Crystal Storm

by Morgan Rhodes

  “What should I do with them, Cleo?” Amara asked. “Do you want me to consider sparing Magnus’s life?”

  “I’ll have to give it some thought,” Cleo said.

  Magnus narrowed his eyes at her. “Some thought? The princess needs to give some thought to whether or not I die? Need I remind you that I have saved your life far too many times to count?”

  “This is not a scale on which we must balance such things. This is war. And in war, we must do what is necessary to survive.”

  He glared at her, then shifted his gaze to Amara. “Then perhaps I should arrange an alliance with you for myself.”

  Amara scoffed. “Really? What kind of an alliance?”

  “I remember the night we spent together very well. You are . . . an extraordinary woman, one I would very much like in my bed again.”

  From the corner of his eye, Magnus could clearly see Cleo fidget uncomfortably.

  “Really?” Amara twisted a finger through her hair. “And you don’t mind that I’ve been with other men since we were together? Including your own father?”

  “I prefer a woman with experience. So many others are so . . . clumsy and awkward in their innocence.” He shifted his gaze to Cleo to see if his words, utterly untrue to his actual feelings on the subject, had any effect on her. “Don’t you think, princess?”

  “Oh, absolutely,” Cleo agreed, though there was poison in her tone. “You should seek out only the most experienced women. Perhaps you could learn a great deal from them.”

  Amara kept a thin smile steady on her face. “I think such invitations are well behind us, Magnus, but I certainly appreciate the generous offer. What I’m more interested in at this very moment is acquiring the air Kindred. I want it.”

  “I’m sure you do,” the king said. “As you’ve wanted everything I’ve had.”

  “Not everything. For example, I don’t want you as a husband anymore. Will you tell me where it is?”

  “No,” he replied.

  “I have no patience for this.” Amara gestured to the guards. “Take the two of them to the pit.”

  “Yes, empress.”

  The two girls turned toward the door.

  “Princess . . .” Magnus said, hating the sliver of weakness in his voice. Cleo’s shoulders tensed at the sound of his voice.

  She glared at him over her shoulder. “I thought I told you to call me Cleiona.”

  Magnus stared after them as Cleo and Amara left without another word.

  Cleiona . . . she wanted him to call her Cleiona.

  The name of a goddess. Her full, proper name, not a shortened version of it. The name he’d originally chosen to call her to show that he wanted her, that he loved her.

  That she loved him.

  Could it be that there was still hope that she hadn’t abandoned him to this fate? That she had forgiven him his many mistakes?

  The guards unshackled Magnus and the king and began pulling them from the dungeon and into the light. They entered a building, then moved down an echoing corridor with a open ceiling.

  A pretty girl with short, dark hair and a shapely body leaned against the wall up ahead.

  “Greetings,” she said to the guards. “I see that you have the prisoners firmly in hand. Well done.”

  “Indeed, Nerissa. You look lovely today.”

  “You think so?” She smiled seductively, and the guards smiled back at her.

  “Fitting in well here, I see,” Magnus said to her coldly.

  “Very well, thank you.” Nerissa began walking next to them, and she slid her hand down the sleeve of the guard’s uniform. “I need to ask you for a favor, my sweet.”

  Magnus’s guard slowed down, while his father’s guards continued down the hall.

  The guard looked at her hungrily. “Oh?”

  She whispered something in his ear that actually made him giggle.

  “That is a favor I’m most happy to oblige, my lovely. Tell me when and where.”

  The king and his guards disappeared around the corner up ahead.

  “Soon. Perhaps just a kiss for now to make you remember me.”

  “As if I could forget.”

  Nerissa pulled the guard in and brushed her lips against his. Magnus saw her reach for something in the folds of her dress. She met Magnus’s eyes just as she thrust her dagger into the guard’s gut. The guard immediately let go of Magnus, clutching his stomach.

  “What are you—?” he gasped.

