The one who’d tried to keep me from climbing across the castle wall to reach Merrick?
A blink and she was Erisandra—ornotErisandra—again, rising to her feet with a violent surge.
Her hands snapped out, paler than I remembered, and magic blasted toward me with a force that made the room bow outward.
Calling shadows to protect me, I flung my blades at her. But with a lift of her hand, she deflected them, sending them toward the outer walls, where they impaled themselves to the hilt.
The guards couldn’t move fast enough. Lore’s magic couldn’t encase her fast enough.
And my shadows…
They dropped away from me and sidled across the marble tiles towardher.
Her glare pinned me in place, and the dark magic she hurled at me again twisted through the air, seeking me with a hunger that gnawed on my bones.
I called more power and whipped it to shadows that coiled up from the floor in a fluid dance to meet her spell.
Lore’s elemental magic roared. Heat pressed against my side as flames licked up his forearms.
Our power surged out as one. Where my shadows devoured her spell like ink flooding water, his flames burned so white they scorched the air itself. This wasn’t planned. We didn’t need words or even a shared glance to know what we must do. Our magic fused and snapped between us in a wall unlike anything I'd seen or heard of before.
The collision was blinding. Shadows and flame tangled in a brilliant knot, battering back her attack in an unyielding tide. The room darkened and brightened in waves, power surging between us in a vicious current. Magic hummed through my veins as I sent more to join Lore’s.
Together, our power didn’t simply push her magic back. It shredded it, tearing it apart until it hissed and vanished.
Erisandra staggered under the backlash, and her shriek ripped through the room again, piercing my ears. Her face flickered, her features melting before knitting themselves back together again. What replaced them wasn’t a crow or any version of the woman Iknew. This face was too flawless, its angles unnatural, its beauty unsettling in its perfection. The air grew thick with the scent of charred wood.
Someone in the audience gasped before her tremulous voice rang out, full of terrified recognition. “It’s the wizard,Prager.”
The name dropped through the room like a boulder hitting a still pond, and the ripple it made froze every person watching. I'd heard the name before. This powerful wizard had attacked Tempest, and my friend barely escaped with her life.
“She’s possessed the queen mother,” someone hissed.
For how long? Perhaps for years.
Erisandra—now Prager—turned with an eerie grace, her teeth exposed in a grin that was much too sharp. Her hand rose, and before anyone could act, magic lashed outward.
The high lady who'd spoken clawed at her throat. Blood gushed through her fingers and when her eyes rolled back and her hands dropped away, her head toppled, falling from her shoulders. Like an abandoned puppet, her body crumpled to the floor near her head.
Screams erupted from the crowd.
The high lady's blood pooled across the floor, the metallic tang of it soaking the air. Lords and ladies stumbled from their seats in a mad scramble to escape the throne room.
Prager’s eerie grin never faltered.
Lore prowled forward, all predator as he closed the distance between them. I rushed along with him, determined to protect him in any way I could.
“Get out of my mother, Wizard,” he snarled. “Or I’ll drag you out myself and leave nothing of you behind.”
Prager undulated Erisandra’s head in the hypnotic dance of a serpent. “Oh, how noble,” she sneered, her borrowed voicedripping with sarcasm. “Fused once more, are you? Such a novelty. You won’t get any farther.”
“Watch and see,” I bellowed, yanking up my skirt and pulling a small blade from the sheath on my thigh. I brandished it in her face. “We’re breaking the curse. Breaking it!”
Prager tipped her head back and cackled.
“Take her. Bind her.” Rage flashed in Lore’s eyes as our guards tightened around the wizard, magic pulsing from their fingertips. I stepped closer to Lore, coiling my shadows around us both.
Lord Briscalar rushed over from the side of the room, stopping behind us, his voice aquiver. “Majesties,” he hissed. “Prager is…” He gagged and cupped his throat, his wild eyes spiraling. “An ancient wizard. She can?—”
