Blood magic and natural magic could both be used by fae and vampyres who wielded them correctly, but angels?
Angels were supposed to be powerhouses of magic. Unstoppable.
And I was none of those things.
Those who wanted to train their magic went to Moira Seminary to learn. They had the best magic teachers at theirdisposal and explored the limits of their powers without fearing the consequences.
Wolf suggested I stop in, discover what I could learn.
I never saw the point. My magic would never be a phenomenal force like his. There was no use in pretending any different.
My role in Scarlata was commander of the army. I trained our men, I led our troops, I prepared them to protect Scarlata at all costs. None of which required magic.
Was that not enough?
Rummy resisted the pushes to attend Moira, too, though I wasn’t sure why. I always assumed it was her own rebellious streak keeping her here, even though Huntyr supported her decision to do whatever she liked.
She didn’t want to learn magic, either, and the reasons behind that were none of my damn business.
The sun rose fully over the trees, but the thick leaves above shaded us from the brunt of it. The air grew warmer as we traveled onward, but hours later, when the sun sank toward the opposite horizon, the chill fell back over us.
“So, Matthias,” Rummy hedged. This was the first she’d spoken all damn day.
I kept my focus on the forest ahead, though I strained to listen.
“What sent you running for Scarlata? What’s going on in the east that’s so terrible?”
I bit back a scoff. She had a way with words.
Matthias cleared his throat. “It’s been escalating for a while now. The new leader, King Cornelius, has become entirely out of control. He’s unreasonable, unpredictable.”
“How so?” Rummy pushed, her tone innocent. It was the tone I’d learned to stop trusting a long, long time ago.
We trotted along for a few seconds before Matthias answered. “At first, it was nothing unexpected. The ban on using magic outside the castle wasn’t exactly a surprise, not after seeing how hungry he was for control.” He sighed, lowering in his seat a little. “The real problem was when he sent soldiers door to door, looking for a special type of fae.”
“Special type of fae?” Rummy asked. “You mean fae with special magic?”
“We never found out. There were rumors, of course. Many figured he was looking for someone to rule beside him as queen, but by the time we left, he still hadn’t chosen a companion. He just ransacked the entire damn kingdom, in search of the most powerful, from what I’ve been told.”
“And what did he do with the powerful fae he found? If he banned magic, what’s the point of rounding them up?”
Matthias didn’t answer right away, but the defeated look on his face told me he knew as well as I did what the point was.
“I don’t know,” Matthias said. “But they took my sister. She spent her entire life caring for others, and they snatched her away like she was nothing. I decided right away that I had to do something, that I had to get help.”
My face heated with anger. I’d lived in ignorance for so damn long, all the while my father abused his power over anyone and everyone. I fucking hated it. People trusted him as their leader, and he couldn’t have given a single shit about them.
Power was not something to be abused. Ruling a kingdom was the most humbling position that existed.
He was going door to door looking for powerful fae? What gave him the right to go searching? What gave him the right to disrupt lives for his own gain?
“You must really care about Pericius if you were willing to come all this way to help them,” Rummy continued.
She was still using that innocent voice, but my walls had already been erected. That’s what Rummy did. She made it seem like she genuinely cared about you, but in reality, she used the façade to manipulate. To use. To get you to see what you wanted to see in order to spill the information she sought.
She was damn good at it, too. That’s what I hated about her the most.
Rummy’s laughter echoed through my chest. Goddess above, I loved that laugh. From the first time I’d heard it, I’d been a goner.
