Hearts Cursed, page 10
Korinna snorted. “Hardly. I’m feeling much more on top of them now. The Eleusinian Mysteries Grimoire has helped so much with that.”
The what? Those words, they sounded like he should know them. No … like he did know them.
“I’ve still got so much to learn. There’s so much I don’t know. I mean, how did he do it? How did he grow things with just his blood? I didn’t think we were supposed to be able to do any of that without the ring because of how our blood is cursed. I didn’t see him wearing it on his hand.”
The ring?
A vision of a ring, thick gold with a green gem set in it, appeared in his mind’s eye. He’d had that ring on his finger when he’d woken, but he’d taken it off and hidden it before walking into the first village he’d come across. For some reason, he’d kept it hidden ever since.
So how did they know about the ring? He wanted to ask, but still couldn’t seem to stand, or make a sound. All he could do was listen.
“… I don’t know. Maybe Demeter took it before she wiped his mind.”
He clutched his head as pain spiked through it again. That name. Pain came every time they said it.
“I can’t believe she’s disappeared. I thought now that I’d discovered all she’d hidden from me, she’d speak about it at last and tell me why.”
“Does Persephone know where she’s gone yet?”
Persephone. More pain in his head; but not as bad as the ache in his heart at the sound of that name.
“No. She has no clue. Seph is really worried. And she can’t tell me anything either because she’s bound by the vows she made to her mother. All we have is what Ilia heard Demeter say when she was in possession of the HBG.”
“Well, we’ve got no choice. We have to ask everyone to come down here. Before he does something more to out himself than he’s already done. Given Ilia is certain he’s seen her in the dream-vision, he might listen to her.”
Ilia? They would bring her here? He pushed past the pulsing pain and listened harder.
“First, we should go and deal with that field.”
“Yes. Let’s do that. Then we need to call Jules so she can organise flights to get them all down here.”
“You don’t want to go back and tell them?”
“No. I can’t leave him. I want to stay close.” Thick tears in the woman’s voice. “I didn’t think meeting my father would be like this.”
Father? The word rang through his mind, stealing his breath, drowning out the sound of the male’s reply.
She couldn’t mean that word in relation to him. He was nobody’s father. He hadn’t made his vow to not get involved with a woman lightly. It was too dangerous, not only because he couldn’t risk anyone finding out the truth about him, but because he couldn’t risk passing on to a child his cursed blood, as she called it. And she was right. For surely it was a curse when he had to hide it from the world for fear of what would happen if the truth got out. Look what had happened with the small amount he’d spilled in his field, and the trouble that waited in the wings because of it.
These people obviously knew all about it. Perhaps they could get rid of the curse.
The thought brought energy to his limbs with a sudden rush, enabling him finally to push to his feet. He was still wobbly and it took a few moments of him leaning against the door to get his breath back.
There was a rush over his skin, akin to the lightning pricks of static electricity, and a gust of wind blew under the door.
What in the Hells? He managed to right himself long enough to pull the door open.
They were gone, dirt and leaves whirling in a spiral a foot above the ground in the place they’d just stood.
Chapter
Twelve
“Damn!”
He swung around to make certain Daphne and her boys hadn’t been around to see them disappear. Daphne wouldn’t swallow a Christmas miracle again and neither would her boys.
But thankfully, there was no sign of them. They were either all working in the shop, getting it ready for Saturday, or preparing the tractors – Gideon had dressed them up like reindeers for last Saturday and there were some issues with antlers staying in place that the boys had been working on all week to delight their guests this weekend.
Would Korinna and Tamuel be back with Ilia and the other people they spoke of on Saturday? Could he wait until then? He supposed he had to. It wasn’t like he knew where they were.
Although … he did. They said they were going to take care of the magically grown garden.
Limbs still a little wobbly, he raced as fast as he could to where he’d parked his ute. He barely had the door shut before he’d started it and was off down the lane that led to the field. He swore at every gate he had to stop at and open, not bothering to close them behind him as he’d told Daphne and the boys they must – he’d get them on the way back. He needed to speak to this Korinna and Tamuel. And he had no idea how long they would be at their task. They were dealing with magic after all. If his blood could grow a lush garden in a few seconds, then it shouldn’t take them much longer to get rid of it – should it? He really didn’t know how any of this worked. Something else he had to learn from them.
Hells. Why had he acted like such an idiot? They’d appeared just after he’d shouted his address in the dream to Ilia. Of course she’d sent them. He should have trusted them. He blamed years of living alone and barely trusting anyone. Well, he had to trust them now. They had answers.
And Ilia.
As he drove closer, a glowing green light rose above the hill between him and the field.
Korinna’s magic. She was already at it. Hells.
He pushed down on the accelerator, the revving engine complaining loudly. He didn’t care. He had to get there.
The light glowed and pulsed. In the morning sun, it wasn’t too bright, but what if people on nearby properties saw that glow and wondered what was going on? Shit. He hadn’t thought of that. His magic didn’t have a colour. Things just grew. This was something different.
