The Bound Witch by Ivy Asher
22
Ifeel like I’m going to shatter my own vertebrae from the force it takes to try and purge water from my lungs. I hack and gag and gasp, bent over and dizzy as Dyad slams his large red hand against my back.
“You will stop right now, or I fucking vow I will hold you in contempt for the maximum sentence outlined in the Accords,” Gremory bellows at the High Priestess, and with a huff like someone just took away her favorite toy, Sorrel Adair stops using her magic on me.
The water immediately evaporates from my chest and throat, and I choke on air as I try to pull it into me. I gulp down huge greedy swallows of oxygen and try to fight the residual panic coursing through me that I’m not pulling air in fast enough. Dyad bends over me, blocking the rest of the room from my line of sight, which is probably a good thing, because I’m shaky as hell from what the High Priestess just did to me, and water isn’t even her strongest element.
Fucking hell.
Despair and anger war inside of me, and I try to get a hold of all my runaway emotions so I can shove them behind a hard mask of anger. I rub at my throat, and Dyad looks me over as I desperately try to figure out how to win against someone who’s never lost before. I feel like I’m playing chess against a fucking Grandmaster and all I know how to do is play checkers. Every time I get close to yelling king me, this bitch is over here cackling checkmate.
“I don’t give a shit who you are,” Cozen screeches behind me. “You are not here under the capacity of the High Priestess of Witches, you are a witness in a trial, and you will stand there and shut the fuck up until one of us asks you a question. Am I clear?” she snaps at Sorrel, and I decide I like the white-haired demon.
“The same goes for you, Osteomancer, keep your magic to yourself and obey the rules of this court or face the consequences,” she snaps at me.
And…it seems I spoke too soon.
Dyad moves away from me now that I’m once again breathing, and I catch the frigid glare Cozen is aiming at me. I debate the merit of pointing out that I didn’t use my magic to assault Bordow, I used my fist, but I figure it’s best to just stay quiet at this point. I nod instead, standing up and walking slowly and shakily back to where I was before Rogan’s evil bitch of a mother sent me flying.
I observe Bordow standing on the far side of Botis’s cage, still clutching his face, but my attempts to escape or take everyone in this room out while trying just failed miserably, and all I can focus on is what’s coming. Sorrel Adair is going to tighten the noose and then use me as bait to catch her sons. I know it.
“Now, if we’re done fucking around, let’s get back to the point of this trial,” Cozen snaps, as though everything that just happened was a mild inconvenience and not evidence that this entire thing is a fucking sham.
I stare at the three High Demons presiding over this shit show and wonder if they all have contracts with the High Council too. They start to discuss something between themselves, but I can’t make out a word of it. Looking to my left, I find Botis staring at me hungrily, and it makes my blood run cold. All I can see is Jamie summoning him, and his shadows bending her over an altar stained with countless witches’ blood, as he fucked her and branded another contract into her skin.
I shove away the visual and try to think through the dread that’s starting to weigh me down. If Botis’s end goal wasn’t Jamie, but Sorrel, what would the High Priestess want in order to make that deal? I shake my head at that stupid question. She would want what she’s always wanted, Elon and Rogan’s secret.
I do my best to ignore the demon who’s still watching me like he’s making a list of all the things he’s going to do to me when he gets out of that cage, and turn my attention to Sorrel, who’s focused on the arguing High Demons.
Jamie was clearly the cover. The High Council stole her magic, then dangles a carrot of power, set her up with the demon, and let her loose to kidnap Elon and the others. I’m sure she was hoping that Rogan would trade the information his parents wanted for his brother’s safe return, or she hoped Elon would break from the torture and give it up himself. Sorrel wouldn’t have cared if the demon made a side deal with Jamie for the magic, because the end goal for Sorrel Adair was something more important to her...immortality.
My thoughts swirl around in my head, and I try to lay them all out in front of me in an effort to make sense of all of this, but they don’t seem to fit together quite right yet. The thing that I can’t figure out is what my part was in all of this. Was I really just collateral damage, one more string to pull to get Rogan to do what she wanted?
