“I have more than enough coin to not have any need of more.” Valia approached Taran now, her thin dark brows drawing together as she studied him. Taran remained as still as a statue as she reached toward him and traced her finger along one of his glowing white lines.
“Very interesting,” she said.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked.
“Perhaps.”
“And can you help me?”
“Perhaps.”
Magnus laughed out loud, drawing a sharp look from the witch. “You know, do you? And what exactly do you think it is?”
“This young man is currently possessed by the air Kindred.” Valia took Taran’s right hand in hers, turning it over so she could see the spiral air magic mark on his palm. “And yet he still has control of his body and mind. How interesting.”
Magnus found he did not have an immediate reply for this.
She was far more knowledgeable than he’d expected.
He squinted in the darkness. Something seemed odd about the woman. At first glance, she appeared to be beautiful and young, but her features were too perfect, her skin too unblemished and flawless.
If she was an exiled Watcher and not just a common witch, that might explain it.
But her left hand—it wasn’t the hand of a mortal, it was the taloned foot of a hawk.
“Your hand . . .” he said, his breath drawing sharply in as he realized what he was looking at.
“My hand?” Valia held out her hands in front of her. “Do you see something odd about them?”
Magnus shook his head, now seeing only two graceful hands with short, perfectly manicured fingernails.
“Nothing,” he said, frowning deeply. “My apologies.”
Valia drew closer to him, taking Magnus’s hand in hers and unraveling the handkerchief he’d wrapped around his bloody wound.
“Let me help with that.” She pressed her palm against his. A glowing light appeared, and sudden pain sliced through his skin. He wanted to pull away, but he forced himself to remain still. When she removed her hand, his wound had healed.
“All right,” he said, trying very hard to keep his tone steady and controlled. She had enough earth magic within her to be able to heal just like Lucia could. “You’re for real.”
Valia didn’t reply. She took his hand in hers again. “Where did you get this?” she asked, touching the golden bloodstone ring on his finger.
Magnus took his hand away. “It was a gift from my father.”
“Quite a valuable gift,” she said, raising her gaze to meet his. “Many would kill for a ring like this. Many have killed for it.”
“You know what this is,” he whispered.
“I do.”
“What?”
“Dangerous,” she replied. “As dangerous as the one who created it with his death magic and necromancy a thousand years ago.”
He found he couldn’t speak for a moment. Silence stretched between them until he found his voice again.
“Just how old are you, Valia?” Magnus asked. Bruno had said he hadn’t seen her for three decades, yet she appeared only a handful of years older than Ashur.
She smiled, her green eyes sparkling with amusement. “That is a not a question a gentleman should ask of a lady.”
“I’m no gentleman.”
“Take care of that ring, Prince Magnus. Wouldn’t want someone to steal it away from you, would we?” Valia turned to Taran again, her gaze moving over the white lines on his throat and hand. “So, you want my help. And you think I would willingly become involved with this?”
“If you can help in any way,” Taran said, “I would hope that you would. And it’s not only me, it’s also Princess Cleiona. She’s in trouble . . . we both are.”
“And you need to help the other two,” Ashur said to Valia. “A young man named Nicolo and an immortal named Olivia. However, they are not as fortunate as Taran and Cleiona to still have some semblance of control.”
“He was right,” Valia said under her breath. “We’re close now. Too close.”
“Who was right?” Magnus asked.
“A friend of mine who likes to give advice and ask for difficult and time-consuming favors.” She swept her gaze over the four of them. “Bruno, it was lovely to see you again.”
Bruno bowed deeply. “And you as well. A vision of beauty, as always.”
Valia nodded. “Take me to the other one . . . this Princess Cleiona. I want to see her.”
“And then . . . ?” Magnus asked, his voice tight.
She met his gaze directly. “Then I will determine if there is anything I can do to help you, or if it’s far too late for that.”
CHAPTER 21
CLEO
AURANOS
Cleo woke up in the large canopied featherbed and sleepily reached for her husband.
But there was no one there.
She pushed up on her elbow to see that the silk sheets on the other side of the bed did not show any wrinkles.
Magnus hadn’t returned last night.
When she’d searched for him yesterday evening, she’d learned that he wasn’t the only one missing from the palace without explanation—so were Prince Ashur and Taran.
She wasn’t sure if she should be concerned or annoyed.
As she was thinking about it, her handmaiden arrived, a young Auranian girl named Anya who was attentive and polite. Her smile held even when she noticed the web of strange blue lines that now covered the entirety of Cleo’s right hand and arm.
Anya asked no questions but made polite conversation as she helped Cleo dress in a simple yet beautiful pale rose-colored gown with golden laces at the bodice.
It was one of the dresses Cleo had had modified by the palace tailor to include a pocket for her aquamarine orb.
“Have you seen Prince Magnus this morning?” Cleo asked.
