Bay starts off toward the woods, hoping to lose any Hunters that may want to pursue them while the rest of us prepare for battle.
“Fee,” I prompt, eying the ground below our pursuing enemy.
Felix grins. “Say no more.” He tugs up his sleeves and bends down to the earth below us. Felix’s fingers dig into the dirt like a hand in silk sheets and he draws on his earth magic.
The earth ripples like waves on water, rushing down the dirt path until it reaches the charging Hunters. They tumble and fall. Our magic can’t touch them, but it can touch the things around them and that’s enough.
We are not powerless here.
The first to recover and gain his footing is a brunette. He’s young, like the rest of us. In fact, they’re all fairly young. He charges me, meaning to knock me off my feet and he succeeds before I can blast the world around him with my ether magic.
His hand clutches my throat, knocking me back into the wall of the house. The boy is surprisingly strong and I realize we aren’t the only ones with magical ability. There’s no way this kid is this strong without a little supernatural help.
I expect my vision to go next due to the lack of oxygen, but luckily I never find out what that looks like.
Instead an arrow flies through the base of his skull. It’s a disgusting sight. An eye pops out of his socket before he can hit the ground.
My eyes fly to the one holding a crossbow.
And I’m pretty sure I fall instantly in love.
Standing only a few feet away from me with a crossbow and a smile is a woman. Actually a girl, judging by her youth. She’s all dark hair, dark eyes, and completely immune to the bloody mess she’s created at my feet.
Two more Hunters rush up behind her, but she elbows one in the nose and whips out a sword for the other, skewering him through the belly. Both fall and she winks at me devilishly.
“Hi, I’m Malia. And you—you must be Aaric Boudelaire.”
—CHAPTER TWELVE—
KARA
QUEENMAKER
Theon Beleros is an odd man.
He spends half his time pretending I don’t exist and the other half acting like I’m the most important thing in this world.
Today he’s summoned for me to meet him in the courtyard. It isn’t like I have a choice, but I tell myself that I’ll go because I haven’t had any fresh air recently.
I’m about five months pregnant and barely showing at all. I can still wear dresses that hug my belly and only the people who know about the pregnancy notice much of a difference. But while the physical attributes of pregnancy are still well hidden, the less obvious ones are not. I wonder if Amara feels as nauseous as I do. If she can feel the cramps surely she can feel this too.
I’m moody too. Very moody and it’s making for a terrible hostage. I fear what I might say to Theon today in my current grumpy mood.
On the bright side I know why Theon assigned me two female guards rather than one male one. Meg and Ari share an Echo, like me and Amara’s. It’s Theon’s attempt to get me to understand the bond, and the powers. He knows I could communicate with Amara if I wanted to. He hopes the twins will each me how. I wonder what he’d do to me if he knew I already knew how.
The twins are annoyingly chipper today. They wait outside my bedchambers as they do every morning, ecstatic to give me the news that Theon wants to see me.
“Be nice.” Ari warns me. I still don’t know why they were so weird the day we met or why Ari is way more affectionate with me than her sister. But Ari is likable. Meg, well, Meg reminds me a little of Jayla. Cautious, worrisome, quiet.
“Aren’t I always?” I tease her.
To my surprise, both girls laugh. “Just behave and everything will be fine.” Meg tells me, anchoring her head toward Theon where he stands waiting, patient as ever.
When I look back Meg and Ari are gone as if they vanished into thin air. Then I look back at Theon who is smiling.
I heave a sigh and approach him. A hand automatically goes to my stomach. It always does in his presence. I grow protective, and hostile. “What do you want?” I ask immediately upon reaching him. As always Theon laughs at my hostility. “A delight as always, Lady Amara.” Theon smiles. “Come, walk with me.”
I don’t like going on walks with him. Whenever I do I end up learning some big secret he’s been keeping, one that never benefits us. But like everything in this place I feel like I don’t have a choice and so I fall in step with him.
