“Jahlee,” I start, stepping in front of her quickly, “I need to tell you something.”
She folds her arms over her chest, a devilish smile curling her lips as the sadness that blanketed her earlier begins to fade. “If you’re about to tell me that you’re in love with me, I’m afraid I’ll have to break your heart—no matter how beautiful I find you. I imagine my brother would explode if the two of us started a relationship.”
I roll my eyes and mirror her stance, taking in a deep breath to steady my nerves. The trepidation I feel must show on my face because Jahlee’s smile falters and her fingers tighten around her arms. My throat feels like it’s constricting, reducing the air flowing to my lungs to nothing more than a slight trickle. Every warning bell in my head blares, and yet the words are begging to be let out, my own guilt a raging entity inside of me that pushes beneath my skin. So I just blurt them out. “I don’t have magic.”
The statement seems to echo in the training yard as I watch Jahlee’s eyes widen. Her arms fall lax at her sides, and her mouth slowly drops open. “But—but you’re mage. And all mages—”
“Not all,” I interrupt her, building my internal shields back up one block at a time as confusion and shock continue to bleed into her expression. “It appears that I was born without magic. I think it may be hidden within me, waiting to be unlocked, though I haven’t figured out how yet.”
Jahlee regains control of her features, her mouth tightening into a grim line as she places her hands on her hips. “Kai doesn’t know, does he?” she asks, accusation bitter in her voice.
“No.”
Jahlee sighs as she studies me, her disappointment coating me with every blink of her lashes. “You need to tell him,” she says more gently. “He will understand, Bahira.”
I shake my head, moving my gaze to the sky above. “He won’t. He brought me here for one purpose, Jahlee. I thought he was aware that I didn’t have magic. It’s not exactly a secret backhome. But then, on the ship, it was obvious that he didn’t know, and to be honest, I didn’t care. I wanted to stay to see if there was more knowledge I could gain by being here. I wanted the safety he was offering my kingdom. I realized he’d send me home if he knew because he wouldn’t find me useful. But then…” The words taper off as I bring my gaze back to hers.
Understanding eases her pursed lips, her eyes softening along with them. “Give him a chance. He might be upset at first, but at least give him the benefit of the doubt. Don’t do what everyone else does and assume you know better than him.”
I make myself stand tall, my body held rigid by spite alone, and Jahlee, damn her, sees it all. The way I’ve forced myself to be formidable in all the ways my magic left me wanting—she recognizes it all because she’s been forced to do the same. She might be the only person in the entire world who truly understands what it is like to be born missing a part of yourself. Before I can react, she wraps her arms around me and pulls me in for a hug. My body stays tightly wound within her hold, but something within me fractures, another long thin line cracking into the hardened façade of my armor.
“I’m sorry that you understand this feeling, Bahira,” she whispers into my hair, “but I always knew that you and I would be close friends. I promise I will not say anything to anyone about this.”
“I can’t ask you to withhold this from your brother.”
She sighs, but it’s not out of annoyance. “Unless he asks me directly, I will not give him your story.” Leaning back, her hands frame my face. “Is it fucked up that I’m happy to feel less alone?”
I exhale a rough laugh and try to shake my head. “No.” It wasn’t, because I felt the same way. Jahlee gives my cheeks a squeeze before dropping her hands.
Together, we walk to the palace, changing to a conversation led by Jahlee that goes into extreme detail about how she didindeed bed that shifter she eyed in the throne room. A part of me settles at confiding in her, and it gives me hope that Kai might have a similar reaction. The other side of me, the one ruled by logic and balanced by facts, reminds me that, while they are brother and sister, Jahlee and Kai are not the same. That the sharp and rough edges that make up the shifter king aren’t ones that are meant to be flexible.
I have to tell him. Iwilltell him. I just need it to be the right time.
Battles rage beyond our borders, the ballad of war carrying on the wind and in through the trees that don’t feel as protective as they once did. It is because of the majority of this council that we do not intervene. It is our duty to ensure our own people’s safety and to not get involved with a war we want no part in. Though Queen Lucia expressed that perhaps we may not have a choice, the council majority stays firm in the thought that we mustn’t sway either side.
Mage magic is too powerful a tool for one side to utilize. It is this councilman’s opinion that we will likely see the war resolved between the Mortal Kingdom and the Siren Queendom long before it ever threatens our people.
Our queen looks forward to the visit from the fae king in three weeks’ time.
I close the journal and take a bite of the flaky pastry brought up by Lana, who eyed me with a level of interest I had no desire to entertain. I had read through enough journals to bring me to the start of the war, and the tone of this entry leaves me wondering if it was purely neutrality that left the mages of the time unwilling to interfere until the last moment, as I had always been taught, or if it was ignorance. What could havebeen prevented if those still brimming with their full power had stepped in sooner?
Magic in Olymazi presented in so many different ways, each kingdom and queendom with a unique manifestation. While musing over how to change the past is pointless, I am of the firm belief that there can always be information gleaned by what came before. I wonder if more mistakes were made by the kingdom I call home than what our historians and teachers are willing to admit.
I ponder the subject as I ready myself for the day, intent on visiting the library. The shifter books I have read so far cover a mostly generic history on their people, but I find myself most drawn to the parts that speak of the royal family. Other than the small bits of information Jahlee has given me, I don’t know anything else about Kai’s father and the lineage he came from. Not that I necessarilyneededto learn that information, as it wasn’t pertinent to anything other than my own curiosity.
Dressed in black leggings and a cream-colored short-sleeved top, the material linen and embroidered with golden thread, I lace my sandals up and draw my hair into a ponytail before opening the door. I find Kai leaning against the wall, his head tipped back and eyes closed as though there aren’t people who would try to harm him while he’s so unguarded. As if he has no other care in the world but to stand there with his muscular arms folded over his chest, silent and unmoving like a perfectly sculpted statue. Clearly, he handled himself just fine before my arrival, but the thought of him getting attacked makes anger bloom within me. Kai’s eyes open when I near, his gaze going right to mine and then down my body in a sensual caress. I feel the weight of it as if it were his hands and fight back the urge to shiver.
“Good morning, Your Majesty,” I state, if only to rile him up with the use of his title.
A deep sound rumbles from his throat as he rights himself from the wall and takes a large step towards me, his chest mere inches from my chin. “Princess,” he responds, dropping his voice to an octave that does, in fact, make my skin pebble with goosebumps.
The cool depths of his dark brown eyes bore into me, the ever-present golden specks dormant as if he’s completely at ease. He curls his finger under my chin, gently tipping my face up while his thumb traces my bottom lip. The soft touch is the first of its kind between us where we might catch an audience, and I know I could move—should move—away from it, but the unexpected gentleness and the way my body responds in kind keeps me pinned in place. It’s a slow progression, both of us leaning in closer as if to test this unknown space between us. What would it be like to share a kiss here and now? One that isn’t a precursor to anything sexual or brought on by high emotions? I have never done such a thing before, never felt soexposed. My fingers reach out for his tunic, curling into the fabric as my lips part.
A throat clears a few feet away, the sound halting us. “Am I interrupting?”Kane.Kai smoothly drops his hold on me, my own hand coming down to my side as he looks over my shoulder at his cousin. When Kai doesn’t speak, Kane chuckles, moving so that he is also in my line of sight. “Quite an intimate moment you were sharing there.”
I eye the king’s cousin, my gaze roaming over his maroon-colored short-sleeved tunic and the tattoos that go down both arms. The swirling pattern of his right arm is disturbed by a scar, the skin there raised and still slightly pink.
“What do you want, Kane?” Kai growls as we move to stand shoulder-to-shoulder.