“No, your grace,” Anya replied as she gently dragged a brush through Cleo’s long, tangled hair.
“And not last night either?”
“I’m afraid not. Likely, he’s enjoying the festival like everyone else is.”
“I highly doubt that,” she muttered. “He’s up to something.”
“Perhaps he’s out acquiring you a gift.”
“Perhaps,” Cleo allowed, although she was certain this wasn’t the case. If Magnus was with Taran and Ashur, she doubted that they would be doing anything frivolous. It would have been nice to have been kept informed of any plans.
He’s trying to protect you, she thought.
“I’m not a simpleminded child who needs to be kept away from steep cliffs,” she muttered.
Anya cleared her throat nervously, her smile remaining fixed upon her pretty face. “Of course you aren’t, princess.”
How Cleo longed for the company of Nerissa again. She needed her friend’s guidance and straightforward way of looking at the world, especially when it seemed to be completely falling apart.
Nerissa had told her only that she was going on an important journey with Felix and that she would return as soon as she could. When Cleo had pressed for more information, Nerissa simply shook her head.
“Please trust that I am doing only what I need to do,” she’d said.
Cleo trusted Nerissa because Nerissa had more than earned that trust in the past.
Yet it still seemed as if everyone had left her all alone with her thoughts, her worries, and her fears.
“I heard the most beautiful song last night at the Beast,” Anya said as she pinned Cleo’s hair back from the left side of her face. Cleo had requested that it remain down on the right to hide the lines.
The Beast was a popular tavern in the city, frequented by nobles and servants alike.
“Did you?” she asked absently. “What was it about?”
“It
was about the goddess Cleiona’s final fight against Valoria,” Anya said. “And that it was not one of vengeance and anger, but painful necessity. That, in their truest hearts, they loved each other like sisters.”
“What a tragic song,” Cleo said. “And how fantastical. I’ve read nothing about them that would lead me to believe their battle was anything but two enemies who had finally declared war upon each other.”
“Perhaps. But it was very pretty.”
“Very pretty, just like you, my dear. Such a pretty vessel—I can see why you would fight so hard to keep it.”
Cleo’s breath caught as she stared at her reflection, Anya busily tending to her hair.
Who said that?
“You must give in to the waves,” the voice continued. Cleo couldn’t discern if it was a male or female voice; it could easily have been either. “Let them take you under. Don’t resist. Resisting is what makes it hurt the most.”
The water Kindred.
Cleo’s fingertips flew to her throat, to the lines that had crept up higher yesterday.
“Leave me,” she said suddenly to Anya, far more harshly than she’d meant to.
Anya didn’t argue, didn’t say that she wasn’t finished with Cleo’s hair yet, she simply bowed her head and left the room without a word.
“I need you to leave me too,” Cleo said, staring fiercely into her reflected eyes. “Immediately.”
“That won’t happen,” the voice replied. “I chose you, I’m keeping you. It’s as simple as that.”
“There is nothing simple about this.”
“The fact that I’m even able to communicate with you now means that I am close to taking full control. I’ve never taken mortal form before. I think it will be wonderful to finally live on that plane of existence. To see all this world has to offer, to taste it, smell it, touch it. It is something that has been denied me for far too long. Won’t you help me?”
“Help you?” Cleo shook her head, her heart pounding hard in her chest. “Help you to kill me?”
“A mortal life is fleeting. Seventy, eighty years, if one is lucky. I will be eternal.” As Cleo watched her reflection, her eyes began to glow with an otherworldly blue light. “You must go to Kyan. He will help you to make this transition as painless as possible. My brother does not possess a great deal of patience, and his anger can be quick and unpredictable, so you would be doing yourself a great favor, along with so many others who might come to harm, to do as I say.”
Cleo learned forward, studying her now strange and foreign gaze. It was like looking at someone else entirely.
“Never,” she snarled. “I will fight against you until my very last breath!”
She picked up the silver-handled brush that Anya had left behind and threw it at the mirror, shattering the glass on contact.
The water Kindred didn’t say another word.
Cleo burst out of her chambers, knowing that if she stayed a moment longer in there all by herself she would go mad.
She slammed into something solid and warm. And very tall.
“Cleo . . .” Magnus took hold of her shoulders gently. “What’s wrong? Another drowning spell?”
“No,” she managed, breathless. It would worry him so much if she told him what had happened. She wasn’t ready for that, not yet. “I . . . I just wanted to leave. I wanted to find you. Where have you been? Were you with Ashur and Taran?”
He nodded, his expression grim. “I want you to come with me.”
Panic gripped her heart. Had something horrible happened to Taran? Had he been taken over completely by the air Kindred?
“What is it?”
“There’s someone I want you to meet.”
He took her hand in his and led her out of the room and through the hallways of the palace to the throne room.
“Who?”
“Someone I hope very much might have the power to help you.”
Afternoon light streamed into the throne room through the stained glass windows and bounced off the gold veining on the marble columns, making them glitter.
