But he didn’t.
He studied the old and weary face of this man, this man who had lived for countless centuries, with one question rising in his mind that he desperately needed answered.
“Why not you too?” Jonas asked. “If what you say is true, why wouldn’t you choose to live a beautifully flawed life as a mortal?”
“Because,” Timotheus said sadly, “I had to hold on for just a little while longer. I had to hope that in these last moments, someone somewhere might surprise me.”
“Surprise you how?” Lucia asked.
“By proving me wrong.”
“Come down here,” she urged him. “Help me imprison the Kindred. Everything will return to normal then—here and in the mortal world. You can recover from what has happened to you, and . . . and then you can be whatever you want to be, wherever you want to be it.”
“I had hoped that might be possible, but it’s far too late for that now.” He looked down, shaking his head. “The end is here. Finally, after all these years. And now, if you have any hope of survival you must—”
He flinched then, as if a wave of pain had hit him. When he looked up at them, his eyes were glowing with a strange white light that was nearly blinding.
“What?” Jonas asked as Lucia clutched his arm. “What must we do?”
“You must run,” Timotheus said. And then he yelled it. “RUN!”
The glow from his eyes brightened so much that the entire image of Timotheus turned stark white, and then he disappeared completely.
A piercing beam of light exploded from the narrow spire, along with a painful screeching sound. Jonas staggered backward, away from the tower, and clamped his hands over his ears, meeting Lucia’s wide-eyed gaze.
When the sound ceased, Lucia turned back toward the tower. “He’s dead. Timotheus is dead!”
Jonas stared at her with shock. “Dead? But how can you know that for sure?”
She frantically looked around as if searching for something specific. “His magic is gone. It was the only thing keeping this world from complete destruction. That’s why he stayed here. That’s why he never physically left this place.”
And then Jonas heard a cracking sound in the distance that reminded him of thunder during a powerful Paelsian rainstorm. But much louder. Much bigger. When he looked toward the tall silver tower again, the new reflection on its surface turned his blood to ice.
Beyond the city walls, the world was falling apart. Literally falling apart. Massive chunks of earth crumbled off the side of a cliff. The eternally blue and cloudless sky shattered like glass and dropped away to reveal darkest night. Green hills and fields fell into a bottomless black abyss.
Jonas was frozen in place by the horror of it all—a nightmare come to life.
“Jonas,” Lucia shouted. “Jonas!”
He finally looked at her as the first crystal tower fell, shattering into the gaping chasm.
“I refuse to die here,” she said as she grabbed his wrist. “There’s too much left to do. Come on!”
He didn’t argue. He ran by her side as they moved toward the tower itself. Lucia searched frantically for a door until one slid open seemingly out of nowhere.
“Where are we going?” he demanded.
“There’s another monolith in here. It’s how Timotheus sent me back to the mortal world last time.”
They ran down a long corridor with a heavy metal door at the end of it. Lucia pressed her hand flat against it.
Nothing happened.
“Come on!” she yelled at it as she tried again, this time pressing both hands against cold metal.
It finally slid open.
“We can use the monolith to escape this?” Jonas asked.
“To be honest, I don’t know for sure if it will work. So if you believe in any god or goddess that’s ever existed, it’s time to start praying.”
He almost laughed at that. “How about I just believe in you?”
Lucia’s gaze locked with his for a moment before she pulled him into the next room with her. Inside was a glowing violet monolith—a smaller version of the one in the mountains.
“He knew,” Lucia said, and Jonas could barely hear her over the sound of the Sanctuary’s destruction. “Timotheus made sure we had a way out before he died.”
The ground shook, and with every step they took, pieces of it began to fall away.
“Close your eyes,” Lucia yelled, grabbing Jonas’s hand in hers as she reached for the crystal’s surface.
Upon contact, it became blindingly bright. The noise that came from it was deafening, like rolling thunder.
Jonas felt Lucia squeeze his hand harder.
This world was ending, and it was taking them with it . . .
But then the monolith was gone. The room was gone.
And they were standing in the middle of another field, next to an ancient, crumbling stone wheel jutting out of the ground.
Jonas turned around in a circle, barely believing what he’d just experienced. “We made it. We made it! You, Lucia Damora, are absolutely brilliant!”
“It worked,” she said wearily. “I can’t believe it actually—”
Jonas grabbed her face between his hands and pressed his mouth against hers, kissing her hard and deep. When he finally broke away, he staggered back from her, stunned.
She’s going to kill me for that, he thought.
Lucia looked at him, her eyes wide and her fingers pressed to her lips. “Why would you say that?”
“Say what?” he managed.
“That I’m going to kill you.”
He stared at her, confused. “I didn’t say it. I . . . I thought it.”
“You thought it?” She studied him closely.
“Can you hear this?”
Lucia’s lips hadn’t moved, but he still distinctively heard her voice. Every word.
Jonas’s heart pounded. “I can hear your thoughts. How is that possible?”
“You have Timotheus’s magic inside you. It has to be the reason you were also able to enter my dream.”
