I pull a long chain from the bowl and hand it to Rogan. His eyes widen with surprise.
“You made one for me?” he questions, as though he doesn’t understand what I’m doing.
“It was before I knew you’d completely fucked me over,” I snark, the sting of truth in my words making him wince. He doesn’t move to take the chain from my hands, and I roll my eyes and shake the chain in invitation.
“Just take it, Rogan. I thought a buffer for potential attacks would be a wise idea. That’s still true even if you’re the reason we’re getting attacked.”
Instead of taking the long delicate chain from my hands and slipping it on over his head, he leans down so that I can do it. I don’t move for a beat, surprised by his actions. Indecision battles in me for a moment, but after a beat, I step closer to him, slipping the links over his silky coffee bean-colored hair and settling them around his neck. He straightens up as soon as the amulet is in place, his eyes closed as though he’s relishing in the wash of magic that I know is moving through him as the spell imprints.
I watch as my amulet’s magic settles all around him. My thoughts and emotions are tangled and conflicted, and I’m not sure what to think about anything. It sounds like there were some seriously fucked up extenuating circumstances surrounding his uncle’s death. But even if that’s the case, he’s still renounced. I sigh and internally shake my head at myself. I’ve never been into the whole witch thing, so part of me wants to say who cares. I never let my dad dictate who I could be friends with, so why should this be any different, but I know this isn’t that simple. I may not care about witch politics, but they now affect me whether I like it or not. I have to live and thrive in this community, and associating with a magical pariah blows a huge hole in my ability to do that.
Even if what Rogan did is justified, I don’t know that it changes anything. I stare at his closed eyes, the look on his face serene and at odds with the conversation we’re having. I can feel the magic of the amulet locking into place, and out of nowhere, I lift my hand, intent on tracing the scar that I’ve been so curious about since I first laid eyes on him. I have no idea what’s come over me, but I can’t seem to stop myself regardless of the fact that my internal monologue right now is just an alarm going off in my head, followed by a steady shout of we’ve lost thrusters, captain.
Rogan’s breath hitches as my fingers softly touch his face, but he doesn’t stop me or ask me what the hell I’m doing. That’s probably a good thing, because I don’t have the foggiest clue. We both seem to hold our breath as I run my finger through his eyebrow and gently down his lid, his long lashes tickling my finger. I trace the line under his eye, stopping just past his cheekbone.
“How did this happen?” I ask quietly, allowing my thumb the liberty to brush across his cheek just once before I pull my hand away and get a hold of myself.
I’m mad, I remind myself as I step back. I should be kicking his ass, or running, and yet it’s the instinct to touch him that overpowers everything else. I’m pretty sure my instincts are bipolar. Rogan’s eyes open as I move away. He watches me for a moment and then moves toward me before suddenly stopping himself. Maybe his instincts are bipolar too.
“Anyway, you were saying,” I start, bringing the focus back to where it should be.
He clears his throat and nods. “Right,” he agrees, pausing for a second to trace back to where he left off. “Elon and I think it was my transference ceremony that set Oront off,” he starts, and for some reason it’s as though all the air in the room was just sucked away.
“I’d just come into my full powers, and Elon’s transference ceremony was a handful of weeks away. Finally he was going to be free, and Oront would be exiled. We were supposed to become Coven Lieutenants, work our way up the ranks. Get married, breed the next generation, and then one day, one of us just might become High Priest of the Witches. That was the plan anyway. But Oront had other ideas.”
Rogan reaches out and plucks one of my curls between his fingers. He rubs the strand, his eyes far away, lost to the memories swirling around in his mind. I’m not even sure if he’s aware he’s doing it, but I don’t say a word or move to reclaim the curl from him.
“Oront tried to kill Elon,” he tells me robotically, no emotion in his inflection even though I see it etched in his face. My stomach drops. I saw something like this coming, but it doesn’t make it any easier to hear it confirmed. “He was deranged. He had convinced himself that his power wasn’t meant to pass on ever. He thought he found a way, some Druid ritual that would seal the magic to him forever and extend his life indefinitely.
“I wouldn’t have known until it was too late, but one of the first things I made when I first received my full power was a thread of protection. Elon had tied it around his wrist, and I vowed that I would stop Oront if he tried to beat him again. Oront was so out of his mind when he attacked Elon that night that he cut the thread of protection, and it pulled me right to them.” Rogan pauses, taking a moment to collect himself. When he looks up, I’m hammered by the raw emotion I see in his face.
“There was blood everywhere,” he tells me, just above a whisper. Elon was tied to some altar Oront had created, and he had cuts and brands all over him. I thought for sure he was dead. I didn’t see how he could have survived what was being done to him. Oront was chanting frantically. He didn’t even notice I was there.
“I couldn’t move at first. I was too shocked and confused, and then Elon’s hand twitched, and it snapped me out of my horror. I shoved as much magic as I could into him to stop the bleeding. I ran for him, but I was only able to cut one arm free before Oront attacked me.”
Rogan starts to pace, anger coming off him in waves, and I push myself up to sit on the counter so that he has all the room he needs.
“I was at a massive disadvantage. I didn’t have a weapon, and I knew my magic wasn’t enough of a defense against my uncle for both me and Elon. I was beyond enraged at what this monster had been doing to Elon practically his whole life. The beatings. The torture. The cruelty. And now, after all my brother had survived, Oront was killing him. I lost it. I went for him with all that I had. I didn’t care where his knife landed. I didn’t count the stab wounds. All I knew was if I was going to die, I was taking him with me.”
A tear slips out of his eye. His pain, the agony of living through something so horrible, but also having such evil memories seared into your soul, it calls to me. I can see in his every feature how much this terrorizes him, how much it has scarred him. Agony rips through him as he recalls what happened, and there’s no doubt in my mind that what he’s saying is true.
“I don’t know what I was chanting as I fought to get the knife out of his hands. The words and the magic just flowed out of me as we battled to destroy one another. I should have known the coward would’ve had backup. But I didn’t see his mistress, or the knife coming, until she was slashing at my face,” he explains, gesturing to the scar I just asked about.
“I didn’t factor her in, but it was probably what saved Elon’s and my life. When she attacked me, Oront abandoned our fight and turned back to finish the ritual with Elon. I managed to get the upper hand over Kyat—his mistress—and knocked her out. It was her knife that I used to kill Oront.”