“How are you getting on here in Llìria, Kara?”
“You mean apart from being held here against my will?” I ask just to be cruel.
Instead of getting angry and lashing out at my snark like Kol usually does he falls silent for a time, probably thinking a response. “I hope that you’ll come to see your purpose here Kara, is much bigger than you alone. I understand that you’re angry and I suspect you miss Amara. You wouldn’t have maintained your Echo all these years if the two of you spent much time apart, but I can promise if you hang in there you’ll see her again.”
But it’s his mention of maintaining our Echo that I focus on. “Wait, so if we’re apart for too long our Echo…”
“Will fade, yes. It’s created because of a close bond. It can be destroyed when that bond is broken.”
The way he words it gives me a sort of hope. “Does that stand for more than just distance?”
“Yes. The bond can be broken if the love you share for each other fades away.”
It’s like a weight if lifted off my shoulders. All this time I wasn’t sure if Amara could ever forgive me for what I’d done with Tristan, but our bond is fully intact, which means it hasn’t affected our friendship.
“Kara, we are living in a world that persecutes anyone they deem different. A world like that, a world that thrives on fear, cannot hope to survive if we continue this way. There was peace once, before my father learned of the sixth element. There can be peace again, but I need you and Amara’s help to do it. You call me monster, traitor, tyrant, but all I want is for us all to be treated as equals, not monsters.”
Theon is smooth with his words, of that I am sure. His gentleness, his quiet calm, I can’t tell if it is all an act or if it’s just his nature, but I can see how he has so many willing to follow him. He’s persuasive, but he killed Tristan, Braylie, weaponized his own sister and that is something I am never getting past.
“We’ve run circles around this topic for months, and yet you still feel the need to explain yourself to me. Why should today be any different?”
Another meaningful stare into the abyss, turning my words over in his head, musing about how he can approach me next. Am I that confusing he has to contemplate every response before he gives it? it reminds me of Amara. She’s so calculating with everything she says, careful. Theon is the same.
“I don’t think you give yourself enough credit, Kara.”
My eyes fly to him. “Excuse me?”
“I live in Amara Boudelaire’s shadow. You two may be a pair, but you believe that somehow she is your better half. She’s beautiful and she’s kind and she’s got an innocence about her that I can see is very appealing to Kol and to your brother and that Limacoran prince, but to me, what you have is far more attractive. You’re strong, Kara, you’re opinionated, and you’re fierce. You compliment each other, of course, but you’re a terrifically gifted young woman all your own.”
His words make me uncomfortable. I have done well to hide my inferiority complex with my best friend for years. Not even our brothers picked up on it, yet this man I’ve known such a short time sees it all, stripping my heart bare before both of us. And so my initial response is to be defensive.
“This validation, is there a point?”
His amused grin is infuriating. “My point is Kara, that just because Amara sees this war as nothing more than a nuisance, that doesn’t mean you have to. Amara associates me with this war and so she doesn’t want to fight in it. But Kara, I only want to make you understand the importance of
it. I had hoped Kol would win you over himself, but it seems he is reluctant to share his story so I suppose I have to.”
I can’t help, but stare back curiously. I’ve wondered what drove Kol Kasanoff to align himself with such a tyrant from the moment we found out that he was the imposter all those months ago. I had hoped Clea would explain it to me if not Kol himself. I don’t like the idea of hearing the story from Theon because he can twist it in any vile way he wants, but I need to hear it.
“What is his story?” I whisper.
“As you know Theron Novak married very young, but before he married the woman his parents chose for him he met a young woman named Aviana. She was beautiful.” He smiles as he begins to describe her, telling me had affection for this woman, whether platonic or romantic, I can’t tell. “She was kind and she was loyal and her laugh, well, her laugh made you laugh. But she was also very trusting and her first mistake was falling in love with a prince destined to marry another. Ya see, Aviana was a nether user, like Amara. She was the only one I had ever met who could wield nether with such ease, until I met Amara.”