“Did he know this would happen?” Jonas thought, both disturbed and intrigued by the possibilities.
Then Lucia spoke aloud. “I can’t deal with this right now. I have to focus on Lyssa and on—”
She cried out and fell to the ground in a heap. Jonas was at her side in an instant, kneeling on the tall green grass.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, stroking her dark hair back from her face.
“It’s Kyan . . .” she said in a pained whisper. “I felt him just now, in my head.”
“What? How?”
“I didn’t know it was possible. I . . . I tried to summon him at the palace after Lyssa was taken, but I failed. Now I think he’s . . . summoning me.”
Jonas swore under his breath, then helped her to her feet. “Whatever he’s doing right now? Ignore him. He has no power over you.”
“He has Lyssa.” Her voice broke.
Jonas scanned the area, spotting the outline of a familiar city in the distance. “I think we’re in Auranos. That . . . that’s Hawk’s Brow over there. That means we’re only a few hours away from the palace.”
Lucia’s face had gone pale, her eyes haunted. “That’s where he is.”
“What?”
“The City of Gold,” she whispered. “He’s in the City of Gold right now. He wants me to come to him. He’s stronger . . . so much stronger than before.” She drew in a shaky breath. “Oh, Jonas . . . I am so sorry.”
He frowned. “Sorry for what?”
She touched his face, placing her palms against his cheeks, and drew him closer. He didn’t resist. For a moment, a heartbeat, he was certain she would kiss him again.
Lucia looked deeply into his eyes. “I need to take it all this time. Timotheus had
to know I would need this. That I’d do this. He knew everything.”
“What—?”
Then he began to feel a painful draining sensation, like he’d felt the night of the rainstorm, the night he’d given her his magic to survive Lyssa’s birth. But this was worse—deeper somehow, like she was stealing not just magic but life itself from him, as if she’d stabbed him in his gut and his blood left him, not in a slow drip but in a sudden and massive gush.
Before he could process what this meant, coldness fell upon him like a heavy blanket. He tried to move, tried to pull away, but it was impossible. He fell into a bottomless darkness from which he didn’t know if he’d ever return.
But he did.
Jonas woke slowly, unsure how much time had passed. It was still light, and he lay next to the stone wheel.
Lucia was gone.
He weakly pushed himself up to his unsteady feet, then pulled open the front of his shirt. Only the lightest trace remained of the spiral mark on his chest.
Lucia had stolen his magic, and, he knew without a doubt, she had nearly taken his life in the process.
Jonas felt at his belt for the golden dagger, the one given to him to allegedly destroy magic and kill an evil sorceress if there was no other option.
Lucia had gone to Kyan’s side the moment he’d summoned her. Whether she did it to save her daughter’s life didn’t matter. There’d been other solutions, other options.
Jonas would have helped her if only she’d asked.
But she hadn’t changed after all.
Timotheus had believed it was Lucia’s destiny to help the Kindred destroy the world.
And Jonas knew it was his destiny to stop her.
CHAPTER 28
MAGNUS
AURANOS
Magnus and Cleo followed the river to the next village. Once there, they stole a pair of horses and rode to Viridy, where, Magnus hoped, Ashur and Valia would meet them.
The weight of the ring on Magnus’s hand felt heavier than before. He’d known it was powerful enough to save the life of its wearer, but not that it could also take a life . . .
This ring had also affected Kyan, allowing Magnus the chance to escape him.
This ring had caused Cleo pain when it had been momentarily on her finger.
What else could it do? Magnus wondered grimly.
As they drew closer to their destination, Magnus realized that Cleo was watching him, her grip tight on the reins of her horse.
“Are you all right?’ she asked. “After . . . after what happened with Kurtis?”
“Am I all right?” His brows went up at the question. “You are possessed by a malevolent water goddess who wishes to help her siblings destroy the world, but you are worried about me?”
She shrugged. “I guess I am.”
“I am fine,” he assured her.
“Good.”
Cleo had told him on the ride that the water Kindred could speak to her, urging her from inside her mind to let the waves in her drowning spells take her under. To give up control of her body.
It infuriated Magnus that he didn’t know how to save her from this demon that wanted to steal life away.
Cleo also shared that Nic had been conscious enough to allow her to escape from the temple. That he’d told her to destroy the orbs. That they were the Kindred’s physical anchors to this world. That without them, they would be vanquished.
He hadn’t believed her at first, convinced it had been a trick Kyan had played to manipulate her. But she’d been certain it was Nic.
Certain enough that Magnus had stopped their journey long enough to take the aquamarine orb from her and attempt to shatter it with a rock. He’d tried until his hands bled and his muscles ached, but it didn’t work. The orb remained intact, without even a crack.
He had damaged the earth Kindred in the past, throwing it against a stone wall at the Limerian palace in a fit of rage. This had triggered an earthquake.
But that, Cleo reminded him, was when the earth Kindred had been within the obsidian orb. An orb that had healed its damage after the Kindred had escaped from it.
