What the fuck?
The wound burns and then fades suddenly, strangely. It’s deep. My left leg collapses beneath me, and I nearly lose my grip on Sylvie.
There’s someone under the table where I found her. How? There was no one there when I came into the room.
“Quinn!” I shout, but there’s commotion at the end of the hall.
I fire out light from my hands to see what I’m doing. I can probably heal it myself, though if it’s deep enough, I may need a nature-born to walk again.
Fuck. We’ve got to get out of here. “Taran!” I yell.
He doesn’t respond, but I have another problem. The wound on my heel isn’t closing all the way. The light I’m using to heal myself barely shines. My magic has been weakened again somehow, even though it was working just fine moments ago.
“Problem?” says a voice. The person under the table, the person who cut me, is a woman.
The person under the table is Zara.
For a moment, I think I had it wrong, and that she was kidnapped too. But then I see the blade in her hand.
I shouldn’t be surprised. This is hardly my first betrayal, and yet this one still hurts because not only did I trust Zara, I liked her. She was like me.
Or at least she let me believe she was.
“Poisoned blade?” I ask her. If there’s one thing I’ve never liked about Zara, it’s that she has a tendency to gloat. Without the full use of my magic, my only option is my sword, and I can’t both reach for my sword to take her out and keep hold of Sylvie. So what I need to do is buy some time until help arrives.
“Hardly,” she says. She crawls out from under the table and glances down the hall. “They’re busy down there, but I don’t think we have long enough for me to explain.” She sighs, rolling her dagger’s handle in her hand. “I thought you’d come alone. I didn’t want to have to be the one to do this.”
She’s going to try to fight me directly. Gods, she’s arrogant. She has no combat experience that I know of. She thinks she can beat me because I’m down a leg?
“How did you hide yourself? At least tell me that.”
I can see where she concealed herself beneath the table and why I didn’t notice her, but I should have been able to feel her there.
“In Eki, there’s a form of meditation that lets you enter into a state without thoughts or feelings. It’s like a conscious sleep state. It’s nearly impossible to do while moving, but it’s fairly easily managed sitting still. The real trick is not reacting when someone shows up. But I’ve had lots of practice over the past few years.”
“The candle,” I say as she brings the dagger closer. “It’s the candle, isn’t it?” It’s a wild guess, but there isn’t much else in the room that could be affecting my magic.
“Not bad, Ronan. Not bad at all. Yes, it’s the candle that suppresses your power. One of my best ideas, I think. It only affects the magic of the light-born, and only when you burn it,but there are so many candles in the palace. In the arena. It wasn’t hard to replace enough of them to make you vulnerable.”
I feel Sylvie stirring. Not her body, but her feelings. They’re faint, but I can’t tell if it’s because she’s weak or because I am.Don’t move,I tell her. I have no idea if she can feel me right now, but I beg her not to move nonetheless.
“Doesn’t it affect you?” I ask.
Zara smiles. “Yes, but a bit less than you. Oh, it really is interesting why.”
Now I’ve got her.
“Tell me.”
“I would love to, but…well, it’s complicated.” She leans out into the hall to check on what’s happening down there. To check if she has time to patronize me. “Have you noticed something unusual about Sylvie?”
“My magic is different around her. Do you know why I feel her so strongly?” I don’t admit the rest to Zara, the way that I’m able to share some of my power with her, the way my light shines even in her darkness. I can’t risk that Zara can do something with that knowledge if I don’t make it and Sylvie does.
“It’s more than just you. It’s her magic, too. The two of you together, affecting each other. You’re shadowbound. The texts on the phenomenon are difficult to come by, most of them destroyed in one of the purges. But I managed to locate a copy some time ago…such a pity I don’t have time to show you. I do think you’d find it fascinating. Now, I really am going to have to just do it.” She raises the dagger to strike at my throat, giving me no time to consider what she said.
I can’t let her kill me. Not while Sylvie still needs me. “It’s harder than you thought it would be, isn’t it?” I ask. Even with my magic weakened, I can feel her hesitation. She’s been responsible for some terrible things here, but she’s never directlytaken a life before. “You don’t have to do this. You can heal me, and you can let us go.”
“It’s a touching idea, Ronan, but no. I don’t love killing you, but it’s for the greater good. You understand that, don’t you? I know everything you’ve tried to do has been for the same reason. We really do have a lot in common. It’s a pity you could never understand that some ends justify all means. We could have done so much together.”
