“Go through the Spell,” she orders. When the siren hesitates, she bites out a “Now!”
No.“Don’t!” I shout, my hands trembling in front of me. “Please, don’t go through. It willkillyou.” The siren’s knuckles turn white from how tightly she grips her spear, but when the queen gives her a look that can only be described asmurderous, she begins walking again. Air squeezes from my lungs, and I spin to face King Dolian. Nausea burns my throat as I grip his forearms, shaking him slightly to get his attention. “You cannot allow this. She willdie,and I can’t—” My voice breaks, and tears crest and then fall, dotting my cheeks with their warmth. “Please.Stop this.”
The taste of salt coats my tongue, drying my mouth out as I wait for him to answer. His hazel eyes are honed in on me, and he adjusts his stance so that he faces me fully, reaching up to cup my face in his hands.Somethingflashes across his expression, an emotion strong enough to furrow his brows as he pulls me in closer. Then it’s gone, leaving only the familiar villainous curl of his lips. “There are a great many things I will do for you, Rhea. Many things Ihavedone for you.” His grip on me tightens when I try to back away. “But thishasto happen.”
“Why?” I cry, trying to look past him as the siren gets within a few steps of the Spell.
Dolian drops his voice to a whisper, his lips a breath away from my own. “Because all of those things I did for you had a cost.” My heart sinks as ripples dance across the Spell when the siren passes through. “You’rethe reason this is happening.” Tugging my head forward, he presses his mouth onto mine harshly. My hands plant on his chest as I attempt to push him away, but he only digs his fingers harder into the sides of myhead, his tongue attempting to pry my lips apart to grant him full access.
“Your Majesty, look!” Xander’s voice booms behind me, and the sharpness of it makes King Dolian draw back. His eyes widen as he drops his hold on me, and I immediately spin to face the Spell, seeing the siren on the other side of it.
“How do you feel?” Queen Amari shouts, pushing past the king and I.
“I feel…” The siren licks her lips as she shakes her head. “I feel fine.”
My mouth falls open, and if it weren’t for the fact that my knees are locked by the adrenaline from what has just happened, I would collapse onto them.
“Try singing,” the queen urges. “See if her magic altered your power at all.” King Dolian tenses, a protest already spewing from his mouth, but Queen Amari silences him. “She will not lure your men beyond just testing her magic,” she growls over her shoulder, turning back to look at the siren. “Go.”
A seductive melody fills the air, the siren’s notes dulcet and rich. The mortal guard closest to her lowers his sword until the tip digs into the sand. His expression falls lax as his lids grow heavy.
“Gods above,” Xander whispers from his new place at my side. I glance at him just as he takes a step towards the Spell.
This can’t be happening. Itcan’tbe. Perhaps there is a delayed reaction or… But no. I’ve read enough books to know that when one crosses the Spell and steps into a kingdom they are not from, the magic begins taking from them immediately. Elora had confirmed the same during one of our reading sessions together. If the siren were truly suffering from the consequences of crossing the border, it would be obvious.
But if she is alive and well, then…Oh gods.
“That’s enough,” Queen Amari says, and the siren ends her song, releasing the men from her magic. Xander shakes his head, as if clearing a terrible thought, while King Dolian draws a hand down his face, the color leached from it. And something about seeing him—the man who holds so much power over me—frightened by what just happened, lodges dread in my throat all over again. “Well,” the queen starts, turning to face us, “it looks as if the mages have been keeping quite a few secrets.”
“Indeed,” King Dolian grumbles.
“Let us not waste any more time, then.” The siren queen prowls through the sand to stand between her two companions, both of whom have a sickly sheen to their skin.
“I think we’ve spent enough—”
“Quiet,” she drawls, interrupting King Dolian before slamming the end of her trident down. The king stiffens, the result of her magical order flooding his body. There’s no pleasure to be found in the fact that he’s turned from captor to captive, however. Not when the monster holding the leash isworsethan even him. “Come, Lady Rhea,” she beckons, crooking her finger at me. “We have much to do.”
The cost for using my magic comes once we leave the beach and are in route back to the residence. My eyelids are heavy, and my body slumps against the soft velvet bench as I grip its edges.
“Did you know that your magic could…dothat?” King Dolian asks, his voice deceptively soft.
I roll my head to the side as it pounds in time to the horse hooves outside. “No.”
His fingers curl and then straighten on top of his thigh, as if he’s restraining himself from touching me.“I don’t know if it isfoolish to believe you, but I do,” he finally says, looking out the opposite window of the carriage.
I don’t respond, my body losing its battle against the fatigue that presses in from all sides,
“Rhea, if I had tried to stop the queen’s attempt to have you heal the siren—however impossible it would have been—would it have changed how you feel about me?”
His question is so sincere that italmoststops the bitter laugh that travels up my throat. Instead, I let the sound tumble out as I turn my head to look out my own window.Noneof this would be happening were my uncle not so corrupted. And now that corruption is pulling at me, shredding me apart piece by piece until I’m certain that all that will be left at the end is as vile and fickle as he is. “There isnothingyou could do to change that.”
Nox had said he wantedeveryversion of me, but what will he think when he learns what I’ve done? When heseesfor himself the marks from my time here that I cannot hide. I’d barely scratched the surface of my own redemption with everything I had gone through at the hands of the king before I was taken, and doubt bleeds through my shield, reminding me that Nox has not yet come. Even though it’s not logical for him to know where I am. Even though Simon and Dolian had relayed that he himself might be injured or sick.He hasn’t come.
I think the king might respond, or perhaps the voice I hear is someone else, but it all blends as I fall into nothingness.
Part Three
Time moves differently when pain is the only thing you can feel.
