“At least now we’ve weeded out the traitors in my court.”
I jump forward but can’t get past the wall of magic locking me inside the altar. Wilder grabs my waist, holding my back to his chest, just as tense but trying to calm me.
“What do you plan to do with us now?” I shove my chin up. “If you hurt them, I won’t help you heal anything.”
Malachi’s chin dips, and his eyes darken. “Healing implies fixing what is broken. Why bother when I could just recreate? The gods blessed you two with the power of destruction and creation, and now you’re at my fingertips. Do you understand what your magic can do? Why heal this shattered, broken realm when we can create something new?”
“I will never help you with that.”
“I don’t need your permission.”
“Magic can’t be stolen.”
He turns the orb between his fingers. “To steal implies it belongs to you. While for most magic that is the case, yours also belongs to the realm. And when you are but an empty corpse, that’s where it will try to return, but it will not make it that far.”
The king grins, slowly spinning the orb.
“What can that orb do?”I ask Wilder.
“I don’t know. He’s worn it for at least a few centuries but never indicated where it came from.”
“It feels… wrong.”
“It feels familiar.”
I look up at Wilder, who’s focused on the orb as well.“Familiar to you?”
“Familiar to my magic. It whispers something that I can’t understand.”
“But you hear it?”
He nods.
“Interesting,” Malachi muses. “Your mate also has the ability to mind whisper. I suppose that makes sense with her celestial magic. But it’s quite difficult keeping tabs on you when you do that.”
“Sorry to inconvenience you.” Wilder doesn’t sound sorry at all.
“I’m going to miss our little chats,” King Malachi says, stepping forward. “But the full moon has fully risen, and it is time to claim what is mine.”
“A kingdom does not belong to the king or the Crown. It belongs to the people.” Wilder’s jaw tenses. “You desecrate your lineage with what you’re doing. You spit on those who put you in this position.”
“I am the king. I am my crown and my people and my kingdom.” King Malachi’s voice pitches as he stands on the opposite side of the invisible barrier that separates us. “And when I am done with you and your mate, I will beyouas well. Your magic. Your kingdom. I will drink them all down and create something far greater. I will not just be a king. I will be a god.”
A god.
I glance back at Greer and Callum, who are watching from the side. Bound with magical ties that hold them back. I think about my father, dying for a false cause created by a selfish king. I think about Isolde, sacrificing herself so that we might get to this point where I would save the kingdom with my magic.
My magic.
I glance at the staff, still floating even though it is bound within the same confines that encircle us on the altar. It should have fallen when we were sealed off from the realm, but it didn’t because its magic does not come from here.
It comes from Sarrow.
Wiggling my fingers, I seek a spark of my magic.
It is tempered by the barrier, but it is there. It is in my blood.There is no losing it, even when it becomes distant. Even if it is but a speck. As Isolde told me when Hazel grabbed my arm and nearly drained me to nothing:“It is not infinite like you might think—within this realm or your blood—but it can always be replenished if there is but a kernel left to water.”
King Malachi tried to cut off that water, but he made a mistake. He drained the magic from the stone, and he blocked us out from the magic of the realm. Of the leaves and trees. Birds and animals and blood. But that is not where my magic comes from.