“She wasn’t a royal?”
“No. Just a girl in love with a prince. It wasn’t long until she found herself pregnant and of course it happened like most of these things do. They forbade the prince from seeing her again, paid off the family, and he never saw her again. But Aviana hated her parents for accepting the money so she fled. That’s when she found me. I took her in and I helped her in every way that I could. Until Kol was about six. He started asking about his father and she started wondering about him too.”
“She went to find him.” I surmise.
“And it got her killed, all because she was nether. The prince now a king took his son in, raised him, but Kol could never truly forgive his father for allowing his mother to be slaughtered for simply being born with nether magic. He came to me when he was fourteen, seeking justice for his mother’s death.”
“S-so Kol, he was playing a double agent for…years.”
“Yes, he was. And when I finally discovered Amara might be in a small village in Limacore I sent him to find her, watch her, find out if she really was the girl we’d been waiting for, my father’s descendant, the one who would deliver us from subjugation.”
“Your father’s descendant? Isn’t she yours too?” I ask quizzically.
“Well yes, but not by blood. My mother had already married and had me and Clea when she met the king. She was a widower when they married. Thaddeus adopted us as his own, but technically Amara and I share no blood. It’s wh6 she has more of a claim to the throne than I do. Because she is a blood relative of Thaddeus Beleros.”
“Hm.” I muse. So all of this for one girl, huh?” I say, feigning disinterest. “Seems like a lot of work for something you’ve done quite well with on your own.”
This makes Theon laugh. “Oh Lady Kara, you and I both know Amara Boudelaire isn’t simply a girl. That girl is a queen. Do you know what that makes me, love?” All I can do is shake my head. Theon grins. “A queenmaker.”
To this I have nothing to say.
Luckily I don’t have to think of something.
“Theon Beleros.”
I whirl around at the unfamiliar voice and across the way stands an ethereal-looking woman. No, girl. She can’t be more than nineteen-twenty. She’s painfully beautiful with long, wavy dark hair with a short, petite form. Even from this distance I can see that her eyes are blue, huge and piercing, like sapphires.
“You have some serious explaining to do.” she says pointedly, staring down at Theon with as much conviction as she can muster.
“I’m afraid this conversation is going to have to be cut short love.” Theon takes me by the arm and I am so curious about the young girl that I don’t fight him as he leads me over to a waiting Meg. He gives her a look and she nods, pulling me away while he makes his way over to the girl.
“Who is that?” I ask as Meg pulls me back into the palace, just as Theon reaches the girl. From the looks of it theirs is a complicated relationship.
“Trust me, you don’t want to know.” Is all I get from her as she drags me to the dining hall for lunch. When I refuse to eat Meg isn’t having it and she pushes the plate the waiter serves in front of me.
I ignore it, instead looking toward the door, waiting for Theon to enter, preferably with the mystery girl. Normally his presence makes me ill, but if we’ve got another player to contend with I need to know. Someone who might help shed some light on where Amara is perhaps? Maybe Theon grows sick of me pretending to not have access to my magic at the moment. Perhaps he’s found another way to find her and bring her here.
I look at Meg who seems to be in a mood as she neglects her food, pushing it around on her plate. The air is hot with tension and I can’t help, but draw attention to it. “What is it?”
Meg rolls her eyes, staring at something I can’t see. “Ari.”
She doesn’t get a chance to elaborate when Ari appears behind her, touching her sister’s shoulder. Meg flinches when she does, not out of fear, but out of…irritation? Annoyance? I don’t know. Have a feeling they were communicating through their Echo before Ari arrived.
“Go.” Ari says to her sister dismissively. That’s all. One word. So many questions. Something tells me Meg’s tension has to do with the mystery girl.
Meg’s chair screeches back on the marble floor and she’s gone before I have a chance to say goodbye. Ari takes her place, even eating off Meg’s plate. They’re twins and they share everything. It makes me wonder if my children will do the same.
“Is she okay?”
