by Skye Horn
“That’s because my sister has cut you off from her magic.”
“What?” Thea’s mouth fell open. She’d noticed the shift in power. She often struggled to keep the darkness at bay, but she’d still been able to perform basic elemental magic like warming the water or conjuring fire. “How is that possible?”
“You’ve been relying on elemental magic since you arrived in Faerie because that is what you were told to rely on. Just like many of the Fae here rely on darker magic. You won’t see much magic in Blackmire, though, because dark magic is hostile and bends only to the will of anger and rage. That’s why you have been losing control.”
“If it responds to rage, then we should have no issue teaching me,” Thea commented, pulling her hands back to her sides. She wished she had the power to heal them, but ignored the pain to the best of her ability.
“Using the magic isn’t the issue you’re going to have,” Morrigan said, reaching out to take Thea’s hand back. Her skin was cold against Thea’s wrists, but her touch was gentle. Thea fought the urge to reclaim her injured palms and watched as Morrigan picked two blooming flowers from the garden and placed them against each of her blistered palms.
“Close your hands,” she ordered, and despite the excruciating pain, Thea curled her fingers around the flowers, crushing them against her flayed skin. “And your eyes.”
Thea hesitated, feeling the vulnerability of that request, but eventually obeyed. She reminded herself that she had come here for the Goddess’ protection and that she needed to allow at least some trust into this strange relationship. After all, if Morrigan wanted her dead, she’d have already had her killed.
“Now focus on transferring the life of the flower into your injuries,” she said, and Thea peeked an eye open.
“Do what?” she asked, lifting an eyebrow.
“Just trust me,” Morrigan sighed, looking impatient as Thea closed her eye again. “Every life force has energy, and magic is only another force of life. You’ve controlled nature before. Now I want you to take the life from the flower and transfer it into your own body to heal your injuries.”
Thea did as she was told, focusing on the flower in her hands until she felt that tendril of energy that Morrigan spoke of. A small breath of air passed through her lips as she wove the intricate life of the flower away from its source and into her own body. She immediately felt the effects of the magic knitting her wounds together and healing her burns until the pain disappeared completely and she gasped.
Eyes flying open, she unclenched her fingers and stared down at her hands to see the withered flowers lying in her completely healed hands.
“How?” Thea asked, eyes wide.
“This is how magic was once used by my sister and our family,” Morrigan explained, taking the dead flowers from Thea’s hands and dropping them to the dirt. “A balance between light and dark, neither stronger than the other.”
“There are more of you?” Thea asked, unable to suppress her surprise at the mention of a family. Of course, there were stories in her land of gods and goddesses worshipped by the Celts for centuries.
Morrigan gave a sad smile. “There used to be.”
Thea almost asked what had happened, but the look on Morrigan’s face told her the conversation was not what she was here for.
“I spoke with Ainé,” Thea said hesitantly, knowing she needed to tell the Goddess now. “She said she thought she broke the curse, but that there was something she didn’t know.”
“My sister and her riddles,” Morrigan sighed, lips tightening into a straight line. “I feared this might happen when I discovered what she’d done to your soulmate. The curse was never truly meant to be broken, but when she broke the soul bond, Kieran’s darkness did not just disappear. It transferred into you.”
“Can’t you just take it away?” Thea asked. Her mouth felt dry. The last thing she needed was more dark magic to deal with.
“I could, but do you want me to take away what may give you an upper edge over my sister?”
“Why can’t you just stop her?” Thea asked, glaring at Morrigan.
There was a period of silence where Thea thought the Goddess might return to being angry at her, but it passed quickly and Morrigan turned to face away from Thea, heading out of the gardens as she said, “If you want to learn how to stop my sister, stop wasting my time with questions.”
Thea hesitated, knowing that her questions would go infuriatingly unanswered. There was nothing she could do about that, though. No matter how many times she asked Morrigan these questions, she was still in the dark. She was going to have to find out on her own why the Goddess was keeping her around; surely, someone else must know.
The king, she thought. If anyone in this kingdom knew what Morrigan was planning, it would be him. She couldn’t picture King Rayan allowing himself to be left out of the loop, even if it meant he was spying on the Goddess to find out the information he needed. So how was she going to get the information from him?
Hurrying after Morrigan, Thea contemplated her options for discovering the truth. She could continue to mope about not knowing, or she could do something about it. What would Iris do in this situation? She definitely wouldn’t just stand around and wait for something to happen to her. She would start researching. Thea would make sure she didn’t waste any more time.
“I’m coming!” she called after Morrigan, jogging to catch up at as the Goddess led her toward whatever her next challenge would be.
Chapter 8
Adrian was almost asleep when a loud knock sounded on his door. He wanted to pull his pillow over his head and pretend he didn’t hear the knock, but instead he trudged toward the door and cracked it open, rubbing his tired eyes as he went.
“It’s the middle of the day and you’re sleeping?” Caden asked, eyeing Adrian’s shirtless torso with a lifted eyebrow.
“I woke up at the crack of dawn after standing guard by Thea’s door for most of the night. I’m taking whatever moment of rest that I can,” Adrian grumbled, crossing his arms. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see how lunch went,” Caden said, failing to look innocent. Adrian rolled his eyes.
