AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Koschei tsked. “Tricky witches always going back on their word.”
“I never promised you anything,” she gritted out.
“You and I are bound now. Nothing but death will tear us apart and I don’t plan on that happening for a long, long time.” Koschei chuckled just as Kormac roused and sat up.
“Fionna?”
She held out her hands. “Stay away. He’s inside me.”
Kormac’s expression went from shocked to horrified. “Put him back in the box.”
“She can’t. We are bound until death.” Koschei tugged her lips into a grin.
Kormac recoiled before bracing his jaw to grit out an angry, “Get out of her.”
“Why would I leave when it took me so long to find the right vessel?” Fionna’s low timbre held Koschei’s mocking tone.
She fought against his presence to make a demand she knew Kormac wouldn’t like. “Kill me. Kill me now before he has complete control.”
Right away, Koschei rebutted with, “Yes, kill the woman you just laid with.” Fionna’s arms spread wide. “You’re the mighty warlord. Known to be tough. Do it. Kill her. Run her through with your sword. Or don’t. You can still have your witch. But even more than that, you will have me by your side, helping you to become more than a warlord of a small chunk of land. Imagine being a king of all the countries. Fionna your queen. Together, you could rule the world.”
Kormac appeared torn, his sword pointed down as he struggled. Not with the offer of power, but with the reality of what he had to do. He knelt and whispered, “I can’t do it. There must be another way.”
“If you won’t, I will.” From behind Kormac, Lomar surged, dagger in hand, moving fast.
Koschei raised Fionna’s hands to deter him, but she just as quickly put them down. The strain as they fought was broken by the slide of the blade into her chest.
“No!” Kormac rose and swung wildly, his blade narrowly missing Lomar who danced out of reach.
Fionna fell to her knees, the pain in her chest intense, but nothing compared to the rage of Koschei. “You fool! Do you know how hard it is to find a blood witch?”
As her blood poured, so did Koschei’s essence, spilling from her and aiming for the lone box on the floor. Preparing to hibernate and wait for the next victim.
“No,” she gasped. She pressed a hand to her chest, trying to stop the flow of blood. She pointed to the box and wound the threads of her life into another dagger, this one to cut the line tethering Koschei’s essence to the box.
The inarticulate scream that resounded in her head made her flinch and the dark miasma abruptly changed the direction of its flow, heading back for her.
Having some of Koschei’s memories meant she knew it needed a body, even a dying one, if he was to create a new vessel to store his essence while he sought a new blood witch. As if she’d let him use her to survive. She smeared both her hands in blood and raised them, forming a shield so dense Koschei could only hammer against it.
Let me in or we both die.
“Never,” she muttered, holding her shield even as her strength failed. Better she die holding him off than let him use the last of her energy to hide himself in a new object.
She wavered on her feet, watching as the boiling mass of evil pummeled against her shield. As it stretched and massed, she noticed knots and clumps in the essence. Bungled threads of Koshei’s aura. It made her think of a lesson she’d had, one given by Amelia about ethics.
“Everything is made up of threads. Trees, rocks, air, even people. One must be careful because if we pull too much from the living, we risk causing harm.”
“Healers use them,” Fionna had pointed out. She’d avidly watched when she’d gashed her leg climbing a tree and required magic to fix the wound.
“Yes, they use a person’s own threads to repair their body but again, have to be careful because too much tugging could lead to the patient dying.”
“Is it possible to borrow someone else’s? Someone not injured?”
Amelia’s lips had pursed. “As far as I know it’s not possible. If it were, though, I’d caution against it. Who are we to decide whose life is more worthy?”
“What if it were taken from an enemy to save an ally?”
“I’m not arguing about something impossible.”
