Flames came easily…
She moved her hands slowly, and made fire dance out of the dust. It swirled in a spiral, growing stronger, but perfectly under her control.
The water came out of nowhere. It splashed everywhere, soaking the front of her pretty dress, and she wailed in shock and betrayal. Her fire was gone.
Her mother swept her up into her arms. ‘Are you all right?’ Her voice tender but concerned.
‘Not a mark on her,’ Father said, setting down the bucket.
‘Never do that again, Gracie,’ her mother whispered, urgent in fear, crushing her against her. ‘Never ever. Promise me now. Never again.’
And she promised. Oh how she promised. But she hadn’t kept the promise. She couldn’t. That was her fault. It was all her fault.
There was a fire. The house burned. The house burned down.
But she didn’t do it.
They came with torches, in the night. The village was in the middle of nowhere and there were others who could work the forge. People without a mageborn daughter.
She had woken coughing, hardly able to breathe, unable to see more than a foot or so in front of her. She crawled through the house, trying to cry out but unable to find her voice. She dragged herself into the night, gasping for breath.
All Grace remembered were the flames that didn’t touch her, the smoke that didn’t kill her. But it killed her family.
Hands seized her as she made it outside the burning house, not gentle this time, not kind. Hard and heartless, hands that hated, that bruised, that hurt.
‘What do we do with it?’ someone snarled. It sounded like one of the farmers. Her father had helped him when the crops failed. Her mother had baked with his wife. Grace had played with their children that very morning.
‘Fire didn’t kill it. Maybe water?’
They dragged her off to the river, and she kicked and screamed and sobbed every step of the way.
They threw her in, they held her down, but every time, every single time, she came up gasping for breath and fighting. She remembered kicking, scratching, biting, and the same hands kept pushing her under the surface until…
Someone else found her, a merchant travelling through. He fished her out of the water and called her a pathetic catch. The road to Rathlynn wasn’t kind to her and neither was he. But he took her there. She was starving and wretched, begging for scraps and trying to duck the myriad blows raining down on her, trying to cling to her memories of another life, tormenting herself with thoughts of her lost family.
Rathlynn was a yellow-red smudge on the edge of the gleaming sea. The palace loomed overhead like something from a fairy tale. He dragged her along to the docks and made her help unload the goods he’d brought. She struggled with crates far too big for her to manage. When she dropped one, he whipped her.
And then he sold her.
The woman on the quays had held her chin in a grip like iron, wrenched her face this way and that as she studied her. Her hair was a riot of chestnut curls, tangled and wild.
‘She’s weak.’
‘She’ll grow,’ said the merchant. ‘And she’s tough. You’ll see.’
‘She’ll do, I suppose. Waste not want not.’ The woman threw a few copper coins at him and pulled her off to the miserable hovel which was her home, and Grace’s prison for the next three years.
‘They call me Auntie,’ the woman said. She held a glass ball, like a soothsayer, and offered it to Grace. ‘And you’ll do exactly what I say, understand? I own you now. Body and soul. I can feel the magic in you and it is mine. Now… take this.’
Grace didn’t know what else to do. The glass was cool and hard in her small hands. For a moment she thought it was a game, a present. Something special. And she started to smile.
Until everything became fire and pain, a void sucking out all the magic inside her.
Somewhere Grace found her voice. Somewhere. Because she wanted to scream and sob and swear. But she didn’t. ‘They called you Auntie. But you… you…’
She burned me and she burned me, over and over again until there was no fire left to burn.
‘I fed you.’
You want to eat, you earn your keep. Each phrase punctuated by a slap. Just another mouth to feed. A punch. There’s been a war, everyone’s hungry.
A kick. A slap. A hard floor to sleep on, exhausted and hurting. Miranda’s hands cruel and unkind, forcing a glass ball into her grip. And it burned. It burned and burned and burned. Until there was no magic left in her. She was a Flint without fire, her magic swallowed down by a woman who didn’t care if she lived or died in the process. Burning glass orbs in her hands, searing the skin of her palms, scarring them. A monster. All her life, all she encountered were monsters. Until Bastien, the one who was meant to be a monster, but wasn’t. He wasn’t.
