Horace died. Protectingme.
Lark and I were clueless to the extent of Gayl’s power. He was so much stronger than we’d ever anticipated. We were idiots to think we could go up against him with the force of all those people’s stored magic behind him.
He’d retaliated without a second thought.
I still heard the first crack ringing through my ears in my dreams.
Bones breaking. One by one. With a flick of his hand, he snapped the bones in mine and Lark’s bodies, over and over. She, thankfully, passed out after the first few, and he ceased punishing her. She didn’t remember the agonizing pain. She didn’t remember listening to the sound of our bodies crumbling.
But my Shifter half was strong. My healing abilities didn’t allow me the blessed reprieve of unconsciousness. And Gayl had a personal vendetta. I remembered every single one of the ninety-eight bones he broke. I could feel each snap, each rupture, each stab of pain. I heard Lark’s initial cries and the terror that swept through me when she went silent.
It was the only time in my life I’d cursed my magic and how quickly it healed me. The bones repaired themselvestoofast—they hadn’t set right, and the healers had to go in and break them again to set them before my powers came into effect.
I remembered wishing for death. I remembered the pain being so blinding, but my mind wouldn’t go black. It made me watch and feel and hear every excruciating moment. And when that ended, I remembered the guilt. Guilt that my best friend had been so close to never waking again, all because of her proximity to me. Lark’s life forever changed that day. Now she was confinedto a wheelchair, her body unable to function the way it once could.
“I just want it to go away,” I said to my mother. “I keep thinking time will pass, and it won’t be as bad. But I—I’m afraid it’ll never stop. I’ll never be able to get away from it.”
She wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into her, like she would when I was a child. I missed the days when my world was so small that her embrace would make all the bad things in life go away.
“It takes time to heal,” she murmured. “Maybe not physically, but in here”—she touched my temple—“and in here.” Her hand that reached around my midsection landed on my heart, patting it softly. “You don’t have to hide these moments from me. Do you want to talk about?—”
“No,” I said quickly, clearing my throat and pulling away. “I’m fine. It always fades. I just—I just need some quiet.” When her shoulders sagged at my rushed tone, I offered her a small smile. “We have a long few days of travel coming, Mother. I don’t want us to be too tired.”
And the Fates only knew I didn’t need to dwell on that night any longer. I couldn’t give voice to this weakness, to the deep, unending fear and guilt. To how powerless I was against it. If I wasn’t even strong enough to push past this, how could I be expected to lead an entire people through hardships? How could I ask them to put their faith in me as their empress when I was a prisoner to my own past?
My mother’s gaze searched mine for a moment, but she didn’t push. With a nod, she rose from the cushioned bench and kissed the top of my head. “Get some rest, dear,” she said as she leaned away and walked to the chamber door.
“I love you,” I called after her retreating figure. I’d learned long ago to take every opportunity to tell those closest to you how much you cared about them.
You never knew when it would be the last.
9
Clarissa
Igazed over the waters of the Avonige Ocean from the stern of the ship. We’d left my empire behind six days ago to set sail for Mysthelm, and watching the retreating shores of the only land I’d ever known was like saying goodbye to a part of me, especially since I had no clue what to expect in the new kingdom.
I’d felt it the moment we crossed out of Veridia’s borders. Magic only existed within the empire, and once you left the boundaries, it disappeared. It was as if my magic was suffocated and buried deep in a locked box inside me, where I could never access it again. My fox half wouldn’t so much as stir. It was the most helpless, most vulnerable sensation I’d ever felt. Like someone had shoved an arm through my spirit and clamped a hand around it, stifling its wild nature. Silencing my magic. Losing a piece of myself made me jittery and anxious, defenseless against anything that might seek me harm.
It affected everyone around me. The small Veridian crew, my guards, and my mother could all feel it. The hole where our powers once rested, the quiet that used to be thriving magic. A sensation you couldn’t quite place that made you think something vital wasmissing.
Even now, six days later, it was like I couldn’t draw a fullbreath. I didn’t know how I was going to make it four moreweekslike this.
Suffice it to say, we were a fun group to be around right now.
I held up a hand to block the sun as it came from behind a cloud, its rays sparkling across the blue waters. Not many people in the last three hundred years since the War of Beginnings had traveled this far—or left Veridian borders at all. Before the war, relations between Mysthelm and the Veridian Empire were fairly amicable, but as it so often does, the idea of power corrupted everything it touched.
The Fates—the closest thing we had to deities—had long ago imbued the small, uninhabited island in the center of our empire with their power. Power that later translated into the six kinds of magic gifted to Veridians: spell casting, light bending, shadow wielding, illusions of the mind, traveling between space, and shifting into an animal form.
The three Fates issued a prophecy to us and to Mysthelm: whoever could conquer this land would be given its magic.
And so, the War of Beginnings was born. A brutal war that spanned across both our lands and affected hundreds of thousands of people. All because everyone wanted what the Fates had to offer: a magic our kind hadn’t seen or heard of in our entire existence.
The Veridian Empire won, leading to our provinces each receiving a portion of the magic, giving us our unique magical abilities. We closed ourselves off from the rest of the world and, as far as I knew, had no contact with Mysthelm in centuries.
We hadn’t exactly parted on friendly terms. I wanted to change that. Apparently King Galen Grimaldi did too. Although he sailed way pastfriendsand straight towife.
“How are you doing?” my mother asked from behind me. She approached in her light blue cotton dress that fluttered in the breeze. Her gray-and-blonde hair was in a bun at the top of her head, a pair of bifocals resting on the bridge of her nose.
