“It’s not what I see, it’s what I feel. It’s what Kurtis did to Magnus after torturing him.” Her voice broke. “He—he buried Magnus alive.”
“What?” Gaius roared. “Where? Where is my son now?”
Lucia tried to hold on to the horrific feelings and thoughts and scattered images moving through her mind, but they were as difficult to gather as dry leaves caught in a windstorm.
“It’s fading too quickly for me to sense that . . .” She cried out. “No—oh, goddess, no. I sensed Magnus’s heart beating in the darkness . . . but now . . .”
“Lucia! What do you sense now?” Gaius demanded.
Lucia let out a shuddering sob and finally opened her eyes. It was gone—the magic was gone, and the location spell she’d attempted was over.
“I sense only death.” A tear slipped down her cheek, but she didn’t have the strength to push it away. “He’s dead . . . Magnus is dead.”
CHAPTER 4
MAGNUS
PAELSIA
For those who had chosen the path of evil in their mortal lives, the darklands had to feel exactly like this.
Endless darkness.
A slow, torturous suffocation.
And pain. So much pain.
Magnus’s broken bones made him useless, unable to fight, to pound at the wooden barrier only a breath above his face.
The expanse of time had felt eternal, but there was no way of knowing how long he’d been there. Trapped underground in a small, stifling wooden coffin. Struggling only made it worse. His throat was raw from screaming for someone, anyone, to find this freshly dug grave.
Every time he slipped away into the escape of sleep, he was certain he wouldn’t ever wake up again.
Yet he did.
Again and again.
Limerians weren’t buried in wooden boxes like this. As worshippers of the goddess of earth and water, their bodies were laid to rest directly in contact with dirt in their frozen graves, or cast into the waters of the Silver Sea, depending on the family’s decision.
Paelsians burned their dead.
Auranians worshipped the goddess of fire and air, so one would think they would favor the Paelsian burial ritual. But rich Auranians favored coffins chiseled from marble, while those of lower status chose wooden boxes.
“Kurtis had me buried like an Auranian peasant,” Magnus muttered.
Surely, this had to be the former kingsliege’s final insult.
To take his mind off of the horror of being buried alive and utterly helpless, he imagined how he would kill Lord Kurtis Cirillo. After much consideration, he thought a Kraeshian torture technique he’d heard of involving slowly peeling off all the prisoner’s skin sounded quite satisfying.
He’d also heard of burying a victim in the ground up to their neck, then covering them with tree syrup and allowing a nest of hungry beetles to consume them slowly.
That would be nice.
Or perhaps Magnus would remove Kurtis’s remaining hand. Saw it off slowly with a dull knife. Or a spoon.
Yes, a spoon.
The imagined sound of Kurtis’s screams helped Magnus shift his thoughts from his own situation. But these distractions rarely lasted long.
Magnus thought he heard the distant echo of thunder. The only other sound was his own heartbeat—fast at first, but now much slower. And his breath—labored gasping when he’d struggled in the beginning, but now quiet. Shallow.
I’m going to die.
Kurtis would finally get his vengeance. And such a death he’d chosen for his worst enemy. One in which Magnus had plenty of time to think about his life, his choices, his mistakes, his regrets.
Memories of ice mazes and sculptures carved out of chunks of snow in the shadow of the Limerian palace.
Of a younger sister he’d foolishly pined for, who’d then looked at him with horror and disgust and ran away with immortal pretty boys and fire monsters.
Of a beautiful golden princess who rightfully despised him. Whose blue-green eyes held only hate for so long that he didn’t remember precisely when her gaze had softened.
This princess who didn’t push him away when he kissed her. Instead, she kissed him back with a passion that very nearly matched his own.
Perhaps I’m only fantasizing all of it, he thought. I helped my father destroy her life. She should celebrate my death.
Still, he allowed himself to fantasize about Cleo.
His light. His hope. His wife. His love.
In one fantasy, Magnus married her again, not in a crumbling ruin of a temple and under duress, but in a meadow filled with beautiful flowering trees and lush green grass.
Beautiful flowering trees and lush green grass? he thought. What irrelevant nonsense fills my mind?
He much preferred the ice and snow of Limeros.
Didn’t he?
Magnus allowed himself to remember the princess’s rare smiles, her joyful laugh, and, mostly amusingly, the sharp way she’d look at him when he constantly said something to annoy her.
He thought about her hair—always a distraction to him when she wore it down, long golden waves over her shoulders and down to her waist. He remembered the silky brush of it during their wedding tour when he’d kissed her, which had happened only because of the cheering crowd’s demands—a kiss he’d despised only because he’d liked it so much.
Their next kiss in Lady Sophia’s Limerian villa had struck like a bolt of lightning. It had frightened him, although he’d never admit such a thing out loud. It was the moment he knew that, if he let her, this girl would destroy him.
And then, when he’d found her in that small cottage in the center of a snowstorm, after he’d thought her dead and gone . . . and he’d realized how much she meant to him.
That kiss hadn’t ended nearly as swiftly as the others.
