The Bound Witch by Ivy Asher
21
Bones crunch under my feet as I drop barefoot into a dimly lit cavernous room. The air is thick and stale, the walls and floor a smooth blue marble with black veining, and bones...bones are spread out as far as the eye can see. My magic prickles with their presence, greeting them like old friends, but my pulse races, and anxious butterflies flutter in my stomach furiously.
I look down to see that one of my heels has crushed a horn that was attached to a skull. I step away from it warily and survey the thick layer of osseous matter all around me. I’m surrounded by all shapes and sizes of skulls and skeletons, some with tails, others with horns, wing bones are scattered here and there, and the one thing each and every one of them has in common is that they’re all demon bones.
Is that a dragon skeleton?
Unease creeps up my back as I look around me. Why am I here? Why bring me to a room filled with demon remains? Is Jamie’s demon here already? Is he about to join these piles of bones, or am I?
I run my gaze over the flickering sconces on the walls. The chamber is long and empty, well, except for me and the bones, and an ominous warning curls around my shoulders like a needy cat. I should feel some sense of relief standing in a room filled with the very thing that fuels and guides my magic, but I don’t.
Maybe it’s the fact that I’m currently only donning Rogan’s sweater, my bra and underwear, and a circumspect disposition. Or maybe my apprehension comes from the fact that the mark Dyad gave me was supposed to summon me for a trial. I look around as though maybe I missed something. There’s a raised rostrum with what appears to be three lecterns placed on it, but there’s no one here but me.
“Hello?” I call out, my shaky voice bouncing back at me from the walls.
The sound must displace a pile of bones, as they start to cascade down, and the sudden noise and movement has me whirling around in fear, expecting someone or something to pop out at me. I watch the bones fall down the little slope they were once perched on, reaching out with my magic to make sure there’s nothing living beneath the dusty layers all around me. I don’t feel anything living, but I do feel a heavy patina of death on every inch of this place.
Fuck.
I don’t know what I’m doing here, but it’s impossible not to get the impression that whatever the reason is, it’s bad. Do they know about the demon magic now saturating my blood? Am I in trouble for having it?
I shake my head as I search the walls and ceiling for a door or seam that would hint at a way to escape. It would be just my luck that having demon magic when you’re not actually a demon is considered an offence punishable by death.
A whooshing sound startles me, and all at once, the air around me is disturbed and displaced. I call on dragon ribs for weapons, ready for whatever is coming, or at least trying to look like I am.
Fake it until you make it, right?
Dyad drops down a couple feet next to me. Dust plumes all around him as he does, but not a spec dares to settle on his immaculate clothing, red skin, or long black hair, as though the dust itself is unwilling to risk the demon’s wrath. The crown his horns form on his head makes him look even more regal and menacing in this light, and it makes me wonder if he actually is some kind of demon ruler. He mentioned he was a High Demon before, and I thought I knew what that meant, but now I wonder.
A woman, or rather female demon, rises up out of the ground next to Dyad, like she’s a blooming plant. Instead of leaves and petals unfurling in the dim light of the space, petite milky-white limbs unfold, as does floor-length straight snow-white hair. Her face is beautiful and young, her ivory eyes lacking a pupil or any other color at all.
A grunt sounds behind me, and I turn to see a man in a gray tweed three-piece suit. He looks completely human, with light skin and short light brown hair. He smooths his suit jacket down and then looks up. I immediately take back the human designation as his glowing red eyes meet mine. He dismisses me with barely a glance, focusing his attention instead on Dyad.
“Is this the accuser?” Red Eyes asks, and his voice sounds more like the deep rumble of an earthquake than it does a voice.
“It is,” Dyad confirms, not bothering to look at me either.
“Let’s set up so the accused can arrive and we can get this over with,” the red-eyed man-demon instructs, his tone bored and his face disinterested.
I stand there, not sure what to do. No one is addressing me, and despite my thoughts to the contrary, this is where the trial is going to be. A shiver moves over me as I wait and watch the three demons make their way to the platform. They step up, Dyad grunting like his body objects to the movement, and it makes me wonder how old he is. I have no idea how long demons live, and I make a note to look into it another time.
There must be a bench or something behind the raised lecterns, because the demons sit behind them, and all of a sudden they look like three judges who are now presiding over the room. Well, minus the judges’ robes and if the courtroom were a marble-encased boneyard, that is.
The sconces brighten on the wall as though someone finally found the dimmer switch and flicked it up, exposing the dark recesses of the massive room. Flickers of flame no longer make the shadows all around me dance, but seeing the magnitude of death all around me more clearly doesn’t make me feel better at all. Goose bumps prick at my skin, and I don’t know if it’s from the bleak vibe or the fact that it’s cold in here. I can’t see my breath, but I feel my warmth leaching out of me, and it’s all I can do not to wrap my arms around myself.
