A shiver ran through me. I was still too afraid to put a name to the feeling that came over me when he looked at me like that. It was too raw, too new, toomuch. My secret hopes were truly playing with fire.
Owain’s voice pulled me back. “An empath,” he said. “A rare and beautiful gift.”
“Thank you,” I murmured, still unsettled by what I thought I saw in Emrys’s eyes.
“I am a conjurer,” he said, shifting his posture proudly.
My brows rose. True conjuration mages were as rare as true empaths. “I have never met a conjurer before. Is it like illusion magic?”
He laughed, delighted. “No, my lady. Not at all. Only an example will do to explain it.”
Before I could answer, a pulse of magic filled the room. It was unexpectedly dark and heated, like glowing embers of brimstone. I blinked, and a sword appeared in Owain’s hands. It was a real blade, gleaming, forged of a metal so black it seemed to suck in the candlelight.
I gasped in delight, startled but enchanted. The sword was magic made real, tangible.
Owain gasped too, but for averydifferent reason.
At first, I thought the second surge of magic was simply more of Owain’s spell—until his eyes rolled back, and a silence heavier than death filled the room.
Owain’s sword vanished as he clutched at his throat. No choking or gasping sounds escaped him—nothing, not a peep.
I swear Owain’s eyes changed. For an instant, the light in them vanished. Then it was like the whites of his eyes had been swallowed by a sudden eclipse, plunging the ring of violet into total darkness.
My heart hammered against my ribs as panic for and fear of him seized me. “Emrys!” I shrieked.
The servants moved until Emrys raised a single hand. They froze mid-step.
I rushed to Owain’s side, slapping his back like he’d choked on his dinner. “Prince Emrys, help him! Please!”
Emrys growled from the head of the table, voice a drawn blade. “The difference between conjurations and illusions,Mage Isca,” he snarled, “is that conjured weapons cancut.”
I stared at him. Then my confusion crashed headfirst into dawning understanding. Owain’s black stare was fixed on Emrys, and not in terror. He was furious.
“By all the magic,” I breathed. “Prince Emrys, stop this. He’s not a threat to you.No one is!”
Emrys rose to his feet, slow and seething. “A threat to me? No. But he conjured aweapon, at my table, besideyou. I removed the air from his lungs.”
I understood then. This wasn’t about fear. It was about power and pride. And me.
“He was merely demonstrating magic,” I said, drawing myself to my full height, which wasn’t much compared to either of them, but it was all I had. “No more!”
Emrys didn’t move. The servants shrank even farther away.
I couldn’t let this stand. Couldn’t allow a person to die under my fingertips. Top of mind was my concern for the innocent man struggling to pull in life-giving air beside me. Next, my family. If I failed at diplomacy this recklessly, the Assembly would slit their throats the second word reachedthem. Deeper still was the guilt I’d carry around if I didn’t do everything in my power to stop this.
I reached into the core of my magic, into my will, and pushed.
I cast a surge of emotion across the room, drowning Emrys in a feeling of regret so deep it should rot a man from the inside out.
“That is how you, howIwill feel if you do not stop right now,” I said, my voice gone cold.
Emrys didn’t collapse like I’d expected him to, like others had when I’d practiced this before.Damnation. The air practically crackled with my power, but he only stood there, unmoved.
Emrys’s eyes flashed back to me, boring deep into my darkest corners, and locked there, pinning me in place. I couldn’t squirm under his attention again. I wouldn’t. I held his gaze, with my hands still on Owain, pulse tripping over itself, until I saw the slightest lift of the scar that bisected his lip.
Was he about to snarl again? That made me narrow my own eyes and suck in another breath to shriek at him once more. But then his eyes softened ever so slightly.
Owain collapsed forward, crumpling onto the table. For one terrible heartbeat, I thought he was gone, half-expected him to vanish like the blade he’d summoned. But then he sucked in a ragged, desperate gasp of air.
