Chapter Eight

Twelve and a half years ago

September, 2013

 

The Tera Manor

 

FIFTEEN AND GANGLY, uncomfortable in his skin, with little natural magic, Ithen had been forced to study various dark and light magic to find something he was capable of, but he never thought Asher would ignore him.

The man was an enigma to Ithen: a doting father to Storm, the prophesied Chosen One; a loving husband to Veronica, a talented bruja of immense power; and an infuriatingly attractive man who proved immune to Ithen’s charms. No matter what he said, did, or what kind of magic he used to garner Asher’s attention, the man ignored him with an ease that bordered on the ridiculous. Even Storm’s imaginary friend got more attention from Asher than Ithen could hope for.

Ithen hovered in the doorway to the playroom to watch Storm, wondering what made him so special. Since his family died, Ithen had been alone, left in the guardianship of the united covens. Though Asher was the most powerful and his son destined to lead all the covens into a secure future, he’d fobbed off his responsibility to Ithen by placing him into the Copry household. Duty should have brought Ithen here, into Asher’s home, but he reasoned that his young son’s unpredictable magic made it unsafe for strangers and the other covens had been cowardly enough to agree.

Cesa Copry wasn’t so bad, focusing most of his attention on his young son, but Ithen was bored. He spent most of his days here, at Asher and Veronica’s home, because that was where Cesa wanted to spend his time. The two families were close, their children friends until recently, but Ithen was struggling to root out their secrets.

He’d never expected to grow attached to Asher over the last few weeks, and the feelings could become a complication if he wasn’t careful.

“You have your child! You have an heir now,” Cesa’s voice raged, behind the closed door of the nearby study.

Ithen had never known Cesa to raise his voice to Asher. Leaving the playroom behind, Ithen walked down the hallway to the study door and gave a flourish of his wrist to summon a spell that would create a portal in the wall. He would remain unseen from inside but could watch Cesa and Asher, hear every word, and perhaps finally discover the secrets of the Copry and Tera families.

Asher paced the window and raked both hands through his raven dark hair. When he faced Cesa, his deep green eyes were sad and pleading. “I love her, Cesa. I love Storm. You always knew that,” he said, briefly touching Cesa’s elbow, where they stood barely a foot apart. “You always knew we could never be together again after we separated.” He leaned closer to rest his forehead against Cesa’s, the man who had been his best friend for years.

Ithen’s heart squeezed at the thought of Cesa and Asher being in love with each other or having once been in a relationship. He’d assumed Asher was disinterested in his attention, immune to his spells, because the man was straight, not that he didn’t see Ithen as someone worthy of his love.

“I don’t know if I can live without you,” Cesa replied in a pained voice.

“You have Rowan to live for,” Asher reminded him, though the words made Cesa grasp his arms and hold on tighter. “You know I still love you. Veronica knows and understands that what we had doesn’t just disappear. But you know the danger. If we hadn’t married other people, our magic would never let us be together.”

There was nothing but sorrow and regret in his voice, but Cesa positively exploded with anger, pushing Asher away. “To hell with magic!” The anger and fight left him instantly, a shuddering breath preceding a few whispered words. “I would give up my powers for you.”

“I know. And I for you, but we are the balance. You and I are the cornerstone of magic. I protect the amulet, and you protect the spell that makes it work. If we were together, we’d create chaos. If we abandon our magic and our positions, the humans would descend into war.”

“I know.”

Ithen frowned, having never heard of a magical amulet or spell. Now that he was within the inner circle of the two people meant to protect them, could he get his hands on the amulet? The magic of these covens held many secrets, as he’d discovered most covens did, and he had now stumbled upon an interesting one. A secret he would dig deeper to understand. If Cesa and Asher couldn’t be together as a couple despite their love, the amulet was something Ithen wanted.

“This was your decision,” Asher said, lacking the judgement and blame those words should have held, considering the implications.

Cesa turned away from Asher and walked to the drinks cabinet in the corner of the room to pour a whiskey. Asher followed to accept a glass from his ex-lover and friend. He ducked in to kiss Cesa’s cheek, then walked to the two armchairs by the roaring fire, where he sat.

Crossing to the armchair opposite Asher’s, Cesa gazed into his glass. “I feel torn,” he said, the casual tone implying that he was eager to change the subject. “Rowan’s reached an age where he wants to go to school and be like the other kids. You know he can’t do that.”

Ithen wondered what was wrong with his son. This was the first he’d heard of Rowan being different to the other kids, though Storm was strange enough to make any other child look normal, no matter their problems. Still, he’d been around Rowan long enough that he should have seen if there was a reason for him to be different, but other than being friends with Storm and having an imaginary friend that they apparently shared, he’d never noticed anything untoward.

