wizard kept her gaze and attention on Jadren. Moving closer to him than the distance of a kick wasn’t something she wanted to risk.

Fyrdo looked up at her, still clutching his head, then scrabbled away, putting himself behind the flank of Jadren’s wards. “No more,” he said. “I can’t take any more.”

“Oops,” Jadren crooned. “Looks like you’ll have to fight me without your familiar’s magic, Maman. Ready to concede?”

Katica clenched her own fists, emitting a wordless shriek of fury, before clawing back her composure. “You have sadly miscalculated. I’m embarrassed that you came from my loins. When I say you forget who I am, I mean you’ve forgotten what it means that I am Lady El-Adrel. You battle not only me, but my entire House.”

Selly only had a moment to process what that meant before utter chaos ensued.

~11~

El-Adrel wizard minions, accompanied by their familiars, stormed through the outer doors—and the open balcony doors on the other three sides—like an unstoppable flood. Along with them came clockwork creations of all sorts, from small crablike crawlies with vicious pincers to the human-sized automatons infused with an elemental-level of intelligence from Elal-bonded spirits. Other enchanted weapons buzzed and whistled, adding to the cacophony and bristling with intimidating weaponry.

Jadren hadn’t forgotten that his mother could command an army of wizards to battle him, but he had counted on her stubborn pride keeping her from stooping to calling for reinforcements. The one time her hubris would work in his favor… But then, Jadren always had shit for luck.

Clearly, she was even more desperate than he’d hoped. Fyrdo’s defection had dealt her a severe blow, one he viscerally understood now in a way he hadn’t been capable of before, with Seliah’s stalwart, loving presence at his back. She gave him the strength for this confrontation—something he’d once thought impossible—and not only via her brilliant, cooling magic. Seliah believed in him, wanted him to win, and not just to save her own skin. Wizards always made out like they controlled their familiars to the nth degree, but Jadren had just witnessed how the human side of any person could prove stronger than the wizard–familiar bond.

Fyrdo might love Katica as his life-partner and lover, but he also loved his children. That love had led him to risk his life and sanity to help Jadren and Seliah escape—and now to defy her, refusing to help her destroy their son. That had been a stroke of good fortune Jadren had dared to hope for, but had cynically refused to allow himself to expect. Fortunately, he’d had the foresight to set the wards around Seliah and him in a full circle, wary of those open windows at their backs.

But he couldn’t extend the wards to protect Fyrdo, and he couldn’t hold the shield forever. Particularly if he hoped to have any firepower left to blast his mother into the black depths she’d crawled out of. He hadn’t come here planning to kill her. He hadn’t thought he could. Now he had no choice. He couldn’t leave without doing so. She’d been right about that much: she’d always come after them and if he wanted any kind of life with Seliah—which, amazingly enough, it turned out he did—then this had to end today.

Only, he had no idea how to fend off this army of wizards, any number of whom could easily kill him on their own, much less en masse. And he didn’t dare unleash the death-strike via his widget, with his wards up. He had too little experience with that power, and the only other time he’d used it, he’d had no wards up. No telling what might happen. It could very well bounce back on him and Seliah, with unhappy results.

His mother drew herself up, smiling in joyous triumph. “You’re a fool, ten times over. Surrender now and remand yourself into my custody, and I’ll let your familiar live.”

---