Sorcerybound (World's First Wizard Book 2) by Aaron Schneider (best color ereader .TXT) 📗

her teary face as the flint bit into her heart.

“Or I could end it like her.”

The beautiful creature fell back into the pyre, and as the flames kindled her hair and caressed her body, the vision melted away.

Milo and Ezekiel were in the dovecote once more, and for the first time, the silence was absolute. No laughter or muttering emerged from the scalp hunter as he knelt upon the floor, arms stretched wide.

The first rays of dawn, golden-pink and cleansing, danced through the aperture in the ceiling.

Milo slowly wiped away the tears that rested on his cheeks before stiffly sinking down to one knee. His eyes sought to make contact with Ezekiel’s, but the manic grin and defiant stare were nowhere to be seen.

“You could be done,” Milo said softly, still searching for the broken man’s eyes. “You could end the pain and hurt, couldn’t you?”

Ezekiel shook his head.

“Can’t,” he murmured.

“Why not?”

The cowboy’s eyes rose, and Milo saw what had been buried under the wild smiles and incessant laughter: hatred. Except this weaponized emotion was pointed utterly and entirely inward.

“Because I don’t deserve an end,” he hissed as his teeth clenched.

Milo was amazed to find that he understood, though there was a bewildering ache in his heart all the same.

“But the longer you go on, the more you hurt others,” he pointed out in a slow, sad voice. “You said it yourself; you are what you are. That means the longer you live, the more you—”

“The more I don’t deserve an end,” Ezekiel growled. “Not the first time I thought of it. I even thought going to Hell might balance things out, but I can’t take the chance that there is no Hell. So, I’m stuck.”

Milo nodded.

“And forgiveness?”

“I ain’t no quitter.” Ezekiel laughed, and the sound chilled Milo to the bone. “I’m goin’ to Hell, come what may.”

The silence lengthened between them in the echo of that laugh, and Milo stayed there thinking until his knees ached and his back began to cramp. It might have been a few minutes before either of them spoke.

“So, forgiveness undoes the curse,” Milo whispered, then looked at Ezekiel, who watched him with hollow eyes. “That’s it, isn’t it? If you can forgive yourself, the curse is broken, and your life could—should—end. So, if Rihyani forgives you, the hex on her is lifted?”

To Milo’s incredible relief, Ezekiel nodded.

A distant thought came to him that the cowboy might be lying, but at some level that was deeper than intellect, deeper even than magic, Milo didn’t believe he was. The magus believed he’d found the answer.

That only left one loose end, and looking down on him, something like a grim pity settled across Milo.

“What if,” he began as he rose to his feet and stretched, “I told you there is some sort of Hell? That I know someone who’s seen it, seen what lives there because he’s been there. Would that be enough?”

It seemed Ezekiel might laugh again, but as Milo braced himself, the cowboy’s face contorted with thought.

“Who?”

Milo smiled.

“You’ve met him.”

Ezekiel’s eyes narrowed.

“Fat boy?”

Milo nodded.

“Really?”

Milo nodded again.

Silence reigned once more, though in the stillness, Milo felt the presence of the marquis and Ambrose outside the door. Milo mentally whispered something like a prayer for a few seconds more.

“I want to look into his eyes,” Ezekiel said slowly. “I want to see Hell there, and then maybe I’ll believe you.”

As though they’d waited for their cue, the door opened behind Milo. Nephilim and fey entered quietly, both eyeing the bloody gouges on the floor.

Milo turned back to Ambrose and motioned him forward.

The big man approached slowly.

Ambrose obviously sensed a difference in the cowboy. His eyes narrowed suspiciously at the subdued creature kneeling where the defiant Ezekiel Boucher had once been.

“We’ve reached a sort of understanding,” Milo said, turning to Ezekiel, who nodded stiffly. “He’s going to ask you some questions.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Ambrose asked, giving the scalp hunter a sidelong glare.

“Be honest,” Milo said simply. When Ambrose looked at him with deep concern, he nodded. “Yes, all of it.”

Ambrose sucked his teeth and his mustache twitched.

Milo feared for a second that Ezekiel would capitalize on the hesitation and mock his bodyguard, but the cowboy was silent.

“This will save Rihyani?”

Milo looked at Ezekiel, who hung there with his eyes downcast.

“I’ve already got what I need,” Milo said quietly. “This is about something else.”

Ambrose looked at the two and shook his head wearily.

“All right.” He grunted, crossing his arms. “What do you want to know?”

18

The Return

“This has been a most enlightening experience,” the marquis said with a spritely grin.

Milo and Ambrose didn’t respond. Both of them were weary but eager to return to Shatili. Ambrose had his head under the Rollsy’s hood while Milo busied himself loading and securing the food and drink the marquis had insisted they take. The magus had asked if they had any fuel or the equivalent since he’d had detonated their reserves, but as expected, the fey did not have any stores of petrol lying around.

Milo wondered how far they’d go before the Rollsy died, assuming Ambrose said she was capable of making the journey.

“I understand that for the two of you, this was a desperate and serious situation,” the fey said, his tone gentle only long enough to say the word before rising again with amusement. “But I think this is the first time I’ve cared about anything outside of my vale since going to visit my cousin in Brittany.”

Ambrose, who’d been silent since his conversation with Ezekiel, looked up with a scowl. His jaw worked to grind up the rebuke he decided to swallow.

For his part, Milo knew he shouldn’t argue with the potent ally he’d won, but he almost snapped. Then exhaustion quenched the defiant fire. Though the gears of his mind were gummed with fatigue, they slowly wound, and he remembered Percy’s conversation with Bakbak-Devi about the manor and the mention of Brittany. They’d left Ezekiel bound in the dovecote, but there had been