He crested the rise that led down into the valley where the field was. His foot hit the break and he jerked forward at the abrupt stop.
Green light flowed from Korinna’s right hand, reaching out to twine around and cover the plants he’d grown with his blood. The man she’d called her husband – Tamuel – stood at her side, a blue and purple glow growing around him, feeding down his arm and into the hand clasped around hers.
Was he feeding his power into her in some way? What for? A dual power? Was that a thing?
Once again, he had no idea.
But all those questions fled as the green glow fell on the garden he’d accidentally grown and started to press down. The plants began to disappear, turning into a fine green mist that settled on the ground. As it did, hundreds of pine tree seedlings, like what had been there before the storm, appeared.
The green power fluttered then withdrew with a snap into Korinna’s ring.
The young witch who claimed he was her father – he shook his head at the impossible-to-fathom thought – seemed to sag a little. Tamuel held her up, arm around her waist, his magic still feeding into her.
She straightened, smiled up at her powerful husband, then kissed him gently on the lips.
He returned her kiss before pulling away to wave his hand, his power changing as it flew from his outstretched fingertips. The air in front of them wobbled, then began to spin, sparking with blue and purple lights. The air split and a round … portal? He didn’t know how he knew the word, but he was certain that was right … spun there.
They were leaving!
He hit the accelerator and began to honk his horn, shouting out the window, “Don’t go. Don’t go!”
They turned.
Fearful they’d leave despite the fact they’d stopped and were staring at him as he drove madly towards them, he didn’t bother getting out to open the gate, just crashed through it.
To their credit, they didn’t move or try to run from the madman careering towards them in a ute.
He stopped the ute and jumped out. “The ring! You used the ring!” The words exploded out of his mouth on each pant of breath as he ran the last few metres to them.
She held out her hand, the ring and its green gem gleaming on the middle finger of her right hand. Exactly like his.
“You remember the ring?” she said as he came to a stop in front of her.
“I have one too.”
She smiled slowly. “I know.”
“I didn’t know it could do that.” He gestured at the field of Christmas tree seedlings.
“You weren’t meant to know,” Tamuel said.
“But you can tell me?” He couldn’t look anywhere but at Korinna and the ring.
“We hoped you’d be able to tell us,” Korinna said. “I’d hoped just seeing me would break the spell and make you remember.”
He shook his head slowly, sadly. “I can’t remember. I can’t remember who I was before I woke up all those years ago. All I remember is this,” he said, gesturing around him. “This life. And even that I struggle with. I have diaries, but there are so many by now, it’s impossible to look over them, to keep up with everything I’ve lived through; everything I’ve done.”
“Well, we’re hoping we’ll be able to help you with that.”
“They will. They can help. But only after Ilia is here. Only after you have drunk her blood.”
The voice rang in his mind, louder than it had ever been in any of his wet-daydreams or even when he’d seen Ilia in this field.
“The blood,” he said. “It’s all in the blood.”
Korinna looked down at the ring, and he noticed for the first time the blood on her skin, sizzling on the gem. “Do you mean my blood? Or your blood?”
He shook his head. “Her blood. The one you call Ilia. You have to get her here. Her blood is the key.”
“What? Why?” Her eyes were wide with shock and questions. So many questions. But she only asked one more. “How do you know that?”
“I …” He shook his head, trying to clarify his thoughts. This had to make sense to them even though it didn’t make sense to him. “A voice keeps telling me. I heard it first when she appeared in my field and then …” he blushed a little, “… in dreams I’ve had ever since.”
“Dreams? Tell me about the dreams.”
His blush deepened. It was bad enough Daphne knew about his lascivious mind. If this woman was actually somehow his daughter, he most definitely didn’t want her knowing how he lusted after her friend.
But, if he was to get their help, he needed to tell them something more than he had to convince them.
Taking a deep breath he said, “She is standing there, like she was that day, but in the dreams she’s wearing this Grecian-type gown with gold butterfly clips on the shoulders.” Not in the most recent one, of course, but he most definitely wasn’t sharing that with them. It was too intimate. Too … everything.
He cleared his throat and forced his mind back to the other dreams. “She reaches for me and tells me to drink of her blood, that it will make everything right. Except, come to think of it, it’s not really her voice.”
Korinna and Tamuel shared a look. “A Grecian gown? With butterfly clips?” They asked him together.
“That means something to you?”
“It’s a message from Demeter,” Korinna said. “It has to be.”
Trip winced at the name.
They looked at him. “Are you okay?” Korinna asked, reaching to touch his arm.
He let her, wondering at how good it felt, how right. He stared at her.
“Trip?”
He suddenly remembered her question. “Yes, it’s just, some of the names you say, they give me pain.”
She glanced at Tamuel. “Part of the spell?”
“Makes sense. From what Ilia told us, your mentor wouldn’t want him looking into anything that might lead him to the truth until you were ready.”
“So, it’s true then. Ilia’s blood is somehow the key.”
