Was I the only one who could hear the risk in the blood oath she’d made? The trials could take centuries—Henosis was built on the foundation of fearing magic’s rise. She was trying to fast-track a flimsy plan in a land that wouldn’t welcome Source-wielders without a long legal negotiation.
A warm hand landed on my shoulder, and I felt the weight of Amara sitting beside me. “She sees an opportunity, I presume.”
I rubbed my eyes with the pads of my fingers. My head had been throbbing since that night Firose had poisoned me and Asterie. The details were still so blurry around the edges.
I shivered, thinking about my time in the Central Tower. The events that had unfolded there were becoming less foggy—events I wanted to bury deep in the depths of my subconscious because they no longer mattered.
Firose was dead.
You could not remain bound to a dead woman.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Sybilla is a capable ruler. This realm is depleted of magic and sitting helpless. Like it or not, Krait holds the allegiance of Source-wielders far more powerful than the ones who attacked this city yesterday. He’s lived away from this realm in peace for four centuries.”
I sighed. “So you trust him?”
“I do,” she said without hesitation. “Rough around the edges, that one, and not one to be crossed. But if he’d wanted to turn on Henosis, he would have already. We would not stand a chance.”
Letting that sink in, I nodded. Amara rubbed my shoulder, and I relaxed at the sensation of her calming touch. I imagined what it would have been like to be raised by her. My friend Asterie knew her as more of a mother than I did. The Sisterhood, Amara chiefly, had raised Asterie in the High Enchantresses’ towers. I trusted Asterie, but could I trust my mother?
Amara cut through my thoughts. “Why didn’t you attend the meeting last night?”
I groaned and craned my neck back to look at the birch-planked ceiling. “I don’t want it,” I answered.
“Don’t want what, dear?”
“A crown, a Corridor, my life to change...any of it,” I answered.
Amara squeezed my shoulder again. “I know. But sometimes, we rise to fill a need. I see a great King in you. A King like your father used to be—before Firose sank her claws into him, before his downfall. I want you to know he was a very good man. Consider attending the next meeting, please? He would want you there.”
My jaw tightened at her words, but I nodded.
Like it or not, I was going to take my birth father’s crown. I would try to be worthy of wearing it, however incapable I felt for that duty.
Chapter 3
Sybilla
Without knocking, I pushed Emmerick’s bedroom door open.
He had practically worn a track into the carpet from his pacing. A ring of shining golden light formed in his irises when they found me, as though anger ignited the power in his veins.
The new Sun King. A Source-wielder. Immortal.
And I’d known and never told him for over a decade.
Em stilled, throat bobbing, arms tensed at his sides. The rise and fall of his chest was the only movement in the room.
“Leave us,” I told my personal guards who had trailed me up the stairs.
“My Queen, Sir Emmerick—”
“King Mattock,” I corrected.
The guard wavered. “Well...Yes. King Mattock is angry. It may be better if someone stayed to—”
“That was not a suggestion,” I snapped. Fucking insubordination.
