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A frown pinched my lips as I turned to the next page. Maybe it was because I was feeling the sickening pain of drained magic but it felt cruel. The King tried to protect the Seelie, though. He had to make hard choices and when your enemy could create a dragon from shadows which breathed actual fire, harsh attacks might prove necessary.
I set the stack down, patting the papers together before grabbing another. One page looked like someone had hand copied it from a book.History of Magik—A First Centuri Guide.
Someone had highlighted a sentence, scratching under it with ink multiple times.Magik untethered becomes unbeholden and can be stolen if a User Of Magik possesses within himself the knowledge of Ag Goid.
Stealing magic? That was illegal and—I trailed my fingers up to the petite zevar which hung against my collar bones—impossible with zevars. Wasn’t it? Or maybe not. If the King intended to use some sort of metal that could drain magic, maybe he could steal it as well.
A bird chirped outside, and I startled, the papers rustling between my fingers. I was getting too deep in all of this.I should slip out before anyone catches me here. The discovery had piqued my curiosity too much, though. Lira would need to know about this. She’d return as an heiress to a throne set on stealing magic.
I could imagine her thoughts on that.We can’t steal magic.
Even if it’s from the people who bodily stole you?
Still, something tweaked in me over the knowledge. Goddamn Lira. She’d become my moral conscious.Thanks a lot, you bitch.I could see her smirking at me, her eyes sparkling even as she shook her head.
For a moment, a jolt of pain struck my heart. I missed Lira, and I was afraid for her. Swallowing those feelings down and trying to focus on helping her only pushed the worry back so much. She might be in trouble or hurt or… worse. I couldn’t think of worse. The disconnect to our magic left me shaken though. Something had happened to her for our magic to feel so cut off.
I dropped the sheet and lifted another stack before thumbing through the pages. Sketches caught my eye, and I shuffled through the paper until I found the spot again. Someone had sketched a massive creature with wide, bat-like wings and slanted eyes. A dragon but not the kind illustrated in children’s books. This one looked like something from a nightmare. Razor sharp protrusions lined down its face and back and the creature’s eyes shone orange, as if fire originated within the beast. To the side, a sentence was scribbled.Fàfnr sleeps in the Kortden regions.
I peeled the page back to see more, but the door clicked open, and the King stepped inside, his stone-like eyes glaring.
Dropping the pages, I swept a bow. “Your Highness, I—”
“Have made a tremendous mistake,” he said coldly as he gestured for guards to swarm in my direction. I backed up but bumped into a bookshelf. My arms shook as the guards approached.
The King tucked his hands behind his back. “Take her to a cell.”
Oh, Lira, I’m so sorry. I tried to help you. I really did.
CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT
LIRA
Sai stumbled a step,and I pressed my hand against his chest to steady him. He’d stopped talking to me and sweat dripped down his brow. We walked out of the temple, the box with the Map of Forgetting in Sai’s pack thunking against my shoulders. In the dim light of the mist-shrouded sea, Sai’s color appeared pale, ghastly almost, his lips gray.
Something was not right.
“Sai,” I finally said as he stumbled over another rock on the pebble-lined beach. Waves lapped against the edge, making the trail slick. “Maybe we should stop.”
“We can’t.”
“We might need to.”
He curled his arm tighter around my shoulder and rested his head against mine. “You want me to be honest with you, right?”
His heart beat against my palm, and I nodded.
“If I stop, I might die, Lira. I have to make it to the sirens.”
Terror curled through me, a poisonous vine that wrapped around my heart. I thought I’d healed Sai but apparently it hadn’t worked. Maybe I’d just prolonged his death by using my magic wrong. By some miracle I kept my voice even. “We’ll make it.”
He gave a weak bob of his head and I sang, urging the wind to push us and help carry some of Sai’s weight. We didn’t have time to continue plodding along at his slow pace. He groaned, and I tightened my arms around his shoulders.
Each step felt endless as his breathing grew progressively more rapid and his skin warmed against my fingers. When we turned a corner around a jutting of rocks and a city of ivory buildings with umber, rounded roofs came into view, I could have cried. “We’ve made it.”
Sai lifted his head and gave a wobbly nod.
Oh God.