“No. His magic would kill someone or risk his sanity,” Asher agreed. “Cesa, no matter what happens from now on, no matter how much I love my wife and child, you know I will always love you. We are soulmates…heart-bound…and nothing can change that.”

Tears filled Cesa’s eyes as he nodded his acceptance of the words.

When Asher finished his drink, he returned to the drinks cabinet and Cesa followed closely. Neither showed surprise at the proximity, nor by the tentative way Cesa rose on his tiptoes to graze his lips against Asher’s.

Ithen thought Asher would push him away, to remind him he was married and happy with his family, but Asher cupped his cheek and returned the kiss. They kissed for long, slow moments that lasted an eternity, while Ithen clenched his fists, forced to watch in silence. He wondered if drawing Veronica’s attention to the kiss would help, but he didn’t like the woman and dealing with her could cause trouble. For a start, he’d need to explain how he knew what was happening inside the study.

Asher parted from Cesa with obvious reluctance, leaned their foreheads together and closed his eyes. “You are not a secret,” he whispered, the tender reassurance no doubt causing the next tear that trailed down Cesa’s cheek. “You are not unseen, not unloved. You are as much mine, as much my everything as Veronica and Storm have become. I will never leave you.”

Cesa tilted his head to steal another kiss, offered Asher a smile and stepped back. “Goodnight, my love.” He walked to the door with his head held high, but he clearly left his heart with Asher, just as Asher’s obvious sadness implied he’d sent half of his with Cesa.

Ithen closed the portal and walked away from the study to ponder what he had seen.

*

Present Day

 

RETREATING FROM THE memory, Storm sank to the side, beside Ithen’s unmoving body.

He barely knew what to make of what he’d learned, his head spinning with the implications of the intense memory. Ithen’s crush on Asher—Storm’s dad—was frighteningly similar to Storm’s feelings for Ithen. The man wasn’t the stranger he’d thought, only entering his life this year. Ithen had been in his house, practically part of his family, and in love with his dad when Storm was a child.

No wonder Ithen hadn’t responded to Storm’s flirtations; he thought them pathetic, or this was his revenge for Asher never noticing Ithen’s attention. Storm had felt invisible to Ithen, and he now knew Ithen had felt the same to his dad.

The deeply buried anger and resentment had been clear to Storm, bubbling in the teenage Ithen long before he entered their lives. In contrast, Storm had been overwhelmed by the sheer intensity of genuine love in Asher’s eyes when he looked at Cesa. The man was nothing like the Cesa Copry he knew, and the reason seemed simple: Cesa had turned to stone when Asher Tera died. Cesa had said he didn’t think he could live without Asher, and Storm was watching the living proof of those words in the Cesa who drifted through life as nothing but a sad, bitter man full of anger.

Glancing at Yael, he couldn’t find the words to explain what he’d seen.

Yael raised an eyebrow and cocked their head. “That was unexpected.”

“You saw?” Storm asked, relieved he didn’t need to find the words to explain the grief, love and pain he’d experienced.

Yael gave a careless shrug, so common to demons. “Yes. At the moment, you are projecting.” A tentative smile played on their lips as they tipped their head, a lock of hair falling over their white eyes. “You want me to see what you see, because you know I can help you understand. Thank you. You are such a considerate mage.”

As much as he cried for his dad’s lost life and love, for the unfairness of what magic had done to two innocent people, Storm laughed for the way Yael could so easily put everything into perspective. He’d have to keep the silly demon safe before someone took advantage of the sweetness lurking beneath the surface.

“There is more to see,” Yael reminded him, as if reading his thoughts.

Storm shook his head. “I’m not sure I want to go back in.” His heart broke to see his dad, who he barely remembered with any real clarity, so full of life. As sad as the memory was, Asher still loved his family despite loving Cesa.

Seeing more may tempt fate.

“You must. You have not yet found your answers,” Yael warned, with such compassion Storm smiled.

He nodded and gazed at Ithen. He hated the thought of kissing him, knowing what the man was like and what had motivated him to teach Storm magic, but he wanted answers. Repeating the spell and kiss, he stepped back into Ithen’s memories, praying his dad’s secret love would be the only surprise of the day.

A flurry of images shot through Storm’s mind at once, like watching a movie on fast-forward with no way to slow down or come to a stop.

*

Ithen’s Memories

 

SITTING IN GLADYS’S house, Ithen ran an appraising eye over the living room, from the kaftan on the sofa to the piles of books and magazines littered throughout the room. The place was a mess; herbs lay across a sideboard filled with voodoo dolls and candles, a list of spells had been scribbled on the bare walls on either side of the door, while sigils had been carved into the fireplace mantle.