“You know damn well how it went.” Adrian kicked the door open wider so that Caden could come inside, realizing he was not going to be getting any rest. The prince walked in, plopping down onto Adrian’s bed with a mischievous smile. They’d been friends for years, but Adrian still found it strange how at home the prince seemed to be with him. He’d never met anyone quite like Caden.
“I heard she stirred up quite a brawl.” The prince chuckled. His dark eyes glowed with excitement over whatever story he’d heard, but all Adrian could think about were the burn marks on Thea’s palms. He debated telling Caden about the loss of control he’d witnessed with Thea. He hadn’t brought up how she’d broken down in front of him. Something about telling Caden those things made him feel—what? Like he lost that connection to her? Like he had to share? He wasn’t so sure, but either way, he didn’t bring it up.
“She’s quick-tempered,” was all he said instead.
“Sounds like someone else I know.” Caden laughed.
Adrian pulled a tunic on and opened the small bedroom window to let in some light since he wouldn’t be sleeping. He knew Caden was right. Adrian was also short-tempered, and that was likely why he and Thea were clashing so often, but he didn’t feel like admitting that either.
“She’s with Morrigan now?” Caden said a little more quietly, as if the Goddess might hear her name spoken. Adrian wasn’t sure she wouldn’t.
He sat on the bed beside Caden, nodding his head.
“I wonder what they’re doing.” Adrian knew as well as Caden what they were doing, but neither of them dared to speak of it.
“I’m sure she’ll tell us,” Adrian lied, and Caden cast a smirk in his direction.
“Unless you’ve somehow gotten onto her good side in the past few hours, I highly doubt that.”
A
drian tossed one of his pillows at Caden and chuckled. He wished they could be this relaxed on a normal basis, but with everything going on, moments like these were rare. He wrestled with the idea of telling Caden that Thea wasn’t so bad, but did he honestly want to deal with the questions that admission would bring from his friend?
No, he decided quickly. He didn’t.
“So…” Caden said, averting his eyes from Adrian in a way he knew all too well. Whatever Caden had come to talk to him about was not just the lunch brawl Thea had started.
“Spit it out,” Adrian sighed, realizing whatever it was must be bad if the prince wouldn’t even look his way.
“I think we should tell Thea the truth.”
Adrian stilled, knowing exactly what truth Caden referred to and fighting the urge to snap at him about stupidity. Instead, he took a sharp inhale of breath and forced himself to speak calmly. “And what makes you think she’s ready for that?”
“We all want the same thing,” Caden said, meeting Adrian’s eyes with a seriousness that chilled him to the bone. He was serious, Adrian realized. Caden was ready to tell Thea everything they’d kept between themselves for so long. It could ruin the entire plan if she knew the truth, and yet, hadn’t he been wondering the same thing? She was powerful, more powerful than both of them put together, and if she were on their side—
He forced himself away from that thought.
“You’ve known her for what? Two days? And you’re willing to risk our kingdom based on some non-existent familial bond you feel.” Adrian couldn’t hide the annoyance from his voice, but he didn’t regret his words even as Caden’s gaze darkened.
“I’m not stupid, Adrian. I know the threat she represents to my throne, but this isn’t about familial bonds. This is about strategic planning for the next stage of our plan. My father isn’t going anywhere any time soon, and we both know what he’s done to this kingdom.”
Adrian lowered his eyes, fighting the memories of the life he’d lived and the life that his own king had stolen from him. He inhaled the fury and exhaled the calm he’d been practicing, feeling that spark of darkness within him fighting to break free. It had been years since he’d practiced magic, but he still felt the temptation of it beneath his skin, begging for release.
“Your father will pay for his crimes, but that doesn’t mean we should trust Thea,” Adrian finally said, steadying his tone as his lips pulled down in a frown. Argument was written all over Caden’s face, but he would not budge on this matter. Thea hadn’t earned his trust and he would not put the only chance this kingdom had at surviving this war at risk. “Promise me, Caden.”
“I am the prince,” Caden said and Adrian growled, springing to his feet as he glared at his friend. He saw Caden shrink back, but it was too late; his short temper was at the end of its rope.
“Then do you order me to break my oath to you, Prince Caden?” Adrian asked. “Shall I abandon my own instincts to follow yours? Is this your wish?”
He knew he was being unfair to his prince, but Caden should have known better than to trust so easily. What if Thea realized she could have Blackmire and Ivandor? For all they knew, Morrigan could be planning to overthrow the king for her own gain. She could plan to place Thea on the throne instead of Caden. The Goddess had left them out of her plans so far, so Adrian was forced to draw his own conclusions about what their future held. He didn’t want to lose sight of that, even if Caden was angry at him about it.
His friend pushed himself off the bed and sighed. He reached out and gripped Adrian’s forearm, meeting his gaze. “It’s always been you and me against the world—brothers. I will not abandon that now, but I ask that one day you trust me as much as I trust you.”