That kiss had marked the end of the life he’d known before and the beginning of another.
When he learned she was cursed like her mother by a vengeful witch, to die in childbirth, his selfish desires for her had ground to an abrupt halt. He would not risk her life for any reason. And together they would find a way to break this hateful curse.
But Lord Kurtis had been yet another curse cast upon them.
Magnus remembered the threats Kurtis had whispered to him while chained up and unable to tear the former kingsliege apart. Threats of what he would do to Cleo when Magnus couldn’t protect her.
Dark, nightmarish atrocities that Magnus wouldn’t wish upon his worst enemy.
Panic swelled within him as these thoughts brought him back to stark reality. His heart pounded, and he strained to break free of this small, stifling prison deep underground.
“I’m here!” he yelled. “I’m down here!”
He yelled it over and over till his throat felt as if he’d swallowed a dozen knives, but nothing happened. No one came for him.
After cursing the goddess he’d long since stopped believing in, he began to bargain with her.
“Delay my death, Valoria,” he growled. “Let me out of here, and let me kill Kurtis before he harms her. Then you can take my life any way you wish to.”
But, just like his yells for help, his prayers went unanswered.
“Damn you!” He slammed his fist against the top of the coffin so hard that a splinter of wood wedged into his skin.
He let out a roar, one filled with pain and frustration and fear.
He’d never felt so helpless. So useless. So incredibly—
Wait . . .
He frowned as he ripped the splinter out of his skin with his teeth.
“My arm,” he whispered in the darkness. “What’s wrong with my arm?”
Actually, it wasn’t what was wrong with it. It was what was right with it.
His arm—both of his arms—had been broken at Kurti
s’s command. He hadn’t been able to move more than a little without immediate, crushing pain.
He fisted his right hand, then moved his wrist and arm.
There was no pain.
Impossible.
He tried again to move his left arm with the same result. And his leg—the sound of the crack it made when broken and the mind-numbing pain that followed was still far too fresh in his mind.
He wiggled his toes inside his boot.
No pain.
A drop of mud squeezed between the narrow slats of the coffin and splashed into his eye. He winced and wiped it away.
The thunder rolled high above him. The sound had been a constant since he’d been buried. If he concentrated, he could hear rain pounding down upon his grave and soaking into the earth covering his coffin.
He pressed both of his hands flat against the wooden barrier above him.
“What am I thinking?” he mused. “That my bones somehow magically healed? I don’t have earth magic like Lucia does. I’m hallucinating.”
Or was he?
After all, there was a way to keep one alive and well long after they were supposed to die. He’d learned about it only recently.
Magnus frowned at the thought. “Impossible. He wouldn’t have given it to me.”
Still, he began to search himself with arms that now worked and hands that were previously useless to him. He slid his palms down his sides, over his chest, feeling the suffocating press of wood on either side of him.
He froze as he felt something small and hard in the pocket of his shirt, something he hadn’t noticed until this very moment.
Fingers trembling, he drew out the object.
He couldn’t see it in the complete darkness, but he could feel its familiar shape.
A ring. But not just any ring.
The bloodstone.
Magnus slid the ring onto the middle finger of his left hand, gasping as an immediate chill spread through his entire body.
“Father, what have you done?” he whispered.
Another drop of mud oozed onto his face, stunning him further.
Magnus pressed his hands against the wooden slats above him that were damp from the rain that had soaked into the earth. His heart lurched at the thought. Damp wood could give easier than dry wood, if he tried hard enough.
“No one is coming for you,” he imagined Kurtis’s reedy voice mocking him. “There’s no magic that’ll keep you alive forever.”
“That’s what you think,” Magnus muttered.
Along with the chill he’d felt from the bloodstone’s magic against his fingertips, strength also filled him again.
He made a tight fist and punched upward, succeeding only in slicing his hand with more splinters from the wet wood. He grimaced, made another fist, and then punched again.
This would take time.
He imagined that the barrier above him was Kurtis Cirillo’s face.
“Beetles,” Magnus gritted out as he punched at the wood again. “I think I’ll kill you with hungry, flesh-eating beetles.”
CHAPTER 5
AMARA
PAELSIA
Amara clutched the message that had arrived from Kraeshia in her fist as she limped into the royal compound’s prison for the second time in as many days.
Carlos had remained a strong yet silent presence, and she appreciated her guard more than she’d say aloud. Of all the men that currently surrounded her, she trusted him the most. And trust, given recent events, was in extremely limited supply.
She hated this prison. Hated the dank, musty odor it had, as if the scent from decades of prisoners had permanently soaked into the stone walls.
“Well, well, if it isn’t the high and mighty destroyer of kingdoms herself blessing us lowly, pathetic creatures with her presence.”
Felix Gaebras’s painfully familiar voice made Amara’s shoulders stiffen. She glanced to her left to see that he had been put into a cell with a small barred window in the iron door that showed part of his face, including the black eye patch covering his left eye.
She remembered very clearly when he’d had two eyes that had once gazed at her with desire.
“I would reply, but I won’t waste my breath,” she said.