  She jabbed him, quick and deep, several more times before he fell to the floor in a bloody, twitching heap.

  Magnus stared at the girl in utter shock at what he’d witnessed.

  Nerissa gestured to someone behind Magnus. “Quickly. Cut the prince’s bindings.”

  That someone sliced through the ropes that tied his wrists, and Magnus turned. A familiar, angry face topped with a shock of red hair stared back at him.

  “Nic,” he managed.

  Nic shook his head. “It goes against my very nature to save your arse, but here we are.”

  Magnus couldn’t believe his eyes. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

  “And I would be if it weren’t for your sister’s magic. Here I was prepared to despise the both of you for the rest of my life. You, I’m still undecided about. Her . . . I now owe my life.” He looked at Nerissa. “What do we do with the guard?”

  “This way.” She grabbed the sleeve of the dead guard’s uniform, and she and Nic pulled him out of the main corridor and into a shadowed alcove. “This will have to do. We need to move quickly.”

  Magnus, still stunned, grappled to regain his composure. “Where are we going?”

  “We’re going to Amara’s chambers to retrieve the water Kindred,” Nerissa whispered. “She knows how to perform the ritual to release its magic. I don’t know how she learned it, but she’s confident that it’ll work. The prisoners will be used for their blood, to strengthen the magic. I want to do what I can to help them, but right now we need that Kindred in our hands, not hers.”

  Magnus nodded. “Then let’s stop talking and start moving.”

  Nerissa hurried down the hallway, and Nic and Magnus followed closely behind. Finally they came to a doorway. Nerissa looked both ways before unlocking the door. They entered a lavish bedroom with several adjoining rooms full of windows that looked out at the small walled city.

  Nerissa went immediately to the wardrobe, checking the pockets of a long line of gowns and cloaks. “Check everywhere else, just in case she moved it.”

  Magnus and Nic did as she said, checking shelves, cabinets, and under the cushions of chairs.

  “Are you sure it’s here?” Magnus asked.

  “All I know for sure is that she didn’t have it with her earlier.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I helped her dress, and it was definitely not in any of her pockets. Check the other room.”

  Magnus wasn’t sure how he felt about being ordered around by a servant, but he continued to do as she instructed. This girl had far more talents than simply being a personal attendant.

  But, of course, he now realized that Nerissa Florens wasn’t just any attendant. She was a rebel.

  His search left him empty-handed, and he returned to the bedroom, but Nic and Nerissa were nowhere to be seen. “Where did you go? Nic? Nerissa?”

  He scanned the large room until his gaze fell on two bodies lying on the floor.

  Nic’s eyes were shut, an angry red mark on his temple. A few paces away, Nerissa groaned with pain.

  Her eyes met Magnus’s and immediately widened with fear.

  Magnus felt a sharp pain on the back of his head, and then the world went dark.

  CHAPTER 30

  AMARA

  PAELSIA

  “Little empress.”

 
The sound of Kyan’s voice surprised her, but Amara was relieved to hear it. She’d been certain he’d left her after their disagreement yesterday.

  “You’re still here,” she whispered. She sat in the small room adjacent to her bedchambers that she’d turned into a meditation room, one empty of everything except the mat she sat upon.

  “The storm is nearly upon us. It is time for me to regain my power and for you to reap every reward you so greatly deserve.”

  Her heart leapt. “The prisoners are waiting,” she told him.

  “Excellent. Their blood will seal the ritual and make it permanent.”

  Amara pushed away all her remaining doubts, finding that there were very few. To second-guess herself now would be the ultimate weakness after all she’d sacrificed for this day.

  “Wait for me outside with the water Kindred.”

  She agreed to this without hesitation.

  Amara wanted Cleo with her, both for support and, if required, as an additional sacrifice. Together, they left the royal chambers and went outside to the direct center of the compound, where the pit was located. Amara instructed a dozen of her soldiers to surround it, half with crossbows aimed at the prisoners below.