It was more than obsidian, he realized. More than aquamarine.
The orbs were pieces of magic unto themselves.
And, despite his initial desire to find these priceless, omnipotent treasures, he now hated every single one of them because their very existence threatened the life of the woman he loved more than anything or anyone else in this world.
He knew Cleo wasn’t helpless. Far from it. He’d witnessed her defend herself both verbally and physically in the past. But this threat wasn’t as simple as escaping an assassin’s blade or thrusting arrows into the throats of enemies at close range in a desperate quest for survival.
They needed a sorceress.
But they would have to settle for a powerful witch.
They entered Viridy just as the morning sunlight began to move across the large village. Their horses’ hooves clip-clopped along the sparkling cobblestone roads lined with stone buildings and villas. It was much like the maze of the City of Gold; one could get lost along a road if they weren’t careful. Magnus forced himself to concentrate, to remember the way to their destination. Finally, thankfully, they arrived at the large inn and tavern in the center of the village, the one with a black wooden sign in front emblazoned with a gilded name: The Silver Toad.
Leaving the horses with a waiting stableman, Magnus directed Cleo in through the entrance to the tavern, currently vacant but for one person seated at a table in the corner near a blazing fireplace. At the sight of them, Ashur rose to his feet.
“You made it,” he said to Cleo as he took her hands in his, his expression filled with relief.
“Yes,” she replied.
“And you saw Kyan . . .” he ventured.
She nodded. “I did. And Nic—he’s still here, and I managed to speak with him for a few moments. He helped me escape. He’s fighting as hard as he can.”
Ashur sat down heavily in his chair. “He’s not lost to us.”
“No. There’s still hope.”
“I’m very glad to hear that,” he whispered.
“Where is Valia?” Magnus asked, scanning the dark tavern. “Did you get her a room at the inn?”
“She’s not here,” Ashur replied.
Magnus’s gaze shot to the Kraeshian. “What?”
Then he noticed the bloody bandages wrapped around both of Ashur’s hands.
“I tried to summon her,” Ashur said. “Multiple times. I followed the instructions perfectly, but she never arrived.”
Magnus hung his head, pressing his hands to his temples.
“Where is Bruno?” he asked. “Is he here?”
Ashur nodded. “He’s here.”
“Who’s Bruno?” Cleo asked.
“Bruno!” Magnus yelled at the top of his lungs.
The man in question appeared from the kitchen area, wiping his hands on his dusty apron. Deep lines fanned out from the corners of his eyes as he smiled broadly at the sight before him.
“Prince Magnus, such a great delight to see you again!” He looked at Cleo, and his eyes widened. “Oh, and you’ve brought your beautiful wife with you this time. Princess Cleiona, it is a true honor.”
He bowed deeply before her.
“And it’s lovely to meet you too,” Cleo said kindly when he rose from his bow, absently tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear.
Magnus was dismayed to see that the blue lines had extended further along her left temple.
He tore his gaze from Cleo to look at Bruno. “Where is Valia?”
“Prince Ashur asked me the very same question last night,” he replied. “And I have the same reply for you: I’m afraid I don’t know.”
“Ashur tried to summon her, but it didn’t work,” Magnu
s said.
“Sometimes it doesn’t. Valia chooses when and where to appear.” At the furious expression that fell over Magnus’s face, the old man took a step backward. “Apologies, your highness, but I don’t control her.”
“We didn’t even know if she could help,” Ashur said. “We were only hoping.”
“Hoping,” Magnus muttered. “There’s that useless word again.”
“It’s not useless,” Cleo said. “Hope is powerful.”
Magnus shook his head. “No, a sorceress is powerful, and that’s what we need. Valia was useless too, a waste of time. I need to find Lucia.”
“Where?” Ashur said, his tone sharp. “She’s been gone a week with no message. She is on her own quest, Magnus, one that doesn’t align with ours.”
“You’re wrong!” Magnus threw the words at Ashur like weapons, hoping to inflict injury. “My sister won’t abandon us. Not now. Not when I need her the most.”
But he had to admit, in his heart, he didn’t believe this anymore.
Lucia was gone, and he didn’t know when and if she’d ever return.
And Cleo . . .
He turned to her. Her earnest, hopeful expression crushed his heart.
He roared out in anger, grabbed hold of a heavy wooden table, and flipped it over.
Bruno staggered back, horrified.
Magnus’s current increased strength—strength he’d had since crawling out of his own grave—was courtesy of the bloodstone.
Powerful death magic existed within the ring on his finger. But death magic couldn’t help Cleo.
“Magnus,” Cleo said sharply, pulling him from his thoughts. “I need to speak with you in private. Now.”
He knew she was angry with him for scaring Bruno, for acting disrespectful and ungrateful toward Ashur. For wanting to crush anything that stood in the way of finding the answers he needed to save the girl standing before him.
To hell with rest of the world; Cleo was all he cared about.
Sullenly, he followed her to a room in the inn that Bruno swiftly provided for them.
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