Malachi starts walking again, leading me through the dark rear passages of the palace. “She resurrected an aether wielder, Hazel. I don’t care how we define her magic; she is the chosen I saw in my visions. Her magic is the missing piece.”
“She can’t even wield it.”
“She will.” He sounds so certain.
I could spoil his mood by letting him know how far away her magic was when I grabbed her arm, but I don’t. After all, Elorie’s magic is endless. The trouble is, it acts as if it has a mind of its own, like mine. Not simply a part of her, but tied to something else entirely, bending her to its will.
“When will you tell me more about your visions?” I ask him, pausing as he opens a door that leads into the depths of the dungeon. “Where did they come from?”
Malachi’s light flares, igniting a path for us down the spiraling stone staircase.
“You know as much as you need to,” is all he shares.
An agitated spit of magic brushes off his shoulder. It’s shifting lately. Something else reflects in his light.
Malachi stops when we reach the bottom of the stairs, and he doesn’t bother letting his light follow us deeper into the dungeon.Labored breathing comes from all around us, setting me on edge. Death permeates from the belly of cells beyond.
He stops at the loom that sits near a small well. It once glowed as beautifully as a star in the night sky, but now the fibers in the wood are dull. Malachi brushes a finger over the spindle, pausing long enough to prick himself. He shifts his hand over the small circle of stone in the center of the room, dripping blood into it.
There are a few places in the palace where Malachi can tap into the magic of the realm to read its health. But here, in this particular spot, the magic of the realm connects with a vein that leads directly to the Well. Since discovering that, this is the only one he visits. Curious what the Well and its creatures are doing to our land.
“The Well is temperamental. Unpredictable.” Malachi grits his teeth as he reads his connection. “The full moon cannot come soon enough. I need to harness her power if our plan is going to work.”
“I hear she failed to resurrect her maid.” I circle the room, brushing my shadows against the darkness, soothing them. “Not even a flicker of magic. Yet another of Wilder’s ideas failed miserably. Why do you bother listening to him?”
“Because he made a good point. The girl is emotional, and that was our best chance. She’d grown attached to Isolde.”
“Foolish of her.”
“Human of her,” Malachi corrects. “It was a thought, and it didn’t work. In any case, Wilder and I want the same thing, so it was worth trying. She’s useless to us both if her power doesn’t wake, and there isn’t enough time to wait out the next prophecy.”
I graze my magic against the stone. Letting vines of it slither through the dungeon until they reach a cold husk in the first cell. “One of your prisoners is dead.”
Malachi snorts a breath,not caring.
I angle my chin to one of the guards, urging him to clean up the mess. He covers his mouth at the stench of death, and I let my magic falter just enough to get a hint. To see what this realm has come to.
The brisk air in the dungeon prickles my arms. It reeks of vomit and piss. The stench of rotting flesh hangs heavy while rats scurry about. Little squeaks that remind me of something I can never quite place. Smells that are oddly familiar.
I close my magic and block it out. “What is next? You can’t possibly take her to the priestesses like this.”
“Why not?” Malachi continues to hold his hand over the Well, testing its strength. “There are other ways to get her magic to waken; one of us is sure to figure it out soon.”
“You and Wilder, playing with the fate of the realms. The gods do not look kindly upon those who toy with the path of the Luminess.”
“The gods cannot touch what they cannot contain.” Something dark brews in my brother’s gaze.
He watches the magic of the realm slowly surge. It’s a flicker of what it once was, barely licking the edge of his palm before retreating. Even the magic of the heart of the realm has begun to conserve itself. Already, I feel the obsidian doing less to stave this swell of darkness inside me. It reaches for the edges, searching for more.
Malachi angles his head back, taking a deep breath as he releases the realm’s magic. His finger heals, closing off the connection to Lyrichia. When he takes a step back, his face is harder—the circles deeper. His blond hair has dulled with his cheeks.
“Guards,” he yells for them again, and one comes down the staircase. Only his most trusted are allowed down here. It’s spelled nearly as much as the walls of the prison.
Malachi tips his head toward the hallway when the guard stops in front of him. “Bring me one.”
My brother manages to stay standing for the guard, not letting his knees wobble until he is out of sight. Only then does Malachi rest his weight against the stone wall, catching his breath.
Carefully, I let my magic reach for him, grazing the edge of his and testing its strength. His magic shrinks, and yet it grows. The more he drinks, the more he drains.
