Unblessed Witch (Phases of the Moon #4)

2. Grimshaw

2

GRIMSHAW

My shadows were suddenly broken by a luminescent glow emanating from my skin.

The world, which had felt thick and heavy until a second ago, turned into a brilliant flash of light and heat, yanking my attention from where I’d been staring off into the darkness of the world around me.

Runes danced along the skin of my right arm. I pushed up my sleeve and followed the path of light up until it disappeared under the rest of my shirt, leaving a trail of searing pain. It was nothing, though, compared to the relief I experienced at seeing the markings beneath my skin. I knew these markings, and I knew who they’d been sent by.

Deva. My beautiful little jaguar.

Standing, I didn’t hesitate to go find the others. We were stationed at a camp, waiting to make our next move, but I had wandered into the surrounding woodlands, needing a moment to myself. Needing a moment to deal with the overload of guilt and grief that grew heavier with each passing moment.

I had failed to protect Deva.

I had lost Deva.

I refused to believe that it was forever, my fingers sliding over the runes in comfort, but it didn’t change the fact that she had been taken from us.

I would slaughter Astaroth.

There was nowhere he could hide that would keep him safe from my shadows. They’d tear him apart for daring to touch my little jaguar, to hurt her. My vision darkened on the edges as I tried to stabilize my sanity. I was the only one of us with any left; I had to keep it together. I didn’t have an option.

We couldn’t storm Astaroth’s compound, not yet. The idea was tempting, but it had been pointed out to me several times now that acting now, before we had a solid plan, could put Deva in even more danger. We had to be smart about this.

So why the fuck did that seem so impossible?

For twelve hours we’d felt intense waves of agony through our bonds, and extreme measures had had to be taken to prevent anyone—Lazaro and Osborn, mainly—from going AWOL. It felt like things couldn’t get any worse. Until they did.

The silence was excruciating. Deva had closed off our bonds, and these runes so far had been her only means of contact following that. The only proof that my little jaguar was still out there, waiting for us. She had to know we would come for her, right?

I refused to believe that our bond was severed. Deva had the ability to block it out to heal herself, and that was the narrative I would continue to believe. Either that or she was trying to stop the pain from reaching us.

But permanently severed? No. And the runes were proof. Deva wouldn’t be able to do that if the break had been permanent.

That wasn’t the only thing that gave me hope, though.

Breaking out of the woods, my eyes went skyward. Streaking across the sky, appearing to float underneath the moon itself, were illuminated, nearly transparent versions of the moon and its many phases, directly pointing to Astaroth’s castle. As if urging us forward, guiding us towards our woman.

Not that we needed that.

It had been less than forty-eight hours since her father had taken her. My second night away from my little jaguar, and I could feel the void of shadows around me threatening to break loose. It was only my controlling hold on them that kept them at my side instead of rushing to her. My body was nearly shaking at the force of it.

I had to keep it together.

“Grim—”

I walked right past my father, not bothering to stop until I reached the others.

The Society of Shadows had arrived at the end of the battle, right as Deva was taken from us. Their arrival had quickly turned the tide, altering the course of the already successful battle to a landslide win and slaughter of the enemy…but it hadn’t changed what Astaroth accomplished.

When we’d tried to go after him, we were restrained by the Society of Shadows. By my own damn family. Held in imprisonment much like the commanders and soldiers Astaroth had abandoned.

I had been livid.

“Grimshaw, calm down!” my father warned as the shadows around me bled out to darken the tent. They had separated the five of us, and my power alone was causing the once captured town to shake. If Astaroth’s people hadn’t destroyed it, I was about to.

“Do not ruin Deva’s effort to save these people,” my mother pleaded.

I stilled, staring at her with more malice than I thought possible.

“Think,” my father said. “Running after him will do nothing but allow him to take advantage of your lack of patience and irrational mind. Then you won’t be able to save her.”

We were only released after my parents had convinced me to be more calculated about this—more thoughtful. Only three out of the five of us had agreed, which is why the other two were still ‘locked up’ as we moved our camp out of the town and closer to Astaroth’s compound.

The Society worked fast, and a large portion of Carmina’s perimeter had been cleared as we pushed Astaroth’s soldiers back toward the north. Our military operation had grown dramatically in size, nearly overnight, and now a defensive line stood protecting the south from further encroachment. Astaroth’s forces were many, but when it took ten or twenty of his men to match the magic of a single society member, well, they couldn’t hold their line.

For the time being Carmina was safe, but that was far from the focus of my mind.

“Alek. Cage.” My voice was rough from lack of use as I pushed into our tent. I was surprised to only find Cage, his gaze on the floor in thought as he flipped his knife back and forth, balancing it on his hand.

“Alek went to question his father.” Likely a futile effort. Alek’s father had become delirious and stopped talking upon capture. Or at least he was pretending to be delirious.

“Cage, look at your neck.” I tossed him a mirror from a nearby table, realizing that we both had new runes that emerged from the location of Deva’s lunar markings.

“Why? What are you on about?” His annoyance disappeared when he saw his reflection, tugging down his shirt collar to see the glowing runes that ran down his neck. His gaze snapped to mine, glinting with determination.

“It’s her. I have no idea how she managed it, but it’s her.”

“She managed it by giving her power to us,” Alek said as he returned, tugging on his own shirt to show us his runes. “They haven’t been activated, but all these runes are filled with magic.” He paused. “She’s giving us all her magic.”

