“When we were young,” he said in a shaky voice, “Mom and Dad had some friends who lived out on the surface. They had a nice house in a good neighborhood at the edge of Elders’ Grove, but the best part was their yard, because it stretched right into the trees. You and I used to love visiting, because it meant we got to play in the grass and flowers.”
“I don’t remember that,” Viri said, frowning. She also didn’t know why he was telling her this.
“You wouldn’t. You were only six or seven months old the last time we went. You’d just—You’d just started crawling.” His fingers twitched around hers. “Mom and Dad usually sat outside to keep an eye on us, but that day, their friends wanted to show them something inside, and since you began howling when they tried to take you in with them, I said I was a big boy and could watch you until they returned. You were obsessed with the glowmoths fluttering around their angelrose bushes, so we all assumed you’d just stay there giggling at them, like you always did.” Guilt bled into his voice. “But I got distracted when a glimmerfox bounded into the garden, and I chased it around, forgetting all about you. By the time Mom and Dad came back out…you were gone.”
Viri started. “Gone?As in abducted?”
Braedan shook his head, though his pale face indicated that whatever he was about to say was worse. “You’d crawled away, following some glowmoths deeper into Elders’ Grove. It was early afternoon, nowhere near a risky time of day, but…that close to Mount Mort, the wards aren’t as strong, and the blackmist is unpredictable. When Mom and Dad found you, it was already too late.”
A coldness came over Viri, her body tingling with dread. “Too late for what?”
Braedan’s eyes were full of regret. “A small wave of blackmist had wafted in and back out again, right where you’d crawled. There was nothing anyone could do.”
Numbness replaced the cold, though disbelief had Viri shaking her head. “No one can survive the blackmist. If that really happened, how am I still alive?”
Her brother just looked at her, waiting for her to put the piecestogether.
She stared back at him, her heart racing, her thoughts spinning, only one possibility coming to her, but that—that—
“No,” she breathed, tearing her hands from his and leaping to her feet, scrambling backward into a bed of glowing mushrooms.“No.”
“It’s true, Viri,” Braedan said, standing slowly with his palms raised, as if to calm a wild animal.
He was wrong—it wasn’t true. Itcouldn’tbe.
And yet…
“We’ve met twice, actually,”the Guardian had said earlier that night.“Though the first time, you were too young to remember.”
And the second time, she’d used her magewish to forget—a magewish she’d received when she’d met him as a babe.
Adyingbabe.
…And then adeadbabe.
Viri pressed her trembling fingers to her lips as the full weight of her realization hit her. Her eyes were too wide, her breathing too shallow, her heartbeat too fast as she whispered, her words barely audible, “I’m the child in the legend.”
30
It wasn’t some ancient ancestor who had been touched by the blackmist—it wasViri. Her parents were the husband and wife in the story. They’d used their friend’s magewish to have the Guardian bring her back from death, which meant—
“The obelisk,” Viri gasped. “That’s why it reacted the way it did. Because—Because—”
“Because your magic is different,” Braedan confirmed quietly. “The blackmist stole all your natural ellixen, so the Guardian had to fill you with more, binding you to the raw magic of the isle—something powerful, but also volatile.” His face turned sad. “When you tried to Impart, instead of the obelisk absorbing your ellixen, it did the opposite, turning your magic against you and flooding you with its own, pulled directly from the wards, which sent you straight toward a self-combusting burnout. Everything was amplified, your connection to the obelisk opening an unstoppable river of ellixen flowing into you, but alsooutof you. That’s what—” He broke off, but Viri didn’t need him to finish.
“That’s what killed Mom and Dad,” she choked out.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Braedan said quickly, hearing the painin her voice. He stepped closer. “No one knew the obelisk would respond that way. It’s a miracle it didn’t kill you, too.”
“Because Reeve saved me,” Viri said in wonder. But then she realized, “I still died, though, didn’t I? That was the only way he could break the connection between me and the obelisk—by siphoning all my magic.”
Braedan shifted on his feet, looking uncomfortable. “Don’t be mad at him.”
“Mad?” Viri repeated incredulously. “He saved mylife. I just don’t understandhow.”
“I don’t fully, either,” Braedan said, though he didn’t meet her eyes. “Every guess I have comes back to the strangeness of your magic, with the normal rules of siphoning not applying to you.” She opened her mouth to ask what he meant, but he distracted her by flicking the end of her braid and sharing, “Before the magewish—the first one, when you were a babe—you didn’t have any silver streaks. The little hair you had was like Mom’s, like mine, but it changed after what the Guardian did. And when Reeve siphoned from you—”
“His veins turned silver, not black,” Viri whispered. “And even those faded much faster than they should have.” As if the magic had refused to be claimed by another and had fled his body near-instantly.
