Without hesitation, his fingers leave my skin. I draw my arm up to cradle it against my chest, but the queen snatches it first. Her touch is cold, and though she’s retracted her talons and only mortal nails remain, I swear I can feel the prick of them indenting my skin.
“We have work to do, Lady Rhea, and I don’t want to waste another moment.”
“What work?” I rasp while she positions me at her side, forcing the ruby-haired siren to move farther down.
“I know that mages have the ability to pass through the Spell.” Her gaze slides to mine, but I keep my lips pinched closed. “And I have a theory that the reason that is possible is because their magichealsthem from the Spell’s side effects.”
Again, I don’t respond, my heart pounding near my throat.
“Today, we are going to test that theory.”
“I—I can’tdothat,” I sputter, shaking my head. “It won’t work. My magic doesn’t—”
“Have you tried healing another in this way?” she asks.
“No, but—”
“Then you cannot speak to whether it will work or not. I have willing subjects, ready to fulfill their duty to their queendom,” she says quietly, leaning in until her nose nearly touches mine. “And I have a king under my control just as you are.”
My blood runs cold as her eyes dip down to where my hands press against my stomach. To a ring of golden coral topped with a pearl. One that matches the king’s, though his is striped with ocean blue. Gods, in some poetic and dreadful twist of fate, she is using thesamemagic to control him that he is using on me. That’s why he didn’t resist earlier. She wascommandinghim. Does the king realize that’s what she’s doing? Does the same rush of magic flood him that does me? Noting my discovery on my face, Queen Amari smiles brightly and turns back to face her subjects, forcing me to do the same with a tug at my arm.
“My sirens, now is the time you have been waiting for.Nowis the first day of retribution! For today, we will finally take our first step on mortal lands in over two hundred years!”
Chapter Forty-Three: Rhea
“Thiswillnotwork,”I say a little louder, drawing Queen Amari’s attention again. Shaking my head, I bare my palms to her. “My magic cannotdothat.”
“I have been alive a long time,girl, and I have seen the impossible made possible.” Her voice carries over the wind and sea, echoing out over the beach until her sirens settle. “I have seen shifters battle in their animal forms. I have seen dragons take flight and crowd the skies. I have seen mortal men go back on their word.” Her eyes flick to King Dolian briefly before theysettle back on me. “And I have seen mages use their magic to tear kingdoms apart.”
Goosebumps unravel over my body, making the hair at the back of my neck rise. “I am not one ofthosemages.” Yet, even as I refute her claim, something deep in my gut stirs. It was a queen of Void Magic who cast the Spell, but that doesn’t mean the magicIhave could make it safe to cross over.
She reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, the tender move impossibly at odds with the merciless look on her face. “We will find out which one of us is correct.”
My heart revolts like a caged animal. “Your people will die.Please.”
Her hand falls away as she straightens her posture and grips her trident tightly. “That is a risk I’m willing to take.”She beckons a volunteer forward, their teal eyes meeting mine after she takes her helmet off. She appears no older than I am, and my stomach drops as I look to Queen Amari again.
“Please, I can’t—” But my pleas are overshadowed by her next command.
“Use your magic to heal her so that she may go through the Spell unharmed.”
A roaring fills my ears, and I squeeze my eyes shut, grasping for a foothold. Reaching invisible hands out to my magic as if I can force it back into submission. But the powerful wave of the queen’s order keeps building, standing over me like a vengeful god waiting for the chance to pounce.
And then it does.
The cover to the well of my magic is removed, and my power comes rushing out from where it’s been trapped. A scream rings out on the beach—mine—as my back arches and the familiar hum of my power settles into every muscle. Seeps into every pore and nerve ending and space between my bones. I open my eyes wide, my vision haloed in bright white light as one of myarms lifts. With a grunt from the force of it, my magic bursts from my fingertips and hits the armored siren in her chest, her body filling with my power. Glittering light bleeds into her veins, lighting them beneath her dark brown skin. It makes her look like fracturing marble, and fear punches through my chest at the thought that my magic might shatter her.
Yet, in the same breath that I worry for the siren’s life, another emotion takes root.
It has beenso longsince I’ve used my power. So long since I’ve felt it alive within me. And it feels…good. Wisps seep away from the path of the siren and begin slithering over the sand, my magic feedingme information, sensing the world around me as it tries to decipher my intentions. It leaves me overwhelmed and desperate as I claw for more of it, never wanting to lose this connection again. I just wantmore, and that want smothers the small voice of reason in my mind that is trying to remind me that what I’m doing is wrong. That this iswrong.
The queen takes a step towards me, her pitch-black eyes narrowing with deep suspicion. She doesn’t order me to stop, andthatmakes a smile not my own curl my lips upward. Only when the siren is completely glowing with veins of white light does my magic slowly begin to recede on its own, pulling the remnants that have crept out around me with it. Disappointment and longing pull at my chest, and I cling heartily to this intrinsic part of myself. I don’t want it to disappear again. I don’t want to lose the connection to it. But the power of the queen’s command ebbs away and, with it, so does the connection to my magic.
“How do you feel?” Queen Amari asks her siren, the latter staring at her open hands as if the magic I’ve sent through her will come manifesting out of her palms too.
“I feel… the same,” she says between the quick rise and fall of her chest. “Ormostlythe same.”
“See? My magic will not make her live through crossing the Spell. She—”