“Enough,” Dyad snaps at the two other demons next to him. “This is a simple matter of whether Count Botis the Murk violated the Accords. The presence of members of the High Council shouldn’t fucking matter, because the trial is Botis’s, not theirs. This is still within our remit, and that’s fucking final,” Dyad declares, and Cozen and Gremory both close their mouths and swallow whatever was left of their arguments.
I watch them, confused, but I don’t miss the satisfied look on the High Priestess’s face, and it makes my skin crawl.
“Botis,” Dyad barks, “explain how your actions are covered in your contract with the High Council, and do it quickly, I’ve had enough of all the bullshit.”
The murdering Contegomancer, Bordow, and Rogan’s dad move behind Botis’s glass cage as though they’re trying to move out of the way. Sorrel stands at the front, her control over the situation clear, and Botis is as close to me as the back corner of his glass walls will allow him to be.
Fucking creeper.
“I contracted with these three members of the High Council to capture, detain, and then hand over Elon Kendrick and Rogan Kendrick. I bartered for the High Council members’ souls and magic upon death and for the branch of Osteomancer magic to be held as collateral until the three promised souls were collected,” Botis declares evenly, and the three High Demons all look shocked as fuck.
“Are you seriously telling me that the High Priest and Priestess of Witches sold you their souls and magic, all so that you would kidnap their sons?” Gremory demands, utterly flabbergasted.
I stare at Sorrel, confused. Why go through all that trouble just to take Rogan and Elon? Why the huge, convoluted ruse just to...and then I realize why. The High Priestess of Witches doesn’t get her hands dirty. She needed someone not just to steal Elon and Rogan, but to fucking torture them until they broke. Who better to do that than a demon? Of course she sold her soul; she knows as soon as she gets what she wants from her sons, she’ll never have to fulfill her end of the bargain because she’ll never die.
Disgust overflows into every inch of me. What kind of mother—fuck that, she was never worthy of that title—what kind of person is capable of such loathsome atrocities against another person, let alone someone related to you by blood?
“Yes, that is my contract,” Botis replies smugly.
Gremory looks at the High Priestess like he still doesn’t believe it. “He’s telling the truth,” she informs him, looking just as pleased as Botis does.
“Fine, she has a contract with him, but Rogan and Elon are not minors, they’re adult mancers. This bitch doesn’t own them. What she wants doesn’t override their rights under witch law or the Accords,” I point out, remembering Prek’s first demon case and how shocked I was that the man traded his children to a demon.
Prek explained that there is a death loophole that allows a demon to kill as part of their contract as long as there aren’t any relatives to file a complaint about the death, but Elon and Rogan can’t die and they absolutely can file a complaint about being kidnapped and having their rights violated.
“Well, little Osteomancer, I am Witch Law, but even if that weren’t the case, I do own Elon and Rogan, and I can do whatever I damn well please with them, including trade them to a demon if I want to,” she coos at me, and bile and rage crawl up my throat. “In fact, the both of them are key components to this case, and I request that they be summoned here to join us.”
My heart turns to lead and crashes down through my body like a runaway elevator.
No.
They can’t come here. She’ll get exactly what she wants if they do.
Sorrel observes the alarm etched all over my face, and she smiles. I flounder, trying to figure out how to stop this.
“No,” I shout out, and the High Demons turn to me. “They have nothing to do with this and shouldn’t be here. This is between me and Botis, not between this piece of shit and the sons she’s trying to have tortured,” I plead.
“We have no way of summoning them last minute unless either of them has a contract we can use—do they?” Gremory asks, his red eyes boring into the High Priestess.
“Why, yes, actually,” she answers sweetly, and her response sends me reeling.
Elon and Rogan don’t have demon marks, what the hell is she talking about?
