He dropped his face so our foreheads touched, but stopped there. "We are from two different worlds."
"Yet here we are, together."
He sighed, his face inching closer so our noses grazed and our breath mingled in the space between our lips. I could feel the war raging inside his spirit, whether to give in to whatever this was between us or to run and save us both the heartbreak. It would be easier, yes, to pretend this was nothing, to walk away and be queen, and lead a single life with no double meaning; to be nothing more than a guard with a sword at his hip and no magic in his hands—but it would be infinitely more lonesome too.
He dropped the hand holding mine against his cheek, and my soul dropped with it, falling to the very tips of my toes. I thought he’d made a choice. I thought he meant goodbye. I was about to step away when he took me by the arms and pulled me close. I had just enough time to find his eyes for an instant before our lips touched and I melted into his embrace. We kissed as though it might be our only chance. I threw my arms around his neck, and he wrapped his around my back, his muscles holding me aloft as my legs went weak at the knees. His touch was like fire, leaving burning trails across my skin, his lips like tinder, feeding the flames. He found my throat, my collarbone, my naked shoulder, every inch of exposed skin, and when that ran out, he found the buttons at the back of my dress. I pulled the tie from his hair so it fell around his shoulders the way I'd imagined and dug my fingers through his waves, smiling as he groaned. His hands found their way to my thighs before lifting me. I wrapped my legs around him, and we sank together to the sand.
I fear I could fill all the remaining pages of this book with memories of this night—the sight of his bare skin in the moonlight, the feel of his feathers against my fingers, the sound of his sighs—but there are some things even I wish to keep private. So instead, I'll leave you with one image, of two bodies entangled on the shore, the starlight playing over their skin as they escaped the world together.
Avians do make love the way mages do.
But Zavier does it better than both.
* * *
Twenty-Ninth Day of the Fifth Moon
* * *
I am a queen. I am a wife. Most of all, I am tired.
The wedding ceremony felt long, but the evening that followed seemed endless. I don't wish to remember or record what happened inside my new husband's rooms—all I will say is I have never been as happy for the healing powers of aethi'kine magic as I was this morning when I was greeted at his door by Zavier and Mikhail. The bruises along my skin were gone. The wounds along my wrists and neck had vanished. I fear the scars lived inside my eyes, for there was no missing the way Zavier tensed the moment his gaze landed upon me, but I kept my face to the floor and let them escort me to the queen's quarters.
I'm here now, hiding in my mother's rooms.
Though I guess they're my rooms now.
* * *
Third Day of the Sixth Moon
* * *
Four more days have passed, and four more nights in my husband's rooms. I have learned a new trick all my years of possessing chrono'kine magic have never shown me—how to exist outside of time. When I step over that threshold, I seem to leave myself, my body an empty shell and my mind somewhere else, not coming back to the present until the next morning, when those hazel eyes find mine with equal parts fury and sorrow.
Zavier and I have not been able to meet.
It's too dangerous for him to spend significant amounts of time in my room during the day. A messenger might come. A maid. One of my husband's loyal advisors. The possibilities are endless and far too risky. Instead, we deal in stolen moments while we can—a desperate kiss when he brings in my breakfast, the barest brush of fingers as we pass in the hall, a longing gaze that always passes far too soon.
I spend my time alone reading, searching for things I can tell him about his magic and also researching my own. There are lessons my tutors used to teach that linger in the back of my thoughts, heavy and open ended. I remember them telling me I was not living up to my full potential, that I could be so much more powerful if I embraced my magic, if I guided it rather than allowing it to guide me. At the time, I thought I listened. I thought I tried. But now, I wonder. Did I want my father to underestimate me? To ignore me? To believe I was less than I was? Did I want the world to think the same? People like my husband and his mages?
Power always comes with a price.
As a girl, I wasn't willing to pay it. I preferred that the world thought me meek, that people left me alone, that I preserved what little freedom I could.
I'm a woman now.
And I can't help but think of the vision of my city burning, of that shadowy beast soaring across the skies, of that roar that shook the very foundations of the palace. The future is prodding me with snippets and scenes that don't make sense.
Maybe it's time I poke back.
* * *
Ninth Day of the Sixth Moon
* * *
I never understood what a gift it was to simply sleep in the arms of someone I know will never hurt me, to have our bodies flush, to feel the soothing beat of his heart against my back, to have his chin nestled upon my neck and his breath along my skin, to be able to close my eyes without fear of pain, to be at peace.
Zavier is always gone by the time I wake, but I long to know what it might be like to start the day that way too. Perhaps someday I will, though I doubt it is a future my magic will ever show me.
* * *
Eleventh Day of the Sixth Moon
* * *
I've been focusing on the image of the burning city, but my magic has given me nothing more, no matter how hard I concentrate. I did see something else, though—Bastiant with his spatio'kine, standing beside a large oval rock, a wicked smile on his lips as he pressed his palm to the gilded surface, his golden magic simmering at his fingers.