You’re no use to me.
It wasn’t her parents. They hadn’t handed her over. They were already dead. They had already burned, but it wasn’t her fault, and Grace had crawled out of the fire. It wasn’t her fire. She hadn’t caused it. And her parents… just normal, everyday people. No one special. Just… normal. And special beyond imagining to her.
All these years… all this time… she’d thought it was her fault. She didn’t know how or why but she had believed it, because of this woman.
It was Miranda who cast her out.
She had sold her to the Academy and forgotten about her.
Miranda gave a derisive snort. ‘You’re nothing. No one.’
The force holding her collapsed. Grace crashed onto the floor again, her heart broken, her lost life exposed.
Bastien had said they weren’t missing any princesses. She had been no one all along.
And yet… and yet she had been someone, to some people. She’d had a family who loved her. She’d lost them. She’d lost her magic.
But she’d found the Academy, somehow. Found a family there instead. A purpose. A life.
Truth and justice. And protection of the mageborn.
But she had the truth of it now. The truth of who she was. Of what had happened.
‘Grace…’ Bastien strained against whatever Celeste was using to hold him, bands of air like iron cutting into his skin as the sigils faded. He was still fighting, burning through them. ‘Grace, talk to me. Are you okay? Please… please…’
Everything hurt. Blood and snot dripped from her nose, covering her face, filling her mouth, mingling with the dried blood from earlier. She was a mess.
‘Still here.’ Her voice sounded like it had been run through a grater. It hurt to speak.
‘For now.’ Miranda’s foot pressed onto her outstretched hand, grinding down with her full weight. ‘The warrant. Give it to me.’
‘Take it.’
The bones in her hand cracked under the heel and Grace couldn’t hold in the cry any longer.
‘I’m not a fool,’ Miranda said. ‘It was made to bind a divinity. It immolates anyone who tries to take it by force.’
Bastien was on his knees, his voice desperate. ‘Grace, just give it to her. It’s okay. It doesn’t matter. Please. Just…’
‘No.’
The kick lifted her off the ground. She felt her rib break, felt it stab into her lung as she landed. Not good. Not good at all.
Waste their time. Easier said than done. She was running out of time to waste.
‘The Lord of Thorns said he loved me once, too. He made me believe it. Years ago, during the last war. Before that bastard king made him forget me. But I waited, bided my time, built my power. I’m going to be a goddess, with or without Bastien. Celeste promised.’
At the mention of her name Celeste started laughing again. And Grace’s lips twitched into a smile too, in spite of the pain. Divinities were fickle. Divinities were like magic. They wanted what they wanted. And they used people.
And Grace understood.
‘Celeste played you, Auntie. Just like you played Asher and Aurelie. There’s no way to make yourself a g
oddess.’
The same power seized her again, shaking her like a rag doll, closing on her throat, crushing and bruising. Grace wheezed, trying to catch a breath as spots danced before her eyes. With a jerk, Miranda released her and she hit the wall, sliding down to a crumpled heap.
Arm’s broken, she thought, in spite of the fact there was no one source of the agony coursing through her. Unless you counted Miranda. Grace tried to move and it blinded her. Definitely broken. Shoulder… dislocated…
‘Bastien can’t remember. He needs to remember. I can make him.’ His sister spoke through her mirth, laughter breaking through the words. Oh, she was loving this.
‘That poison took his memories,’ Grace said. ‘Only getting his powers back can help him. You just drained him.’
Miranda’s face fell in loathing. Maybe it hadn’t occurred to her, but Grace didn’t doubt that it had occurred to her companion. Celeste had played her indeed.
‘Celeste, kill her and take the warrant.’ Miranda almost purred as she said it. ‘You can do it, can’t you? There’s nothing you can’t do, my sister. Make her give it to me. Make her obey.’
A strange look came over Celeste’s face at the word ‘sister’, distant with half-forgotten dreams.