“If you check the inside wrist of the Osteomancer there, you’ll find a vow that connects her to Rogan. He’ll be able to confirm ownership, and this trial can be done once and for all,” she declares haughtily, and everything inside of me is lost to panic.
No, no, no, no.
She can’t do that.
I can’t let her trick them into trapping Rogan down here too.
“I take it back,” I yell, my declaration echoing off the walls and bones all around me. The terror and panic in my tone slaps me around like it’s a prized fighter and I’m an amateur. “I take back my complaint. Do whatever the hell you want to punish me, but I’m done with this. I’m not going to keep playing into this fucking monster’s hands,” I snarl at the High Demons, tears welling in my eyes.
I reach for the tether again, but I can’t feel or send anything. Fuck. I don’t know if they’re going to put me in demon jail or give me to Botis. I’m not even sure which of those options might be worse or if there’s something else they do to people who make false claims.
Will Rogan ever know what happened to me? Will he ever forgive me for not coming back like I promised?
My throat grows tight with emotion, but I square my shoulders and promise myself I’ll get through whatever it is they’re going to do to me. I know Sorrel won’t give up, that she’ll keep going at Rogan and Elon, but I can only hope that this will buy them time and they’ll be ready for her when she comes for them again.
“It doesn’t work that way, Osteomancer,” Cozen informs me, and I swear I see a hint of empathy gleaming in her white eyes. “Once the trial has started, it doesn’t stop unless the accused is found guilty or not guilty. You can’t end it simply because you want to, and you can’t retract the statements that you’ve already made to the court.”
“So find him not guilty then. Send me on my way, and the next time that fucker shows up anywhere near me, I’ll kill him and whoever sent him,” I seethe at the white demon, desperation crawling up my throat and strangling my words. “Please,” I finally break and beg. “Please,” I say again, pleading for her to help me keep the man I love away from this evil.
She drops her eyes from mine, and it’s as though she’s reached into my chest and ripped all the hope away.
Sorrel chuckles quietly, like my pain is the funniest thing she’s seen in a while. “I really should thank you, Lennox,” she chirps at me, her eyes filled with nothing but cruelty. “You made all of this far easier than even I could have hoped for.”
The rage that’s been festering inside of me since I first laid eyes on her boils over. Bones snap up around me at my order, ready and waiting to be told where to stab, bludgeon, and maim. But before I can so much as breathe in her direction, glass walls slam down all around me. Shock and then fury tsunami through me, and I scream as I pound on the glass cage.
“You fucking bitch! You leave them alone, you power-hungry whore!” I bellow at the top of my lungs as impotent tears drip down my face. I bang on the glass so hard my hands start to bruise, and try as I might, I can’t use my magic in here.
Dyad steps down from the dais and walks over to me. Without warning, I’m slammed against the glass wall in front of me, and my hand is forced out of the glass as though there’s a perfectly designed hatch to hold my arm in place. I scream and thrash as I try to pull Rogan’s vow mark back into the safety of the cage. I even try to break my own arm in order to regain control of the limb, but nothing works.
Dyad does something to my mark, and I feel a jolt of power rush through it. “You fucking liar,” I snarl at him. “You set me up, I know you did,” I screech, my face and features the epitome of madness as I try everything I can not to let this happen, but I was fucked before I ever even got here.
Sobs wrack my body, and I cry even harder as a whooshing sound fills this godforsaken room, and then out of nowhere, Rogan is suddenly there, and I know I’ve failed miserably.
He looks around confused, and then like I’m a beacon that’s calling him, moss-green eyes land on mine. He pales as he sees my face, and then fury quickly takes over, and he sprints toward me. I look over to see his mother watching him like the prize she thinks he is, and I feel sick.
A loud boom sounds off all around me, and I see Rogan punching the glass to try to get to me. I run to the back side of the cage and press my palms against the glass to make him stop.
“What the fuck is going on?” he bellows, turning his attention from me to the three demons at the front of the massive room.
