Witchmarked (World's First Wizard Book 1) by Aaron Schneider (my reading book .txt) 📕

Ambrose grunted and released his grip, and the two separated.

Milo heaved in a deep breath and shook his head to try to dispel the bleary fireworks going off behind his eyes.

“Must’ve gotten a little carried away,” the bodyguard muttered sheepishly, then reached out again. “Didn’t hurt your arm, did I?”

Milo’s hand was still in his breast pocket, and with a start, he drew it out.

The tarot card somehow caught on his retreating fingertips and sprang from his coat of its own accord. Milo lurched after it, but Ambrose’s reflexes were quicker. Sausage-thick fingers snagged the card on its fluttering path and held it up before his freshly regrown eyes. They had been one of the last things to regrow, and Milo could not say he was sad to be free of the red glow that had come from the sockets.

“Damn you, Ambrose,” Milo snarled, an old fear driving away the warmth of the moment. “That’s mine, give it to me!”

Ambrose looked up at Milo, hurt and confusion plainly written across his broad features.

“Sure enough, Magus,” he said softly, holding up the folded card for Milo to snatch. “I was only keeping it from touching the filthy floor.”

Milo swore and shoved the card back inside his coat, unable to meet the big man’s searching gaze.

“So, when were you going to tell me you were immortal?” Milo asked as he straightened his coat, the question coming out sharper than he’d intended.

Ambrose took a step back, looked around the dark tunnel, then shrugged.

“Not sure immortal is the right word for it,” he said, letting his arms fall to his sides as he realized there wasn’t enough of his pants left for pockets. “I’m fairly certain I die every time.”

“Every time?” Milo asked as he stepped around the big man to retrieve his cane.

He still couldn’t meet Ambrose’s wounded stare.

“I don’t make a habit of it,” he said, shrugging again. “But life is dangerous, especially in the environments I seem to find myself in. By my count, it’s happened four times, including this incident of course.”

“Of course,” Milo remarked drily as he examined his cane.

It seemed undamaged by its time on the tunnel floor, for which he was thankful as he straightened and looked up the tunnel the way the horror had gone.

“So you knew,” Milo said, forcing himself to look at Ambrose. “You knew when you threw me back and stood in the way of that...thing. You knew you’d come back.”

Ambrose's face scrunched, the expression odd without his mustache. Stubble and a few longer scraggles of hair dotted his face, but it seemed the healing powers the demi-human possessed did not include complete facial hair reconstruction.

“Well, I’m not sure I even thought about that,” Ambrose said slowly, chewing things over as he spoke. “But I suppose on some level I might have known. Why?”

It means I wasn’t worth dying for, not really.

Anger, hot and bitter, shot through Milo’s mind like bile, but he choked it back. He hated himself for the realization as much as he hated himself for thinking it. The thought felt petty and low, but he couldn’t shake its hold on him even as he forced a small, disingenuous smile onto his face.

“I’m a wizard, or at least one in training, right?” he replied with a hollow chuckle. “It’s my business to be curious about supernatural occurrences.”

“I suppose so.” Ambrose nodded, though a quick glance confirmed that he wasn’t convinced. “But you can stop with all that ‘in training’ business if you ask me. Driving off that monster qualifies you for professional wizard chops in my utterly amateur opinion.”

Down the tunnel they heard a commotion, the clear, perfect voices of the fey mingling with rougher human tones. The rest of the party was coming toward them, and from the sound of their feet and the words exchanged, they were coming quickly because of the sounds of the past several minutes.

The thought of retelling everything sucked the life from Milo, and his shoulders slumped just before a big mitt slapped down on them.

“Please, Magus,” Ambrose whispered hoarsely, stealing a quick glance down the tunnel. “Please don’t tell them about me dying and coming back.”

“Why?” was all Milo could manage as he stared into his bodyguard’s pleading face.

“Loads of reasons,” Ambrose said. “But most of all, because I am asking you.”

Milo scowled, while down the length of the tunnel, he thought he saw the glimmer of the fey’s glowing skin reflecting off the stone walls.

“Fine,” he hissed. “But you’re going to explain yourself when we get to Bamyan.”

“Sure, sure.” Ambrose nodded vigorously as he stepped back and tried to rearrange his tatters to something a little more modest.

Both saw that the fey and disguised ghuls were indeed jogging toward them.

“And while we're at it,” Ambrose whispered, a second before the others were in earshot, “you can tell me why that card’s got you all in a tizzy.”

17

A Lie

After explaining the events in the tunnel sans Ambrose’s death and revivification more than three times, neither the fey nor the ghuls had much of anything useful to say.

“I have never heard of such a thing,” Imrah said, sounding almost offended at having to make the confession. The situation was the same for the fey, and as though determined to be even less helpful, Fazihr used the opportunity to express his previously dismissed opinion.

“I told you this was foolish,” he spat, crossing his arms and throwing an eye toward Imrah, who only sniffed.

“Last I checked,” Ambrose rumbled, “you weren’t the one that almost got eaten, so don’t go getting your snout out of sorts on my account.”

Fazihr opened his mouth to object, but seeing nothing but unsympathetic gazes around him, he wisely decided to close it with a dull clack of teeth. He turned toward the surfaceward tunnel and kept a fretful watch, rocking from foot to foot.

“The question is, what should be done now?” The contessa looked Ambrose over speculatively. “Not to be insensitive to your modesty Mr. Ambrose,