I don’t know what it means.
When I told Zavier, he asked if it was time he learned how to make a spying window, a trick that uses his magic to make a one-way rift in space. I told him I would help him under one condition—he is never to use one when I am in my husband's rooms. It was the only time we've mentioned those nights, and his jaw clenched so tightly I feared his teeth might fuse together, but he agreed. I took his hand after that and pushed our books aside. They could wait another day. My yearning, however, could not.
* * *
Sixteenth Day of the Sixth Moon
* * *
We've started working on the spying window. I sit in my bedroom while Zavier remains out in the sitting room, attempting to draw the rift. So far, he hasn’t been successful. I've seen through the opening. I've seen the white aura of his magic. I've felt his power in the air. But skills take time, and he'll master this one. I know he will.
In the meantime, I work on my magic too. If I close my eyes and focus my mind, I can feel it in a way I never have before, or perhaps never wanted to. The power is always there, deep inside my soul—a fathomless pool, calm on the surface and churning underneath. I am trying to learn how to draw it out, how to pull the chaos to the surface and force it to yield. My tutors used to tell me to control it, to bend it to my will, but time is not like water or earth or air or fire; even the aether is something that can be touched and felt. Time is beyond us all.
I'm starting to wonder what might happen if I free-dive into those depths. Maybe my power has never been about control, something I've never had in my life. Maybe it's about succumbing to the unknown. But I fear what I might lose in the process.
* * *
Twenty-Second Day of the Sixth Moon
* * *
Zavier tells me Mikhail has been acting differently of late, more distant, with secrets in his eyes. I wonder if it's my fault. He must know what goes on behind my door, why Zavier spends every night he can inside my rooms. He might be tired of covering for us, or afraid of what will happen to us all if we're caught, but Zavier thinks it is something more.
> I know he doesn't want to spy on his friend, and yet I see the thought cross his eyes as we practice. Yesterday, he made a window I could not sense. At least, not at first. After a few moments, I felt the prickle of his power in the air, but it was something. If we're to spy on my husband, we'll need much more than that. His spatio'kine will be even more attuned than me to the sensation of magic carving through the air. But to spy on Mikhail, well, Zavier has the skills for that already. The dove would never sense his magic in the air—he can't. The one thing that divides them is the one thing that brings Zavier and me closer together.
He's being pulled in two different directions.
What will happen when the tension snaps?
* * *
First Day of the Seventh Moon
* * *
Life continues much the same, oscillating between pleasure and pain, between the man I've come to love and the one I've learned to loathe, between rebellion and duty.
I saw Bastiant again, this time with his spatio'kine beside an open rift that looked much like the one where my father was sent—nothing on the other side but barren lands, and orange skies, and onyx rock. I'm not sure what waits on the other side of that door, but I sense it has something to do with the beast I saw in the skies above my burning city. I think it must be from another world, and I believe I've seen a glimpse of that ghastly place.
I saw a woman, too, though I'm not sure who she is or what she means. I stepped out of my rooms and met Mikhail, only to see a stranger looking back. She had the same dark skin, but her eyes were bright green and the wings behind her back pure ivory. A smile graced her lips, as though she were on the precipice of a laugh, and then she was gone. Her spirit, however, lingered, staying with me long after the sight of her had passed. There was a kinship between us, as though maybe she, of all people, might understand me. Rebellion stirred inside her heart, a fierce independence and yearning, mixed with bright compassion. Is she his sister? His lover? His future child? His future mate? Do they have any connection at all?
I'm not sure.
But she's important.
I know she is.
* * *
Fifth Day of the Seventh Moon
* * *
Zavier did what he swore he wouldn't—he spied on his best friend. And then he came to my rooms to pace across my floor, a furrow in his brow and worry in his eyes.
Mikhail is planning a revolution.
He and a group of other avians are keeping a secret, one that could change everything—a child. Deep in the heart of the village where the birds of paradise live, they hide a little boy in an underground hovel, his wings little more than violet-and-ebony fluff. Zavier has been watching him, trying to understand why, and then he saw. The boy was playing with his keeper when the older man fell and hurt his wrist. The boy rushed over, a golden glow about his fingers, and sealed the wound.
He has healing magic.
He’s an aethi’kine.
Zavier says Mikhail no longer trusts him, because of me probably, but he thinks it's more. He thinks it's because of his magic, because it's growing stronger day by day. I don't understand. All their hope lies in a little boy who might possess the most powerful magic of all, and yet he pushes away his best friend, a man who might be able to help more than any other. It's complicated, Zavier tells me, but the avians have learned not to trust mages. And though he’s an avian, he’s a mage first, with a power most of his people will never understand.
I asked if he'll confront him.
Zavier says that would only make Mikhail trust him less.
* * *
Eleventh Day of the Seventh Moon
* * *
We've spied on Bastiant, and as far as we can tell, neither he nor his mages were aware. They were in his council room, the most powerful mages in our entire kingdom all together discussing the business of the realm, and there Zavier and I were, in my room, watching it all.