“Osteomancer Osseous is only in there because she violated the rules of this court by trying to attack someone...again. The sooner you tell us what we need to know, the sooner this trial will end and the sooner she will be let out,” Gremory tells him, his tone clipped and exasperated.
“Let her out and I’ll answer your questions,” Rogan tries to bargain, but Gremory just glares at him.
I stare at Rogan, willing him to feel how sorry I am for bringing him here. I know what his mom has planned for him, and like a fucking idiot, I walked in here and basically handed him over on a silver platter. Anguish washes through me, and I press my palm to his as he focuses on Gremory and darts suspicious looks at his mother.
I’m sure he’s trying to figure out what the hell is going on, but his perfect poker face is locked down tight now, and I know he won’t let it crack for anything.
“Sorrel Adair has claimed she owns you and your brother, is this true?” Dyad asks. I stare at Rogan, waiting for him to laugh or sneer or do anything other than what he does, which is nothing. From this close, I see a slight tightening around his eyes, and it’s all I need to see to know we’ve lost.
Tears drip steadily down my eyes as Sorrel turns to her son expectantly. “Come now, Rogan, tell the High Demon all about how you swore fealty to me,” she orders him, a greedy glint in her kelly-green eyes.
I shake my head as though it will erase the truth of what she just said, but Rogan pulls in a deep breath and squares his gaze on her.
“I was barely eighteen,” he argues, and she tilts her head mockingly at him.
“Still counts,” she purrs.
“I’m a renounced witch, how the fuck does that still count?” he snarls at her, and she steps closer to him.
“Because I say it does,” she counters, all pretense of sweetness gone.
Her words strike right through like a lightning bolt of holy shit, and I push away from the back corner of my cage and rush to the front. I slam a battered palm against the glass to pull the High Demons’ attention back to me.
“He may have sworn fealty to her, but I never have,” I yell at them, my heart hammering desperately inside my chest for this to somehow work. “She may own him, but she doesn’t own me, which means she contracted with Botis for magic that she had no right to. Just like Jamie did,” I point out.
“Nice try, Osteomancer, but when Rogan tethered the two of you, his fealty became yours,” she snaps at me, clearly ready to be done with this and off with her prize.
I go still as her words batter around my mind. I study each and every syllable, every breath between the words of her statement, trying to see if there could be some other interpretation. But I don’t see one, and a small flicker of hope sparks in my chest because...I think I’ve got her. My eyes sharpen as I look around the room warily, worried that somehow the truth I just stumbled across will be ripped out of my desperate clutches and stomped on the ground in front of me, but no one is paying me any attention. No one knows that I just found the key.
Holy fucking shit, I think I’ve got her.
“Is that true?” I ask, my voice dry and my heart racing as I try to sound as feeble and small as I can. “If Rogan bound me to him, then his fealty is my fealty?” I demand, and the High Demons all turn to me.
“Yes,” Cozen replies, and I’ve never wanted to hug a word so hard in my fucking life.
Hope and a trill of triumph builds in my chest, but I lock it all away as I nod my acceptance at what Cozen just confirmed. “Then I would like to point out that Rogan didn’t tether me to him, I tethered him to me. So in that case, my fealty is his, and I’d like to make it crystal fucking clear that I have none,” I inform them, my tone lethal and my eyes fixed on Rogan’s mother.
Her mask cracks slightly, not enough to drop the confident smile from her face, but I see her dart a look back to her husband, and it’s all I can do not to crow out my victory. Rogan and I aren’t owned by anyone but each other, and that means the High Priestess of Witches promised things to a demon that she wasn’t allowed to barter with, and in turn they both violated the Accords.
King me, bitch.
“Is that true?” Dyad asks Rogan.
“Yes, she tethered me, not the other way around, a Soul Witch will be happy to confirm it for you,” he growls at them, but all the demons turn to the orb in front of Cozen, and when it glows white, they nod their head like that’s all the proof they need.