  Nothing could go wrong now.

  “Well, look who’s come to visit.” Felix peered up at her, shielding his one good eye from the bright sky that had only just begun to darken with storm clouds. “The great and powerful empress. Come on down here, your grace. I’d love a chance to catch up. I’m sure your brother would too!”

  Amara reluctantly glanced at Ashur sitting next to Felix and the other rebel, Taran. Her brother looked up at her, not with rage or hate but with bottomless disappointment in his gray-blue eyes.

  “Sister, you can still change the path you’ve chosen,” he said to her.

  “Unfortunately, you can’t change yours,” she replied. “You never should have returned here.”

  “I had no choice.”

  “There’s always a choice. And I have made mine.”

  Gaius sat with his back against the side of the pit, his arms crossed over his chest. He said nothing at all, just looked up at her with that maddeningly blank expression of his. How sad it was to see the former king so defeated. How sad and yet how deeply satisfying.

  There was also another young man at the bottom of the pit—one Amara vaguely recognized from the day Nerissa became her attendant. Enzo, she believed his name was.

  Cleo peered down into the pit. “Where’s Magnus?”

  When she realized that the prince wasn’t with the others, Amara frowned and turned to a guard. “Well? Where is he?”

  The guard bowed. “It seems that he managed to slip away from us. There is a search being conducted, and I assure you that he will be found.”

  “Magnus escaped?” Cleo asked, breathless.

  Amara tensed. “Find him,” she told the guard. “Bring him here alive. I will hold you personally responsible if he’s not found.”

  “Yes, empress.” The guard bowed before he rushed off.

  “He doesn’t matter anymore,” Amara said, mostly to herself. “All is well.”

  “Yes, little empress. All is well.”

  A moment after Kyan spoke, thunder rolled in the sky. The clouds continued to gather, growing darker by the second. The wind picked up, sweeping Amara’s hair back from her shoulders.

  “So it’s a true storm,” she said, her skin tingling with anticipation of what was to come.

  “Yes. Created from all the elements combined by powerful blood magic.”

  Two guards approached the pit with more prisoners that Amara hadn’t expected.

  Cleo gasped. “Nic! You’re alive!”

  The boy was bloody, bruised, and disheveled, but it did appear that Cleo’s friend was still very much alive. Amara nodded at the guard, who released Nic long enough for Cleo to run straight into his embrace.

  “I thought you were dead!” she cried.

  “I nearly was. But . . . I recovered.”

  Cleo took Nic’s face between her hands, staring as if unable to believe her own eyes. “I’m so unbelievably angry at you I want to scream!”

  “Don’t scream. I have a really bad headache.” He gingerly touched the red mark on his temple.

  “How are you alive? Amara said she saw you die.”

  “Believe it or not, it’s thanks to Lucia.”

  Amara was certain she’d heard him wrong. “The sorceress was here?” she asked.

  Nic turned a look of sheer hatred on her. “Why? Are you afraid that she’s going to bring this place crumbling down on top of you? We can only hope, can’t we?”

  Amara was about to reply, or perhaps ask for his blood to spill early, but the other prisoner caught her eye.

  “Nerissa?” She turned to her attendant with shock, then glared at the guard holding her in place. “What is the meaning of this?”

  “She assisted in Prince Magnus’s escape, along with the boy,” the guard explained. “Together, they were trying to steal from your chambers.”

  Amara blinked with surprise as the news registered. “Why would you do this to me? I thought we’d become friends.”

  “You thought wrong,” Nerissa said. “I’m sure you won’t believe anything I tell you right now, so I choose to say nothing at all.”

  “You cannot trust anyone, little empress. This girl you’d come to value managed to fool even you.”

  Amara raised her chin, the betrayal cutting deeper than she ever would have expected. “Put this lying little bitch in with the others. And the other one too.”

  “Amara!” Cleo cried.