And suddenly Grace felt something else, far stronger than Miranda. Stronger than anything she had ever encountered. It wove its way through the elements inside her, it stoked the fire, and turned it white hot. She was burning now, burning from inside. The fire was her own, her powers as a Flint, so long ago taken away, came back all at once, years of fire.
She didn’t just scream this time. The sound of agony she produced transcended that.
‘No!’ Bastien yelled in wild desperation. ‘No please, I’ll do anything. Anything. Just don’t… please Celeste. Don’t.’
His sister turned to look at him, her eyes brighter than ever, and she nodded.
This time when Grace fell, he was there to catch her.
And she was ready. She grabbed the warrant in her hand and pressed it to the torc around his neck, slotting it into the space. A perfect fit. Of course it was.
He jerked back, horrified. ‘Grace, what are you doing?’
What was she doing? She was using her fire. She might be the weakest mageborn left in Rathlynn, but with him so close, her magic was stronger. And Celeste had just ignited it. The fire burned hotter than ever now. Grace looked up into his horrified eyes and kissed him, drinking him down and making her own meagre flame burn even brighter. It blazed from her hands, melting the gold, sealing the circle around his neck.
And the circle changed. It came alive within her hands, glowing and expanding. It rose, dragging itself out of her grip. It slid up his face, moulding around the line of his jaw, crawling over his sensuous mouth, his high cheekbones, closing over his eyes, a mask of liquid living gold, glowing like the light inside him, like the light of the Maegen. It ran fingers of light through his black hair, just as she had. Finally, it reformed itself as a simple band on his head.
A crown. A golden crown.
Grace slid to the ground, exhausted, the pain strangely distant now, ebbing. Not a good sign.
Bastien Larelwynn threw back his newly crowned head and howled.
Light flooded him, sucked from everywhere, from the other women, from the lamps, from the orbs, from the world itself. Even the sky outside darkened. The pool of light within him surged up to meet it.
Such power. More magic than she had ever sensed before. Anywhere.
Miranda shrieked, clawing at the table in an effort to anchor herself. Celeste’s screams joined hers in a fierce and terrible harmony. Bastien stretched his arms out wide, raking in more and more power from them, everything they had stolen, absorbing it into himself. He radiated light, so beautiful that Grace could hardly look upon him.
And then, just as suddenly, everything stopped.
He stood there, breathing slowly, his eyes wide.
‘I… remember…’
Celeste dragged herself up first, her face aglow, her smile iridescent.
‘My brother, my king.’ She spread her arms wide.
An unseen force flung her back, lines of gold appearing all over her skin, binding her, sealing her magic inside her again.
‘What are you doing?’ Miranda yelled. ‘Stop it. Stop at once.’
‘You are not what you claim to be.’ Each word was the sound of a deep bell tolling, each breath the rush of the waves against the shore. ‘You never were. I loved you. You betrayed me. Used my work against me. You are nothing but a lie made flesh.’
‘I know what I am. I made you anew, Hollow King. You owe me. You owe me everything.’
He stepped forward, glowing and glorious. Grace watched him… it… a divinity, the highest form of magic. Larelwynn had trapped the Hollow King, but no one had ever known what he did with him.
Now she did.
Miranda did too. ‘They made you forget what you were, made you part of their family… and each time you supposedly died, they fed you that poison, made you forget, reinvented you… Please try to understand, my king.’ He hesitated and she smiled, pressing her case. ‘King of all kings, master of the mageborn… they used you. They made you control the mageborn.’
They had. All but Marius, who loved him like a brother. Like more than a brother. Who wanted it all to end with him. The last Larelwynn.
‘And you released me…’
Music in his voice. Grace could drown in it. She wanted to lose herself in him as she had that night. She wanted… and she would never have it.
Another wave of cold swept up over her. She was fading. Dying. She could recognise it now.
‘Yes. I released you,’ Miranda said, desperate for him to agree.
No, Grace thought. She’s lying. I released him. I set loose the Hollow King. He’ll lose all that makes him human. He’ll forget me and Marius, forget anyone who cared for him. I’ve set him free to bring his revenge onto the city, on the kingdom, on all my people.
