Blood Lands (Savage Lands #5)(66)

Everyone stared at the brownie on my shoulder.

“What?” He stood, straightening out his kimono. “Am I wrong? The legend’s got too much punch in his spunk. Cake in his snake. Too much batter going into her vatter.”

I cringed.

“Nizzle drizzle in his—”

“Oh, my gods, stop.” I palmed my face.

Opie shrugged, peeling the bit of mushroom from his cheek and eating it.

“As disturbing as that was, he might not be too far off,” Tad replied.

“What?” Warwick huffed. “This is my fault?”

“No.” Tad shook his head. “It’s the energy you create together, which strengthens not only your bond but fuels the nectar as well. As if there is too much, so the nectar siphons off what you can’t hold.”

“They do pump their magic juice into it.” Opie plunked down on my shoulder, snickering in my ear, completely loopy. I really had to cut them off of drugs. Though it actually made sense. Our energy together affected everything around us: ghosts, humans, fae, electricity, the air.

“You’re telling me we have to stop having sex?” Warwick snarled, his neck straining. “Not gonna fucking happen.”

“I’m just telling you what I observe.” Tad shrugged his shoulder.

“What about when I burn through the magic? It’s happened a few times now... and our connection goes quiet.” I gestured to Warwick. “Does it lessen its power?”

Tad tilted his head. “We noticed it wane and go quiet, but each time it flared back, it was even stronger.” Tad shuffled on his feet, a nervous tick stressing his eye. “You both are growing more powerful. I can feel it.” Tad’s hand squeezed his cane until his knuckles were white. “But the nectar is growing much faster. I think it’s siphoning the magic your body can’t handle and taking it on. Just as it did when you were born.” Tad’s wariness was written on his face, peering down at the nectar, studying it as if it would unlock its riddles to him.

The nectar thumped like a heartbeat inside the box, pulling me closer to it, whispering to me. I needed to hold it, to have that part of me back. Maybe it would tell me its secrets. I could understand what this all meant.

Leaning, my hand reached for the box, a jolt going up my arm, my finger about to skim the lid.

“Do. Not. Touch. It.” An emotionless voice said every word as though it were a battle. I jerked my head up with a gasp, my eyes taking in the outlines flittering out from the forest trees, their cloaks the color of the shadows.

“When I spoke of compromise?” Tad gripped his staff harder. “They were the concession. They wouldn’t allow me to bring it here without them.”

I stood immobile as seven figures moved in as silent as ghosts, the woman in front taking my attention. Her skin was pallid and thin, boney hands holding on to her scythe.

“M-mom?” I stared at her, panic and fear gripping my gut. My mother and her clan stood before me; the life in them drained away, leaving what was left...

Necromancers.





Chapter 18





“Br-ex-ley.” Eabha struggled over my name, her mouth moving stiffly as if it took all her concentration to speak.

Emotion choked me, making it hard to swallow. “I-I don’t understand.” I scanned through the entire clan, seeing the small differences. The life which warmed their cheeks and plumped their flesh was evaporating. The fact my mother spoke at all told me they weren’t completely gone.

Yet.

“What is happening to them?” I bounced from them to Tad, demanding an answer.

Tad sighed, his spine sagging more under the weight.

“They are returning to their original state.”

“But how? Why? I brought them back. My magic saved them.”

“Black magic is conjured from the darkest of magic. It goes against nature. Goes against a Druid’s magic. To use it... there are consequences. Ones that can never be erased.” His hand rubbed at his twisted spine, reminding me my mother had struck Tad with black magic the night of the fae war. He was the most powerful Druid alive, and yet he could not fix his condition. “What their father did is a sin they will carry forever.”

“But I thought...” I stared back at my mom, grief knotting my heart as she watched me blankly.

“I don’t know all you are capable of, my girl, but you shouldn’t have been able to alter the scars of black magic at all. The fact you did?” He shook his head, keeping the rest of his sentence to himself.

My eyes welled with tears. Before I even got to know my mother, she was being taken from me. As a kid, I dreamed of her being part of my life, of knowing her.

“You bring people back from the dead,” Tad said.

“Exactly!” I screamed, anger climbing up into my chest, ready to explode. “Then I should be able to save them!”

“They were never alive or dead.” Tad’s statement slammed into my gut. “They are in the in-between.”

Like the ghosts who slipped away from their bodies. I couldn’t bring them back or conjure a person from the grave back to life.

I shook my head in denial, moving to the pit where the nectar was. “I don’t care. I will try again. I will do it every day if I have to!”