Familiar frustration welled within Amara. Her brother—rich and handsome and influential—had developed a crush on a meaningless, red-haired former squire to the king of Auranos.
Amara had been one of the few that knew of and wholly accepted Ashur’s romantic preferences over the years, but Nicolo Cassian wasn’t worthy of the affections of her brother.
“You think you can save him, do you?” she asked.
Ashur clenched his fists at his sides. “Not from behind a locked door I can’t.”
“Give it another week, you’ll forget all about him.” She ignored the darkness that slid behind Ashur’s gaze at her claim. “I know you, brother. Something or someone new will draw your interest. In fact, I have something right here that might help.”
Amara held out the parchment toward her brother.
He snatched it away from her, his glare intense on her before he read the message.
“A message from Grandmother,” he said. “The revolution has been crushed in its infancy, and she says that all is well.”
Amara nodded. “You can see that she asks me to return immediately to the Jewel for my Ascension.”
“Yes, you’ve been empress in name only up until now, haven’t you? Must have the Ascension ceremony to make everything binding for all eternity.” He scrunched the message up and let it fall to the floor. “Why tell me this, Amara? Do you wish for me to congratulate you?”
“No.” She took her hand off her dagger and began limping in short, nervous lines, the pain in her bound leg a welcome distraction. “I came here to tell you that I . . . I regret very few decisions I’ve made these last months, but I deeply regret how I’ve treated you. I’ve been horrible to you.”
Ashur gaped at her. “Horrible? You stabbed me in the heart.”
“You betrayed me!” This came out close to a scream before she managed to clamp down on her unhelpful emotions. “You chose an alliance with Nicolo . . . with Cleo and Magnus . . . over one with your own sister!”
“You leapt to conclusions like you always have,” Ashur growled. “You didn’t give me a chance to explain. Had I not taken the resurrection potion, the death you gave me would have been permanent.” He stopped talking, taking a breath to compose himself. “The moment you learned I lived, you blamed our family’s murder on me and had me thrown into a pit to become a meal for a monster. Please, sister, tell me how I can forgive and forget?”
“The future is more important than the past. I am empress of Kraeshia—and that will be a fact forever chiseled into history after my Ascension. I make the rules now.”
“So what rules would you like me to follow, your grace?”
Amara flinched at his razor-sharp tone. “I wish to make amends between us. I want to show you that I regret what I’ve done when it comes to you. I was wrong.” The words tasted foul, but that made them no less true. “I need you, Ashur. This has been proven to me time and again these last months. I need you by my side. I want you to come back with me to Kraeshia, where I will officially pardon you for the crimes you’ve been accused of.”
Amara raised her chin and forced herself to meet his gaze. He stared back at her with unbridled shock.
“You’re the one who accused me of these crimes,” he said.
“I will tell everyone that was a plan set forth by Gaius. I’ve been forced to set him free, so what do I care if there’s a target on his back?”
“Why were you forced to set him free?”
“Lucia Damora arrived,” she said. “I thought it best not to cross a sorceress.”
Amara hated how frightened she was of Lucia, but her magic was as incredible as rumored. In Auranos, Amara had seen only a glimpse of Lucia’s power, but it had strengthened and grown since then.
She knew she could not defeat her.
And the child . . .
Lucia had not given more information about the baby she’d arrived with, but there were rumors spreading like wildfire.
Carlos himself had overheard the young man that Lucia had arrived with speaking with a friend about the baby, saying that she was Lucia’s own child by blood. Her child and an immortal’s.
If true, this would be incredibly useful information.
Between Lucia, Gaius, and the thought that Kyan was out there somewhere, waiting to return to burn everything down around her, Amara had had enough of this tiny kingdom that had only brought her misery.
“All I care about is getting away from here, away from Mytica,” she told Ashur. “I will not put myself, or you, in harm’s way a moment longer. I’m going home for the Ascension, as our grandmother requests. Perhaps you won’t even believe this, given all I’ve done, but you are the only member of our family that I’ve ever valued.”
Ashur’s expression turned wistful. “Neither of us ever fit in, did we, sister?”
“Not in the ways that Father would have liked.” She regarded him, her defenses down, as she remembered how good it was to have someone to believe in wholly, someone to trust without question. “Leave the troubles of the past behind. Come with me, Ashur. I will share my power with you and only you.”
He held her gaze for a long moment. “No.”
Surely she’d heard him wrong. “What?”
He laughed coldly. “You wonder why I sided with Nicolo after knowing him for a handful of weeks? Because he possesses the purest heart I’ve ever known. Your heart, sister, is as black as death itself. Grandmother has worked her own particular kind of magic in manipulating you to her will, hasn’t she? And you don’t even realize it yet.”
Amara’s cheeks flamed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Let me be as blunt as I can with you so there’s no room for misunderstanding,” Ashur said. “I will never in a million years trust you again, Amara. The choices you’ve made are unforgivable. I would rather live a life as a peasant than take any power you wish to share with me, knowing that any minute you would gladly plunge a dagger into my back if it served you better.”