With that, Caden let go of him and headed for the door as Adrian watched with increasing guilt. He’d spent so long protecting Caden from the court and his father that sometimes he forgot that his friend was fully capable of making decisions on his own.
Adrian was left with his own haunting thoughts as the door shut, wondering if he’d made the right decision or if this new crack in their friendship would grow into a chasm.
Thea’s hands shook as she crouched low to the ground, fingers digging into the muddied snow.
“You’re not listening to me.” Morrigan’s words cut like razorblades against Thea, infuriating her more than she already was.
They’d been at this for over an hour. Morrigan had conjured walls of shadows around herself, nearly obscuring her from Thea’s sight completely, but her voice rang loud and clear over the wind as she told Thea over and over again that she was failing the exercise.
“You aren’t telling me anything useful,” Thea mumbled in response and saw the shadows flare with fury. She glared. “You say to break through with magic, but my connection to the elements is weak, and if I give into the other side I’ll lose control.”
“Then lose control,” Morrigan repeated for about the tenth time.
Thea sighed.
“What are you afraid of?”
Thea didn’t want to answer that. Instead, she tried again to call forth the elements that had once protected her from Morrigan’s magic, even though she knew it would fail endlessly.
This exercise wasn’t about facing Morrigan’s magic in the same way she had always faced it. She’d had Ainé on her side before. Now, she was left alone with her own magic to fend for herself. There would be no guiding voice or extra assistance when she faced Ainé. All there would be was the fury she felt inside of her and the raw magic she was trying so desperately to subdue.
Give into it, Morrigan’s command came across their bond this time, making Thea realize she’d let the guard to her mind down. She snapped her walls back into place.
"Stay out of my head!” she growled and lunged for the first layer of shadows again. Hot breath rushed past her lips as she angled herself shoulder first and smacked hard into what she would have sworn was a solid wall. She bounced back with a whimper, falling to the ground with a string of curses.
There was a melodic laugh that made Thea want to scream. She’d been at this for too long without success, unable to break through the wall of magic. If she gave into the magic as Morrigan was asking her to, she would lose control. Her legs were sore from the morning run along the cliffside, hardly carrying her forward any longer. She thought about flying over the wall, but that wasn’t the point of this exercise. Her mind felt exhausted from trying to problem-solve a way out of using the magic that the Goddess asked of her, but there was no escaping it. She’d come here without anywhere else to turn, and if she planned to take her kingdom back, she was going to have to learn to listen to basic instructions.
“My sister will slaughter you if you do not get control over this, or her pet will.”
Even though Morrigan hadn’t said Kieran’s name, Thea’s heart twisted into knots at the thought of him bound to Ainé without any sense of free will to live by. She knew that bringing him back would have consequences. He would never forgive himself for Ethel’s death, but she couldn’t give up on him. He’d do anything to save her from such a fate, and she owed it to him to do the same.
Thea inhaled through her nose, feeling the deep sting of chilled air traveling down to her lungs as she tasted metal against the back of her throat.
Let it go, she told herself, fighting the small part of her that wanted to keep control. Let it go for Kieran and for Ethel.
Something snapped in that moment, and she felt a surge of power erupt inside of her, searing her from the inside. She fought the urge to cry out at the pain, but holding onto the wild reins of this magic was like nothing she’d ever experienced before. Clenching her jaw tight, she ground her teeth willing the magic into submission, praying she was strong enough to take control even as her body screamed in agony for her to stop.
“Command it,” Morrigan ordered, but Thea couldn’t tell where the Goddess was any longer. Her voice sounded like a steady drum in her mind, but had she spoken aloud? Thea clenched
her hands into fists, as if this would physically tighten her hold on the power threatening to overwhelm her.
Dark spots floated across her vision, blurring with flashes of red.
She wanted to ask how to command something so wild, and as if reading her mind, Morrigan spoke again. “You are a direct descendent of a Goddess. You have the power in you to command it.”
Her voice was strained, but Thea couldn’t understand why. She was the one having to fight off this magic. She was the one feeling as if it would drown her beneath its darkness at any moment.
She whimpered, feeling the icy tentacles beginning to wrap their way around her limbs, pulling her like a puppet on a string.
No! She opened her mouth to scream but the sounds were drowned out as the darkness exploded from her parted lips, free of her grip. The pain was different to anything she’d ever experienced before, as if this mass of magic had been holed up inside of her begging for release for so long that releasing it was a physical strain on her already exhausted body.
“She took everything from you,” Morrigan said, more of a whisper in the background now. “Take it back.”
Thea fell to her knees, panting. She could see the lacerations in her skin from losing control of the magic. She felt the pulse of the earth beneath the snow, the same way she’d felt the pulse of life in the flowers Morrigan had commanded her to heal herself with. Snapping her eyes shut, she reached out to that pulse, pulling it into her hands for strength against the shadows.
Obey me! she commanded the magic, forcing as much power into her voice as she could manage. It strained against her command, like a child testing how far they could go before a parent snapped. She reached out mentally to that connection, the thin strand she found between herself and the darkness. If she had truly absorbed Kieran’s curse, then the darkness inside her was chaos and she needed to control it before it controlled her.
