King Gaius pursed his lips, his expression souring. “She seems as fine as possible, given the situation. You’ve heard about everything? About your grandmother?”
He nodded again. “Ashur found me and told me what happened. Where is Cleo now?”
“Likely shoving her unwelcome nose into the private affairs of others,” the king muttered.
After worrying about her safety for days, this was an incredible relief. “And Kurtis?”
“I have a search in progress for him,” the king said. “He hasn’t been spotted in days, but I feel he may return to the palace to see his father.”
“Lord Gareth is here?”
“He was.” The king paused. “Lucia has returned to us. If she hadn’t, I doubt that Amara would have allowed us to leave without difficulty.”
Magnus’s mind went blank for a moment. “Lucia . . . is here?”
“Yes.” Gaius’s gaze shifted past Magnus. “Actually, she’s standing right behind you.”
His breath catching in his chest, Magnus turned slowly around.
Lucia stood, framed by the throne room’s doors, her eyes as wide as saucers.
“Magnus?” she whispered. “I—I saw you dead. I felt it in my very soul. But you’re here. You’re alive.”
The last time he’d seen her, she’d been aligned with the fire Kindred, searching for magical stone wheels on the Limerian palace grounds. She had been cruel, quick to violence, and she had used his love for her as a weapon to manipulate and wound him.
But when Kyan had tried to kill Magnus, Lucia saved his life.
Despite Magnus’s claims that his sister would return, that she wasn’t continuing to help Kyan, in his heart he had honestly thought he’d never see her again.
But here she was.
Magnus tentatively moved toward Lucia, half of him on guard for something horrible to happen. But nothing did.
Her eyes were filled with tears as she gazed up at him.
“I’m alive,” he confirmed.
“I—I’m sorry,” she blurted then, the tears spilling to her cheeks. “I’m so, so sorry for everything I’ve done!”
He almost laughed at such a surprising and uncharacteristic outburst. “No . . . no apologies, please. Not today, my beautiful sister. The fact that you’re here with us again after everything that’s—” His voice dropped off as he suddenly realized that there was a strange bundle in his sister’s arms.
A baby.
“Who is that?” he asked, stunned.
She gazed down at the infant, a smile touching her lips. “This is my daughter,” she said as she pulled the blanket away from the baby’s face. “Your niece.”
His niece.
Lucia had a baby.
A baby girl.
Exactly how long had he been trapped in that grave?
“How?” was all he managed to blurt out in reply.
“How?” She grimaced. “I really hope I don’t have to explain such things to you.”
“Alexius.”
She nodded.
Magnus squeezed his eyes shut, fighting against the hot wave of rage that threatened to hit him.
“I’d kill him if he weren’t already dead,” he growled.
“I know.”
Magnus glanced at his father.
“Lyssa is going to be a very special young woman one day,” he said.
Clearly, the king had had much more time to come to terms with this world-jarring revelation.
“Lyssa, is it?” Magnus touched the soft blanket and looked into the baby’s blue eyes. Blue like Lucia’s eyes. “Well, she’s gorgeous, but how could she be anything but?”
Lucia touched his hand. “Magnus, how did you survive?”
Before he could answer, he noticed that she was staring down at his ring.
“What magic is this?” she asked breathlessly. “I’ve never felt anything like it before.”
“The bloodstone,” the king said.
“This is the bloodstone? It is dark magic—the darkest I’ve ever felt.”
“Yes, I’m sure it is. And it’s the only thing that saved both your brother’s life and my own. For that, and only that, we can thank your grandmother.”
“This must have been what I felt,” Lucia whispered. “This darkness . . . this feeling of death surrounding this ring. I don’t like it.”
“Perhaps not, but without this piece of dark magic, your brother and I would both be dead,” the king said solemnly. “Magnus, I’m very glad you arrived today. I plan to give a speech at midday tomorrow to show that I am again in power here and that Amara has abandoned her new kingdom. I need the citizens of this city to believe in me.”
“First time for everything,” Magnus countered.
“I want you by my side. And Lucia as well.”
“Of course,” Magnus said without hesitation. He turned to Lucia. “We will talk more soon.”
“Why not now?” she asked.
“I need to find Cleo. Where is she?”
“Currently? I have no idea. But she can’t be far.” Lucia appeared as if she wanted to argue against his plans, but she closed her mouth and nodded instead. “Go find her.”
Magnus was already halfway out the door.
CHAPTER 14
CLEO
AURANOS
If Lucia couldn’t—or wouldn’t—help her, then she had to help herself.
Cleo decided to scour the library for more books on Kindred magic and on any record of the goddess Valoria in particular. The goddess had water magic within her. By all accounts, she had been considered the embodiment of this magic.
Cleo had come to learn that Valoria had been a greedy Watcher, one who’d stolen the crystal orbs from the Sanctuary. By touching them with her bare hands, she’d become corrupted by them.
Corrupted, Cleo thought as she studied the squiggling lines on her left palm. What a strange word to use for being possessed by an elemental god.
