So I smile at her and say, “I will wander—”
The building shakes. A violent quaking that shudders even the thick stones, dust billowing through cracks, the ceiling groaning. Then it all stops, as if the entire force were a passing earthquake.
I slowly unpeel my fingers from their vise grip on Lila’s forearm. My heart hammers in my ears.
“What was that?” I whisper.
Lila grips the wall. “The king.”
The plane quakes harder this time, and it doesn’t feel like a rockslide. It is more sentient than that. It feels like an ancient creature roaring from the depths of the earth.
The hairs on my arm stand up. “Is this why he dismissed us?”
“He’s trying to forge the diamond dagger again,” she says. “Carter told me he’s been at it all day.”
“He told me—”
“No.” She clasps my arm as pebbles tumble around us. “Maxian’stryingto forge a diamond dagger. And he cannot.”
I jerk back. “Is this a jest?”
“He tries every day, and every day he fails.”
I think of the cuts on the king’s hands, his questions toKassandra of the dagger as an Illusion, and Hector confirming that it is not.
“He has the technique wrong,” I guess.
“His failed approaches are making him…volatile.”
I bristle, remembering the way he clutched me with Reign magic during our clash despite agreeing not to. The way he shoved my limbs around like a doll’s, his grip hard and bruising.
“Then he’s not siphoning enough from the plane,” I say, but Lila just shakes her head.
But why would the most powerful fae in Amyria need to borrow energy when he possesses the strongest genius?He must be doing something wrong. He is Maxian the Mountain, son of the Sun King, his testament bending an entire ballroom to his will. The last pure Reign fae.
The walls shudder again.
“We need to get out of here!” I shout to Lila over the thundering.
“Now is the time!” she yells back, holding up the key ring.
I shake my head. “He’s already furious.”
“He’s distracted, and so are his other attendants. Come on, let’s be quick.”
—
Lila leads usbeyond the Mouth, down an unlit corridor I thought was storage. My fingers trail along the wall on my right, the other hand clasping my friend’s. Even after five minutes of walking, my eyes do not adjust to the darkness. In fact, the opposite is happening as the torches fall behind us. The temperature plummets, the stone cold. The palace rumbles again, this time fainter.
Lila halts in front of a large bronze door and fumbles with the keys.
“It’s too dark.” She curses.
“Hold on.”
I rub my hands together, reaching for my genius. It liestwitching at the bottom of my mind, and despite prodding, the magical organ remains asleep.
In the far distance, behind our backs, there is a thud, thud, thudding. Or maybe it is my heart in my ears. I swallow.