Tamuel was grim as he returned his attention to Trip. “It makes sense. Her magic was always special and incredibly strong, which is why Tiberinus used her in the first place – only a special kind of witch could have survived being used like that in the HBG.”
“She has rejuvenating powers!” Korinna blurted.
“Yes. And now she’s linked to Dawn’s magic, her blood must carry something even more special – an ability to conjure a kind of rebirth.”
“Like she could reset Trip to what he was before!”
“Yes.”
“Goddess. That’s amazing. It’s like what the old Gods used to do when they needed to share power or heal or just power-up. They’d even grow fangs to help facilitate it.”
“Like Tiberinus did to Ilia,” Tamuel said harshly.
Korinna’s eyes flared wide. “Oh no.”
“What?” Trip asked as Korinna began to wring her hands.
“If she knows this, she’ll never come.”
“What?” Trip’s gaze zipped from one to the other. “Why?”
Tamuel grimaced. “It’s the blood thing.”
“The blood?”
Korinna grimaced. “Well, that’s a rather long story about lies and betrayal, leading to her being held prisoner in a gem for thousands of years. Suffice it to say, she won’t be on board with any kind of blood magic. Especially if you have to drink it.”
He pointed at the ring and the blood that still stained its surface. “Do you hide your use of it from her?”
“No. It makes her uncomfortable, but she knows it’s got more to do with the magical qualities in my blood tied to my birthright, and so isn’t like the blood magic she fears. However, drinking blood to syphon power, even if it’s to heal … I don’t think we’ll be able to talk her around to accepting that as anything but evil given her past.”
No. This couldn’t be true. “But she’s been coming to me. She told me.”
“It wasn’t her.”
“It was. She remembers the dreams. She’s seen them too. I know she has, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
“That’s true,” Tamuel said. “But I know Ilia. I lived with her and the gem in my chest for months. She would never ask you to drink her blood. You said it didn’t sound like her voice when she asked you to do that, right?” Trip nodded. “Something else is at play here, putting those words in her mouth.”
“The same thing that brought her the book?”
“Perhaps,” Tamuel said, expression becoming even more grim.
Damn all the devils in all the Hells! He was so close. For the first time in his very long existence, he knew he was close to remembering what he was supposed to be; who he was. But if Korinna and Tamuel were to be believed, being close wasn’t going to get them anything. He would continue to live his life not knowing what all this was for. He would never know why this woman who stood in front of him was suddenly so terribly important to him. He would never know why his blood grew things and he never aged. He would always be alone.
Even though he’d always thought that was his future and was resolved to it, the possibility that had been waved in front of his face for a brief moment, of something more, of true, long-lasting connection, now made that future unbearable.
Despair took him in its maw.
Why was his life like this? Who had done this to him? There were no answers and there were never going to be any.
He turned to stare across his lands.
As he did, Ilia appeared on the other side of the field. She didn’t look like she had previously – this time far more ghost-like. In fact, he could see the outline of the land and trees behind her. She smiled at him, blew him a kiss then turned and walked through the fence and up the hill, disappearing among next year’s crop of pine trees.
“She’s here.”
“Who?”
“Ilia. There she is. Rising above the trees. Oh. She looks like a Christmas angel.”
“I can’t see her.”
They couldn’t see her? But suddenly it didn’t matter as her voice, deeper and huskier than he remembered, sounded in his ears.
“Look at these pine trees you grow. They could be nothing, withering and dying without the right care. But, you give them everything they need so they can become healthy and green and stand as a sign of the promise of renewal. Hope is like that.”
“It is?”
“Yes. It’s like these trees, you can make hope grow and flourish once more. You love this time of year for a reason – because it speaks to the need in your soul for family, love and forgiveness. Remember that now and go forth, in the spirit of Christmas, and find a way. Find a way to me. Find a way for me. I need you.” She gestured behind him. “Your daughter needs you. Find a way.”
“What?”
“You know.”
“I do? How?”
“Who are you talking to, Trip?”
Before he could answer Korinna’s confused question, Ilia disappeared in a flare of light as bright as the star of Bethlehem.
“What the fuck was that?” Tamuel said, shielding his eyes.
“Trip? Trip, are you okay?”
“Did you see her?” he asked, still unable to look away from where she’d hovered moments before.
“See who?”
“The morning star. The dawn’s light. My Christmas angel. Ilia.”
“What? No. She couldn’t be here. She can’t leave without Dawn.”
“All I saw was a bright flare of light.”
He shook his head. It didn’t matter that they hadn’t seen her. All that mattered was that he had. “She was here and she gave me a message.” One meant just for him because only he could figure it out. Only he could bring it to pass. Because only he had lived the life that he had leading up to this very moment in time.
The trees. His Christmas spirit. His love of what this time of year represented: light and laughter and sharing, the warmth of family and friends, the renewal brought around by kindness and forgiveness. They were true and everlasting, no matter if you believed in the old ways or the newer religions that had taken them as part of their celebrations.