Gladys was clearly paranoid.

Ithen knew little about the white witch, but she had known his father and had contacted him after his parents’ deaths to offer him a place within the local coven circle. There were five covens in the county: the Copry, Tera, and Glade covens that he was familiar with, as well as the lighter witches of the Sorrell and Lasym covens. Gladys had known the Deontay family for nearly twenty years and wanted to include his magic into the coven circle, but the other covens could take years to trust him enough to allow him legitimate membership into the sacred council of coven leaders. He was willing to wait, amassing knowledge and power while they fussed over some prophecy that would probably never come true. If any of this was real, he doubted Storm would face the vengeance of the Fates until he was an adult, and Ithen planned to be long gone from this area by then.

Still, Gladys was the reason he was here, welcomed into the community and poised to get his hands on the mysterious amulet and the accompanying spell. He’d lived in this tiny house before moving in with Cesa, and it didn’t compare to the manor. The house had deteriorated in such a short time, and the company left a lot to be desired. What caught his eye was the spell for creating a homunculus, scribbled onto a piece of paper on the table, partly hidden by a photograph of a young boy. No more than ten or eleven years old, the boy had albino features, startling ice-cold and dead behind the eyes. This was either a death photo or the child had died not long after.

Who was he to Gladys? What made her think a white witch could create the dark abomination of a living being? Did she hope to resurrect this child’s spirit into another human, into a doll or animal as he had seen written in his family’s grimoire?

“How do you take your tea?” Gladys asked as she stepped through from the kitchen.

“I don’t.” Ithen gestured for Gladys to sit, both rude and presumptuous, considering this wasn’t his house and she had invited him, but he had questions and Gladys had enough secrets that Ithen could use to force her to answer. “I presume your attempts to resurrect the boy failed?”

Gladys visibly flinched, drawing her shawl around her fifty-year-old shoulders. “I don’t believe that’s any of your business,” she said, her tone stern and motherly. “I invited you here because I know what you want. I read your cards.” She gestured to the table by her armchair to the velvet pouch he presumed held her tarot deck.

“What did you see?”

“You plan to start a war,” she answered without censure as she settled into her chair. “Murder is in your future. In your past too, I believe.”

Ithen shrugged and rested his arms on the chair, tapping his finger thoughtfully against the worn fabric. “My parents weren’t progressive witches. Rather short-sighted, in fact. They were displeased when I began studying the family grimoire without their permission and positively enraged when they found out I’d used a spell on a neighbourhood boy.”

At barely nine years old, he hadn’t been old enough to know what to do with the boy but had ended the brute’s bullying words at school, enjoying the ability to make him hurt whenever he said something against Ithen’s wishes.

He faced Gladys without flinching, not needing to fake shame for his actions. “When they threatened to bind my magic, I pretended to be weak, locked them in the barn and set a fire. I stayed until the fire burned out to make sure they were dead,” he revealed, intrigued to see no sign of judgement in Gladys’s eyes.

The woman nodded and gazed at the table and the photograph of the boy. “I have a photographic memory. All I need to do is focus to draw the words to me. Under the guise of helping the other covens read the ancient Latin spells, I memorised every grimoire. The Tera grimoire—” She stopped, lifted the photograph and gazed lovingly at the boy. “I sent myself to the abyss in the hopes of ascending to greater magic. I was lost for days, and my sweet Donald James paid the price. He followed me and encountered a higher demon, an unforgiving beast who didn’t approve of my intrusion into their world.

“By the time I found my way home, Donald James was a shell. He had abilities he’d never been born to, saw what no one else could, and he’d lost his mind. In the end, he walked into the woods and surrendered to the demons.” She drew her shawl around her shoulders, avoiding eye contact. She wasn’t ashamed but Ithen suspected she feared his reaction, no doubt aware that he’d consider her responsible for her son’s misfortune, despite her obvious denial.

Ithen was impressed. For a boy so young to brave the demon world to cure his madness was uncommon.

“I can return your son to you,” Ithen said, sure he could manage the task, once he had the amulet and had increased his power. “Help me find the amulet and spell the Copry and Tera families guard, and I will return your son, more whole and complete than any homunculus.”

*

IN THE STUDY at the Copry manor, Ithen stretched from his place on the sofa by the fire. Months since his agreement with Gladys, victory was in his sight.