“State your name,” the white-haired demon demands.
I look around, wondering who she’s talking to.
“Are you deaf? I said state your name,” she snaps at me, and I balk.
“Lennox Marai Osseous,” I tell her, vacillating between nervous and annoyed.
“You will address me as Cozen,” the white demon states. “Him as Gremory,” she says, gesturing to the man-demon in tweed. “And since you filed the complaint with Dyad, you should know him already.”
I nod at the names and pronouns mentioned, and Cozen continues.
“You are here accusing Count Botis the Murk of violating the Accords, is that correct?” she asks as though she’s in a hurry to get this over with.
Count who? The Murk what?
“Uhhh...I don’t…I don’t know,” I admit, looking to Dyad for help. His fixed stare on me is blank.
“You don’t know if Botis violated the laws between our kinds?” she asks, clearly pissed.
Fucking hell. Someone woke up on the wrong side of hell this morning.
“I don’t know the demon’s name,” I tell her, trying to bite back a wince at her sudden fury. “I only know what it looks like. I have no idea if Botis and the demon hunting me are the same.”
Gremory snaps a finger, and out of thin air, a glass-walled cage appears to the left of me. Inside is a huge demon that seems to be wrapped in writhing shadows. I see short black flames instead of hair, and the impression of massive muscles and nudity, but the roiling darkness over its skin blurs the demon somehow. I can see it but can’t focus on it enough to make the details of its body clearer. That is until it turns to me, and I see its eyes.
Every muscle in my body locks with terror. Frigid fear skitters through me like a thousand rats, and my palms start to sweat as alarm settles in my chest. The memory of agonized screams fills my ears as the demon’s full onyx lips smile threateningly at me. I suddenly feel like I’m being consumed by cold fire, like I’m a lowly moth being dragged closer toward deadly flames against my will. The demon’s bright orange eyes have a pupil that’s slit like a goat’s, and it looks me up and down lasciviously before licking its lips with a long obscene black tongue.
“Hello, Leni, it’s nice to see you again.”
I pale as the voice that plagued my dying breaths tries to wrap around me like a noose of shadows. Horror clamps around my chest, and my breathing picks up despite my efforts to keep it even. I turn away to look at the three higher demons who are in charge of this trial, and silently repeat a mantra I used to chant when I was a kid and afraid of the monsters under my bed.
If I can’t see them, they can’t see me. If I can’t see them, they can’t see me.
The only problem is I don’t have covers to pull over my head and hide under right now, and I really fucking wish I did. I want to move away from the glass cage, worried that the walls aren’t strong enough to contain something so heinous, but I stay where I am partly because I don’t want to show fear and partly because I’m too terrified to make my legs work. I try to swallow, but my throat feels dry as fuck.
“Is this the demon you’re accusing?” Gremory asks, his face still the epitome of over it.
“Y-yes,” I stammer, hating how fucking weak I sound, but I’m standing next to something that haunts my nightmares, and as much as I hate it, there’s not a lot I can do about the wobble in my voice. Hopefully, this will go quickly, they’ll kill this fucker, and I can go home and rest easier knowing Count Botis the Murk’s bones are down here rotting until they’re dust.
“And you attest that you have no contract with this demon and that you are not owned by anyone who does?” Cozen demands.
“Yes,” I announce, glad at least that I didn’t stutter that time.
Cozen turns her bored white eyes to the demon next to me and surveys him. I look up at Dyad, trying to get a feel for what’s going to happen, but his black eyes are also on the Count. The title count makes me nervous. I don’t know if it has the same standing with demons as it does with humans, but I don’t like the idea of this demon’s position affording him special favors or sway, especially when that special favor could be my death. Or my attempted death.
Fuck, what are they going to do to me when they realize I can’t die?
I immediately shut down the horrid options that flash through my mind with that question, and tell myself it’ll be fine.
This is a trial.
I have solid evidence.
Everything is going to be okay.
My heart hammers harder in my chest, and I swear I can hear the rapid beat echoing quietly around the marble room.
“How do you plea, Botis?” Dyad asks, and I think I see a glare in his eyes.
“Not guilty, of course,” Botis purrs, the sound more akin to nails on a chalkboard, and I wince, which makes the orange-eyed demon laugh.
I shake my head, feeling like I’m going to cry and trying to tamp it down with everything in me. All the demons in the room turn to me expectantly.
You can do this, Lennox. Just lay out the facts plain and simple.
“This demon helped kidnap and kill Osteomancers in an effort to steal their magic. I was taken and saw with my own eyes the possession and ritual the demon participated in to illegally steal magic that never belonged to him or the human he was working with. He killed that human and then possessed a new one and then showed up where I was staying for no other reason than to fuck with me. I don’t have a contract with him. I don’t owe him anything, and yet he won’t leave me alone, which is a violation of the Accords. Also, the fact that I can sense him and the danger he tries to put me in, further supports that he broke the Accords? My understanding is that’s a failsafe worked into the agreement, so I would like to point that out as more evidence that he broke the law,” I declare, looking at Dyad, who told me that’s how the failsafe worked.
