He nodded. “Then lead on, princess.”
When they arrived at Emilia’s door, Cleo didn’t bother to knock; she simply let herself in. Nic lingered at the door, respectful to her sister, who was tucked into bed. Cleo rushed to Emilia’s side, not able to keep from smiling. Emilia faced the window, too weak to even turn her head to see her sister enter her room.
Cleo could barely control her excitement.
“Emilia! You won’t believe what I have here. The seeds! Don’t ask me how it’s possible, but it is. This will cure your illness, I know it will.” Emilia didn’t reply, but Cleo continued. “Watchers are real—I met one, even though I didn’t realize it at the time. She seemed no different than you or me. And she wanted to help you.”
Cleo glanced over her shoulder toward Nic, who’d taken a tentative step inside the room. He looked distressed, his brows drawn together.
“Cleo...” he began.
“I know it’s been hard,” Cleo continued, sitting gently on the bed. “First losing the one you love. We have that in common now, so I know how you feel. But we must go on and face what’s ahead together. It won’t be easy, but I’ll be strong. Just like you told me to be.”
Nic put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”
She shrugged off his hand. “No, she’ll wake up. She’ll be fine. Better than ever.” She stroked her sister’s long honey-colored hair, splayed against the silk pillow. “Emilia, wake up. Please.”
“She’s gone, Cleo,” Nic said softly.
“Don’t say that.” Cleo began to tremble. “Please don’t say that.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Emilia stared sightlessly out of the window at the star-studded sky. Her skin was cool to the touch. She could have been gone for hours—ever since Cleo left her earlier.
When Cleo tried to get up from the bed, her legs crumpled beneath her. Nic caught her before she hit the floor. The seeds dropped from her hand. The well inside her broke—the one she’d been hoping would keep holding. She began to sob, beating her fists against Nic’s chest. It was too much sadness for her bear. She would die from this. She wanted to die.
The answer had been in her hand, the answer to save her sister’s life. But it was too late. She had failed.
Emilia was gone.
“I’m sorry,” Nic murmured, taking her blows without complaint. He tried to pull her against him to comfort her, but she kept fighting.
“The seeds!” she cried, and then fell to the ground, searching for the seeds she’d dropped. Finally she found them and grabbed hold of the side of the bed to pull herself back up.
Emilia’s face was ghostly white. Even her eyes seemed to have paled to a colorless gray. Cleo touched her sister’s face with trembling fingers, opening her bloodless lips and pushing both seeds inside. As they each touched Emilia’s tongue, they shimmered with white light and disappeared.
Like magic.
“Please.” The word was more of a soft cry. “Please work.”
She waited for what felt like forever, but nothing happened. Nothing.
It was too late.
Cleo finally turned to face Nic. His eyes brimmed with tears as he saw the grief on her face. A coldness, like shards of ice, sank slowly into her.
“My sister is dead.” She barely recognized her own voice. “She died alone looking at the stars.”
Emilia and Simon had counted stars the romantic night they’d spent together. He told her they’d become stars when they died and would watch over those they loved. It was why Emilia’s face had been turned to the window tonight. She’d been searching for him.
Nic stayed close but silent. She didn’t expect him to say anything. There was nothing he could say to make this better.
“I was too late,” she said. “I was too late. I could have saved her, but I was too late.”
She clutched her sister’s cold hand and sat on the side of the bed next to Emilia for so long that the sun began to rise. Nic stayed with her the whole time, sitting on the ground near the window, his legs crossed.
“We should close her eyes now,” he finally said.
Cleo couldn’t talk. All she could do was nod.
Nic came over and reached toward Emilia, closing her eyes so Cleo could almost fool herself again that her sister was only sleeping.
“We need to tell your father,” he said. “I’ll do it. Don’t worry. Don’t worry about anything. It’ll be all right.”
She shook her head. “Nothing will be all right ever again.”
“I know this isn’t going to be easy for you to hear right now, but you have to be strong. Can you do that?” He cupped her face. “Can you be strong?”
In her last conversation with Emilia she’d asked Cleo to be strong. It was all she wanted. And Cleo said she would.
“I can try,” she whispered.
Nic nodded. “Let’s go.”
He put his arm around her as they moved toward the door. Cleo glanced over her shoulder one more time at her sister. She looked so peaceful in her bed, as if she would wake up at any moment from a pleasant dream, ready for breakfast.
They began to walk down the hall toward her father’s chambers, Nic’s hand at Cleo’s back to support her in case her legs gave out again.
A moment later, an explosion shook the entire castle.
A sunrise was the most beautiful thing in the whole world, even during a time of war. Lucia has risen extra early and stood outside her tent as she waited for the sky to turn a vibrant mix of pink and orange beyond the city of tents.
She hated being here. She’d been kept away from the worst of the battle, but she wasn’t ignorant. Men were dying on all sides of this siege. And she wanted it over with.
Lucia had resolved to ask her father’s permission to return to Paelsia, but the thought was swept away the moment her brother was helped into her tent by two of her father’s guards. The king himself entered afterward, his expression grim. Magnus’s face was bloody, his eyes half-closed.