My throat grew thick with worry. Why would she do that? Her magic was her only means of defending herself, and she needed that protection now more than ever.

“She either wanted to hide it from Astaroth, or she gave it to us because she thought we’d need it,” Cage said sharply. “Neither spells anything good. Let’s go tell the others.”

“We need to reassess our strategy,” I stated. We’d planned to attack in the morning, but I couldn’t wait any longer to retrieve her. Not when we had proof her situation was growing only more dire.

When we entered the tent that held Lazaro and Oz, my eyes searched their skin for extra runes. Both had them, but I wasn’t positive that either had noticed, even with the burning. Lazaro’s eyes were closed, no doubt trying to reach Deva in a dream state, and Oz was staring right at us—as if having expected us. The look on his face was…concerning.

“Oz, look at your neck.” I crouched down, flipping the mirror I’d brought from the other tent, but his eyes never strayed from mine.

“You understand what’s going to happen when you release me, right?”

Yeah, I had a feeling.

“We’re going to find her tonight,” I said evenly. “Now look at the damn mirror.”

Osborn’s gaze moved down as he examined the runes on his neck, inhaling sharply. “They’re hers. I know those are hers. Why the fuck did she give us her magic?”

That was the question we all had.

“Because she’s trying to keep it from him.” Lazaro’s eyes snapped open, his face drawn and eyes filled with rage. “I could only get snippets before she blocked me out, but she’s trying to keep it from him. She wants someone to have it in case?—”

“No.” I snapped. “Do not finish that sentence.”

Because if I heard any implication that she wasn’t going to be around to use it, I would lose my mind.

Before we could continue, Professor Boneclaw walked into the tent with a large text in his hand. “Perfect. I came to tell Osborn, but the fact that you’re all here is better.”

“Now is not the time, Claw,” Cage drew out. “We’re about to untie them and go get our girl.”

“Just give me one minute. Wait until I explain what I found.” His eyes moved to Osborn. “Really—I would wait on it.”

“Fine,” Alek snapped. “Explain.”

“I was guarding the two of them when their runes appeared, so I went back to my tent to grab this,” Boneclaw said, holding up the book in question. “When I found out about Deva’s magic, how it was given to her and how it works, I began researching. My pursuit took on a more urgent effort when I received notice of who she was to Astaroth and the significant role she played in his actions—it was one of the main reasons I came from campus to be here. Because of what I learned.”

Yes, the reaction to Deva’s heritage was one small element to this larger picture that we had been dealing with since Astaorth’s announcement had reached everyone. It was now common knowledge that she was not only his daughter but also the assassin that had worked for him for so long. The bastard even shared which years so that people would know who she was responsible for killing.

It had been a brutal exposure, and the reaction of the outside world had yet to reach us fully, but the Society’s reaction was far, far different than I or anyone would have expected. What Astaroth didn’t realize—or possibly didn’t care about—was that while divulging the secrets of Deva’s past, he’d admitted his own abuse of a young child both physically and mentally, which had only garnered sympathy from the Society. In fact, it had invigorated those who’d already wanted to help Deva and take down Astaroth. Even those who’d lost loved ones to Astaroth—and Deva—were angry at him rather than her.

It was clear as day that Deva wasn’t a killer—not even when she’d had been forced to kill.

Boneclaw was very much on her side, but I still hated the idea of the bastard researching our girl. I pulled from my thoughts as he continued his explanation.

“When the runes appeared, it solidified what I think is going on,” he said, opening the book on a nearby table. “As you know, there are thousands of ways to practice magic within each subtype, and even more so for the unblessed witch. However, this specific administration of runes was only found in one grimoire that I could locate—the Mortem Magicae .”

“Death magic,” Lazaro said, his eyes narrowing. I didn’t like where this was going either.

“Exactly. The process is exactly as Astaroth and your father, Alek, performed. Runes being placed underneath the skin to embed magic—specifically, different runes than your natural inclination. The grimoire reads that if it doesn’t reject you, you grow in power.”

“We know this,” I said coolly. “Astaroth knows it as well, and now he’s trying to take her magic.” I had to forcefully restrain my shadows at the thought of him using Deva as a temporary vessel for storing all the power he wanted to attain. It was fucking disgusting.

“Right, but I don’t think he would be trying to take her magic if he knew about this next part,” he said pointedly, annoyed with my interruption. “That isn’t the end—the small death that stopped her heart was not the end. The end goal is to transcend that—to conquer mortem magicae and be reborn.”

“Reborn?” I demanded.

“Reborn. And the only way she can do that is to give away all of her power. To pull from the magic that has grown underneath her normal well of power. An immense amount of power that would have grown beginning with her first rune placement and every single one after it. To be reborn with the power over both blessed and unblessed affinities.”

Shit. If Boneclaw was right and her power would have grown with each ritual…that was far more magic than I think any of us could ever hope to quantify.

“So if Astaroth pushed her to do this, it’s either because he doesn’t know or because he wants her to be reborn. But that would be like releasing a weapon that no one could defeat, and she hates him—so I highly doubt it’s that.”

“Shit,” Alek murmured in Russian.

Boneclaw closed the book. “Either way, you need to be aware that it may seem like Deva is?—”

“Don’t,” Oz snarled.

“—dead, but it doesn’t mean she actually is. In fact, if she’s given you her magic, Deva is about to transform into something Carmina has never seen.”