“The sensing him in your realm is an element of proof, but if we’re going to sentence a Count to death for violating the Accords, we’re going to need more proof than you’re good eyesight,” Gremory snaps.
I balk, not sure what to think about that. I just gave him my other proof. Was that not enough?
The three demons ruling over this trial all turn to Botis as though this is some fucked up tennis match and it’s his turn to serve.
“I did have a contract, and Leni here is collateral from that sanctionedagreement. I would also like to claim damages because this little cunt interfered with my contract and cost me the agreed upon return,” he argues, and my stomach drops.
He can’t be serious. Damages?
My head snaps to the three demons at his words, and I reel when each of them looks thoughtful. Are they really considering what he’s saying? He didn’t even provide any proof. Is his claim more important than my evidence? Panic starts to layer in my chest, and I immediately wonder what the hell I’ve gotten myself into. I thought this would be the best avenue for dealing with the demon, but now I’m terrified I’ve somehow dug a bigger hole for myself.
“Interfered how?” Dyad demands, only this time the glare he’s wearing is for me.
Shit, what have I done?
“She killed a soul that belonged to me, which kept me from collecting the agreed upon terms,” Botis states bored, and rage fires through me.
“That is a lie,” I yell, suddenly afraid they’ll believe anything and everything this monster says. “I never killed Jamie, he did. And the agreed upon terms was magic that didn’t belong to either of them. You can’t have a contract with someone promising you magic that they don’t own,” I argue, hoping like hell I’m right.
Out of nowhere, Botis charges his glass cage. “Don’t you dare speak over me,” he snarls, and I scramble back, too afraid to even scream. Thank fuck the glass holds as he slams into it. His sharp-tipped teeth gnash as though he’s wishing he was chewing on my bones right now, and his orange eyes are filled with unhinged rage as they track my every move.
“It would have been my fucking magic if you hadn’t gotten involved. You fucked up what should have been mine, and I’ll take it from you one way or another,” he bellows, the force of his words escaping his enclosure and blowing curls out of my face. I feel like I’m seconds away from being torn apart.
“Silence,” Dyad shouts, and even though I can still see Botis ranting inside the glass enclosure, I can’t hear him anymore.
“Is what the witch said true? You were using a human to kill Osteomancers in order to take their magic?” Cozen demands, and I notice that she conjures a glass orb that looks like it has some kind of vapor trapped inside and sets it in front of her.
Botis eyes the orb and then sneers at her. “Yes,” he admits, almost begrudgingly, and the orb glows white.
“Then the witch is correct, you can’t have a contract promising magic that doesn’t belong to you or the person the contract’s with,” Gremory declares, and suddenly there’s a gavel in his hand. “Trying to steal what never belonged to you or the being you’re in contract with is a violation of our laws.”
I hold my breath, too stunned to believe that this could actually be it. Did I pull it off? Did I prove my case?
Gremory holds up the gavel. “As the High Demon Council presiding over this trial, we find you—”
“Wait!” Botis screams so loudly that I swear the glass around him rattles. “I’m not done,” he growls more quietly, now that Gremory is silent. “The contract I’m talking about wasn’t with the human. It was with the High Council.”
A loud whooshing sound fills the room, and dread pools inside of me as Botis’s declaration rings around the room, and other people suddenly appear. I turn around slowly, and my eyes meet a kelly-green stare framed by dark lashes and a beautiful oval face. Long pitch black hair falls past her shoulders, and the white streak at the front looks elegant as always. She’s in a pant suit that matches her eyes, and there’s a gold pentagram broach that’s pinned to the lapel.
Just like the first time I met Rogan’s mother, Sorrel Adair, the High Priestess of Witches, stands behind her husband the High Priest, and her Council member, Bordow, the Contegomancer who murdered Marx.
Sirens blare in my brain, and it’s all I can do not to scream.
I knew it. I fucking knew it. I didn’t know how or why Sorrel Adair would be messing with demons, but I felt in my bones that her hand was in this somehow. I thought it was Jamie who could possibly be working with the High Council, but it was the demon. Botis is the connection, not her.
Fuck my life and fuck Sorrel Adair.
I want to rage and scream and wipe her evil presence from the face of all realms, but I need to keep control. I need to figure out how to beat this bitch at her own game.
“What the hell is going on? You have not been summoned here,” Dyad growls, and the High Priestess fixes him with a smile so saccharine it makes my skin crawl.
“Oh,” she chirps in faux surprise. “It seems you started without us. Shame really, you know the Accords allow for a mancer representative to be present at all trials,” she declares sweetly.
