“Well, now, I couldn’t show my cards too early, could I?” Nox said with a false smirk. His face fell, his tone darkening. “I don’t care if I win. I said as much when we first met, Rose. Why would I want more magic, more power, in the hands of the people who did this to me? To my family?”
“Why obey them at all, then?” I asked. “You could surely challenge the current governor. You could probably take on the entire chain of leadership.” Something hard settled in my stomach as I spoke, and I quickly added, “What do they have, Duma?”
His eyes met mine. “My sister. They have my sister.”
69
Rose
Silence blanketed the beach.His sister. Everything made sense now—how cryptic Nox had been at the briefing before the tournament started, why he’d never wanted to expose his Shifter form, what his dreamscape in the second trial had meant to him. He was a victim here. A puppet. And Drakorum…they’d found the perfect way to keep such a powerful being under their thumb.
“What do you mean, they have her?” Horace asked.
“When my father lost the challenge, they let my mother live but wanted to take my sister away as well.” Nox rubbed his jaw, his words stilted. “She was an infant, and they wanted to be sure she wouldn’t follow in my footsteps and take the same form as me. My mother nearly lost her mind. She begged them to let her keep her baby, swearing on her life to report signs of her shifting as soon as they emerged. The governor compromised; he let my motherandsister join me.
“Vera was raised in the governor’s household. Her every step was monitored, every movement watched. I had hoped once her Shifter half showed itself and they could see she wasn’t like me, they would let both of them go…but of course, my little sister couldn’t let me have all the attention.” He shook his head and ran a thumb along his bottom lip. “When she was only eleven, Vera created light.”
Rissa cocked her head. “She’s a Lightbender? Born to Shifter parents?”
Smiling wistfully, Nox said, “She’sboth.”
“That’s incredible,” I said, my eyes widening as I glanced at Leo. There weren’t many people in the Veridian Empire’s history to be born with two types of magic. Leo was the only person I’d met who had more than one, and his Shifter abilities were…well, not exactly of natural origins.
But what Nox said next wiped the look of awe from my face.
“And then she wielded shadows.” Ice slithered over me as Nox’s features darkened. “When Vera cast her first illusion at fifteen…they locked her away.”
Nobody said a word. Until?—
“How many?” We all knew what Lark was asking. How many types of magic did Vera Duma have?
Another pause.
“All of them.”
My stomach bottomed out. The stillness between us and Nox was thick, no longer full of wonder but of disbelief and suspicion. I didn’t know what to think. His sister boreall six? It wasn’t just unheard of, it wasimpossible. Someone with power like that…
They would be unstoppable. Untouchable. A threat to every province, to the entireempire.
Or they could be?—
“Is Drakorum using her, too?” I asked. “As a weapon?”
Nox didn’t answer. Instead, he turned his head to gaze at the water, letting his silence say what words couldn’t.
“I haven’t seen her or our mother since that day. It’s been four years. They give me reports on Vera when I beg, and they’ve delivered our letters to each other. But my mother…the governor banished her from our province once she began to fight back. When she tried to help us escape.” Nox’s voice hardened, his jaw clenching. “It was either execution or banishment. Amercy, he said.”
His neck snapped back to us, eyes blazing. “So I do what he asks. If I don’t, my sister pays the price. And there is nothing I won’t do to keep her safe in the hell this world has given us.”
I took in everyone’s expressions, their shock mirroring my own. Leo was the first to speak. “I understand. If it were my sister, I would do the same. I would do anything to protect my family. But how do we know we can trust you?” His question wasn’t unkind, merely guarded. A man needing to put the safety of those he loved first, as did Nox.
“You can’t. Isn’t that the point of all this?” Nox once again fixed his stare back on the ocean. The sight seemed to calm him; his shoulders relaxed slightly as his hands unfurled. “We can’t trust one another.Theydon’t want us to. But that’s why we must. Because if we don’t, they win.”
“And who are ‘they,’ exactly?” Rissa asked. Her dark, discerning eyes assessed him. The scrutiny of a leader, of someone many steps ahead with a future in mind.
“Anyone who thrives on the division of this empire. Anyone who lets these injustices continue. These people who revel in tournaments and trials and balls, who lock up innocent children and—” his words came out choked, and Nox paused to compose himself. “People are never stronger than when united against a common enemy. I don’t want that enemy to becomeeach other. That’s why we have to trust.”
Rissa didn’t respond. Stepping forward, she scanned him, her blonde hair whipping in the wind. Nox held his ground. His gaze was firm, resolute, unwavering.