Valoria and Cleiona were enemies, and in a final fight to gain ultimate power, they had destroyed each other. At least that was how the legend went.
She studied an illustration of the goddess drawn by the scribe of the first book about Valoria she’d taken from the library.
The symbols of earth and water magic were on her palms. She had dark flowing hair, a beautiful heart-shaped face, a glowing crown upon her head. The gown she wore in this picture was low enough in the front that it showed off half of the spiral marking on her chest. It wasn’t the same spiral that Taran bore that linked him to the air Kindred; this was different, more complex in shape. Cleo now knew this marked Valoria as a Watcher before she’d become a goddess.
As she flipped through the pages, she glanced down at the goblet of peach cider Nerissa had brought her.
“I froze the guard, I can make it rain, I can coat walls with ice,” Cleo whispered to herself. “Surely I can do something with this cider. Simple magic. Something to show me I have a chance to control this.”
Her heart now pounding, she held the goblet in her hand and focused on the liquid within. She willed it to freeze within its container.
She concentrated until perspiration broke out on her forehead, but nothing happened.
Finally, she slammed the goblet down on a nearby table and let out a small shriek of frustration as its contents splashed over the side. But her scream was cut short by a sensation she’d become entirely too familiar with.
That of a wave of water flowing over her, covering her eyes, her nose, her mouth.
She was drowning.
“No . . .” She staggered backward until she felt the cool stone wall at her back. She pressed her hands against it as she forced herself to take slow, even breaths.
This wasn’t real. She was fine, she wasn’t drowning, she wasn’t dying.
Cleo looked down at her hand to see that the water magic symbol glowed with blue light, and more vein-like lines branched out from the ones already there. The marking now wrapped around her entire hand and forearm.
A chill of dread went through her at the sight of it, and she had a sudden, painful realization of what it might be.
The water Kindred, slowly working its way to the forefront of Cleo’s consciousness.
Fighting Cleo for control of her own body.
Cleo burst from her room, needing to be somewhere, anywhere else. She moved down the hallways of the palace so swiftly she nearly got lost as she tried to find the exit back into the courtyard.
Finally outside, she managed to take in great gulps of fresh, sweet air.
Something moved beyond the trees, and she heard the sound of metal clashing. Alarmed, she drew closer to see what or who it was.
She let out a sigh of relief.
Jonas and Felix were practicing their swordplay under the shade of the arched pavilion in the center of the courtyard.
“You’re getting rusty,” Felix said. He was bare-chested, his muscles flexing as he thrust his sword forward. “Haven’t fought in a while?”
Also shirtless and with his back to Cleo, Jonas managed to block the move with a grunt. “Not with a sword.”
“You’ve been relying on your new girlfriend to save your arse with her fancy magic. It’s making you soft.”
“Princess Lucia is not my girlfriend,” Jonas growled.
Felix smirked at him. “Don’t worry, I won’t challenge you for her. I’m through with complicated women with too much power to wield. She’s all yours.”
“I don’t want her.”
“Whatever you say.” Felix snorted. “I think we’re done for today. You might want to put on your shirt before anyone gets a glimpse of your little secret.”
“Good point.” Jonas grabbed a white shirt from the ground nearby, pulling it on over his arms. When he turned, Cleo saw exactly what Felix referred to.
Jonas’s little secret was a mark on his chest.
The spiral mark of a Watcher.
For a moment, she couldn’t move, couldn’t think. But then Cleo forced herself to follow them out of the courtyard and back into the palace, still unseen by either of them.
They parted ways at a branch in the hallway.
Cleo followed Jonas, hurrying to keep up with his long strides. She followed him right out of the palace and into the City of Gold.
Where was he headed?
As she followed him through the winding streets, she wracked her brain, trying to remember if she’d ever seen that marking before—or if she’d ever seen him without his shirt on.
She had—in the Wildlands, when he’d kidnapped her in a rebel plot to coerce King Gaius into stopping construction of his Imperial Road. Instead, the king had sent swarms of his soldiers out to search for the princess he’d betrothed to his son in hopes of ingratiating the Damora family with their new Auranian citizens.
Jonas had been injured—shot with an arrow. He’d needed Cleo’s assistance to bandage the wound.
There had been no mark on his chest then.
The rebel left the walled city entirely, a bow and quiver of arrows slung over his shoulder. Cleo pulled up the hood of her cloak, staying far enough behind him so as not to be noticed.
He took a pathway toward an inlet the ship that had brought him and the others to Auranos had sailed past on their way to the palace docks. He walked as if he knew exactly where he was going. As if he’d been there before.
It was a small, secluded cove that Cleo and her sister had visited regularly in simpler times, one shielded by a steep cliff. From the small sandy beach, they would watch ships pass by on their way to and from the palace docks.
Waves lapped against the shore of the wide canal, so wide that Cleo could barely see the other side of it. Seabirds waded in the shallow shore water, hunting for food.
