“Let. Her. Go.”
He didn’t shout it. He breathed it—like a prayer breaking apart in his throat. His voice trembled. His hands shook. His eyes—those steady, gentle eyes—were full of terror.
He was unraveling.
For a heartbeat, seeing the fear in him—fear for her—almost broke her resolve.
I can’t lose you.
His magic said it. His shaking breath said it. The tremor in his stance said it.
The Draewyn king snarled. “Bow, or she bleeds.”
43
Esther
How to End a Kingdom: burn the problem, crown the solution, kiss the boy.
Esther’s knees ached where they pressed into the polished blackstone. The cold seeped into her bones, into the bruises blooming along her ribs, into the raw strip of skin beneath the ropes binding her wrists. The dagger’s edge dug into the hollowof her throat, steady as a heartbeat, hungry as a threat waiting to become truth.
She kept her breathing slow. Controlled.
If she breathed too fast, she could feel the blade bite deeper.
If she breathed too shallow, she felt her courage slipping like sand.
Inside her chest, however—
Inside her chest lived a storm.
A furious storm that slammed against her ribs, begging to burn its way out. It snarled every time the Draewyn king yanked her hair. It hissed whenever he breathed his cheap-smoke breath down her neck. It screamed every time she felt her own fear trying to rise higher than her resolve.
She couldn’t let that storm loose.
Not yet.
Not until—
“Stay still, princess,” the king hissed, spittle hitting her cheek. “Your armies should be arriving any moment. Let’s hope they value you alive enough.”
They would.
She knew they would.
And that was exactly why she couldn’t move.
Her magic reached outward like frantic fingers—feeling for the signatures she loved, the ones she trusted.
She felt them.
Nythir’s magic first. A pulse of silver so fierce it made her bones ache. It wasn’t calm, not anymore—it crashed, wild and desperate, like lightning trying to claw its way across the plains.
Then Lucy’s unhinged spark—sharp, reckless, unmistakably Lucy. Basil’s was a trembling hum, frantic but determined. Lyssara’s was a burning coal, simmering with fury. Vorrik’s was a bonfire, crackling with enthusiasm and terrible ideas.
And many others, who she had yet to meet.
Her people.
