“Get off of me, Bahira,” he orders.
“Why do you think I’m trying to sabotage you?” I ask, feeling his heart race beneath my hands and mirroring the pacing of my own.
“Get.Off.” He bares his teeth, canines elongating as fury ripples over his features and his eyes become lost to that bright golden color.
“I’m not afraid of you, Kai.” I stress my words while leaning in close so that my face hovers over his. “I amnotafraid. So tell me what is really wrong because you knowdamn wellthat I am nottryingto hurt you!”
Heated seconds pass, Kai’s jaw working as if he can chew the words he wants to say and swallow them down, but they break through anyway. “I willneverbe the kind of king that this island needs,” he growls between gritted teeth, his façade cracking for only a second, but the hurt there is enough to make my heart skip a beat.
“You care about your people. Iknowyou do.”
“And that is not enough. You see what they say, how theyhateme. I cannot be who they want me to be!” His eyes igniteanew with fury, and my own bounce back and forth between them as his fingers wrap tightly around my wrists.
“You are enough,” I tell him, the words hoarse as they scrape up my throat. Kai stills, his top lip still pulled back over his teeth as his eyes grow wider. “You areenough,” I repeat with added emphasis, my nails digging into him. “And if the people you have surrounded yourself with do not reaffirm that at every opportunity, then they are thewrongpeople to have as your council.”
“They are theonlyreason I’m not already removed from the throne. Or dead.”
I swallow as I shake my head, ready to voice what I know he won’t want to hear. “I think you have a traitor in your court—”
“Be careful of what you say next,” he says with a dark edge to his voice.
My brows draw together, and I push myself off of him, stepping away from where he’s still lying amongst the flowers. “You may not want to hear this, but the way Tua behaves as your advisor is notnormal.He acts as if it’s his job to personally woo the court and nobles and people when he should be helpingyoudo that.” I swallow my anger down as I take another step back. “You’re right. You can’t be the kind of king your people need because you are lettingsomeone elsedo it for you.”
Turning on my heel, I leave Kai on the ground and make my way back to the palace.
Kai avoids me the following day. And the next. I should know better than to lament over a male choosing to ignore me, but instead, I’m drowning in my thoughts about him.
Blowing out a frustrated breath, I focus my attention back on the mage journal in front of me while Jahlee clicks another discinto place on the magnifier scope she is looking through. The journal is mostly mundane, detailing Queen Lucia’s days after the visit from King Kamon Ryuu and Lady Jia Ryuu of the Fae Kingdom. Apparently, they had gifted her a prized necklace as a token of friendship. I skip down the page to where I see talk of a Flame Ceremony, the descriptions of it indicating nothing wrong with the magic at that time. I nearly decide to quit reading for the day, but a capitalized word catches my attention.
On this final day of summer, the night before the Autumnal Ball, Queen Lucia visited the clinics of Galdr to bestow upon some the magic of Cessation. There were ten in all who waited for her arrival, clinging to life though they should not have been. They were of an age, ailing, and past the point of our healing magic being able to provide any comfort.
My brows crinkle together as I try to remember what I know of the Void Magic that queens of the past were blessed with. It is ancient magic and only given to one at a time whose soul was foundworthy. Though how that was determined, no one but the gods themselves knew.
The celestial symbols of Void Magic are carved all over the place back home: doors leading into the palace, statues, tapestries, and places of business and worship. Everyone knows what those symbols mean and who they belonged to, but I can’t recall a time when it was detailed how those powersmanifested. In our schooling, we had been taught about how Queen Lucia used this magic to put the Spell up and effectively end the war, but there had been no heir found through any Flame Ceremonies since. It seems that lessons on such magic have devolved until they do not include information about what a Void queen could actually do outside of normal mage magic.
Maybe that is a flaw. Over two hundred years had passed since the war, but we had slowly been shaving off more and more information until only the barest of bones were left. Was itdone intentionally? Or had it been the product of a complacent kingdom with a new family of rulers at the helm and no reason to change the status quo? As I try to pry deeper into my memory for anything at all detailing Void Magic, a new question tainted with unease pushes to the forefront—what all could be lost under the illusion of impenetrable safety?
“You’re looking mighty contemplative,” Jahlee sings from across the table, her brown eyes focused on me. “What are you reading about?”
Closing the journal, I stack it off to the side of the table with a collection of others and lean back in my chair. “Are you familiar with the queens of Void Magic from the Mage Kingdom?”
Jahlee cocks her head to the side, squinting her eyes as if sunlight is shining directly into them. “A little. Most of our education, at least in the place Kai and I grew up, was localized to this kingdom. We didn’t learn much other than it was a Mage Queen who cast the Spell in retribution for the war starting.”
“What? It wasn’t in retribution. She cast it because the Mortal Kingdom, Siren Queendom, andthiskingdom were warring with each other. Then the fae showed up on their dragons ready to end everything and everyone, so she made the decision to send everyone back home to stop the fighting.”
Jahlee gives a fake and hearty laugh, clapping her hands slowly as she stands from her chair. “Is that what they teach over inmageschool?”
“Yes, because it is the truth,” I defend.
Jahlee drops her hands to the table on either side of the magnifier. “I suppose that fromyourpoint of view it is.”
Pointless, this conversation ispointless. Shaking my head, I stand up and take a few steps towards her before leaning my hip at the edge of the table. “Who was the woman that yelled at Kai the other day? The one you ushered out of the room.”
“Iolana is from the village we grew up in—Honna, right at the northern edge of the island. I was surprised to see her in the capital.”
“Did you find out why she was upset?”
“Well, you heard what she said in the throne room. Apparently, a few shifters with family members that are stuck reached out to the palace for aid and were denied. She thinks Kai is to blame. I told her he wouldn’t do such a thing, but she thinks he’s lost touch with his roots. That the vultures—figuratively, not literally—of Molsi have corrupted him.” Jahlee’s features are tense while she thinks about the people affected from her home. Perhaps she even knows of some who can’t shift back. She doesn’t let the serious look last long, however, and a mischievous grin grows as she says, “But she scolded Kai even worse when he met us later that day. He didn’t tell you any of this?”
