“She wasn’t murdered. She lived. I don’t know how, but she did. When the prince recovered her, she was little more than bones.”
She shakes her head and crumples her smooth brow. “How do you know this?”
“Raina is a Seer. It’s a long and complex story, but she can see Colden and Fleurie. The prince is guarded by his Brotherhood from her gift of Sight. Still, he is visible to her in a red cloud through Colden and Fleurie’s eyes.”
Fia sits back, hands on her knees, her spine stiff. “Why would Fleurie help the prince, though? Her father was so cruel. Best I recall, she hated him.”
“Because to live again, the prince forced her to make a deal. At least that’s what I figure. Fleurie wouldn’t have done it any other way.”
Fia looks out over the courtyards, her dark brown eyes bright with worry. “She could portal him right into the Grove of the Gods. Right into this palace.” She turns back to me. “Can she portal an army?”
I shake my head. “No, that was always too difficult. I can’t imagine her suddenly being capable of such a thing.”
Relief passes over Fia’s face, but then her expression changes into one of controlled panic. “This is a nightmare, Alexus. We need to stop them somehow. Now. And retrieve Colden before the prince gets him killed.”
“We do. But I don’t know how.”
“If I could portal there, I would take him back myself,” she says. “For that matter, I would take the prince too. That man has my wrath ahead of him one day, and I plan to make him suffer.”
“Do you have a portalist in your city with that level of ability?” I ask, worried about even mentioning this, though I have no choice. The moment I say it however, I realize that if she did, she would’ve already snatched the prince and destroyed him a long time ago.
“We had one, yes,” she says, “but he died a few years back. He was no godling, though. Most portalists are bound to their homeland. It’s an unfortunate limitation to that sort of magick in mortals.”
I think of myself, my ability to take to the sky. Much as I wish it were possible, I don’t think I could make it all the way to Quezira.
Then I think of Raina. She isn’t a portalist, but her talent could swing this situation in our favor. Quickly. The problem is that I can’t stand by and watch her risk everything to walk into Min-Thuret in hopes that she can bring Colden back. Certainly not the prince, though that would stop this effort of resurrection in its tracks.
Still, I know that Fia will find out. If I don’t tell her, Raina will. She hasn’t thought of this solution just yet—there’s been too much else happening. But now we’re here, in a place of calm, where she can think. It’s only a matter of time before she looks at me, those big, blue eyes lit up with clever intelligence, and suggests that she save us all.
“Raina has a gift,” I say, the words thick in my throat.
I have such a fear of losing her. An almost irrational fear. It’s deep and terrifying, and I cannot understand it. Fear feasts on those with something to lose—Raina has signed those words to me before—and they are true. But this… This is more than that. This is… a knowing.
“What sort of gift?” Fia asks.
I take a drink of water to loosen my throat, or I might not get the words out. “We don’t really know. She calls it her abyss. She and I were bonded a couple of months ago. When she had to learn to navigate the bond and began going into her mind to traverse the connection, she found the void. It was a fear for her for a long time. Her mother glamoured Raina’s magick all her life, so I’ve a feeling it’s something Ophelia knew about and thought it better to hide. It only came into existence after Ophelia’s shields fell. But… Raina can use that abyss to… move. She must have seen where she’s going, but it’s how we ended up here as quickly as we did. I would describe it as something between sifting and portaling. If I could imagine realm walking, it might be like that.”
Fia slumps her shoulders and rubs her brow. “I wish I knew what it is, but I don’t. To my knowledge, Ophelia had no such ability, so it wasn’t handed down from her.” She looks up, her eyes intent. “She has seen Min-Thuret through Sight, hasn’t she?”
I let out a breath and clasp my glass in my hands. “Yes. She has seen it.”
Fia reaches over and folds her small, brown hand around my wrist, her eyes soft. “You love her.”
I nod once. “I do. And I am terrified to place her in this position.”
“But that is her decision to make, Alexus. Hers and hers alone. She could stop the prince before this gets any worse and more people die.”
“She could also fail. She could walk into a trap.”
Her black eyebrows raise toward her hairline. “You could go with her. I saw what you did at the wall. I’d heard rumors eons ago that your magick was gone because of some ordeal with Neri. But that magick at the veil was not common magick. It’s the kind of magick that tells me you can rewrite the moment if you so choose, and that Raina would be safe with you in her midst.”
I almost laugh. She hasn’t been safe so far. Granted, I wasn’t fully in my power, and I’m still not, but I’m close.
Perhaps I could go with her. We cannot know what protections the Brotherhood might have in place, what we might be up against. It could end in our capture, though they would have a difficult time holding me, and I would bury all of Quezira to get Raina out. It still seems dangerous, and the truth hits me then. I would sacrifice just about anything to save Tiressia, even my own life.
Just not Raina’s.
“I need time to think.” I sit my glass on the small table. “I’ll have Raina consult the waters, so we have a better sense of our timeline. Fleurie has been practicing portaling, but there’s no way to know when she will actually do it.”