  “Hold your tongue—unless you want to join them,” Amara snapped. “And I promise, that would not be good choice for you to make today. Choose which side you wish to stand on, Cleo—mine or theirs?”

  Cleo’s chest heaved, but she didn’t say another word as Nic and Nerissa were forced by guards to descend a rope ladder that lowered them into the pit.

  Amara glanced over the edge to witness Ashur’s reaction to Nic’s resurrection, wishing to focus on something other than Nerissa’s betrayal.

  “You’re alive,” Ashur gasped.

  “I am,” Nic replied tightly.

  Ashur’s eyes brimmed with tears as he sank down to his knees.

  How weak you’ve become, brother, she thought with disgust and a whisper of sadness for all that had been lost between them.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Nic asked Ashur, frowning.

  “You . . . I know you came after me, to try to talk me out of what I believed was right. And I . . . I thought you were dead.”

  Nic watched him warily. “Seems to be a very common belief today. But I’m not.”

  Ashur nodded. “It’s good.”

  “I’m glad that you’re glad.” Nic’s frown deepened. “Honestly? I didn’t think you’d care one way or the other. Now, uh . . .” He glanced around at the others in the pit nervously. “Please stand up now.”

  Ashur did as requested, drawing closer to Nic. “I know my behavior has been unforgiveable of late. I wanted to push everyone away . . . especially you. I didn’t want you to get hurt. But I was wrong—wrong about everything. About myself, about my choices, about my destiny. I thought I was important.”

  “You are important.”

  “I’m not the phoenix. I see that now.” Ashur lowered his head, and his hair, loose from the piece of leather he used to tie it back, fell over his face. “Please forgive me, Nicolo.”

  With a slight hesitation, Nic tucked the prince’s hair behind his ear. “All of this is because you thought I was dead? I truly hate to break it to you, but today isn’t looking so good for any of us.”

  “You’re right. Life isn’t guaranteed, not at any time, not for anyone. Every single day, every single moment, could be our l
ast.”

  “Uh, unfortunately, yes.”

  Ashur raised his gaze to meet Nic’s. “Which means we must take what we want most in this short mortal life while we have the chance.”

  “I completely agree.”

  “Good.” He put his hand behind Nic’s head and kissed him hard and deep. When he drew back, Nic’s cheeks were flushed nearly as red as his hair.

  “Ha!” Felix said, jabbing his index finger at them. “I knew it! I totally knew it!”

  Amara watched all of this, her heart heavy at seeing her brother finally admit his true feelings. She wasn’t sure if it pleased her or if it made her sad. “How lovely for you all. My brother does put on an excellent show, doesn’t he?”

  “I’m not pretending to be something I’m not,” Ashur growled at her. “Not anymore. Not like you.”

  “Trust me, brother. Today, I’m exactly who I was meant to be.” She glanced at a guard. “If you successfully captured Nicolo and Nerissa, where is Magnus?”

  The guard bowed his head. “Detained elsewhere, your grace.”

  “Where?”

  “I fear I lost track of the guards who dragged him from your chambers. But I assure you, he is not a threat to you.”

  Perhaps not, but Amara would rather have all of her prisoners together in one place.

  “Well done, little empress. You show admirable strength today.”

  Amara wanted this over once and for all, wanted to finally move on from these sacrifices she’d been forced to make all her life.

  “I’m so glad you approve,” Amara said, impatience rising within her as the first drop of rain fell from the dark gray clouds. “Is it time to begin?”

  “Yes, it’s time. She is finally here.”

  With another roll of thunder and a violent crack of lightning forking through the dark sky, a woman approached them, her black cloak flowing in the wind. Her guards parted to make way for her, collectively taking a step backward.

  “Is it Lucia?” Amara asked tightly.

  “No, it’s not Lucia.”

  The woman who approached had a mature face and long gray hair with a white streak at the front. Her dark gray eyes, nearly black, scanned the guards and the edge of the pit, then fell upon Amara herself.