But he’d been forced to live a lie. And now there needed to be truth. In all things. She had always believed in truth.
I had to do it, Bastien. I had to. Truth and justice.
He gazed down at Miranda’s trembling form, reached out a hand to touch her forehead. She went still, smiling in triumph, convinced that she had him now, that she had won.
‘Liar,’ he said.
The movement shivered through the air, light and dark and filled with shadows. For a moment an expression of pure horror stained Miranda’s features, and then she unravelled. Her mouth opened wide as her body unknit itself. She tried to scream, but it never made it from her lungs before she was all whispers and smoke and nothingness.
Bastien shook his hand, as if ridding it of dust.
‘Bastien! Bastien what have you done?’ Celeste sobbed. ‘She was one of us, part of us. She was my friend.’
‘No,’ he told her, turning to face her. She shied back from him, horrified by what she saw there. ‘She was not one of us, sister. She made herself what you wanted her to be. As she was for me, a short time ago. But she was not one of us.’
‘She loved you.’
‘And hated me. Like you.’
‘I didn’t… I didn’t mean to hurt you, Bastien…’
He drifted towards her, his face a mask of sorrow. ‘You did. I know you did. No one loves their captor. But not any more. Never again, Celeste.’
‘You… you remember?’
‘Everything.’
‘And you won’t forget again? Please, Bastien. We can rule. We can be free. We can do whatever we want. The first Larelwynn king said we’d protect the mageborn, control the Maegen and keep it at bay, but he lied. They all lied. They used us. This place is ours. Everything is ours. They’ll do what we want. We can make them.’
He frowned, looking away, down at Grace, where she lay in her own blood, her breath fading, her eyes dimming. Strange she could still see him, still read every emotion on his face. Celeste w
as a pale shadow, but Bastien… Bastien was the sun in her sky.
She could hear her heart thudding out of rhythm, slowing, fading as her vision was fading. But she wanted to look at him for as long as she could. To drink in that light.
‘What about her?’ Celeste asked. ‘You can have her if you want. Make her love you. Make her adore you, obey your every word. Just do it. We are gods, Bastien.’
‘Oh Celeste, you will never understand,’ he whispered. And it was his own voice. Just his own human voice. Not a god, just a man.
He reached out and Celeste shied back, terror of Miranda’s fate making her pull away, but there was nowhere to run. He pressed his hand to her cheek, so tender a gesture that tears spilled out of her eyes, real tears. Bastien smiled and from somewhere he took a sigil. Grace recognised it at once – Zavi’s sigil. He’d taken it from her pocket when he held her. She hadn’t even noticed. It blazed like the sun in his hand, his magic powering it beyond any strength a sigil had held before.
‘No,’ Celeste said. ‘Please don’t. Bastien, please…’
‘I’m sorry, Celeste. I have to. You’re too dangerous, love. The Maegen still has to be controlled, the mageborn protected. I can’t let you hurt them any more.’
The sigil wrapped around her neck and the power inside her, which had desperately struggled to match his, shut off. Zavi’s sigil glowed, brighter than ever before, burning itself into her skin, fixing itself there forever. Celeste gave a simple gasp of dismay, her eyes open in shock, and then she slumped down the wall.
Outside someone was hammering on the door. Grace could hear Asher’s calm voice trying to reason, and Aurelie screaming orders. Darkness clung to the edges of her vision. They were coming. They’d gone back for whatever secret weapon they thought could destroy Bastien.
The one that had bound him before, Grace realised. The sword. Larelwynn’s sword, that hung above the thrones in the palace of Rathlynn. The weapon that had destroyed the Hollow King.
Aurelie’s voice came through strident and shrill. ‘Kill whatever you find in there. Tear them apart. I want them dead. All of them.’
The spell holding Grace had fallen away. Whatever compulsion Miranda had used was gone. Many spells would be falling apart right now, many eyes opening. How would Aurelie and Asher deal with that, she wondered. How many of their actions would they blame on the Mother of the Temple? How many excuses would she provide? No one needed to know she was Asher’s lost sister. No one needed to know the truth of that at all. There would be no justice.
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