“Mancer representatives never attend these trials because they can’t be bothered, and you know it,” Gremory states irritably.
“Well, then it’s your lucky day, because we’ll be sitting in on this one,” Sorrel declares as though somehow she’s running the show.
My gut twists, and I realize she probably has been. Maybe I didn’t see it up close and personal, but she’s been pulling strings and forcing our hand the entire time. Anger battles with the overwhelming desire to puke, but I press them both back and level Gremory with a frustrated look.
I don’t know what the hell is going on right now, but shit just went from bad to fucking catastrophic real quick, and I’m getting the very distinct impression I am fucked.
“Do all demons bow so easily to the High Council?” I challenge, hoping somehow it will focus the High Demon’s anger on Sorrel and not me for calling him out. “One demon says he has a contract with them, and now you’re pretending like she’s simply sitting in on a trial and not the reason why we’re having one?” I accuse, both pissed and terrified in equal measure.
How the hell does this bitch have so much power?She just saunters in like she owns this place and they all let her. Fuck, maybe she does own this place. What the hell do I even know anymore?
My brain whirs as I try to figure out all the angles of what the fuck is going down right now. I know I’ve walked into a trap, that’s obvious, but I have no idea how wide the net is. I don’t know how she’s going to do it, but I have no doubt in my mind that this is all about getting to her sons, and what’s worse is I don’t know if I can stop it.
I reach for the tether instinctively, wanting to call Rogan and warn him, but my heart plummets through my chest when I feel that it’s still closed.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
The High Priestess just showed her hand, and I can’t even warn Rogan and Elon that she’s coming for them. I can feel her stare on the back of my head like hot lasers, but I ignore it as I try to see a way out of this mess.
“Is that true, Adair? Do you confirm that you have a contract with Botis?” Cozen asks, and I swear the white demon suddenly looks ashen.
High heels click on the marble floor, a stiff breeze removing bones from the High Priestess’s path. She passes me without so much as a glance and moves to step in front of Botis’s glass prison.
She takes in the three High Demons seated behind the lecterns and then turns to wink at Botis. Fear rips through my entire body as she turns back to Cozen with a haughty look.
“Yes, I do have a contract with Botis the Murk,” Sorrel Adair finally confesses, and everything in me wants to explode and implode at the same time.
Rogan’s dad, the High Priest, walks confidently past me to join his wife, but I don’t focus on him, as I fully freak the fuck out. I have to get out of here, but I have no idea how. This trial was pure bullshit, I was never going to win, and she’s here to make sure of it. I try not to think of all the ways I could be used against Rogan or what Sorrel will do when she finally gets what she wants. If these demons think she won’t come for them and their power, they’re as stupid as I am for not seeing this was a trap.
Suddenly I see Bordow in my periphery. I watch as the asshole blows a mocking kiss at me, and abruptly I’m back in the clearing, grass sticking to my knees, bones calling to my magic, and death thick on the back of my tongue as I watch a bullet pierce the forehead of my friend. I blink and Marx’s face is gone, but Bordow is still there arrogantly striding past me. Something vicious and animalistic takes over. I stop caring about where I am and what they’ll do to me if I give into the drive to hurt this murdering motherfucker. I suddenly want to kill them all, and what do I have to lose? I’m fucked either way.
One second, rage is climbing up my throat so fast that I can’t even breathe, and then the next, my fist is connecting with Bordow’s face so hard that I feel his cheek and jaw shatter. Sorrel’s head snaps in my direction, and I’m suddenly being thrown back by a brutal breeze. It slams me into the blue marble wall so hard that if I hadn’t just called on magic to fortify my bones, the hit against would have broken far more than just my back and skull.
I call on the bones in the room while also looking for a line or something that might get me out of here. Everything feels as though it’s moving in fast forward, and I watch Bordow fall to the ground, clutching his face, as I slide down the wall and tap into all the bones in this room. I can hear yelling and see the three demons rising up out of their seats to try and regain control of the chaos. I will the demon bones all around me to sharpen, ready to put up the fight of my life, but out of nowhere, water somehow fills my airway. My eyes go wide and I lose my focus, my magic snapping back to me like it’s a hand that was just slapped for being naughty.
I try to cough, but nothing I do clears the water enough to let oxygen in. I clutch my throat, scratching at the skin as I drown from the inside out. Frantically I look around for help, and bright orange goat eyes find mine as I fall to my side, desperate and begging for air. Black dots start to cloud my vision, but I can still see both the demon and the High Priestess smiling at me as they stand there and watch me die.
I glare defiantly at Rogan’s mother, fucking Circummancer and her elemental magic. Water spills into my lungs, and my body does everything it can to expel it, to no avail. I see Bordow kneeling on the ground, clutching his face, and satisfaction blooms in my chest.
That one’s for you, Marx.