We'll have to be careful, but with this power, we might be able to see what my husband has been up to, what that rock from my vision was, where that beast came from.
Maybe the city won't burn.
Maybe we can stop it.
* * *
Twentieth Day of the Seventh Moon
* * *
I must write this down quickly, so I don’t forget a single detail. My magic whispers against my skin that this is important, that I must remember, that so much hangs on a single moment. Zavier and I spied on Bastiant again, and finally we caught him in the middle of something I know he would not want us to see.
We were in my rooms, late into the night. It took a moment for us to recognize the scene through the rift when Zavier first opened it, dark as it was, but after a moment the flickering torchlight cleared to reveal Bastiant and his spatio'kine. They were alone, deep in the dungeons, clearly doing something secretive or he would have had a photo'kine come to light the way. As it was, Bastiant held a torch, whose halo just barely showed what lay beyond. My eyes widened upon seeing the rock from my vision behind him, not gold this time, but a polished, obsidian oval. The more I stared, the more I realized there was not just one but six rocks, flashing all different colors as they caught the light—red, blue, green, yellow, ivory, and onyx. The colors of magic. I sensed the power even through the rift, pulsing all around him, invisible currents with a unique charge any mage can sense. All four elements were there, shades of earth and air and fire and water, and the black and white rocks had to be from light and dark magic. I didn’t understand—magic can't be trapped or contained, at least not in crystal or stone but only in living things. How had he managed to fuse the power into these rocks? And why?
"After years of work, our quest is nearly complete," Bastiant said, his words as commanding as ever.
"Yes, my king."
Years. The word simmered in the back of my mind as my gaze turned to the rocks once more. He'd been working on this for years. Suddenly it became clear why he hadn’t been interested in inheriting that fallen kingdom so long ago—whatever he was planning hadn’t been ready. But by the time my father offered my hand in marriage, all the pieces were nearly in place—all except this last one, whatever it was.
"I've located our final specimen. He's in the city somewhere. I can sense his magic and his spirit—young and naive with no awareness of the true power he possesses. He's perfect and this opportunity might not come again."
"I understand, my king, but—"
"As soon as I find him, we will open one more rift."
"My king—"
"One more, and then all of this will be done."
"My king—"
"You object?"
"Of course not, my king. I have only a word of caution. Last time I opened the rift, the threads of space were unstable, as though something on the other side was fighting back. We know little of the beasts that live in that world, and I worry they have found a way to sense my magic and to see it coming. With every doorway I open, I fear we grow one step closer to losing the ability to close it."
"One more, Saven."
The spatio'kine nodded, though I didn’t miss the way his throat tightened or the worried wrinkles crossing his brow.
"One more rift," Bastiant continued, a wicked glee alight in his eyes. "One more egg. And we will leave that world behind for good. Now, help me—"
Both men paused, their eyes lifting toward us. Zavier closed the spying window, his magic winking out immediately, leaving us alone in what felt like a thundering silence.
"Go," I whispered. "Go before he sees."
"What about—"
"I'll be fine. If they follow the threads of your magic, all they'll see here is me. Maybe they'll think it was a vision. But you must go, now, before they suspect you."
Zavier squeezed my fingers, but I pushed him away. There was no time for goodbyes, no time for anything at all. If the spatio'kine sensed his magic, if he followed it, they needed to find me here alone. It would take him a minute or two, but that was all the adva
ntage we had.
Zavier swept away from the room.
My heart pounded as though it yearned to leap from my ribs and run after him. I forced a blank expression onto my face and pulled a book into my lap, leaning against my pillows as though reading. In truth, the words swam across the page, my mind a jumble, nothing but the conversation we’d overheard playing on and on in my head.
I lay there for an hour, mindlessly flipping pages, waiting for my husband to storm into my rooms, for the sounds of battle to filter through my door, for a scream, for a whisper, for anything. All I wanted to do was tear across my rooms and into the hall to make sure Zavier was there, still standing, still breathing, unharmed. But to do such a thing, especially if I were being watched, would only raise suspicion.
I fell asleep somehow and woke hours later to the sound of a tray being delivered to my sitting room. I ran to the door and threw it open, relief the sweetest pleasure as I looked upon Zavier's unharmed face. He couldn't afford to linger, so he nodded reassuringly, giving me a little smile, before retreating to his station outside the door. I've been on edge all day, but Bastiant treats me with the same disdain as always, acting no differently, and all I can hope is that his spatio'kine was unable to follow the threads they both felt the night before.
Now, as I sit here recording every detail I can recall, my thoughts have finally calmed enough to absorb what we overheard. Bastiant said he needed one more egg. Those things were not rocks. They were eggs. Eggs from another world. Eggs full of beasts…and magic.
The Dragon and the Queen (The Raven and the Dove Book 3) Page 29