Page 88 of Bonds of Magic
“These?” the spirit said. They were a sphinx now—a very small sphinx—and they reached down and nudged one of the stones at the top of the cairn with a careless paw. The stone rocked back and forth before going still.
“I built the stones of binding,” Hans repeated, but there was no doubt about it now, he was uneasy. “I tapped the heart of the forest. Youmustserve me.”
“Must I?” The spirit looked like a garden-variety rabbit now, but they still carried an air of menace. “For as long as the stones of binding remain? I see. Then you must hope nothing disorders them. Like this.”
They thumped a large foot on the cairn, and a smooth gray stone the size of my fist rolled off the top and down to the ground.
Hans stared at the stone in shock, then looked back up at the spirit, which was now a griffin.
“You can’t do that,” he said, appalled. “You’re not supposed to be able to touch those after I—”
“After you invoked the ancient magics?” the spirit said. “And yet I did. How curious, human. It would seem you did something wrong.”
“I’m not merely a human.” Hans stamped his foot on the forest floor. “I’m a witch. A Harvester, and I enacted the ritual properly. I know I did. I followed everything the book said and—”
“Some magics cannot be learned from books alone.”
The spirit’s voice boomed through the forest. It was so loud that I moved for the first time in minutes, clapping my hands to myears. Not that it did much good. I heard the next words just as clearly.
“Some magics are not meant for mortal hands. And even witches can burn.”
As the voice reverberated, the spirit cycled through shapes more rapidly than I could make sense of. It grew and grew, and when it touched the band of colored lights encircling it, bright white light flared through the clearing. It seared my eyes, and I clamped them shut against the painful glare.
A rumble ran through the forest, and I struggled to keep my balance. I wrapped my arms around the tree I was hiding behind and held on as the world tipped on its axis. I felt violently seasick. Finally, the blinding white light disappeared, and the earth settled.
When I opened my eyes, I had to blink against the afterimage of the light. The cairn of stones had fallen apart, and the colored lights were gone. Only the first light that Hans had cast remained, but it was dimmer than before. The spirit was nowhere to be seen, and Hans knelt before the broken stones, holding his head in his hands.
Hands that were charred, as though he had stuck them in a fire. He whimpered softly.
Goddammit. I wished I’d never followed him here. I didn’t consider Hans a friend, but I couldn’t leave him here in this state.
“Hans,” I said as I walked forward to meet him. “Hans, are you okay? What other parts of you got burned?”
He rocked back and forth, not answering.
“Hans,” I said, louder this time. “Where else were you hurt?”
Again, he didn’t answer. He didn’t seem to have even heard me. I knelt down next to him and took his hands—as gently as possible—away from his face. He looked up in confusion, like I’d come out of nowhere. I was relieved to see that his face was unscathed—except for one eye.
Shit. It looked bad. His right eye was…well, itwasn’t. It didn’t exist anymore. The eyebrow was there, the socket was intact, but his eyelid and eyeball were an oozing mass of blackened pus.
I was thankful I had a strong stomach. I did a quick search of the rest of his body, checking for obvious wounds, but aside from his hands and eye, he appeared perfectly healthy.
That was a big aside, though. Hans definitely needed medical attention.
“Come on,” I said, sliding my hands under his arms and tugging him to his feet. “We need to get you back to the manor.”
“I didn’t—were you—why are you here?” he stammered as I slid his arm over my shoulders and began walking him back through the forest. His legs were fine, but I didn’t trust him to walk very well with the pain he must be in.
“I thought I heard a bear,” I said, keeping my attention focused on walking. One of us had to.
Dammit, whyhadI followed him out here? I pressed my lips in a hard line. I wasn’t going to get anything useful out of him now.
Was it my imagination, or did I hear more noises in the woods? More cracking sticks and shuffling feet, but from farther back in the trees?
I shook my head. Maybe I was imagining it and maybe I wasn’t, but it didn’t change what I needed to do right now, which was to keep Hans from collapsing before we got inside. Our progress was slow, though.
After another minute of quiet whimpers, Hans mumbled, “It was supposed to work.”
