I look up at the palace. Cracks weave between every stone, webbing in gold and silver along the surface. A beacon of light. Yet, beyond is something darker. Where the trees converge and the brush thickens, light ceases, and there’s something else.
“There are so many different kinds of magic.” I sigh, staring out at the forest.
“There are as many types of magic as there are types of flowers and leaves and animals. As many as there are Fae. No two are ever exactly the same.”
“What do you think I wield?” I ask, and her gaze meets mine. “The king made it sound like I created life.”
“The only ones capable of creating life are the gods. Besides, what lies inside you isn’t creation or necromancy. I don’t quite know what it is, and I don’t think he does either.” She rests her hand on my shoulder like she can feel it. Maybe that’s Greer’s power, to sense it in others. “Your magic is something in between two things. That’s all I know.”
Like me, between human and Fae. Not quite one or the other.
“That’s enough training for today. And enough talk of the king’s magic before we both end up on the gallows.”
“The gallows aren’t rumors then?” My eyebrows pinch as I start to follow Greer out of the training ring. “I always assumed it was too hard to kill a Fae to simply hang them.”
“The rope is laced with obsidian.” Her eyes darken, and the reminder of the shackles on me makes me shiver. “It’s enough to weaken them, and over time, even the strongest succumb.”
“They hang there until they die?” My eyes widen. “How long?”
Her gaze is cold and empty when it drifts away. “As long as is needed.”
Greer leaves me with that thought, taking a separate door from the one that leads to my room. And I stand staring out at the courtyard, reconsidering the king’s threats.
Prince of Light.
King of Hope.
Where are either when I look around?
Spinning, I’m about to enter the palace when the door opens, and dark eyes meet mine. The sky dims, like she drank the sun from existence with a single gulp.
I’m careful to avoid Hazel at the nightly dinners, but she doesn’t move from my path. Her presence chokes the air from my lungs.
I attempt to slip past her, thinking she’ll ignore me like she usually does. But in a blink, she moves in front of me, grabbing my wrist. Her fingernails dig into my skin.
A tangy darkness crawls through me, like the snakelike shadows haunting the dead I’ve tried to wake. The taste of the sky at midnight drifts over my tongue.
Her nails bite into my skin, turning black as night when darkness crawls up her hand and arm. At a distance, her magic looked like shadows, but this close, I see they are something else. Liquid darkness. Not an absence at all but a presence themselves. So black they aren’t black at all. They’re endless, with purple flecks.
The heart of obsidian.
But obsidian is the counterpart to all magic, which means it’s not possible to wield it. Whatever Hazel harnesses isn’t stone. It isn’t death. It climbs my skin with tendrils so smooth they’re a caress that soothes at first. Until they turn to teeth and claw. Biting. Dragging every inch.
The webs of darkness trail all the way up her arms and neck as they climb mine, and though she doesn’t move, something pulls me toward her. From the deepest part of my core, I’m being summoned. I don’t so much as flinch, but Ifeel hertaking.
“You see them, don’t you? The threads.” Hazel’s eyes are nearly black, deepening with flecks of purple the longer she stares at me. “My brother doesn’t understand, but you do. You see them shifting. Changing with every whisper. Every decision, every mistake. Do you also see the frays? Where the web has been broken.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I try to pull away, but her grip tightens, choking the air from my lungs.
I’m suffocating in my skin, just like I did in those obsidian shackles. Becoming a void within myself.
“He was in the threads when you found him. How did you unmake it?” The whites of Hazel’s eyes have fully disappeared. “There are so many frays now, and you can’t put them back together, can you?”
My heart races, and I wonder if this is what it feels like for the Fae when they face the Beating. My heartbeat thunders in my chest, and my ribs can hardly contain it. My vision dots until the edges are consumed by darkness. The very fabric of my aura tightens like it’s on the verge of fracturing.
“Elorie.” Strong hands grip my shoulders, pulling me back. A warm, invisible blanket sweeps around me.
Callum tugs me to his chest as Hazel finally releases my wrist.
