It wasn’t a gradual thing. One second, he was standing, swaying slightly to the right, like he was still woozy from the fall. The next, I was caught up in the landslide of his strength.
The sudden, undeniable force of it crushed the air around us, making the eerie residual magic in the ruins reverberate with an answering call. The air was alive with more energy than I’d ever felt in my entire life.
He was…lightning, an earthquake, a force of nature stuffed into the body of a man.
The floor beneath me and the walls of stone and dirt beside me began to vibrate in tune with his gathering strength. It was like a titan had come down to earth to shake the bedrock beneath us.
It didn’t take me long to understand why he’d asked me to hold on. Just as the first crack splintered across the ceiling, his magic flared again. A shimmering shield of protection snapped into place around us both.
I’d known that Emrys could use several types of magic, which was rare, but using multiple types at the same time seemedimpossible.
The world above erupted. Stone groaned as the roof made of mud, dirt, rubble, and stones split apart, seams tearing like that same titan was using his giant hands to wrench open the sky.
Debris rained down only to bounce against the shield with an audiblethud. I pressed myself even harder into him as a chunk of mortar the size of a skull rebounded off the aegis only inches from my face—but the barrier held.
Emrys didn’t as much as flinch.
He pressed me even harder against him, and another crushing wave of magic surged. With it, the ground moved under our feet. I nearly stumbled, but his hand drifted lower, seeking purchase on my gown and fleshier backside. The contact stole my breath. It wasprobablyunintentional, but incendiary all the same, as he clung to me while the world around us shattered.
As debris fell around us, his walls came down for another long moment.
Emrys, or the monster inside, or maybe both of them, reveled in the destruction, in the ground shaking beneath our feet. It was as if he’d been waiting for this release all along. But he was equally buoyed by a feeling of relief—at our continued safety or our impending freedom, I didn’t know.
My ridiculous heart still craved more of him—even now, even if it meant risking temporary entombment underground once again.
When the world finally stilled and the open sky stretched wide above us, the hand that had held me close fell away. He stepped back as hastily as if I’d burned him.
Then he scanned me with a ferocity that made my pulse rise all over again. But he was only cataloguing damage, looking for anything he could fix with his hands and magic so he wouldn’t have to face what had just happened between us.
Unable to bear meeting his eyes again, not when mine would say too much, I focused on the devastation he’d left behind as rain pelted my face. The hillside now had a gaping wound. The rubble that had rained down on us filled the cavern that would’ve become our grave had Emrys not woken.
If we’d been higher up the glacis, closer to the castle’s foundations… I shuddered. There might’ve been no escape for us if we’d fallen that far—only silence and stone and whatever might lurk beneath the fortress in those forgotten, buried corridors.
What had that space been? A temple? Another ancient mage fortress? Down there, he’d manipulated earth and stone like a demigod of old. People had said he was like one of them, but seeing it and feeling his magic’s connection to the place…it made me wonder…
Had the curse changed him into something more?
Rain-soaked on the surface, we probably looked less like survivors and more like newly returned revenants—filthy, gasping, limbs shaking, and miserable.
For one fragile, aching heartbeat, I wished the world above had changed to reflect what had shifted between us below. But I was twenty-four, not fourteen. I knew better than to give weight to fantasy. There was no use falling for a man who’d already decided he didn’t want to be loved.
I sensed a change in the air closer to the castle. We reached the gates just as the bells tolled in warning. Had Nisien sent out a search party for us? I couldn’t tell if they were ringing in warning or welcome.
Emrys didn’t wait. Without laying eyes on the heavy crossbar, he found it with magic and heaved it upward, the gates groaning as they opened before him. They had to weigh thousands of pounds each. All this after moving the very earth itself to get us out of the cavern, and he was still walking, albeit with a slight limp, and not exhausted from the deeds.
Before seeing true glimpses of his power, my imagination had been entirely insufficient. Now Iunderstood. His wasn’t simply a good bloodline. This was the power the Assembly would kill to preserve.
On the other side of the gate, Emrys stepped in front of me as guards came at us with swords ready. Seeing their prince, they lowered their weapons.
“Stormdân,” one of them exclaimed, relief and pent-up excitement radiating from him.
“What are the bells tolling for?” Emrys shouted above the din.
“Our garrison to the north has been put to the torch. The man they allowed to live said it was an act of retribution for Gelida’s dead at the hands of a spirit cloaked in fire.”
I didn’t need to ask to know who the supposed spirit was. I’d heard enough talk amongst the men to piece together the fact that Emrys had killed every single raider he’d come across when he disappeared.
Emrys walked through the growing chaos as men took up arms like he was a stranger in his own skin. Nisien emerged, half-dressed, belting on his own sword on the castle steps. The second Nisien’s eyes met mine, I saw relief. When they moved to Emrys, a rare anger took over.
