“You were the one who stopped us here—” I waved my arms around us. “On a fragile cliff that barely met the definition of a foothill.”
A hardness returned to his expression. “I stopped us here out of consideration for your—”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh stop. It doesn’t matter. Just release my magic from whatever tether you mentioned earlier, and I’ll take us down a better way.”
One of his hands tightened into a fist. “I cannot free your magic without using my magic. You will have to command me. Make the request as my master. But I would suggest you wait—”
“Andar,” I interrupted. My magic was too important to wait for anything. “My second request as your master is that you free my magic from whatever is binding it to the mountains and return it to me so that I have the same power as I had before my imprisonment.”
He bowed his head, and then stepped closer to me. So close my breath hitched. He settled his hands onto the sides of my head so that his thumbs landed on my temples and his fingers curled around my skull. Power pulsed through the air around us, thickening into warm clouds that started at our feet and grew, expanding until they filled my view. I closed my eyes and held my breath, counting silently in my head.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
He let go of my head. I kept my eyes closed, though, because the warm clouds still pressed against my skin.
Andar spoke softly. “It is done.”
I shifted my mind to the refreshing coolness that always came with my magic, and—
Power rose to my fingertips.
I cooled the air around me with a thought, forcing the warm clouds to scatter. I breathed more easily as my own strength rushed through my limbs. The balance that had eluded me earlier came naturally. My constant stumbles had not been related to time in a cave. No. That had come from not having access to my own magic.
“Finally,” I whispered as power filled my body. “Finally.”
Chapter 4: Khiona
Iopened my eyes and Andar filled my view, standing only inches away from me. Yes, he was still bigger and stronger than me, but now—
Now I had my own power. Knowing I could freeze him with a thought made him far less intimidating. I waved my hand, hardening a thick platform of ice in front of the cliff we stood on. “Let’s go.”
He followed me onto the frozen platform, and I directed it to float us farther down the mountains and into the valley. I moved us faster than we could walk or run but slower than Andar had, taking care to make our descent controlled and smooth. When the cliffs and foothills were far behind us, I set our platform gently on an ice-covered meadow.
Andar stepped off the icy platform I’d made, smiled slowly, and bowed. “Your exit strategy was superior, Your Majesty.”
His compliment warmed something in my soul, but then I remembered. “First you admit to wanting my help. Now you flatter me.” I gestured at the empty meadow. “Is this a safe place to speak?”
He turned away from me, toward a pile of boulders where a sickeningly sweet melody rose from a stringed instrument. “I believe we will be interrupted soon. Perhaps we should wait until after they pass.”
I nodded, annoyed at his delay, curious at what someone with his fathomless power could need, andequally aware that—if our positions were reversed—I would not want to discuss my own weaknesses in front of a potential audience.
That audience entered our meadow with an obnoxious flair, as if they expected us to be waiting for them to perform while they waltzed across the frozen field.
One of them waltzed, I corrected myself. The tallest one who played the lute skipped around the two horses carrying fae and a third carrying bags. He sashayed back and forth for invisible admirers, ignoring the other riders, as if he couldn’t stop performing. The taller rider wore the determination of a librarian on a mission to reshelve a book out of place, his thumbs looped through his horse’s reins. The third, obviously shorter than most fae, rode along as if he had no care in the world, occasionally slowing to laugh at the dancer or tip his head toward a bird.
The three of them spotted us and shifted their direction until they stood directly in front of us.
“Greetings,” the short one said, bowing with a flair. “It is a privilege to meet a woman as beautiful as royalty, even if she is traveling with a handsome and pungent man as your companion.”
