“It wasn’t like that. We had a business deal, and me dying while under his care would have nullified that. He was merely protecting his assets.”
“I bet he was doing something with yourassets,” she murmurs under her breath, winking as she draws out the beginning half of the word.
I glare at her, but it’s eased by the snort I make. As much as I want to pretend that the way I feel about Kai is something that can be pushed away, a more prominent part of me simply wants someone else’s advice on the situation. Selfishly, I also want an ally. Someone to hear everything I have to say about how Kai and I had caught fire with an intensity I had never before experienced, only for us to crash and burn just as brilliantly. A friend all my own to say,Yes. He was wrong, and you were right to be so wary of letting your guard down. Even if you lied to him. You aren’t worthless.The urge is so strong that I open my mouth, prepared to let the entirety of our story come flowing out.
“Oh, look, it’s Arin. And Daje.” Haylee points to where they are standing and like being punched in the stomach, my breath is stolen from me. Along with anything I might have said. I follow Haylee’s gaze to the edge of the training grounds. Daje walks with his head down, listening to whatever Arin is saying at his side.
“That’s my cue to leave,” I tell Haylee, standing and brushing the grass from me as I yank my spear out of the ground.
“You owe me more conversation,” she says, wagging her finger in front of my face. “Even if it takes an overly intense sparring session from you to get it all out.”
I give her a smile that doesn’t quite reach my eyes, its guardedness going unnoticed before she pats my shoulder and takes off in Daje and Arin’s direction. I turn away, but not before I see the surprised look on Daje’s face when he spots me.
Heading back towards the edge of the forest, intent on dipping into my workshop in hopes I can distract myself withanythingbefore the council inevitably finds out about Nox leaving, a familiar face catches my attention. Dark skin and short black hair. A body that isn’t quite as big as Kai’s but is large enough to exude the type of dominance that I crave. Max stands tall as he spars with another mage, his blue magic glowing intensely in one hand while his other is wrapped firmly around a long sword. His eyes meet mine as he blocks an incoming attack, his parry quick before he holds his hand up and turns in my direction. “Bahira!”
I fight off a smirk at the obvious look on his face, cocking my hip to the side as he jogs over to me.
“It’s been a while,” he says, his chest heaving while sweat rolls down the side of his neck and under his tunic.
“It has,” I drawl, twirling my spear idly at my side. “Looks like you’re just as eager of a fighter as before.”
“Well,” he chuckles, his hand going to the back of his neck, “perhaps I just need the right motivation to win.” The innuendo hangs between us, Max dangling my challenge from the last time we were together.
I click my tongue, faking my sadness. “I told you, I don’t ever repeat.”
“Oh, come on,” he says, stepping nearer until his body blocks out the sun. He drops his voice low, and the hair rises on the back of my neck because of it. “One more time could be fun.”
Undoubtedly, it could. It might just be the thing I need to get myself free of the way a certain male torments my thoughts. “Maybe…”
The rest of the statement fades away as the image of Kai’s hands on me comes rushing in. The feel of his teeth scraping along my neck, the breathless way he called meprincess. Neither term of endearment nor insult but something in between. How his body moved on me andinme with the kind of precision that had never made sense. Because how could a stranger know me so intimately in such a short period of time? How could he disarm soeasily? I shake my head and take a step back from Max, watching as his smile falls and his eyes dim.
“I don’t do repeats,” I say again, walking past him to head back into Galdr.
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Bahira
Iamstartingtohate the fucking scent of blood.
Staring at the glass jars lined up in front of me, I fight the urge to throw them against the wall. To watch the glass shatter as assuredly as my sanity has. Leaning back against the counter in my workshop, I cross one ankle over the other and place my hands over my eyes. A noise entirely born of frustration rumbles in my throat before I slide my hands down my face and let them fall to my sides.
Starla and I conducted another set of experiments. One that was supposed to serve as a control for future tests, but now… My eyes flick to the jar of completely decayed leaves that is flanked by two more containers. The left is blooming with life, the blood droplets rust-colored on the large bright green leaves that have grown from a brand-new stem. The right also contains the same coloring though it isn’t as fully flourished. Looking at these jars is confirmation of all the data I’ve managed to gather in the past few months when it comes to the relationship of blood and magic. Everything excluding what Tua had alluded to with Kai’s father and his mother. But I can’t correlate the evidence presented to me with anything other than a recognition of the truth: My blood does not contain magic. With the jar at the left containing my father’s blood and the one on the right containing Starla’s, the decay of the one at the center holdingmyblood is all the more evidence of that truth.
Despite my morose mood, I almost let a smirk slip at the thought of my newest young aide. She had gathered the leaves for my experiments and watched as I cut my palm just enough to let some blood drop into one of the jars. When she then held her own hand out, palm up and waiting for me, I scoffed and shook my head. “Absolutely not.” I should have realized that Starla, a girl cut from the same cloth as myself, would have seen it as a challengebefore proceeding to grab the knife from the table after I cleaned it and cutting her palm herself.
I had wanted to growl at her, but before something angry ever made it past my lips, I took notice of the look on her face. The way she wore her pride on the surface. She had just wanted to help. Though Ididmake sure she knew that, going forward, disobeying my orders would result in her spending the day dress shopping with the girls from her orphanage. As far as threats go, that one seems to be the most effective.
Focusing back on the glass in front of me, I release a breath and reach for the middle jar, dumping its contents and setting it in the sink. I do the same with the others, knowing that based on the results of the Shifter Kingdom experiment, I no longer need to watch for further reaction. Eventually, the plants will get what they can from the blood—or the magicwithinthe blood—and then they too will decay.
Once I’ve cleaned, I take a seat in front of my desk, recalling what I know of magic in general and how I reconcile that with my suspicions about the Spell. I had gone to Councilman Arav requesting his help choosing two scouts to collect data about the declining magic from some of the border towns along the Spell. It had been a risk, of course, entrusting him withanyinformation, but I know that Arav loves his people. That he always has their best interests at heart and really, I had been working on the issue of our magic well before anything happened between Kai and I.
Despite the way frustration nips at my heels, so does a small amount of excitement. Finding answers to unknowns has always been my favorite way to work my mind. It’s only been in recent years—as the stakes grew impossibly higher—that I’ve allowed uncertainty to chip away at my confidence. If I truly don’t have magic, if it’s nowhere to be found within me, then my mind is the only power I hold. And,fucking gods,do I want to be the one to solve this.
Reaching into a desk drawer, I open the journal that I keep my notes in, flipping through to the pages with the graph of declining magic throughout the kingdom. From the earliest records I read to the more recent ones, I study how the dots are imposed on the graph. Looking at the trending line and the way the cities closest to the Spell had their oldest mages losing their magic completely, it can’tjustbe a random coincidence.
I lean back in the wooden chair. The Spell was put into place by the queen of Void Magic, and she sacrificed her life in order to do it. Since her death, no queen of Void Magic has been found. Could the Spell be why? All magic has a cost—a price to pay for its sustained use. I can only imagine what that price would be to sustain the Spell for over two hundred years.
Except, I don’thaveto imagine.
“Shit,” I whisper, looking back down at the journal. What could sustain the magic of the Spell for so long? The magic ofeveryoneelse on this continent. The cost of keeping the kingdoms separated, of the magic being wielded for so long—even if its wielder is no longeralive—would be astronomical. And itis.