The room is quiet for a beat, like no one knows what to do with this unexpected twist, and then all at once the High Demons start to argue with each other, and Botis starts to pace in his cage. His orange eyes bounce from the High Priestess to the High Demons, rage frothing at his full lips as he worries the floor with his feet.
I try to hear what they’re arguing about, but it’s all a jumble of whispers, and I can’t identify any words or sentences. I work hard to rein in my fervent hope and see how Sorrel could try to counter this. I try to see the loopholes in the facts like I know she’s doing right now.
My hands are shaky with adrenaline, and when I look over at Rogan, I see that he’s staring at his mother with so much hate and vehemence it makes the hair on my arms rise in warning, but what really pisses me off is that she’s staring right back at him, and I can practically see the declaration in her kelly-green eyes that no matter what happens, he belongs to her.
Botis snarls menacingly, and it snaps Sorrel out of her staring contest. She says something to the demon—I don’t catch it—but it was something condescending by the look on her face, and Botis redirects all the creepy obsession and silent promises of pain that he was aiming at me, and focuses it all on the High Priestess.
The High Demons stop discussing amongst themselves, and I hold my breath as I wait to see what they’ll say. Silence fills the marble boneyard, and all I can hear is the boom of my pulse in my ears. Out of nowhere, I blink and the glass case all around me disappears.
I gasp, and more adrenaline fires through me when I look up and once again find that the High Demon Gremory has a gavel in his hand.
“This High Demon Council finds the contract between Count Botis the Murk and the High Council of Witches...invalid,” Gremory announces, his rumbling earthquake tone forcing me to not only hear his words but feel them as they move through the room. “As such,” he continues, “Botis is found guilty of violating the Accords.”
My head snaps in the direction of Jamie’s demon as he bellows out his objection. “You fucking cunt, you did this, you slippery viper. If you think you’re safe, you have another thing coming! I own your soul, you stupid whore,” he snarls at the High Priestess as he attacks the front of his cage with nothing but pure rage and fury. “I was tricked! I demand the contract be reviewed!” Botis screams, but the gavel is already slamming down against the wood of the lectern.
Botis’s furious threats and demands morph into visceral feral screams as blue flames erupt inside his glass cage. He attacks the glass barrier with renewed ferocity, and I can feel the ground shaking with each hit against the barrier separating his madness from us.
“I’m going to rip you all to pieces and bathe in your innards. I am Count Botis the Murk, you cannot sentence me to death,” he rages as the flames grow taller. He screams and snarls as the shadows coating him fade away against the flames. He starts to attack every wall of his enclosure, and then the blue fire is so high that it’s all I can see anymore.
I breathe through the panic that crashes through me. It’s the justice he deserves, but his visceral keening as he dies takes me back to the church, and I feel achy with terror as the memories breathe threateningly down my neck. Strong arms wrap around me, pulling me in tightly, and Rogan presses my face to his chest as he discreetly covers my ears to help block the sound.
“You did it, Lennox. You won. He’s gone and he’s never coming back,” Rogan chants quietly to me to help drown out the noise of my brutal memories. I’m surprised to hear such confidence in his voice, like he always knew this would be the case, he never even doubted I might not pull it off.
I shake my head, reeling and in shock over what just happened. It all feels so surreal. I thought for sure it was over, and then it wasn’t.
Did I really just figure out how to climb out of that trap?
I know in the long run, this win doesn’t mean shit. Sorrel is just going to keep coming for us until we find some way to beat her, but we’ll at least live to see another day, have more time to plan for the next attack, and we’ll be together. I hug Rogan so hard he grunts from the impact. I feel him press a kiss to the top of my head, and I vow that as soon as we get home, I’m reactivating this tether no matter what. Not being able to reach him was the worst fucking feeling, and I will never let it happen again.
The screams stop, but I can hear the flames still crackling as they finish the rest of Botis off. Out of nowhere, a flash of familiar icy pain moves through me. My gasp is hidden in Rogan’s chest, and as he feels my muscles tighten and strain from the sudden assault, he holds me protectively closer.
