Page 89 of Wings of Snow
“Good, then move it.” The Fire Wolf ducked into the cabin, mumbling again about how a thousand rulibs wasn’t enough payment for the extra time we were taking from him, but none of us heeded his call just yet.
The six of us stared at one another in confusion and awe.
“So, you’re not a bird after all, love,” Sandus said affectionately to Ilara.
She ducked her head, her cheeks turning rosy. “I guess not.”
“I always knew you were special, and this just proves it even more,” I said as I pulled her to me. My mate’s final affinity wasn’t an animal affinity. It was that of an angel—a divine creature just as my dragon was. “The gods truly did make us for one another.”
“They did, didn’t they?” she replied, a small smile forming on our face. “Opposites in so many ways, yet we fit together perfectly.”
* * *
“A spellthat can bury itself deep in the land, move undetected, suppress magic created by the gods, and kill all plants above it.” Sven flipped through another large text as he propped his elbow on his wooden table. “Fascinating. Truly fascinating. Definitely the work of a powerful warlock.”
All of us sat around Sven’s rickety wooden table that felt as old as the sorcerer seated beside us as we flipped through page after page of books from Sven’s extensive personal library.
A fire glowed in the small hearth as a nighttime sky shone outside. The supper we’d consumed a few hours ago still hadn’t been washed up. Sven insisted he’d use a cleaning charm once we all left, so none of us had bothered.
I massaged the back of my neck as I hunched forward. Since my clothes had been ruined when I’d shifted into my dragon, and only my illusion had covered my naked form, the Fire Wolf had gotten me a change of clothes that he stored at Sven’s home. I’d had to tear the back to accommodate my wings, but other than that, the strange clothing fit well since the hunter and I were of similar size. He even said I could keep them as a memento of my trip to Europe.
Dust rose from a scroll when I unraveled it, and swirls of ink stared back at me. I scanned the document.
Scabs from a warthog’s nose.Pig heads. A human fetus’s right hand.I read the list of ingredients. They grew more gruesome with each line. Every single text I’d read from Sven’s personal library had some form of human, supernatural, or fae body part. The Fire Wolf hadn’t been kidding when he said warlocks regularly committed live sacrifices to grow their powers.
I flipped the scroll closed with a disgusted glare when it finally revealed that such magic could be used to create a demon dog with two heads. Apparently, such a dog had to eat small children to sustain itself, but one bite from its poisonous canines could incapacitate any supernatural, regardless of their strength or power, for up to an hour.
And who knew what a warlock would do to that supernatural during that time.
“Gross,” Ilara muttered as she came to the end of her text, then grabbed another off Sven’s shelf.
We’d been at this all day, looking through old texts and searching for answers that would explain how a warlock had poisoned our land, yet we’d only just reached the halfway mark on Sven’s vast collection.
“I’m curious,” Haxil said as he thumbed through a page in the tome he was reading, “why such a fascination with warlocks?”
“He didn’t tell you?” Sven looked up, his eyes appearing bigger through the spectacles perched on his nose, as he nodded toward the hunter.
“Not my information to share,” the Fire Wolf grunted in reply as he sat in a chair by the fire.
Haxil cocked his head. “Tell us what?”
“My father was a warlock,” Sven replied.
All of us looked up from our readings.
“Come again?” Haxil replied.
Sven shrugged. “He wasn’t always. He didn’t turn until I was around eight years old, but it left a...” He tapped his chin, his expression dimming, “a lasting impression. That was when my interest in warlocks started.”
Ilara gazed at the old sorcerer sympathetically. “Did he ever hurt you?”
“What?” Sven quickly shook his head. “Oh no, nothing like that. My mother took me away immediately after my father turned, and hid us until her death. I was sixty years old by then and more than capable of looking after myself, but she feared him so much she refused to let me leave, afraid my father would come after me.” That pensive look overtook his face again. “Warlocks often use people of their own flesh and blood when conducting rituals to increase their powers. While they can grow strength from the death of any human, fairy, or other supernatural creature they sacrifice, they grow their strongest powers from their kin.”
Ryder’s eyebrow shot clear to his hairline. “Warlocks sacrifice their own children?”
“Oh yes,” Sven replied matter-of-factly. “It’s their most preferred source of power, hence, why my mother refused to let me leave.”
“So...” Ilara bit her lower lip. “Did your father ever come after you?”