Lyari’s mother hadn’t tried to hide her revulsion as she relayed what she’d learned from those conversations. Like the blood oath, an exchange of blood was required for the spell. Like the vows of fealty, the subject had to vocally pledge themselves to the witch, using their true name. After that, she began to chant, and the words were so simple that I could still see them written on the yellowed page. Allar gono epoh.
Kindreth believed they were Words, the capitalization obvious even in her scrawl. Whatever that meant—the ancient faerie hadn’t supplied a definition, and I’d been too frantic to get through the journal to ask Laurie.
During her investigation, Kindreth had met the creatures under the witch’s spell. The way Lyari’s mother described it, the bond was different from anything she’d ever encountered before. It wasn’t as deeply rooted as the mating bond, or as overwhelming as the Court bond. This was something no less permanent, but far more irreversible. Those were the exact words she’d written. They were also all she’d written. Kindreth never mentioned the nameless spell again.
She did, however, write of what happened to Folduin and his witch.
The witch was found guilty of treason and beheaded by Death Bringer. Her lover was not given the same sentence, of course—Folduin was an original angel, so he got special treatment. But I did find it significant that I’d never met him during all my time underground. After his failed insurrection, he’d stopped appearing, stopped plotting altogether. Viessa herself barely spoke of him. Whatever punishment Sylvyre doled out that day, it had reverberated through the ages, changing Folduin forever.
The witch’s victims, Kindreth had added at the end of the passage, grieved for her with pain that seemed genuine and long-lasting. The spell’s effects hadn’t faded, even after the one who cast it was dead.
I hadn’t thought of that story since reading it. During those tense, bleak hours leading up to the events at the tomb, I’d been entirely focused on finding Gwyn’s weakness. When I’d encountered the passages of the witch, I hadn’t even considered using her spell. The goal had been to entrap or kill Gwyn, not bind her to me for the rest of our lives. That bond probably could have saved me from getting drowned in a frozen creek, but the prospect had been too revolting. Taking someone’s choices, their freedom.
The world of magick is dark, and no one goes into it willingly. Mercy’s voice. Her words. Did the fact that I thought of them now mean I was actually considering this?
Yes. Yes, I was. An idea was already half-formed in my head. I didn’t know if it would work—realistically, a human performing the spell would probably render it useless—but it was the only way I could think of to get us both out of this alive.
“I have an idea…” I trailed off when Gil’s head snapped toward me, and his eyes were black again. His teeth bared in a soundless snarl and his fingers curled, as if there were claws at the end of them. Moving slowly, I rose to one knee and adjusted my hold on the knife. “Gil, listen to me. Just hold on, I have an idea.”
He leaped, making sounds that a human throat wasn’t capable of.
Everything that followed happened in three seconds. Gil and I were tipping backward, his fingers digging into my rib cage to hold me in place. He didn’t see the knife I’d brought up just as he lost control. He landed on it, and his weight, his momentum jammed the blade inside up to the hilt. I was staring directly into Gil’s eyes when he registered what had happened; I saw them widen in astonishment and pain. He tipped to the side, his hand slowly going to the knife, as if to confirm that it was really there.
I’d done my best to wound him somewhere nonfatal, and there was no time to worry if I had succeeded—after a moment, Gil turned to me again, his eyes already searching for the vein in my throat. Damn supernatural healing, I thought just before I dove on top of him, pushing the knife in even deeper. Gil screamed. His back hit the pads with another hollow sound and his body went slack. For an instant, I worried he was dead. Then I registered that his eyes were open and his hands were reaching for the knife.
I yanked the knife out and slammed it down again, making Gil’s entire body jerk. The blade wasn’t long enough to impale anything, but I could imagine that pointed tip scraping an organ. I winced at the sound of Gil’s gasp. Guilt grew and twined through my own chest like vines.
Stabbing him had been necessary, I told myself firmly, keeping the knife exactly where it was. There was no way I’d be able to do this next part on a struggling, newborn vampire at full strength.
“I’m sorry, Gil,” I said, steeling myself.
Gil looked up at me, and I tried to focus on the pretty brown of his irises, instead of the sea of red all around them. A question formed in those eyes, but Gil would never get the chance to ask it.
Moving with the speed my father and Adam had taught me, I wrenched the knife out of Gil’s gut and used it to slice my arm open a second time, just below the cut Belanor had made. Blood splattered across Gil’s face as I jammed my fingers into the fresh cut, drenching them. Hissing in pain, I buried my fingers into the vampire’s stab wounds next, this time with such ferocity that his blood splattered my face, too.
Gil was wild, bucking and screaming, his eyes and veins bulging with need. I held him down, almost losing my grip twice. He didn’t care about the pain of what I was doing to him—he only wanted the human blood I’d spread everywhere. Again. It was on my hands, the padded floor, our skin, our clothes. The gash I’d made must’ve been deeper than I thought.
“What is your full name?” I shouted, struggling to keep Gil pinned. Thank God he was still weak. I really should’ve thought to ask this earlier.
“Gilbert Payne,” came the screamed reply.
“Repeat after me,” I snapped. Before I could go on, Gil wrenched his body to the side, almost unseating me. His thin arms were slick with blood. I swore and grabbed him even harder, resisting the urge to shake him. Instead, I rammed my fingers into his wound deeper. His scream shattered my eardrums. “Say these words exactly, or I’ll rip your heart out right now, damn it!”
His voice was unrecognizable, twisted with pain and reluctant restraint. “What are the words?”
“I am Gilbert of the bloodline Payne,” I panted. I jerked back, narrowly missing his head smacking into mine. “I pledge myself to Fortuna Sworn!”
His teeth clacked between words. With every jerk, I lost a little more of my hold on him. “I am… Gilbert of the bloodline Payne. I pledge myself to… Fortuna Sworn.”
I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t think about repercussions or right and wrong—my thoughts were only about survival. I started chanting in Enochian, saying the words exactly as they’d appeared in Kindreth’s journal. My pronunciations were probably atrocious, but so much of magic was intention and expectation, anyway. “Allar gono epoh. Allar gono epoh. Allar gono epoh.”
Gil froze. So did I.
Unlike the night of my coronation, this bond had formed instantly. Not a mating bond, or a Court bond, but something between the two. It didn’t feel like someone sitting in a room with me or a presence at the edge of my subconscious. No, he was in my very heart. Suddenly I understood why there had been no records of it, why monarchs didn’t use it.