“What’s wrong, Lennox? What just happened?” he asks distraughtly, and I can feel him scanning the room for the source of this attack. I shake my head against his chest, but it’s all I can do until the icy clutches of agony start to abate.
Deep breaths, Lennox, this is not your first rodeo, it’ll be over soon. Just breathe.
Dyad stands behind the lectern, his crown of horns making him appear regal and superior. I want to punch him for it. His black eyes take in everyone in the room, and he lifts his chin haughtily. “I officially call the trial of Count Botis the Murk to an end,” he announces, and I look up through the pain to see the High Council members all together again and glaring up at the demons. “I warn the other parties present, specifically the three High Council members, that they are facing future charges for their role in today’s events. I also warn that Botis’s next in line will inherit all open contracts, and that their legal bargains with him are still active contracts.”
I watch the three High Council members’ reactions to Dyad’s declaration. I expect to find fear or apprehension or at the least a slight bit of concern, but Sorrel once again looks smug, like she knows something the rest of us don’t, and it makes my stomach churn with vicious anxiety.
The pain in my body starts to recede, and I relax in Rogan’s arms. He breathes out a sigh of relief and drops his lips to my ear so no one else can hear.
“What just happened, are you okay?”
I nod against his chest and whisper back, “It was a transference of power,” I explain, confusion percolating through me, because I thought Elon and I were the only Osteomancers left, and Elon can’t transfer power to me because he can’t die.
And then it dawns on me.
I look down at my feet, parts of them still stinging from the power I just absorbed. Shock makes me freeze, and my eyes widen as a new shot of adrenaline courses through me. I stare dumbfoundedly at the demon marks now decorating my skin. I trace the lacey circles with my eyes, identifying a mark with the letter A in it, one with a K, and the last one contains a B. Unlike my vow mark with Rogan, the demon marks are black, and I know without a shadow of doubt what just happened.
Holy moon shits.
That wasn’t a transference of magic from an Osteomancer, that was a transference from the fucking demon, Botis.
Which means…
My head snaps up just as Dyad stops talking and Gremory prepares to pound his gavel again and end this trial once and for all.
I step forward, but Rogan keeps an arm draped over my shoulder protectively. “Wait,” I cry out before the gavel can meet the dark wood of the lectern.
Gremory groans, looking thoroughly pissed. And the High Priestess’s shrewd eyes narrow at me.
“What the fuck is it now?” Gremory snaps, but I’m too fucking shocked and excited by what I just discovered to let it get to me.
“You said that the next in line inherited their contracts, is that correct?” I ask, gesturing to the High Council members, who have already turned to leave.
“Yes, now fuck off already,” he growls, raising the gavel again.
“Sorry, just a couple more questions,” I rush to add, and he shoots me a glare that threatens to burn me alive if I don’t shut the fuck up.
I’m not cowed.
“Each of the High Council members lied in their contracts with Botis and then also violated the Accords; isn’t that going to be dealt with?” I demand, and Rogan gives me a warning squeeze around my shoulders as Dyad also shoots me a glare.
“Yes, we’ve already established that the consequences will be determined by Botis’s next in line. The heir can decide if they want to call in the contracts early or simply assign a penalty,” Dyad announces, annoyed.
“Either way, that has nothing to do with you, Osteomancer,” the High Priestess snaps. “Are we done here?” she demands, already skirting Botis’s bones to leave. “And before you get too excited, I’ve already ensured that Botis was the last of his line,” Sorrel tells me, a vicious smirk painted on her face. I can practically see the wheels turning in her mind as she already starts to plot and plan her next move.
My smile grows wider, and victory sings in my veins as I look up at the three High Demons. “Then, as Botis’s next in line and the new owner of the High Council members’ contracts, I’d like to call in my contracts early,” I inform them evenly, my head high and my heart screaming with excitement.
That’s checkmate, you evil cunt.