My heart panged with missing them. For so long, I had not known why they had turned their backs on me after Luca’s death. Now, standing amid the unbridled mágik of the Varázis Erva, I finally understood.
My parents knew who I was—whatI was. All along, they had known I was not their flesh and blood. They had taken me in knowing I was Rázuri, and they had done their best to support me in the only way they had known how. Through stories, they had taught me that mágik was not evil. ThatIwas not evil.
Luca was of their blood and bodies, and when he was taken from them, their tolerance had soured and died. Their love for me had been quick to follow. Their faith that I was not evil had turned to ash in their mouths.
The pain of this realization squeezed my heart in a bruising fist, but I found that I could not hate them. Their betrayal had been inevitable—likely fated from the day they claimed me—and it had mirrored my own.
Though I had not known it, I had betrayed myself when I pledged my life to the Guardians. Every time I had slicked my hands with Rázuri blood, I had been cutting myself.
“How could I have ever hated this?” I wondered aloud, more to myself than to Harkin. He answered me anyway.
“You didn’t. Not really. You were only waiting for this moment to claim it.”
“I’ve made so many mistakes.” I squeezed my eyes shut at the thought of it. Was I even worthy of witnessing this miracle?
What the Rázuri were doing to the innocents in Ordelés was wrong, but I had been misguided to counter their violence with my own. The two kingdoms would never know peace if things continued on as they were.
“I have made more,” Harkin assured me, “but we are still here. We move forward. We will do better this time.”
“Do you reallybelieve that?”
“I do now.”
My breath caught, stuck somewhere between grief and hope.
A Tünécris floated through the swaths of colorful mágik, as if it sensed my epiphany. A tiny hand wrapped around the sleeve of my tunic. This sprite did not show me a vision—as the water fairy had. Instead, it led me to the edge of the spring. The Tünécris tittered in excitement, darting in and out of view.
I sat on the bank and unlaced my boots. Discarding my cloak and resting it among the flowers, I slipped from my clothes. Only my chemise remained.
Harkin lingered behind, hand clutching Quin’s reins as he watched me—lips parted.
Following the sprite’s lead, I waded into the spring. Deliciously hot water lapped over my thighs, wetting the hem of my slip as I moved deeper into the luminous water. Fabric clung to my hips and spine as I dipped below the surface. Water washed over my face as I sank to the bottom, the quiet pressure of the depth was a reassuring touch upon my body.
Time passed. Seconds? Minutes?
I opened my eyes, expecting to find darkness, but the water still glowed—an unearthly silver glitter on the tide. It lit up my world.
Mágik wrapped around me. Bands of silver looped around the lengths of my fingers. They traced the lines of my arms, twining around my waist and down my thighs to the ends of my feet. My fingers pulled through my hair, freeing the chin length strands and letting the mágik imbued water wash through them.
I willed myself to drift upwards, back toward the moon-washed surface of the pool. The cords of mágik lifted me effortlessly.
When I breached the surface—water running down my cheeks and lips, droplets caught in my eyelashes—I saw Harkin.
He stood, knee deep, in the spring, bare from the waist up. His expression flooded with relief then wonder as he approached me. “You were under for too long. I was beginning to grow concerned.”
“You were going to save me?”
“You have never needed saving. But I would have been there, if you needed me.”
I looked away, then back. I saw my own reflection in his warm brown eyes, as the light of the mágik around us reflected across their surface. The glowing silver mágik was not just drawn to me. It was coming from within. My gray eye shone a pearlescent white as the mágik brimmed deep inside me, reflecting off the dark well of Harkin’s steady gaze.
“What is this? What’s happening to me?” I held my arms up between us. My skin—freckled and scarred—was made beautiful again in the light of my power.
“Rázuri mágik is strongest when we are at peace with ourselves. It would seem you have finally accepted yourself for who you truly are.” Harkin looked as if he wished to say more. His mouth opened then closed, lips pressed together firmly as he gazed at me with a curious look.
I did not voice the question, but I tasted it on my tongue.What is it that you wish to say?
Instead, I smiled and let the rush of mágik flow through me. I raised the water from the pool, let it rise high above our heads. It danced around us like a looping waterfall that never touched the ground below.