Carefully navigating the pathway down to the cove itself, she watched as Jonas paused, aimed his bow and arrow, and let it go. Jonas swore under his breath as a fat rabbit scampered away.
He was the guest of King Gaius with a banquet of food ready from dawn to dusk . . . and he was hunting rabbits.
“Watch your step, princess,” Jonas said without looking up at her.
She froze in place.
“Yes, I know you’ve been following me since we left the palace,” he said.
Feeling oddly exposed, Cleo joined Jonas on the small sandy beach with her head held high. “Why are you hunting rabbits?”
“Because hunting rabbits makes me feel normal,” he replied. “Wouldn’t that be nice? To feel normal again?”
“Perhaps.” She scratched her left arm that bore the twisting, vine-like blue lines. “Please don’t kill anything. Not today. There’s no need for it.”
Jonas paused, giving her a sidelong look. “Do I have to explain to you where the meat on your dinner plate comes from?”
Cleo took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Why do you have the mark of a Watcher on your chest?”
He didn’t speak for a moment, but he put his bow and arrow down on the sandy ground and looked out onto the calm water.
“You saw that,” he said.
She nodded. “I saw you and Felix in the courtyard.”
“I see. And now you have questions,” he said, turning to face her.
“Only the one, really,” she admitted.
Jonas rubbed his chest absently. “I’m not a Watcher, if that’s what you’re thinking. But it seems like I have this well of magic inside me—one I can’t easily access no matter how hard I try.”
“I know a little of what that’s like.”
“Yes, I’m sure you do.” Jonas turned to stare out at the crystal-blue water. “An immortal named Phaedra gave her life to save mine a while back, just after she’d healed me a moment from death. I’ve been told that I . . . absorbed her magic. I don’t understand it. I don’t know why, only that it happened. And then Olivia healed me too, and . . .” He shook his head. “And that original magic acted like a sponge, soaking up more and more. Soon after that, the mark appeared.”
“Oh,” Cleo said. “That actually makes sense.”
He laughed. “Perhaps to you it does.”
“But you say you can’t use this magic.”
“No.” His gaze moved to the markings on her arm. “What is the plan, princess?”
Cleo looked up at him, startled. “The plan?”
“The plan to fix all of this.”
“I honestly don’t know.” She studied him for a moment in silence. “Show me your mark.”
He hesitated at first before he slowly unbuttoned the front of his shirt. She moved closer to him, placing her hand on his skin and feeling his heartbeat as she looked up at him.
“My mark glows sometimes,” she said.
He looked down at her hand before he met her gaze fully. “Lucky you.”
A smile tugged at her lips. Jonas could always make her smile.
“Oh, yes, so lucky.”
“I have no illusions about your feelings for me anymore, princess,” he said. “I know you loved him, that you mourn him. And I’m sorry for your loss. It will be a very long time before that pain goes away.”
Cleo’s throat had quickly become so thick that it was impossible to respond with anything except a nod.
Jonas tentatively reached for her hand. When she didn’t pull away from him, he took it in his and squeezed it. “I am here for you, princess. Today and always. And you need to find a way to control this magic within you by any means possible.”
“I know,” she replied. “I asked Lucia to help me.”
His gaze flicked to hers again. “And what did she say?”
“She said she’d
try.”
His brow furrowed. “I should check on her. I haven’t seen her yet today.”
“How strange to think that the two of you have become friends.”
“Very strange,” Jonas agreed. His gaze held an intensity then, and for a moment Cleo was certain he was going to say more to her. His hand brushed against the sheath at his waist, and she saw the golden hilt of a dagger.
“Do you still have Aron’s horrible dagger?” she asked. “After all this time?”
Jonas pulled his hand away from the weapon. “I need to go back to the palace now. Are you coming?”
Cleo turned to the canal to see that a ship was passing in the distance on its way from the palace to the Silver Sea.
“Not yet. I’ll be back shortly. Go, check on Lucia. But promise me something . . .”
“Yes?”
“Don’t kill any rabbits.”
“I promise you,” he said solemnly. “No harm will come to a single Auranian rabbit today.”
With one more glance back at her, Jonas left Cleo there in the sandy cove.
Alone on the beach, Cleo walked toward the water, which lapped at her golden sandals. She focused all her attention on the ocean, trying to feel some sort of affinity with it since it matched the magic within her.
But she felt nothing here. No sense of drowning. No desire to walk into the salty water until it covered her from head to toe.
She tentatively looked down at the mark on her hand and its branching blue lines.
She didn’t want to be tentative or frightened. She wanted to be strong.
He would want her to be strong.
I miss him so much, she thought as her eyes began to burn. Please, please let me think of him and let that memory make me stronger.
Cleo wasn’t even sure whom she prayed to anymore, but she still prayed.
“Well, that was quite a romantic sight, wasn’t it? The rebel and the princess, together again in their mutual admiration.”
“And now I’m imagining his voice,” she whispered.
His jealous, angry voice.
“I’ll let it be your choice entirely, princess. Shall I kill him slowly or quickly?”
Now Cleo frowned.
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