“What happened?” she exclaimed.
A medic rushed in as the guards stepped back, and he cut through Magnus’s jacket and shirt to remove them. His arm had been sliced all the way to the bone. A vicious, bloody wound on his abdomen showed he’d also been stabbed.
“I didn’t even know he was still out there until he was brought back here to camp on a stretcher,” the king said. “I hadn’t wanted him to be so involved in the combat so soon, but he likes to go against my orders. Foolish boy.”
Lucia reached for him but pulled her shaking hand back to press it against her mouth instead. “Magnus!”
“He’s lost a great deal of blood. I wanted him brought here for privacy.”
Anger lit up inside her. “Magnus, why would you do such a thing? Why would you be so irresponsible as to put yourself in this kind of danger?”
Magnus’s pained face and half-glazed gaze tracked to where she stood only a few feet away. He didn’t reply.
The medic suddenly looked afraid and Lucia’s attention shot to him. “What are you doing? Help him! Save him!”
The man’s face had paled a great deal as he’d examined the prince’s injuries. “I’m afraid it’s too late for that, your highness. He’s close to death.”
The king swore, drawing his sword and holding its tip to the medic’s throat. “You are speaking about the heir to the throne of Limeros.”
“I—I can’t help him. His injuries are too severe.” His voice trembled and he squeezed his eyes shut, as if expecting his punishment for this announcement would be death.
“I can help my brother,” Lucia said. “But tell the medic to leave first.”
“Leave,” the king snarled, nicking the medic’s throat with his sword. Blood immediately gushed from the wound. “Att
end your own injuries.”
Holding his hand to his neck, the medic scrambled away from the king’s sword and fled from the tent.
Lucia sank to her knees next to where her brother now lay. The floor of the tent was soaked with his blood. His breath came slower, but his gaze didn’t leave hers. Even through the pain, he looked at her with anger. And wariness.
“I’ve heard what you’ve done to the boys from your swordsmanship classes,” she said softly. “I don’t like who you’re trying to become. My brother is better than that.”
His eyes narrowed, his brows drawing together.
“You wish to go out into the thick of the battle so you can draw another’s blood. Is it so you can sink steel into flesh believing it will make you feel like more of a man? How many did you kill today?” She didn’t expect an answer. Even if he was currently capable of speech, they hadn’t spoken since the night he’d arrived home from Paelsia.
“If you were anyone but my brother, I would let you die. But no matter how many men you kill, no matter how much of an ass you insist on being, no matter how much you despise me—I still love you. You hear me?”
Pain slid through his gaze, and Magnus turned his attention to the wall of the tent as if he couldn’t bear the sight of her face anymore.
Her heart ached, but it didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered except her magic.
Luckily, she was feeling extremely angry at the moment. It would help.
She didn’t know how her magic worked, only that it did. She’d been practicing, alone and with the tutor her father had provided—the old woman who claimed to also be a witch, despite not being able to demonstrate any real magic of her own.
Air, water, fire, earth.
She shot her father a look as she pressed her hands against Magnus’s arm. Bone was easily visible beneath the blood and muscle. Her stomach lurched.
“I asked to help with other injuries, Father. I could have practiced before this. I might fail.” The king had denied her the chance to help others who were hurt, leaving the medics to the insurmountable task of dealing with the injured.
“You won’t fail,” her father said firmly, sheathing his sword. “Do it, Lucia. Heal him.”
She already knew she could heal a few scratches from practicing on herself. But a deeper wound from a knife or a sword like this...she wasn’t sure.
The only thing she knew for certain was that she couldn’t lose him.
Lucia concentrated all her energy on healing his wound. As the warmth of her earth magic left her hands and entered his arm with a pale glow of white light, he arched his back up off the ground as if in agony.
It almost made her stop, but she didn’t dare. She wasn’t sure if she could channel this level of magic again. Using any of her magic to its extreme—such as what she’d done with Sabina—weakened her. Her tutor believed it was because such magic was still new, and it needed time and practice to grow stronger.
Instead of pulling back for fear of hurting him more, she forced more magic through her hands and into his wound. He writhed in pain beneath her touch as her hands glowed bright white. The wound began to knit together—flesh joining, smoothing, becoming whole again.
She didn’t stop. She shifted her hands to his mangled stomach and poured her magic into the wound.
This time a harsh cry of pain escaped his throat.
She steeled herself against the sound until he was healed. After his arm, she moved her hands over his bloody face, healing the bruises and cuts there until finally he batted her hands away.
“Enough,” he snarled.
That didn’t sound like eternal gratitude for saving his life. “Did it hurt?”
He let out a snort, which could have been a pained laugh. “It burned into my bones like lava.”
“Good. Perhaps through pain you can learn a lesson not to be so reckless.”
Her sharp tone earned the full weight of his gaze. “I’ll try my best, sister. Though I’ll offer you no guarantees.”
