Chapter One
Cormal
The awkward silence was deafening. The Princess had just walked out of her own thirteenth birthday celebration—because Cormal had walked in.
Princess Larenia had always been extremely vocal about her support of Perian, the carnalion who’d hidden among them at the castle. She’d hurled accusations at Cormal’s head anddeclared her undying love for the demon who’d lied to them all—and who’d been secretly seducing and feeding from them. The Princess had steadily opposed Cormal at every opportunity until he and the Queen had succeeded in banishing Perian from the castle and protecting everyone.
Well. Nearly everyone.
When the Princess had gone silent after Perian’s removal, Cormal had been relieved.
Briefly.
Since that day, Princess Larenia hadn’t said a single word to him. And at virtually every opportunity, if he was in a room, she simply walked out of it: meetings with the Queen, dinner, classrooms, training, the stables. If they approached each other in the corridor, she turned around and walked the other way.
He hadn’t realized before then just howloudsilence could be. But oh, how he knew it intimately now.
Brannal had always told him that he needed to learn to control his temper, but Cormal hadn’t anticipated just how necessary that would be when he became Summus and was in charge of all the Mage Warriors.
But then he hadn’t expected to become Summus at all, yet one more thing that people didn’t believe. He saw the look in their eyes, knew they thought he’d gotten exactly what he wanted. It was one of the last accusations Brannal had leveled at him before he left.
How could they not see? Cormal had never wantedthis! He’d been trying tosaveBrannal, not drive him off into the arms of a demon!
No one wanted to listen to him, not even Delana, who’d told him quite bluntly that he’d made his bed and now he had to lie in it.
Cormal hadn’t made any of this mess. This was allPerian, a carnalion who should never have been in the castle, whoshouldn’t even bealive… The demon had been gone for almost two months now, yet Cormal couldn’t get out from under his shadow for so much as a single moment.
It wasinfuriating.
But Summus wasn’t supposed to lob fireballs just because he was frustrated, at least not in front of anyone.
He’d had lots of practice not appearing as humiliated as he felt. He looked at the Queen and the Prince, the former looking as impassive as usual, and the latter looking faintly amused, almost like he enjoyed watching this play out so painfully for Cormal.
Gritting his teeth, Cormal bowed.
“Excuse me, Your Majesty, Your Highness. There is a matter of some importance that I must attend to.”
Because the alternative was him standing in that celebration with everyone staring at him because the guest of honor had run off due to his presence. He was clearly lying, but it was that or lose his temper and loudly announce that he was leaving so that the brat—thePrincess, whom Cormal was sworn to protect—would come back.
He turned on his heel and stalked out, head held high, remembering how his father had told him that dignity was all important and one must never forget that one was the most powerful person in the room. He hadn’t meant physically demonstrating that power, necessarily, but showing it in every line of your body, in your demeanor, in the way you treated others.
Cormal had never felt less powerful.
He realized that his hands were clenched into fists and wondered briefly if they’d been like that the entire time. He stalked down the hall. What did it matter? He didn’t seem to be able to convince anyone of anything no matter what he did, so what did it matter if they saw him on the edge of losing histemper? What did it matter if heactuallylost his temper? Would that change what any of them thought? Maybe a show of temper wasexactlywhat they needed, because if they didn’t understand why he’d done what he’d done, if they were at leastafraid—
The fireball exploded out of him and flew down the corridor. Cormal was still staring at it, wide-eyed, when it struck a wall of water and hissed and spattered into nothing.
He turned. Sagged a little. Delana had one eyebrow raised, her blue-green eyes judgmental. It was an expression he’d seen a lot of recently. She was almost five inches shorter than he was and yet still seemed able to stare down her long, straight nose at him.
“You really should work on that temper, you know.” Her voice was chiding.
She looked perfectly put together, Mage Warrior uniform neat, her hair pulled back in its usual braid, her square gender beads blending into the dark strands. Nothing blended in with the stupid bright red of Cormal’s hair. Really, it was the perfect indicator of his temperament these days, and that was infuriating.
“I’m not in the mood,” he said crossly.
The second eyebrow joined the first. “So you think it’s all right to throw fireballs down the corridor? What exactly would you have done if I hadn’t been here?”
“Set the corridor on fire, I imagine!” he snapped.