Thanks to Gladys’s experience with dark magic, Ithen had managed to break Cesa Copry’s mental shields. A touch of manipulation, dark magic and a sprinkle of herbs to cloud the mind, and Cesa was as much a puppet dancing to his whims as that boy at school had been.

Under his influence, he had created a solid barrier between the Copry and Tera families, with Cesa growing more bitter and angry toward his old lover in the last month. He had become stern with Rowan, sending him away more often than he spent time with the boy, leaving him in the hands of his tutors and the family grimoire rather than teaching him anything of worth.

Ithen was rewarded with that knowledge, expanding his magic with secrets from the Copry family line. Delighted by the growing distance he’d encouraged, Ithen kept Cesa from being in Asher’s company as much as he could. Despite his new power, he knew that the strength of love they shared was probably the only thing in the world that could break through his curse and free Cesa from his sway. He couldn’t allow Asher to ever find out that Cesa wasn’t in control of his own mind.

A whisper, a lie, a glance in the wrong direction and Cesa was utterly convinced Asher didn’t love him, had never loved him and had used dark magic to twist his mind. With the added bonus of Rowan studying hard and sulking over his lost friendship with Storm, Ithen was able to monopolise Cesa’s time and convince him to be a magical mentor.

“Tell me about the amulet,” he asked, keeping his voice quiet and curious as they sat on the sofa together, pouring over the Copry grimoire. “I want to know everything.”

“I can’t say how much is the truth, as the story is generations old, but…very well.” Cesa nodded and cupped his hands around his knee, staring thoughtfully into the roaring fire. “There was a young Celt boy, whose village was attacked. Their women and children were slaughtered mercilessly, and because this boy had magic, he prayed to the Fates and the gods of magic, begging for a way to protect his village from more death and destruction.

“The boy wore a brooch, passed down through his family line. The Fates gave him a spell to make the brooch into a protective amulet that would increase his magic tenfold. As long as he protected rather than attacked, his magic would remain strong, but if he betrayed the Fates by misusing the amulet, he would pay the ultimate price and lose his magic forever.”

“I see.” Ithen nibbled his lower lip, wondering how he could use the amulet without corrupting the Fates’ wishes. He didn’t want to lose his magic but may succeed if he had someone else do his bidding; then they would lose their magic and he would still be able to use the amulet for his own intentions.

Cesa kept talking and Ithen didn’t interrupt. The more he knew about the amulet’s origin, the more he could plan his future endeavours. “The boy grew into a man, using his power for good. When he grew old, he passed the amulet to his son and so on for three generations…until one descendant used the amulet to conquer a town. They spilled so much blood that the man was stripped of his magic and lost the amulet in the snow.

“Thus came the end of the story, until two siblings found the amulet, a year later. The Fates spoke to them and promised that if they followed the same rules, they could take the amulet and spell, but they must part forever.” Cesa sighed, his gaze far away and voice full of the weight of the responsibility that came from protecting such magic. “The girl was a natural dark witch and went on to marry a local mage, a Tera. The boy, a white witch, became the head of the Copry coven. Both dedicated their lives to hiding the existence of the amulet and spell from other covens, and the Fates swore that only the descendants of these two protectors could see or touch the amulet or know the spell. To pass both safely through the generations, the spell was written down, to avoid misinterpretation or failing memories.”

Ithen nodded, glad to have some good news.

“Ever since, the Copry family have guarded the spell, and the Tera have protected the amulet. No Tera and Copry could marry, live together, nor perform magic together, for fear that the temptation to join the spell with the amulet would arise,” he admitted, confirming Ithen’s suspicions. This was the reason Asher and Cesa couldn’t be together.

“That seems unfair.”

Cesa graced him with a smile. “That is how it has been.”

Ithen twisted to lean into Cesa, holding his gaze. “Will the prophecy change anything?” The prophecy didn’t mention the amulet, but surely Storm must need the amulet to become the all-powerful mage prophesied to unite all the covens.

“The prophecy changes everything,” Cesa agreed as his eyes lit with wonder. “If Storm is truly ‘one who is the sum of all powers’, in terms of magic he is a member of every coven. Meaning he would be—not by blood but certainly by magic—equal parts Tera and Copry.”

“He could be the one to break the bonds of the agreement with the Fates? In terms of the amulet?” Ithen inwardly cursed, realising the little brat was the key to giving him everything he’d ever wanted. If he could get closer to Storm, he could make the boy give him both the amulet and spell, if Cesa proved unreasonable. Either way, Ithen would strip the covens of their power and rid the world of magic until he was the last to hold power.

He would make the world kneel at his feet, force Asher to love him and make Cesa obey him, even if he had to kill the little prophecy boy and any others who stood in his way.