Her eyes stung. It took her a moment to realize she was crying, which only made her angrier. “I will stab you myself if you are ever so foolish as to nearly get yourself killed again.”
His fierce expression finally eased. Her tears—infrequent as they were—tended to affect him, even when they were quarreling. “Don’t cry, Lucia. Not over me.”
“I’m not crying over you. I’m crying over this stupid war. I want it over.”
The king inspected Magnus’s bare arm and stomach, using a cloth to wipe the blood away. The wounds were completely gone. Pride unlike anything she’d ever seen before shone in his eyes. “Incredible. Just incredible. Your brother owes you his life.”
She gave Magnus a look. “My payment need only be his gratitude.”
Magnus swallowed hard, and something vulnerable slid behind his brown eyes before he looked away. “Thank you for saving my life, sister.”
The king helped Lucia to her feet. “You say you want this war over.”
“More than anything.”
“We’re at a standstill. We’ve breached the palace walls, but we can’t get any farther. King Corvin and everyone who stands in the way of this war ending quickly and easily are barricaded inside the castle and they refuse to surrender.”
“So break down the door,” Magnus said, pushing himself up from the bloody ground. His face was pale and there were dark circles under his eyes. While she’d healed his wounds, it would still take him a while to recover completely.
“We would if we could. But the door is infused with a protection spell. It can’t be broken...not by normal means.”
“A protection spell,” Lucia said with surprise. “From a witch?”
“Yes.”
Anger toward the king’s mounting deceptions sparked within her. “So this is why you brought me here. Because you already knew about this. Why didn’t you tell me until now?”
“Because I wasn’t sure if what I’d been told was true until we had access to the door itself. The witch said to have cast the spell was brought before me to answer questions. She wasn’t very much help.”
“Where is she now?” Magnus asked.
“Gone.”
“You let her go?” Magnus said, disbelief coating his words. “Or did you kill her?”
The king gave him a thin smile. “She was one who conspired with my enemy. She could help him now. She would not switch allegiances. Her death was swifter than she deserved.”
A shiver went down Lucia’s arms. The king returned his attention to Lucia, his harsh expression shifting to one of caring and concern. He took her hands gently in his. “I need your magic to break through that spell.”
She glanced toward her brother for some sort of guidance. It was an old habit.
Magnus caught her worried look. “It sounds dangerous.”
“Not for my daughter,” the king said. “She isn’t just a witch; she’s a sorceress with an endless supply of powerful magic at her fingertips.”
“Are you absolutely certain of that?” Magnus said, his words clipped. “If you’re wrong—”
“I’m not wrong,” the king said firmly.
“Of course I’ll help you, Father,” Lucia said. “For Limeros.”
Seeing Magnus nearly killed in this battle made her want it to be over, no matter what it took to make that happen. All she wanted was to go home again as soon as possible. The king squeezed her hands and smiled at her. “Thank you. Thank you, my beautiful daughter.”
Without delay, and with the protection of twenty Limerian guards, they guided her across the battlefield, scattered with bodies. She tried not to see the faces of the dead. All of this senseless pain and destruction could have been prevented if Auranos had surrendered. She had grown to hate them as much as her father did for letting th
is escalate.
“You must stop if it becomes too much for you,” Magnus said when they arrived at the castle’s entrance, only loud enough for her to hear. “Promise me.”
“I promise.” She nodded, then turned her attention to the tall wooden doors before her. There was no mistaking that there most definitely was a spell on these doors. A very powerful one. “Can you see it?”
“What?”
“The spell. It shimmers on the door. I—I think it’s created from all four elements combined.”
Magnus shook his head. “I see nothing but a door. A big one.”
The door wasn’t the problem. The spell was. And it was cast by a very powerful witch—one who had delved deeply into magic to create something like this.
Blood magic helped with this spell, Lucia thought suddenly. Someone—or many someones—had been sacrificed to create such protection.
That the Auranians were willing to allow such a thing only strengthened her resolve. There was blood on their hands as much—or more so—than anyone else’s.
It would take a great deal of Lucia’s magic to break through this wall of protection. She couldn’t doubt herself. Her power was strongest when it came from a deep, emotional place inside. She remembered how she’d felt when she saw Magnus at the edge of death and summoned her newfound magic.
It rose up to the surface to greet her. The strength of air, the grit of earth, the endurance of water, and the scorch of fire.
Magnus and the others watched as she thrust her hands out toward the doors, toward the spell, and unleashed it all.
As Lucia’s magic met the other witch’s blood magic, they combusted. The protection spell rose up like a fiery dragon in an attempt to fight her—but her father was right. Her magic was more powerful. It compensated. It changed. It grew right before her eyes.
The doors exploded in a ball of fire, shaking the ground beneath their feet. The shock wave hit everyone within a hundred-foot radius, knocking them backward. Lucia hit the ground hard and pain crashed over her.
Screams of terror filled her ears. People were dying, on fire, some with their throats slashed from sharp wooden shards hitting them; some victims lay in pieces, limbs scattered. Rivers of blood soaked into the earth.