“Perhaps the addition of color is onlybecauseit is being wielded by an individual,” I muse, tilting my head. “Maybe the magic we are seeing in the blood is what it looks like at its core. Its purest form.”
“Well, that’s still weird.”
I snort, leaning away from the desk to begin cleaning up my experiment. “Why is it still weird?”
“What happens if someone’s magic doesn’t have a different color? If the magic they wield is white?”
“In theory, if my other assumptions are correct, then it would mean that they are wielding magic without any kind of filter. Which would make it the strongest magic at their disposal.” I’m not sure that the magic changing colors has anything to do with it being altered from its supposed natural state, but I don’t have any information thatdisprovesthat theory either.
“Ha!” Starla barks out, earning a curious look from me as she shuts the journal. “That is evenmoreridiculous because the person I saw whose magic was white could barely wield it atallduring our training.”
I pause as I look over at her. “Who did you see wielding magic that was white?”
“The king’s new girlfriend,” she answers with a roll of her eyes and a wave of her hand. “Or, I guess, old girlfriend? Lady Margaret said he is now marrying your friend. Helena.”
“Haylee,” I murmur, to which she shrugs her shoulders. “You’re sure Rhea’s magic was white?”
“Yep. I saw it lots when Dilan made me train with her.”
“And you’ve never seen that color from a mage before, right?”
She pauses cleaning up her own small table to look at me over her shoulder and drawl, “No.”
I dig back in my memories to what Nox had told me about Rhea’s magic. But other than the revelation that her flame had turned blue in the Cauldron of Vires, marking her as the next Void queen, he hadn’t shared anything else. I purse my lips together. With so much unknown about Void Magic, it’s impossible to evenbeginto predict all that she might be capable of. And, I realize as a chill moves over me, all that she could be forced to do while in the clutches of King Dolian.
A stilted eeriness has settled over the palace, one that whispers from the corners that something here is verywrong. Between Nox disappearing every night, the council’s secretive nature, and the lack ofanycorrespondence from Daje, Cass, and Elora, I feel on edge. Constantly waiting for the rug to be pulled from beneath me once more. It is selfish to complain about the status of my life when, relatively speaking, the upheaval isn’t as serious as, say, being kidnapped by a sadistic uncle intent on marrying me. It doesn’t make it any less jarring, however. Add in the fact that Nox’s last spoken words to me have been needling my brain like some kind of foreignworm, and it’s no wonder I can’t focus on the ancient manuscript on the bed in front of me.
Nox isn’t my only distraction, however.
I assumed that, with time, thoughts of Kai might dwindle until they fizzled out altogether, like a lingering sunset finally giving way to night. There is nothing here to remind me of him,no reason for memories of our time together to keep playing on repeat in my head. But despite all of that, they do. His touch on my life had been brief, yet it still haunts me as if we had spent lifetimes together.
One night, while in the thrall of those memories, I drafted a letter. I rationalized it by saying I was only sticking to the things I had promised to tell him but had been unable to because of the broken Mirror. But as I wrote, each sentence grew longer until the paragraphs morphed from information about Rhea to the truths of my heart. The longing I feel, and even the bits of anger and sadness and guilt that surround it, have been unavoidable verities for the entirety of my time home. I pushed them aside to focus on other important things, ones that I thought I might havesomecontrol over. But doing so didn’t lessen them, and they certainly didn’t go away. The letter sits hidden in a drawer, unsent to the only person who might want to hear those words, to the only male who’s ever deserved them, yet I do not believe thatIdeserve to say them to him.
Sighing, I turn my attention back to the manuscript and the cursive writing of its author. Three quarters through this book, and I’m finding that it is part factual text and part personal opinion and, overall, has yielded very little information besides the mention of blood mingling. My eyelids grow heavy as the night progresses, and I go from sitting up to laying on my side, lazily reading through a new section entitledThe Gods We Worshipwhen a noise outside my door draws my focus.
I already know whose heavy steps traverse the room on the other side of the hallway, and I move quickly to try and catch him before he disappears into his bedroom. But when I reach his sitting room, his door closes and locks, and my chest deflates. Whatever Nox has been doing, whatever is pulling him away each night, it can’t be good. Certainly not when he comes back smelling of ale, his eyes full of secrets. Returning to my room,I climb back in bed, grabbing the manuscript and preparing to close it when the wordVoidleaps off the page at me.
Blinking the exhaustion from my eyes, I squint to better focus and follow the sentence.
Void Magic, while precious and holy, is also volatile. With the sheer magnitude of what the queen holds in her, it is hard for this author not to ponder if, perhaps, there is more godly work at play. After all, who else but a god could be capable of both restoring vitality and draining life? And while we have so far been blessed by benevolent queens, one day, we might not be so lucky. So it is important that we ask, when a new queen rises who does not have the best interest of her people at heart, who will be there to stop her?
I swallow roughly as I close the book, my heart pounding heavily in my chest. It’s time that I have a true conversation with my brother about what, exactly, Rhea has the power to do as the holder of Void Magic.
Chapter Eighty-Three: Aria
Myfateistobe decided today by Queen Amari.
The throne room is plunged into darkness, the cloudy sky above and the lack of crystals within making it feel no better than a jail cell. Perhaps that is an omen of things to come. Allegra has just finished presenting the information she received from Nia, telling my mother of my cave of treasures and that I had been in communication with the seamount sirens since their escape from the Queen’s Legion. Allegra’s dark blue eyes sparkle with her usual level of animosity towards me, contrasting theway her belly is softly swollen with life. Where my closest sister is gentle in her movements, Allegra’s body moves as if she is on the hunt. She is abrupt and curt, behaving so on edge that it coaxes the feeling alive in me. I have already swapped out my old mantra for Myla’s, and as my mother’s gaze pores over me from where she sits on her throne, all I can think about—all I can focus on—are those six words:Who am I willing to become?
Sirens eagerly wait behind me to see what my fate will be, Allegra ensuring all knew that I was to be investigated by the queen today. I feel their attention on my back as harshly as I feel the queen’s at my front, but I already know that if my mother is to condemn me for these supposed crimes, I will fight it. I will fight for Lyre. For Mashaka. I will fight for myself. For all the times I didn’t before. And though ourallianceis still tentative and new, I will fight for Sade and her secret crusade against our mother. Another person enters my mind—one with dark hair and even darker eyes. One whose ruthlessness is only outdone by the intensity of her stare. I find myself continuously letting my mind wander to her, even in the most unlikely of circumstances. But if our last interaction had been any indication, Myla prefers to keep her distance from me.
My mother pounds her trident on the stone at the base of that rotten throne and the room falls silent. “Allegra, you bring serious accusations against one of your own,” she says, her voice resonant as it fills the throne room. “A princess’s duty is to her queendom and queen. To her people. One found to be acting against those priorities should be punished in a manner that befits the severity of the crime.”
“I agree,” Allegra chimes in, her eyes meeting mine as she snarls.
“Sade, General of my legion and second eldest daughter, what has your investigation of Aria revealed?” My sister swims forward from her place in line above me. We had alreadydiscussed what she would say and how she would have to act so both our mother and Allegra would not become suspicious. While Sade has the queen’s trust, my sister reminded me that all it takes is one slip up, one moment where our mother might not believe we are loyal to her, and everything will fall apart.
“Your Majesty, I followed up with the information Allegra was given by the banished Nia Adanna. Shewascorrect in saying that there is a hidden cave among the rocks.”
