Magic Unchained by Jessica Andersen Read Free Book Online Page B

request and grumbled about needles in haystacks, but he’d come through and collected a shit ton of eccentrics.
    The small, flat pieces of stone were all different shapes, from abstract geometrics to detailed images of people, animals, glyphs, gods… it was all fair game. Inancient times, they had been worn as pendants or symbols of office, tucked into pockets as charms, or even busted up as sacrifices. The small stone artifacts were as common as arrowheads farther north, and hadn’t been thought to have any real magic… until the dying shaman had given one to Rabbit and named him as its wielder, suggesting that some eccentrics, at any rate, could be important.
    But although Rabbit had been able to sense power in the small black flint carving, he’d never managed to trigger any sort of magic. Which was why he had asked Lucius to cull others for him, thinking he might need a full set, or a Nightkeeper half to go with the Xibalban piece.
    And now, sure enough, as he spread his fingers and let his hands hover above the collection, hot, sparkling magic rose up, feathered along his palms, and flowed into his veins, sweeping along to pool at a point on his upper right thigh, where he carried the black eccentric in his pocket.
    Holy shit,
he thought, pulse suddenly thundering in his ears.
Holy, holy shit
. He had known. Somehow, he had known it would work like this.
    Dipping into his pocket, he wrapped his fingers around the eccentric, which was all curves and points and looked a little like a flame frozen in stone. Normally it was cool and a little greasy to the touch; now it was blood-warm, echoing the heat coming from the box. And when he pulled it out, he saw that a faint skim of magic slicked the surface of the stone, picking up silver glints in the light.
    Silver! His breath hissed out as excitement kicked in. That wasn’t dark magic; it was
muk
—the light and dark powers joined together. Of the Nightkeepers, only Michaelcould wield the silver power, and he commanded solely its killing aspect, not its other facets.
    But if the magi could harness
muk,
they could win the war.
    Rabbit’s heart pounded. It wasn’t the first time he’d wondered if he could be the guy to rebuild the bridge—the crossover—between the light and dark magic, reuniting the halves. But it was the first time he thought it might actually happen, there and then.
    Please, gods
. He wasn’t sure if he sent the prayer to the sky or the underworld; he knew only that he meant it with every fiber of his being.
    Pulse thudding, he shoved his free hand into the box and started sifting through. Pain stung his fingers and palm as the sharp edges bit in, but he didn’t stop, instead letting his blood smear the stones and mingle with the magic as he searched for the source of the heat.
    The spinning in his head shifted his perceptions, making things seem very surreal, like he was standing outside and watching himself pick through stone shapes of white, black, green, gray, with a few flashes of yellow and orange. There was even a single piece of deep, vibrant crimson stone that practically glowed from within, gorgeous and powerful, and seemed so out of place that he picked it up, cradled it in his palm, and stared at it for a long moment before he noticed that his fucking hand was burning.
    “Ow! Shit.” Instinct had him juggling the thing to his other hand.
    Power roared the second the two eccentrics touched. Brilliant, blinding light flashed from the pieces, so bright and searingly hot that he dropped the stones. They fell, fused together in a twisted shape of black and red. He didn’t hear them land, though, didn’t hear anything exceptthe
wham-bam
of his heart and the scrape of his boots as he stumbled and went to his knees. He hit the box on the way down, overturning it with a rattling crash.
    Light. Heat.
Gods
.
    He shielded his eyes with his arm, which felt naked and singed beneath his shirt. And then, thank fuck, the heat flatlined, then faded