Marked By Magic by Christa Wick

Chapter Thirty

Gro tez kyì

Vel gro tvezka durn

Dvaz kyì zel

Gro tez kyì…

Esme pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders, the fabric hugging her as the words she had taught Iris and Michelle thrummed in her ears. Locking her gaze on the beryl crystals in Abby that mimicked eyes, she could see through them with the same clarity she had been able to see the Hunters surrounding the house. Only this time, she was gazing into the small prison within Witch Mountain.

Camille was awake somehow and moving toward the door. The magic pulsing within her was all wrong, stronger than Camille should have been, stronger than she had ever seemed.

But it had become obvious to Esme that her mother had hidden the scope of her magic before, the subterfuge a part of making herself less helpful to the clan while she secretly worked with Quentin for decades to destroy the wolves she hated so much.

"Vel kyìvka rabzi!"

Esme startled at the words strung together, more so because they fell from Oscar's lips. She had taught them to no one. Somehow, the cub had encountered them before.

The power summoned by the words immediately manifested. It ripped the crystals straight from her mother, dropped Camille to her knees. Esme's own legs went weak. She collapsed against Abby, the creature's flesh turning unbearably hot at the same time the stones leaving Camille hit Michelle and ignited the latent's clothing.

Esme's flesh burned hotter, her eyes watering as she saw Iris leap into the prison cell, the deadly claws of one hand looking like blue lasers as they pierced Camille's chest and ripped out her heart.

Feeling her own flesh rending, she screamed at her mother's death. Around her, the walls vibrated. The ground shifted. Stone dissolved to sand in a blink. Abby's screams echoed her own. Pain everywhere blinded Esme to all but two lights pulsing in the room. Using both hands, she reached for the lights, her fingers rigid and straight like the blade on a hoe.

Making contact with the light in Abby's chest first, she wrapped her hand around it, jerked it out and slammed her closed fist against her own chest. Upon impact, the stone broke into a hundred shards of light that pierced Esme's flesh.

Her knees buckled at the fresh pain. She threw her weight onto the altar, one hand holding the opposite edge as more ground gave way. Her other hand kept digging. Finding the cub's ankles, she pulled the child out and clutched it to her.

The floor crumbled and swirled. It was as if Quentin's uncountable atrocities had hollowed out the ground beneath the building, creating a sinkhole that threatened to swallow her and the cub—to swallow all of the mansion and everyone in it.

Esme leaped from the altar through the open door, magic lifting and pushing her along. Running for the stairs, she fastened the baby to her with the shawl. Shaking with its death throes, the mansion rattled and groaned. Above the sound came Denver's voice, shouting her name.

She opened her mouth to reply. Swirling sand and dust choked her throat shut. She coughed debris out in thick, jagged chunks, her body near collapsing as she reached the top of the stairs.

"Love!" Denver said, finding and crushing her to him.

The baby cried.

He recoiled, looked down.

"What—"

She shook her head and shouted for the others in the mansion.

"Everyone, to me!"

Wolf and latent alike swarmed toward Esme. Some were bleeding, all were bruised and exhausted, but none were missing, none dead on the floor.

Ordering everyone to hold on to someone, she pulled Denver and Lana to her.

"Two someones," she corrected as the roof threatened to come crashing down.

She felt them interlock, their energies multiplying her own. When the pattern was complete, she threw her head back and howled for the first time in her life.

The sound of her cry took physical form. Blue witch light turned into a deep, vibrant purple opening above and below them like an umbrella until the two ends touched and became a pulsing bubble of energy that carried everyone to solid ground as the soil reclaimed the mansion.

The bubble remained as she started singing, the tune full of heat and rage. Hearing Esme's voice, the Hunters who had surrounded the house immediately clutched their weapons against their chests and ran.

Her song built in volume, all but Esme and the baby pressed against her constricting with pain as its notes stabbed the air.

A man exited the woods and walked toward the shield Esme had created. His black hair faded toward gray with each step he took and then to white. With Esme's song threatening to peak, he frantically spun his own bubble of energy, finishing it as the last note burst from her throat.

Energy rippled out in a shock wave, knocking down every escaping Hunter, every tree, every blade of grass. Flesh and bone and metal turned to ash, the wave extending beyond the horizon.

With the song finished, Esme collapsed to her knees, the protective bubble flashing out of existence. A hundred yards away, Quentin lost his shield, his body bent at the waist and his hands braced against his knees as he struggled to catch his breath.

Leaning on Denver, Esme walked toward Quentin, her entire team following close behind. Fresh anger pulsed in the wolves and latents. Hair and fangs sprouted.

"Ah, daughter," Quentin crooned when only a dozen or so yards separated him from Esme. "I see a galaxy lives in your eyes at last."

His gaze shifted from Esme's face to the makeshift sling that kept the baby hidden from him. His fingers twitched but didn't reach for the child.

"Have you removed the caul yet?" he asked before chuckling through his own answer. "I imagine not, you had more pressing considerations and it's a delicate process removing one, especially if you wish to harvest the inherent magical properties."

Esme glared at him, marveling at how ancient he looked with his magic depleted and knowing he was a couple centuries older than anyone might guess.

He lifted both arms, his hands held far from his body as if to show he had no weapons or tricks left to unleash.

"I understand that you or your mate are going to kill me—"

A chorus of offers to do the job erupted from the wolves and latents present, the uproar momentarily silencing Quentin.

"But give your father one mercy, child," he continued, then pointed with his chin at the sling. "Is the cub you're holding a boy…or a girl, as I planned her to be?"

A soft murmur began to build as those gathered slowly processed Quentin's mention of a caul and the possibility that the baby was female.

"You'll die not knowing," Esme answered, her hand up and glowing.

Smug as always, Quentin smirked at the threat. "Then I'll also die knowing that the other caul you found among my papers does not—"

Esme watched with a glazed expression as Quentin's head rolled from his shoulders to drop onto the ground her magic had rendered barren just minutes before.

Small gasps of surprise echoed around her.

The cut had been quick and clean, the witch light instantly responding to her impulse to decapitate him.

She would have to be more careful with her thoughts, she realized, her gaze dropping to the sling and the infant inside. Reaching a hand into the material, she bypassed the caul that crowned the child to stroke at a velvet-soft cheek. The peacefully-shut lids fluttered, then slowly opened.

The eyes were sea-green as her own had once been.

And maybe one day, she thought with a smile, a galaxy would live and dance within them as well…