“There is nothing to return. Your predicament is self-made, because you are not ready. But you will find that piece of yourself settled when you leave this place.”
As if in answer, Mariah’s magic rumbled in her chest. She glanced down, tugging on those familiar threads.
She held back a sob as silver-gold light swam to her fingers, winding around her wrists.
She’d spent more of her life without this magic than with it. And yet, these months with it gone, she’d felt as though she was missing a limb. A vital part of herself, cut off and forgotten. It came to her now, as natural as breathing, as easily as it had that first day with Ryenne in the palace training room.
The broken shards of her soul could no longer be mended. But with this piece of her back, maybe they could be stitched, held together by shimmering silver-gold threads.
She tilted her gaze back up, the Crieré’s words still swirling.
“What am I not ready for?” she asked. She didn’t know why she bothered. She knew she wouldn’t get an answer.
But a part of her needed to know.
The Crieré blinked again. “If you are asking, then you have not yet learned. And it is not our role to teach. Only to create.”
Of course. “Then how do I learn?”
“In order to learn, you must fail. And fail you will, Desperate Daughter. We will be waiting for you when you do.”
The being was fading, dissipating back into the endless void.
“No—wait!” Mariah tried to lunge forward, but she couldn’t move. Nothingness surrounded her, trapping her in this plane of ether. She tried sending out her magic, light leaping from her fingers, but it dissolved into mist when it left her skin.
“Fail, Mariah Salis Ginnelevé. Fail, and you will be ready.”
Power cinched around her waist. Another scream ripped from her throat as she was dragged through voids of time, flashes of light, stars blinking to life and burning out. The wavering, mirage-like expanse of the gods’ plane stuck to her as she was pulled through it, stalks of that raw magic clinging to her skin.
She slammed back into her body, still screaming. Magic crackled in her veins as her cries echoed off the ancient, lonely mountains, seven bonds of light within her roaring back to life.
Chapter 65
Her magicburned.
It boiled and crested and rolled through Mariah, set free from its chains. Light and heat scorched her veins, igniting every inch of her flesh.
And in her mind…
“Mariah?”
“Queenie? Is that you?”
“Oh, thank fuck?—”
Mariah gasped, knees buckling in the shallow water. She pressed her palm to her temple, screwing her eyes shut.
Seven bonds were awake and alive. And they were all yelling, all at once.
“I’m fine. I promise. I have my magic back. I’ll reach out when I can.”
“Wait, Mariah?—”
She couldn’t share her mind with so many. Not right now, not after what she’d just seen. Everything felt too bright, too frazzled, too surreal. She gritted her teeth and closed the bonds to her Armature with all the force she could muster.
Six of them snapped shut. The seventh—and the only that was quiet—refused to budge. But she didn’t mind that so much.
Maybe she should feel guilty for shutting out the men who’d given up their lives to serve her. Maybe she would, when things had settled.
