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Her eyes narrowed, as I’m sure she wasn’t used to be spoken to in that way, and she didn’t like me contradicting her. She kept going, though, ignoring it as if I hadn’t said a word.
“Vesper is infamous in Morovia. We know all about her and her evil, black magic.”
“Then you have the advantage, Your Majesty. My mother died when I was an infant.”
“She ran from this kingdom like a villain,” she shouted, her voice ringing out in the echoing chamber. “The king sent assassins after her, but she died before they could reach her.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know about any of that. As I said, it happened long before I was born. It has nothing to do with me.”
Her lips twisted, and her cold gaze pierced me. “In Morovia, practitioners of Black Magic are examined by the court magicians, and their magic is bound. Has your Alpha bound yours yet, I wonder?”
“I don’t have magic, Your Majesty.” I guess that was a lie, because I had used some a time or two, but I had no idea how it worked, and didn’t even want it. It just seemed to happen.
“That remains to be seen,” she snapped. “You’ll be taken to be examined by the priests and the court magicians. The law is absolute. If you’re found to have any of Vesper’s evil magic inside you, it will be bound. Do you understand?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but nothing came out. Her hostility was so apparent, I don’t know what I could have said anyway.
She kept talking. “If you’re found to be irredeemable…in other words, if you won’t repent your sins and cooperate with the priests and magicians and allow us to rid you of corruption, then we’ll have no choice but to act. Do you understand?”
“No, Your Majesty, I don’t understand. I am not a practitioner of dark magic. I’ll gladly cooperate. I’ll tell you anything you want to know, butI won’t admit to lies.”
“Enough!” she cried, in a loud, angry voice and waved at the guards who had brought me in. “If you weren’t the omega of my husband’s brother, we would have acted long before this. My husband keeps stalling, but he and your Alpha are not here now, and I’m fully in charge. I must do as I alone think best.” She nodded toward the guards. “You’ll be examined. If you’re found to be corrupted with Vesper’s evil magic, then you will submit, and your magic will be bound. If you resist, or your magic is intractable, the penalty is death. You’ll be burned at the stake. Take him.”
They put their hands on me and I tensed, frightened out of my wits by what she’d just said, and anxious that they might hurt my unborn child. When the first one reached for me, I instinctively flung out my hand—and watched in horror as he flew through the air and landed on his back some twenty feet away.
Queen Rozamond jumped to her feet and shrieked, and her guards swarmed us, coming from what seemed like every direction. I went down under the weight of several of them, and I fell on my side, curling protectively around my belly. It was over quickly then, because I didn’t struggle or fight back. As I was dragged from the room, I could still hear Rozamond screaming.
Perhaps an hour later, I was taken in front of the court magicians. There were half a dozen of them, all wearing outlandish looking robes in various colors. All were old men with long beards, except for the one in the middle, whom I took to be the head priest. He was no more than middle-aged, with a purple robe, elaborately embroidered in gold. He had a long, severe face and wore an odd, cone-shaped hat. He stepped forward and glared at me.
“Vesper’s son, I’m told. Tell me your name.”
“I am Prince Rory of Igella, son of the late King Elam.”
“And his warlock queen.”
I said nothing in reply and he turned to an ornate table behind him, where there laid a wooden box. He opened it and took out a long silver chain. He handed it to one of the other priests, who came over to me a bit warily and draped the chain around my neck and wound it around my shoulders. It was quite heavy but didn’t affect me at all that I could tell. Keeping his hand on it, he began to chant what sounded like nonsense words to me. I didn’t understand any of it, but a strange white light began to radiate off the silver links. The light grew brighter and began seeping inside me.
I drew back, afraid of what it might be doing to me, but one of the guards behind me poked me with the tip of a pike and I turned to glare at him and saw him flinch. The light continued to pour into me, but it didn’t hurt or cause anything at all to happen that I could tell, so I stopped moving and let them do what they wanted.
They finally finished and the head priest in the purple robe glared at me and brought over a golden goblet.
“Drink this,” he barked, and I hesitated. I had no idea what it was, but I knew they’d pour it down my throat if I didn’t do as they asked. Reluctantly, I drank it down.
It was wine, bitter and dry, but only wine as far as I could tell. I didn’t fall down in a fit or start foaming at the mouth, and I think they were a little disappointed. They took the goblet from my hands and then three of them came forward and began chanting over me again.
I recognized the chant as the same one Lex and Asher had used on me. They were trying to bind my powers, and I could feel the ice seeping into my body again. As before it started in my head and flowed down into my chest and limbs. It was horribly uncomfortable and worst of all, that same heat I’d felt before when Lex and Asher tried this began building low in my belly. It was like a pressure slowly building up, and I thought it might burst me wide open if I didn’t let it out, but I didn’t know how. I tightened my fists and gritted my teeth, willing the pressure to ease off, but it kept going, my chest getting tighter and tighter.
Suddenly, it blew out of me like water bursting out of a broken dam, and there was no way I could control it. It was like a blast of flood waters, except for how hot it was, and I could feel it swirling out of me in a sizzling hot torrent. It hit the man in the purple robe first and then splashed outward. He started screaming as he was picked up off his feet, like a mighty, invisible wave of boiling water had taken him, and all the priests were tossed violently up in the air to slam into the wall behind them. They were screaming too.
I knew then that I was done for, and this display had nailed shut the lid on my coffin—I closed my eyes and sank to the floor so the soldiers wouldn’t consider me a threat and run me through at once. Clutching my stomach, I curled myself into a ball and waited for the blows that I knew were coming and about to fall.
I didn’t have long to wait.
Chapter Fourteen
Lex
When I came tearing into the yard of the lodge, followed by Wyatt and Brandon, I fully intended to stay only long enough to change horses, as I’d ridden mine way too hard on the way back. I needed a new mount. I was desperate with fear, sick with it, and all I could think of was getting to Rory as fast as I could. According to my calculations, the palace guards had come for him almost three fucking days ago. They could have done anything with him in all that time, and all I could think of was him in some dark, filthy dungeon room, frightened by the dark and the rats, deprived of food and water. Maybe even cold without any blankets.