Ashur waited there with Taran.
The “someone” Magnus had mentioned stood between them. A beautiful woman who used berry stain on her lips and cheeks, even though she had no need for such enhancements. Cleo wondered why she would bother.
“Princess Cleiona Aurora Bellos,” Magnus said in formal introduction, “this is . . . Valia.”
“Just Valia?” Cleo asked.
“Yes,” Valia said simply, her green-eyed gaze focused intently upon Cleo as if assessing her value. “So this is the girl with the name of a goddess, is it?”
Cleo didn’t answer the question. “I have been told you might be able to help us,” she said instead.
Valia raised a brow. “May I ask a question out of sheer curiosity, your grace?”
“Go ahead.”
“You have not taken your husband’s surname as your own. Why is that?” At Cleo’s surprised look, Valia tempered her question with a smile. “It strikes me as interesting.”
It wasn’t the first time that Cleo had been asked this question in her travels across Mytica. Usually a noble posed the question, peering at her over their goblet or dinner plate.
“I am the last in the Bellos family line,” Cleo said simply. “I felt it was respectful to those who have come before me that I not let it fade away to nothing.”
“How curious.” Valia glanced at Magnus. “And you allowed this?”
Magnus’s attention remained on Cleo, his hand pressed to the small of her back. “Cleo makes her own choices. She always has.”
An excellent reply, Cleo thought.
“It is a good name, Bellos,” Valia said. “I knew your father quite well.”
Cleo regarded her with shock. “You did?”
Valia nodded, then turned to walk toward the marble dais. “I met with him right here, in this very spot, on several occasions.”
Cleo grappled for a response to this unexpected information. “For what reason?”
“He’d had a dream that his palace was under attack. He didn’t believe in magic, not like your mother did, but after Queen Elena’s death he had come to consider many options that would strengthen his reign and was willing to open his mind to more possibilities that could help him.” She took the stairs to the top of the dais and rested her hand on the back of the golden throne, gazing down at it as if King Corvin was seated there as they spoke. “He convinced me to help him. I used my magic to put a ward on the gates of this palace, to help keep everyone within it safe. I think he did this mostly to protect you and your sister, your grace.”
Cleo remembered the magical ward placed on the gates. It was magic that Lucia had broken through with her own elementia, causing an explosion near the end of the bloody battle that had cost hundreds of lives.
“Impossible,” Magnus said, shaking his head. “My father found the witch that had cast that spell. When she proved to be of no help to him, he . . .” He hesitated. “He dismissed her.”
“Actually, King Gaius killed her,” Valia corrected. “Or, at least, he killed the woman he thought was responsible. And then he sent her severed head to King Corvin in a box. But your father was wrong. His victim was certainly a witch, but not the correct one.”
Cleo listened to all this, her thoughts spinning. “If this is all true, why didn’t you help my father when he needed you the most? If you are so powerful that you could cast a spell of protection like that, why didn’t you help him when the palace was attacked, when he was dying in my arms?”
Valia didn’t speak for a moment. Cleo searched for any trace of regret or doubt in her eyes, but found nothing but hardness.
“Because that was his destiny,” Valia finally said, then cast her gaze down toward Cleo’s marked left hand. “And perhaps your destiny is already set as we
ll.”
Cleo wanted to resist. She wanted to stomp her foot and demand that this witch be cast from this palace forever, but she took a moment to calm herself.
Every time she thought of the water Kindred’s voice in her head—thankfully silent now—a deathly chill spread over her skin.
She would not let herself be frightened of something that had not happened yet.
She still had control. And she would fight until the very end.
“Very well,” Cleo said, her chin held high. “The past is over and cannot be changed. What can you do for us now, at this very moment?”
“That is an excellent question, your grace. Let me see your marks up close.”
Valia descended from the dais and reached for Cleo’s hand. Cleo allowed this, only because she didn’t want to push back too much against someone who might have the power to help her.
Valia inspected the lines spreading out from the water symbol on her left palm, then swept the hair off the left side of her neck to see where they ended.
“Does it cover your entire arm?” she asked.
Cleo nodded stiffly.
“Taran’s marks have progressed much farther.”
Taran remained silent, standing straight-backed and square-shouldered like a trained soldier.
Ashur watched Cleo and Valia, intent on every word the witch spoke.
“What is your verdict?” Ashur asked. “Can you help them?”
Valia reached under the folds of her black shirts and withdrew a shiny black dagger that looked as if it had been chiseled from the same material as the earth Kindred orb. Obsidian.
“Just what do you mean to do with that?” Magnus asked.
“I need to draw blood,” Valia said.
“You will not cut Cleo with that weapon,” he snarled.
“But I must,” Valia replied. “The princess’s blood will give me more insight into how much I can help her.”
“We need Lucia,” Cleo said to Magnus.
Immortal Reign Page 20
