Page 25 of Spellbound
I carefully lit each candle, the flames all bending in a counter-clockwise direction around the bed, as if held in a strong breeze, yet not flickering, before they straightened up again. It was hard to know what I should do going forward without knowing what he had done back when all this started, when he’d been a child, and I still had no idea. I still needed to know if he’d known the true significance of what he had done to his mother.
If he told me the truth, or if he had good reason to protect himself from her and thus had a reason for killing her—to prevent extreme physical or mental abuse, for example—then I’d probably unbind his powers. I’d even oversee his training, because anyone with this much power needed some serious training.
If, on the other hand, he had killed her for some kind of gain, or for some other reason of his own…if even at that young age, there had been warlockry involved in his thinking in any way, there would need to be a trial.
At a trial, at least three Practitioners, all magistrates, would hear his testimony and decide what the sentence would be. One of the primary duties of a magistrate was to prevent magical crime from affecting the public and ensure the guilty were punished. His young age at the time was of vital importance at any rate. I suspected that his powers would probably be bound permanently, though, if he were found to be at blame. There were some who would call for worse.
But I knew I’d been kidding myself about truly seeing him harmed. I wouldn’t. I’d insist that a binding was punishment enough, and if they disagreed and tried to hurt him, I’d run with him. I thought his cousins would help me. I could bind him instead and perhaps leave him a small amount like his grandma’s. A small amount would keep him from going insane, like some practitioners did when they lost their powers, and I could teach him how to properly use the smaller amount he hadleft. I’d wipe his memory of what he’d once had and keep him with me always. He was mine after all and had been since he the first time I’d seen him. I may as well admit that.
I had no idea what the other magistrates would have to say about all that, but from what I knew about most of them, they took matters in their own hands frequently, so they should understand if I did and keep out of my way.
I glanced at the grimoire but decided I didn’t need it after all. Instead, I placed my hand on his forehead and said a simple spell over him to shore up the binding, making it up on the fly.
“Peace for you, and rest for your mind.
I bind your magic,
Till this spell I unwind.”
I went to get the potion I’d brewed up. It was time to take the curse off him and see what he remembered then.
I poured myself a glass of it and drank it down. Then I waited fifteen minutes to see if I would have any bad effects. When nothing happened, I poured another glass and took it in for Asher.
“Drink this,” I told him, as I released him.
“No, I don’t want it.”
I took a sip to show him it wasn’t poisoned. “Now will you drink it?”
He took it and held it to his lips, with a long look at me from under those ridiculously long eyelashes.
“I would never hurt you.”
He drank it down, making a little face and I bent to kiss him because I couldn’t help it. “Thank you, baby,” I told him.
It felt like I was spellbound myself, but the potion I’d taken said otherwise. I couldn’t, for the life of me, seem to keep my hands or lips off him, despite my best intentions. When I kissed him, the world seemed to fall away, and I could have spent hours just mapping out every inch of his beautiful body.
And still I wondered if I had somehow fallen victim to a love potion that I just couldn’t detect. Some arcane, previously unknown to me concoction that was stronger than my own power to find it. Was that possible? I couldn’t remember any time he’d offered me a drink, or a time when I’d left something unattended around him, or anyone else for that matter, but his magic kept breaking through. He could have put some kind of quick obfuscation spell on me.
He was showing no immediate effects, and neither was I, but we had to wait. After about twenty minutes had passed, he said he didn’t feel well.
He looked up at me with panic in his eyes, “Oh…I think I have to throw up.”
I took him quickly to the bathroom, and he vomited three times before he was done. It smelled slightly of Sulphur and burned his throat as he expelled it. He got to his feet still shaky, and suddenly his mouth fell open in a silent cry, and he began to have a convulsion. I lowered him back to the ground and put him on his side, his feet beating a tattoo on the floor and I was frightened by this reaction. I was afraid he’d hurt himself.
I didn’t know what to do, except to pour one healing spell after another over him, but nothing seemed to help. It went on and on, or maybe it just seemed that way to me. The convulsions stopped almost as suddenly as they’d started a few terrifying minutes later, and he looked up at me with eyes I didn’t recognize. They were dark, almost black, for one thing and full of hatred. His lips peeled back from his teeth in a snarl, and he leaped for my face, his hands curling into claws.
I held him off me and managed to choke out“Agyd abba!And he screamed in pain and collapsed in my arms. A black wisp flew out of his mouth and streamed from his nostrils. I threw a spell after it to destroy it and my spell caught it by the door and it went up in a little black ball of flames. He sagged in my arms,and I feared for him for a moment until I realized he seemed to be sleeping peacefully at last.
After checking his breathing to make sure he was all right, I picked him up and carried him outside to front porch. I ran my hands over every part of his body and said a quick healing spell over him. I could find nothing wrong.
I decided he’d been through quite enough today and to just let him sit beside me and breathe. I realized it was getting to be afternoon, and we had spent most of the morning fighting the thing that had been possessing him. I held him in my arms, and he fell asleep against my shoulder on the porch swing minutes later.
After a while, I picked him up and carried him to the bedroom. He never woke up and I left him there after sealing the door.
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Asher
