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“Because you’re naturally stronger with light magic?”
“The Mother chose me from birth,” Taria replies, lowering my wrist. “From the moment I entered this world, my golden eyes marked me as chosen by our goddess. The Grand Priestess was outside my mother’s house at the very moment I was born, having seen my birth through the Mother’s vision, not a minute early or late.”
I wonder what it feels like to shoulder such an enormous burden since birth. Maybe that’s why Taria seems decades older than her years, though she appears to be close to my age.
“Anyway,” she continues. “Let’s see what we can do to rid you of this dark magic.”
“Arluin will see us both as soon as we remove the bandage,” I warn as her fingers reach for the silk binding my wrist.
“I will be quick to blink the mark with my light magic.”
I give her a nod and then she pulls the bandage from around my wrist.
I haven’t seen the mark since the night Nolderan fell, since I threw myself off the Aether Tower to escape Arluin, and now the sight of it causes my breath to hitch in the back of my throat. An eye is etched deep into my flesh, animated as if it belongs to a person. At first the eye is closed, but the lid twitches and it opens. Taria presses three fingers to it, and then barely a second passes before golden light radiates out. The magic builds in intensity, becoming so blinding I have to look away. If it becomes any brighter, it’ll wake Juron and Caya. Even Zephyr.
“Arandir,” Taria whispers.
Heats spikes across my skin, cutting into the mark. The invisible blades plunge deeper, scraping out the darkness. The mark begins to yield to the light magic, but then it clings on tighter to my flesh. Then the light fizzles out. Night blankets us once more.
Taria slumps over, her back bowed. Her exhaustion is clear from the lines etched into her brow and the beads of sweat tracing her temple. Despite her fatigue, she doesn’t release my wrist. Her fingers remain pressed tightly to my skin, concealing the eye beneath.
“I’m sorry,” she says. With her free hand, she reaches up and wipes away the sweat from her forehead. “It appears I too am not strong enough to banish the mark.”
I lower my head. How powerful has Arluin become? Taria is to become the future Grand Priestess of Selynis, and light magic is far more effective than aether against dark magic, and yet her magic is no match for Arluin’s.
I shiver, though there’s no breeze blowing through the trees. Even if we reach Gerazad before Arluin and his necromancers, will the five of us be enough to defeat him? Six, if you count Zephyr. Though my faerie can be valiant when he wishes, I doubt he’ll be much help against the legions of undead. And what worries me most of all is whether even Natharius will be powerful enough.
“I can try again,” Taria says when I don’t reply.
She already looks exhausted. I doubt she has much more strength to offer, and if she tries, she’ll only drain herself more than she did while healing that girl on the street. “It’s all right. You’ve done more than enough.”
“I’ll try again another time,” she promises, a fierceness in her golden eyes. “My strength hasn’t yet fully recovered, but I’ll try again when I’m back to my usual self. Perhaps if I meditate long enough, I’ll be able to recall another spell from the depths of my mind.” I frown at that and she adds, “Perhaps you magi don’t have an equivalent. We priestesses can use light magic to absorb the entire contents of a book, but we can only retrieve that information through a spell which requires meditation.”
“That sounds useful.”
“It is, until the tomes start muddling together. I would trade the skill for your ability to conjure objects from aether.” Her gaze returns to her fingers on my wrist and the bandage beneath. “I suppose we’ll need to be quick with tying this again.”
I nod.
Taria grabs the bandage with her free hand and removes her fingers from my wrist. She works swiftly to secure the silk, but it isn’t fast enough. The eye opens quicker this time, and it stares at the two of us.
“Reyna.”
Arluin’s voice echoes through my mind, drowning out all of my thoughts.
Taria presses the silk to the eye before he can say anything else. And hopefully before he can make sense of our surroundings. While Taria’s golden eyes mark her as a priestess of Selynis, it’s doubtful he will recognize her as the future Grand Priestess.
She frowns at my strained expression. “Were we not quick enough?”
“We were, I think. He called my name, but I don’t think it was long enough for him to know where we are.”
“Good. That’s fortunate.”
After thanking her for attempting to cleanse me of Arluin’s spell, I head back to my blanket and retrieve the sleeping potion from the bundle, careful to only take enough for a few hours of sleep. The moon is long past its apex, and I doubt dawn is far away.
I curl up next to Zephyr and stare up at the stars. There’s no way I’d be able to sleep tonight, not naturally. The worry of whether we’re powerful enough to defeat Arluin claws at my heart. Luckily, the potion soon hits me and I fall into a dreamless sleep, free from any intrusion.
twenty-two
