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“Don’t ask those questions. It was for a good reason. One you felt strongly about.”
Asmo cocks his head, frantically digging in his pocket to pull out a small metallic triangle. The edges are decorated in intricate lace-like swirls, a blue gem raises slightly from the top surface. He holds it out and it starts to float.
“Don’t do it.” Loric’s jaw ticks. “If you do, I’ll have to make you forget everything. Right now, you can remember having a daughter. I don’t want you to forget her completely.”
Asmo’s spine lengthens, his eyes vacant as he slowly leans to peer around Loric at me. As if the pieces fall into place, he meets Loric’s eyes. “I don’t want to know, but you should be aware that the king knows something is up. He managed to pull Meg’s body out of the riff, killed the beast inside it, I think. Maybe he tricked it, but I haven’t seen it in days, and Meg’s body is whole.” The gem in the metal triangle begins to glow bright, pointing directly at us and Asmo curses under his breath. “I’m not sure who the fuck she is, but he’s looking for her and I’m not the only one he sent to find her. So, if she’s important to you, and to me enough to do what I did, get her out of the realm before he kills her himself.”
“What about you?” Loric asks.
“I’ll be fine. He’s already searched my memories and didn’t find whatever he was looking for.” Asmo glances at me one last time before snatching his triangle out of the air and shoving it in his pocket. “Go, before I change my mind.”
Loric nods, his hand gripping my arm tight as he pulls me out of the bar. His eyes sweep every inch of the road as he hastily takes me back to the cottage.
“You didn’t erase his memories…” My feet fight to keep up with him.
“No. You wouldn’t have wanted me to.” Loric doesn’t miss a beat, slicing us through the crowd with precision.
“He said that I’m his child…” My foot lands on something hard and my knee buckles. Loric’s grip is unyielding, holding me up as we keep moving.
“Now isn’t the time, Calamity.”
“Isn’t the time?
"Yes." His voice, still the same deep timbre that once sang me to sleep, now holds no trace of warmth. “Unless you want to end up dead, it’s not the time.”
Tears sting my eyes, unshed, as I fight to keep his pace–each one of his steps is nearly three of mine. I swallow the lump in my throat, fighting the urge to yank him to a stop, to answer my questions, to shake him, to scream.
But I don't. Instead, I force myself to keep up, masking my face, but it doesn’t stop my hands from being consumed by dark, inky lines. It doesn’t so much as smother the smoke that curls around my hands, completely and utterly out of my control. The tips of my hair start to fade into a pure white, the color draining from the strands as panic seizes my lungs. Only the king’s daughters have pure white hair… If it changes, if I look like a Midicious, everyone Asmo spoke of that’s searching for me will be on our heels in an instant.
“Loric,” I breathe, and something in my tone gets his attention, or maybe it’s the fact my magic is starting to creep along his skin.
He looks over his shoulder at me. “Fuck me,” he grits, quickly pulling us into an alley near the garden we visited last night.“Breathe, Calamity,” he says as he leads us down it.
“I’m trying,” I say, each word a shard of glass in my heart.
“I can’t fucking help you if I’m dead.” He tucks us behind a stack of crates so those passing by on the street can’t see us, pressing my back against the stone wall of a shop.
“Look at me,” Loric demands, his voice laced with power as his eyes start to glow.
My teeth sink into my lip, drawing blood as I fight to calm my magic, to regain a semblance of control. But how can I? The king wants me dead. He’s likely sending the shadow shrouds after us, and they’re trained assassins. And Asmo… I'm not sure if it’sbetter or worse to have him remember me, but not, and think I’m dead all at the same time.
“For fuck’s sake, Chaos.” Loric pins my hands to the wall, the shadows fading but I can feel his power seeping into my soul, my magic siphoning him.“Look at me.”
I meet his sterling silver eyes, noticing the way his teeth grit, the way the muscle in his jaw feathers and ticks, the way his nostrils flare as he glares down at me.
My hair is ghost white now, my incisors develop sharp points, even the teeth next to it, yet I’m still in control, despite the talons pushing from my fingertips, or the way power seems to coil around me. I’m not merely siphoning him, I’m shifting, just like he had in the woods with the nevercats.
Even fighting my magic, the pull I have on him is nothing more than a trickle, it’s slow and steady, but it would take hours to kill him.
“I need you to breathe through it. If you shift completely in this village, we’re dead. If someone so much as walks down this alley and sees your hair, we’re dead. So fuckingbreathe, woman.”
“Hey, you can’t be back here!” Someone calls from the street and my eyes shoot wide.
Loric’s breathes are uneven as he stares into my soul. “I need you to trust me,” he whispers, dropping my hands. “Just need a moment!" he calls to the person, undoing his belt with frenzied fingers.
Before I can ask what he’s doing, his lips crush to mine, his strong hands grip my thighs, urging my legs to wrap around his waist. My power coils and the dark smoke morphs into gold threads, wriggling through the air around us, returning the power I stole from him.
My heart beats so fast,so furiously, that it echoes throughout every limb of my body. Loric clamps a hand on my jaw, twistingmy neck with ease and sending my white hair flying over my face. Then teeth scrape my throat.