For the first time I see Ari grow tense. She never shies away from any subject, but whatever is going on, it vexes her. “She’s fine.”
“Ari, who’s that girl that showed up today?” I know she knows who I mean. She can’t not. The girl commands the room, not just with her looks, but with her very presence.
At first I think she isn’t going to answer me. Not with the way the subject clearly makes her uncomfortable. But then she finally speaks. “Her name is Dariella. She’s a Serpentarian. She and Theon have a long, sordid history and I’d suggest you steer clear. She has no love for Arians or any woman who gets close to Theon, if you know what I mean.”
So they’re lovers. Or were at one time. That’s good to know. A piece of information I can exploit later.
“That doesn’t explain why Meg is so riled up by her.” Again, Ari looks uncomfortable. Perhaps she didn’t expect me to pick up on that so easily.
“Dariella and Meg also have a…sordid history.” The one Meg has with her is infinitely more painful than the one Theon does. This much I can tell. I need no bond with this girl to sense her rage, her fear. It’s there, in her eyes and the way her hands nearly tremble on the table.
“Ari, what aren’t you telling me?” I whisper.
To my eternal surprise, she shoves out of her seat with a quickness I didn’t even know she had and raises her voice at me. “You aren’t here to ask questions, fire user. You’re here to help us win this war. That is all.”
But I am not Amara. I will not cower and fall to tears at the first sign of frustration. I rise myself, slamming a hand down on the table, making the silverware clatter against each other. “This is not my war, serpent.” I hiss. All eyes are on us, but I don’t care. I feel only the rage inside of me. I refuse to be left in the dark any longer. “I won’t fight in it any more than I will let that parasite you call king get his hands on my best friend.” And with that I storm out with every intention of going in search of Kol for answers, but he finds me.
“What’s going on?” He takes hold of my arm and eyes the audience we have around us. Serpentarians, guards, the lot of them.
Unlike with Theon I rip my arm from his grasp. “I want answers, Kol, now.” I sneer.
Kol’s eyes sweep the hallway again, but he is damn near shaking with fury. This time when he grabs me I have no hope of fighting back, but I don’t want to wh
en I realize he’s dragging me into an empty room where we can speak privately. “What is it now, Kara?”
“Why does this Dariella girl have everyone in such a panic?” I demand. Tears spring to my eyes, not out of fear, but out of anger. “Who is she?”
“Before Theon discovered Amara’s existence he planned to rule Llìria himself.” Kol pauses. “Dariella is who Theon had chosen to marry at the time and when she found out Theon’s plans to make Amara queen instead of her, well, as you can imagine she wasn’t happy and she made damn sure she pissed off everyone she could piss off before she fled Llìria.”
Oh.
“Kol, why does Theon want me? Please, for once, just be honest with me.”
“Kara, when Theon says that you and Amara can help him win this war, he doesn’t just mean politically, given Amara’s the true heir to the Llìrian throne. He means physically too. Your ability to utilize Amara’s powers, and vice versa, is going to aid him greatly in what he plans to do next.”
“Well what does he plan to do next?”
“Find the Nexus.”
—CHAPTER THIRTEEN—
AMARA
CONTACT
I had hoped Tristan would have found peace after he died.
But like so many things, I was wrong.
Tristan is heavy on my mind as I sit in silence across from Keenan. The king has ordered us to spend more time together so we dine for breakfast in a private dining room, just the two of us and the guards at the door. They’re there for his protection, not mine. I imagine his body flailing around under my touch of death. The image makes me smile.
Keenan notices and just barely glances up from the stack of papers in his hands. Busy work from the king. “What’s so funny?”
My smile fades and I avoid his eyes. “Nothing you’d be interested in.” He smirks and it infuriates me. “How could someone as gentle and kind create such a parasite like you?” I say it to be cruel, but I honestly want to know. I can’t understand it. “Kara, she’s kind and she cares about people. You,” I scoff. “You care about no one, but yourself.”
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