Felix snorted. “And yet that sounded like a reply. And to one as lowly and pathetic as me. Fortune must smile upon me today.”
His sarcastic tone had once, not so very long ago, been one of his most endearing traits. Now it was only a reminder of her past decisions and the former assassin’s current hatred for her.
He shouldn’t be sarcastic to anyone anymore. Had all gone according to plan, he would have been long dead and not yet another problem for Amara to deal with.
“Show respect to the empress,” Carlos snarled, his heavy arms crossed over his chest. “It’s only by her grace that you haven’t yet been executed.”
“Her grace, is it?” Felix pressed his forehead against the bars and offered her a cold grin. “Aw, perhaps she thinks we can get together again. But sorry, I don’t share my bed with snakes.”
“Let’s move on,” Amara said tightly.
Felix smirked. “Have you heard from your good friend Kyan on when he plans to finish reducing this world to ash with your help? A smoke signal? Anything?”
“Say the word, empress,” Carlos said, “and I will end this murderer’s life myself.”
Felix’s gaze flicked to the guard. “For what it’s worth, she’s the one who poisoned her father and brothers without a single blink of regret from those long eyelashes of hers. But I’m sure you won’t believe me. Tell me, princess, is Carlos the one warming your bed these days? Will you send him to the torture chamber as a diversion for your next crime?”
His words were the only weapons he had left, but he was a talented assassin. Each one left a wound.
“Perhaps your swift execution is best,” Amara said slowly. “I don’t know why I’m prolonging the inevitable.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Guilt?”
She ignored him and, leaning on her cane, began to limp down the hallway to her destination, wishing to leave Felix Gaebras and his accusations far behind her.
“Do you know what I’m going to do to you when I get out of here?” Felix called after her. “I’d tell you, but I don’t want to give you nightmares.”
Felix had become like a shard of glass, one that hurt more the deeper it sank into her skin.
Carlos spoke next, breaking the silence. “He has been giving the guards great difficulties. He is violent and unpredictable.”
“I agree.”
“They want to know how you wish to deal with him.”
Amara decided to reserve her nightmares for someone much worthier. “I’ll leave that decision up to you, Carlos.”
“Yes, your grace.”
It was time to remove this shard of glass and cast it away forever.
Amara’s mood had descended further into darkness by the time they reached her destination. The compound’s prison was occupied mostly by rebels. Unlike many Paelsians who embraced Amara’s rule after suffering at the hands of King Gaius, these rebels didn’t want to be ruled by anyone at all.
Ungrateful fools.
She was ready to be done with the lot of them. And with the sorceress’s arrival and Gaius’s release from this very prison, the sooner the better.
Carlos stopped at the end of the hallway and nodded at the nearest guard to unlock the iron door.
“Empress . . .” he began.
“I will speak to my brother alone.”
His expression held uncertainty. “I’m not sure that’s wise, your grace. Even unarmed, your brother is dangerous—every bit as dangerous as the assassin.”
“So am I.”
She opened the front of her cloak to reveal the blade she wore in
a holder attached to a leather belt. Her grandmother had given it to her the day she’d wed Gaius Damora. The traditional Kraeshian bridal dagger was meant to be passed down to one’s daughter on her wedding day, a symbol of female strength in a world ruled by men.
Carlos hesitated. “As you command, your grace.”
The guard unlocked the door—this one didn’t have a window like Felix’s—and she slipped inside. The door closed and locked behind her.
Amara’s gaze found her brother’s instantly. Ashur didn’t rise from where he sat in a chair opposite the door. This was a larger cell than Felix’s, at least three times as large, and furnished nearly as beautifully as a room in the royal residence. It had been used, quite obviously, for important prisoners of high status.
“Sister,” Ashur said simply.
She took a moment to fully find her voice. “I’m sure you’re surprised to see me.”
He didn’t reply for a moment. “How is your leg?”
Amara grimaced at the reminder of her injury, not that she needed it. “Broken.”
“It will heal in time.”
“You sound so calm. I would have expected . . .”
“What? Anger? Outrage? Shock that you’d have me imprisoned for a heinous crime of which I had no part?” His voice rose. “What is this? A last visit from the empress before I’m privately executed?”
She shook her head. “Far from it. I mean to release you.”
His gaze held naked disbelief. “Really.”
“There have been several developments since Kyan stole your friend’s body.”
Sudden pain flashed through his blue-gray gaze. “Two days, Amara. I have waited in here for two long days wanting information, but no one’s told me a damn thing.” He inhaled sharply. “Is Nicolo all right?”
“I have no idea.”
Ashur pushed himself up to his feet, and Amara instinctively clutched her dagger tighter. He glanced at it, frowning. “You wish to release me, but clearly you also fear me.”
“I don’t fear you. But your release requires an agreement from you. A very specific agreement.”
“You don’t understand—there’s no time for negotiations,” he said. “I need to be released so I can find the answers I need. There is magic out there, sister, that could possibly help Nicolo. But I can’t find it if I’m stuck in here.”
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