Amara fought against the tears that stung her eyes. “Are you so much of a fool that you’d give up the opportunity I’ve given you today?”
“I want no part of your life anymore. You’ve chosen your path, sister. And it’s one that will lead to your destruction.”
“Then you’ve made your final choice.” The words came out as a strangled cry. “Carlos! Let me out of here!”
A moment later, the door swung open.
The words like daggers in her throat, she cast one last look at Ashur. “Farewell, brother.”
Outside the prison, the sky was dark with rainclouds. Amara leaned against the stone wall, trying to collect herself.
She wondered how much Cleo’s water magic had to do with the unpredictable weather over the last two days. The princess was in mourning for her lost husband.
Magnus Damora was dead.
Someone else you betrayed for your own gain, she thought.
She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing to block out the world.
Amara knew she should celebrate Magnus’s death—should thank Lord Kurtis for removing one more enemy from her list if he ever showed his face again.
After a moment, she opened her eyes. Amara’s stomach lurched. Nerissa Florens was walking across the grounds toward her.
The former attendant to the empress and secret full-time rebel spy—secret, at least, until very recently—came to a stop before the empress.
Yet another person Amara would prefer to avoid.
“You’re back from the search?” Amara asked tightly.
Nerissa nodded. “The others will be back at dusk, but I wanted to check on Princess Cleo.”
“So kind of you.”
“You’ve been crying.”
Amara fought the urge to wipe her eyes. “The compound is dusty, that’s all.”
“You went to visit your brother, didn’t you?”
Amara gave her a cutting smile. “Yes, I did, actually. In the very prison you would be in for treason had Cleo not intervened on your behalf. Don’t give me a reason to change my mind.”
Nerissa didn’t react at all to the harshness in Amara’s tone. “I know I hurt you.”
“Hurt me?” Amara laughed lightly at this. “That’s rather unlikely.”
Nerissa absently tucked a piece of her short black hair behind her ear. “I need you to know, your grace, that I sided against you only because you gave me no other choice. My loyalty is and always has been to Princess Cleo.”
Amara gripped her cane tighter. “Yes, that’s become crystal clear, Nerissa.”
The betrayal had cut deeper than Amara would ever admit. Nerissa had swiftly become more than an attendant to her, more even than a friend.
Nerissa blinked. “I saw it, you know.”
“Saw what?”
“Your true self. A part of you that isn’t hard and cruel and hungry only for power.”
The pain in Amara’s leg shifted momentarily to her heart. But only for a moment.
She forced a pinched smile to her lips once again. “You were only seeing things. Your mistake entirely.”
“Perhaps,” Nerissa said softly.
Amara eyed the girl with disdain. “I had heard tales about you, most that I had dismissed as only rumors. It seems that your ability to seduce your way into influential beds is second to none. The perfect little rebel spy, aren’t you?”
“I seduce only those who are willing to be seduced.” Nerissa held her gaze for another small eternity before she bowed her head. “If you’ll excuse me, your grace. I must see to the princess.”
Amara watched the girl walk away toward the royal residence, her heart a tight knot in her chest.
Her mind was set. It was time to leave Mytica.
Time to plan her next move.
CHAPTER 6
JONAS
PAELSIA
Jonas had stayed at the royal compound far longer than he’d ever intended.
He stayed for Cleo, for Taran, for Enzo and Nerissa. And for Felix, who’d managed to get himself locked up again.
And, it would seem, he stayed to help in the search for his former enemy.
Lucia believed that Prince Magnus was dead, but the search still continued. When she’d asked Jonas to help, he found that he couldn’t say no.
After a long, exhausting, and fruitless day of searching the barren Paelsian landscape beyond the gates of Basilius’s former compound, Jonas fell into the deepest sleep he could remember. One that blissfully lacked any nightmares.
But then it happened. As if grasped from one world and yanked into another, he found himself standing in the middle of a grassy field facing a man in long shimmering white robes. A man he recognized all too well.
Timotheus wasn’t old—or, at least, he didn’t appear to be old. His face was no more lined than Jonas’s brother Tomas’s would have been at twenty-two, had he lived.
His eyes, though, betrayed his true age. They were ancient.
“Welcome, Jonas,” Timotheus said.
Jonas glanced around, seeing nothing but the grassy field stretched out in all directions. “I figured you were done with me.”
“Not yet.”
Jonas turned to meet Timotheus’s gaze fully, refusing to be intimidated by this immortal. “I defied your prophecy. Lucia is still alive.”
“Yes, she is. And she had a child—a daughter named Lyssa, whose eyes glow with violet light on occasion.” Timotheus nodded at Jonas’s shocked look. “I have ways of knowing many things, so let’s not waste time retreading what has already occurred. The child is of great interest to me, but she’s not why I need to speak with you now.”
Fresh resentment coursed through Jonas. These otherworldly immortals spent centuries watching mortals through the eyes of hawks but provided little in the way of actual help. He preferred it when Watchers were only myth and legend he could ignore at will, not an annoying reality.
