Evie was twenty-six years old. At an assembly last month, with all the magisters and chancellors together, Bramwell had bragged about appointing the youngest magister in history. That was of course incorrect information.Ihad been the youngest, at twenty-four, ten years ago. Ten years bound to the king, and never had I felt a current like this, staring into Evie’s eyes and seeing that her only wish in that moment was to escape me.
Not only was Evie younger than me, but she was also very tiny. A little over five feet, more than a head shorter than I. The thought that I could make her vanish in a single embrace was both infuriating and exhilarating.
Stop. Control.
My gaze followed her curls. I eyed her up and down, and when I settled back on her face all I could see were her full lips, slightly parted, dry from dread.
And suddenly all I could think about was how hard I wanted to bite into them.
That was something else.
Cage the wolf. Keep the storm within.
Selena must have noticed as she caught my arm gently but firmly, nonetheless.
“We should get back to it. The king awaits,” she said softly, as if not wanting Evie to hear, yet loud enough for her to.
I glanced at her hand on my arm because I wanted her to remove it. I did not like strangers touching me.
I looked at Evie, who was staring at Selena’s hand, too.
“Have a good day, Evie,” I said. My calling her nickname caught her by surprise.
She licked her lower lip, then bit it, and that was when I knew Ihad to leave before I did somethingshewould regret. I didn’t know what that would be, only that she would not want to find out.
I turned and forced my steps toward the audience hall, Selena at my side. Every nerve, however, stayed behind, snarled around the image of a tiny woman with doe eyes and bitten lips.
A realization settled in me, one I could admit only in silence. So long as Evangelina Corvo walked these halls, the storm would not stay caged. She was a dangerous presence, unraveling the control I had forged through the years.
Why had I let her enter this court in the first place?
Best to steer clear of her, to keep her, the Court, and the city of Befest safe from me.
Chapter 4
Kael — Past
The massive oak gates groaned open. People shuffled into the audience hall, honored to have been allowed to enter the premises of Lionel Valdum II, the King of Vanhaui. Kael stood by the side of the marble throne, his eyes on the crowd of common folk forming a line. The guards swept their watchful eyes over the crowd, searching for any soul foolish enough to threaten the king. Any threat he could eradicate with a single release of the storm inside him.
On the other side of the dais stood Magister Selena Hart and Chancellor Godfrey Smith of the Council of the Commons, ready to hear the people and tend to their needs. The king, who wore a tunic of red and gold, a burgundy coat of fox fur and a golden crown on his head, sat on the throne, straight up. A smile on his face. Those were his favorite days.
Kael’s relationship with Lionel was distant in name only, close and devoutly trusting in practice. His Majesty called Kael his advisor, his savant, sometimes even his friend. For a noble born to silks and marble, Lionel cared in a way few of his kind ever did. He listened to peasants with a warm smile; he sat through their petitions; hemourned their losses as if they were his own. He saw in Kael a prodigy of magic, yes, a storm he could keep on a leash, his own weapon. But he also saw a man, and he treated him like one. That, more than his crown or his title, was why Kael stayed at his side.
Lionel listened, as he always did. Complaints of dying crops in Hauvia, weather changes, not enough resources in the northern parts. Folks from Bretannia and Lutessia who had traveled days to address the king and ask for his help. Lionel listened, but every now and then his eyes cut toward Kael, as though seeking the anchor he trusted most.
But everything was interrupted when a woman who coughed blood entered.
She stormed into the audience hall, guards rushing behind her and ordering her to get in line. She cried out, begging to be heard. Then she collapsed, blood sliding from her mouth and pooling beneath her face. She would not stop coughing.
“My king…” She coughed. “Your Highness…” Cough. “You must send help.” Her throat contorted and stretched in guttural sounds. “There is a disease, an illness corrupting the east. And it is getting worse.”
Then she said four words Kael would remember all his life before drawing her last breath.
“A plague is coming.”
She fell to the ground. Dead. The audience hall froze for a fraction of a second. Nobody dared move. Everyone stood motionless, mouths agape, staring at the body of a woman who carried bad omens of a plague.
Then his instinct took over. Kael’s duty was to advise and protect the Court. If this woman had carried the plague with her, he needed to act before it spread. He focused the storm. He gathered the raw power flowing in his veins, the crackle of lightning rising from thought before bolts began to dance around him. And then he saw nothing else but white. He always saw white when he released the storm. With one lightning strike, her body was reduced to ash. Andhopefully, whatever trace of the plague she carried with it. Lionel exhaled sharply, shoulders dropping, relief so quiet only Kael might have noticed.
