“I can’t help him—I can’t save him. Because my magic…” Gods, it hurt, but she forced it out anyway.
“Because my magic isgone.”
Chapter 3
“What do you mean, your magic is gone?”
Trefor’s blurted question rang through the room. Mariah closed her eyes, removing her hand from Feran’s and clenching it into a fist. In the silence there was a lowthudand a muffled “ow,” like someone had been elbowed sharply in the ribs.
“Stop hitting Trefor,” Mariah said wearily. Her confession had strangely lifted a weight from her shoulders. The crushing emptiness in her chest was still deceitfully dissociative, but at least now there was one fewer thing she worried about keeping from her friends.
“And I mean just that,” she continued, pinning her gaze on her blond-haired Armature. He swallowed, sea-green eyes wide as he rubbed a spot on his side. Mariah sighed, hanging her head to stare at her hands.
“After…Khento,” she said, choking on the name. “When we fled and made it to Kreah. I shifted back, and it was like—like when the dragon retreated, so did everything else. I was so upset, so broken, I just shoved it all down so I didn’t have to seeit anymore. That whole night, I let it go quiet. And then the next day…” She shook her head, that same empty pit yawning open within her, screaming back.
“The next day, when I tried to reach for it, to call up just a little bit, it was gone. Only emptiness.” Mariah lifted her head, sweeping her gaze over her friends. “It’s just been that same emptiness ever since. And—and I can’t say I don’t enjoy it. The quietness, this hollow feeling… I’ve come to crave it.”
Ciana rested her head on Mariah’s shoulder, arms again wrapping around her. “I don’t think anyone here would fault you for that,” she said, bright voice uncharacteristically muted.“Whatever this means—wherever it’s gone—we will figure it out. Together.”
The others nodded, and Mariah with them, but she didn’t feel it; not really. Ciana said the right words, and Mariah knew her best friend meant well and spoke the truth. They would try to help Mariah the best they could, would do whatever she asked if it meant their queen could be powerful again.
But Mariah knew the reality. That no matter what they did to help her, this wasn’t a problem any of them could fix.
This was something broken within her. While it was true that most wounds healed, some never did.
Only time would tell which this was. Mariah was too numb and cracked to care.
Ciana released her. Mariah felt the warmth of her amber stare on her cheek. “I know it’s hard,” she said quietly, “but have you thought about looking in the diary?”
The question clanged through Mariah.
Her mother’s diary. The small silver book withGinnelevéembossed on its cover and magic woven through its pages.
No. She hadn’t looked. Hadn’t been able to do more than clutch it to her chest every morning before she left for her run or rest her head against it when she tried to sleep every night.
Tears again burned behind her eyes. She parted her mouth to speak, unsure of what she would even say. But her words were trapped in her throat as a roar tore through the still morning, rattling the walls of theserekah.
She knew that roar. It haunted her nightmares, lurked in the darkness of her waking dreams. She whipped her attention to the window, to the desert sunlight streaming in through the double-paned glass. Fear spiked through her, a fiery prick in the void of her emptiness.
Two large shapes slowly descended from the shimmering blue skies, membranous wings casting a pale shadow on the city below. One was the color of the brilliant day sky behind her, pale jewel-toned scales nearly blending into the heavens.
Mariah swallowed. She didn’t recognize the other. But she had to trust Rulene, even as the sight of the second dragon’s dark scales curdled bile in her stomach, a mix of fear and hate and rage bubbling just out of her reach.
Kol would not be here. Some instinct, something she tried to ignore, told her that this new arrival was not the fallen god of sun and shadows.
Mariah stood, still staring out that window. “I’m glad you’re awake, Feran. If you need anything?—”
Feran chuckled. “Go,” he said. He nodded at the window. “I’ll be fine. Besides, I have an incessantly clingy nurse who refuses to even give me five minutes of peace.”
“Okay, mister ‘I can’t hold a spoon with my left hand so can you please feed me lunch?’”
The visible half of Feran’s face twisted into a scowl, but amusement danced in his eye. “That was low, even for you.”
Drystan smirked. “I can go lower, if you want?—”
“Gods, please at least wait until we leave the room,” Matheo groaned, shoving Drystan’s shoulder.
Their banter almost made Mariah smile.