Jonas paced nervously back and forth. This didn’t feel like a dream. In a dream, everything seemed hazy, and hard to grasp on to.
Here, he could feel the mossy ground beneath his feet, the warm sunlight on his face. He could smell the flowers that surrounded them as fragrant as those in his sister Felicia’s small garden.
Roses, he thought. But sweeter somehow. More like the sugar crisps he’d enjoyed as a rare treat as a young boy, made by a kind woman in his village.
He shook his head to clear it of the distracting sensations all around him.
“Then you know the Kindred are free,” he said. “Two of them, anyway. And Cleo and Taran . . . they’re in trouble. Great trouble.” He paused to rub his forehead hard. “Why did you let that happen?”
Timotheus turned his face away from Jonas’s accusatory glare. There was nothing in the distance for him to focus on; the lush green field seemed to go on and on forever in all directions. “Does Lucia have possession of all four crystal orbs?”
“Why should I tell you anything when you seem to know it all?”
“Tell me,” Timotheus said as harshly as he’d ever said anything before.
Something lurched in Jonas’s chest, something strange and unpleasant that reminded him of Lucia’s ability to draw the truth out of him whether he wished to speak it or not.
“She has three,” he bit out. “Amber, moonstone, and obsidian. The obsidian orb had a crack in it, I’m told. But it doesn’t anymore.”
“It healed itself,” Timotheus said.
“I don’t know. I would guess it did.”
Timotheus’s brows drew together. “What about the aquamarine orb?”
Again, Jonas felt a strange compulsion to reply with the truth. “Cleo has that one.”
“She can touch it without great difficulty?”
“No, she . . . carries it with her in a pouch,” Jonas replied.
Timotheus nodded, his expression contemplative. “Very well.”
The strange, magical grip on Jonas’s throat eased. “Do you have any idea how irritating it is to be lied to and manipulated?”
“Yes. Actually, I do.” Timotheus, his arms crossed over his chest, began to walk a slow circle around Jonas, peering at the rebel with narrowed eyes.
“If you know everything,” Jonas said, “you’ll know Lucia’s in mourning for her brother. If you want her to help you stop Kyan, you could tell us where Magnus is—and whether there’s any chance he’s still alive.”
“You care about someone you wanted dead not so long ago?”
That was a trickier question than he’d like it to be. “I care that Lucia is in pain. And Magnus . . . for all his faults . . . he could be useful in the coming war.”
“The war against the Kindred.”
He nodded. “Against the Kindred. Against the empress. Against anything that comes our way in the future.”
“I’m not here for that.”
Jonas hissed out a breath of frustration. “Then what are you here for?”
Timotheus didn’t speak for a moment. Jonas realized that despite the immortal’s eternal youth, he looked tired and drawn, as if he hadn’t slept in weeks.
Do immortals even need sleep? he wondered.
“This is almost over,” Timotheus finally said, and Jonas could have sworn he heard pain edging his words.
“What is almost over?”
“My watch.” Timotheus sighed, and with his hands clasped behind his back, he began moving again through the long grass. He looked up at the sunless but bright blue sky. “I was created to watch over the Kindred, watch over mortals, watch over those of my own kind . . . I have failed in all regards. I inherited Eva’s visions, and they’ve been no use to me other than to see a thousan
d versions of what might be. And now it has come to this.”
“To what?” Jonas prompted.
“A small handful of allies that I’ve enlisted to foolishly fight against fate itself. I saw you in my visions, Jonas, years ago. I saw that you would be useful to me. And I’ve come to realize that that you are one of the few mortals I can trust.”
“Why me?” Jonas asked, stunned. “I . . . I’m nobody. I’m the son of a Paelsian wine seller. I stupidly joined a war against a good king and helped put Mytica into the hands of the King of Blood. I’ve led friends to their deaths because of my idiotic choices to rebel against that king. I’ve lost everything I’ve ever cared about. And now I have this strange magic inside me . . .” He rubbed his chest where the spiral mark had appeared only a month ago. “And it’s useless to me. I can’t properly channel it at will to help anyone or anything—not even myself!”
“You think too much, Jonas Agallon.”
Jonas let out a nervous snort of laughter. “No one’s ever accused me of that before.”
A small smile touched Timotheus’s lips. “You are brave. You are strong. And you are worthy of this.”
From the folds of his robe, Timotheus drew out an object. It was a golden dagger, beautiful, unlike anything Jonas had ever seen in his life. The blade was covered in etchings. Symbols—some of which appeared to be the symbols for elemental magic.
Something shimmered from the blade. Jonas couldn’t see it exactly, but he could sense it.
Magic. But not just any magic—ancient magic.
Timotheus placed the heavy golden hilt in his hand. Jonas inhaled sharply as a cool shiver of that ancient magic traveled up his arm.
“What is this?” he managed to ask.
“A dagger,” Timotheus said simply.
“I can see that much. But what kind of dagger? What does it do?”
“It can kill.”
Jonas glared at the immortal. “Just speak plainly to me for once, would you?”
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