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Far enough to be safe, or so I’d thought.
He shouldn’t have been affected at all.
I’d used magic yesterday, and plenty of it, on the king. On Raziel, to heal him. On killing the mages and the hounds and the soldiers.
In fact, I’d expended all my magic.
Which, strangely enough, was straining to escape the iron bands right now. In fact, my magic was thrashing so violently inside me, my bones ached from the unrelenting pressure. I checked to make sure the iron was in place, something Zor didn’t miss.
“Your magic is back, I take it?”
“More than before,” I murmured, unable to hide my flash of worry. “How about yours?”
The grin I expected never came, only that level, flat stare, as if he was trying to see inside my head. “Mine’s back, too.” His lips—the ones I wanted so desperately to kiss again—tightened ominously.
“There’s only one problem, Anaria. The magic that just got stronger?” Zorander shook his head. “It isn’t my magic. This is something different. Like yours…but darker. I can still transport, but this…This feels dangerous, more like a weapon.”
“What does that even mean?” I whispered, grunting when Raziel elbowed me in the side.
“Why are you two talking so loud when I could sleep for another hour?” Raz grumbled, rolling over, his arm splaying over my side. “I swear, this better not become a habit.”
Zor and I looked at each other with the same wide-eyed expression.
The blemish on Raz’s face was the same size, a small black circle that would easily be dismissed as a mole.
But on his arm…
“Are you seeing this?” Zor hissed.
Oh, I saw it all right. A mark almost identical to Zor’s that ran from the inside of Raziel’s wrist almost to the crook of his elbow. Not as long as Zor’s. Twice as thick.
“Yeah, I found this fucking thing last night.” Raz sat up and rubbed his face, his hair wonderfully rumpled, his half-lidded eyes dipping to the black mark wrapped around my side.
“At least there’s no denying we all belong together.”
36
ANARIA
After spending too much time comparing our not-quite-matching marks, Zorander left to find us horses, deciding it would be best if none of us touched our magic and took a more traditional mode of transportation back to Blackcastle.
He returned in his shirtsleeves with two horses, and as I wrapped my arms around Raziel’s middle, I couldn’t much complain about how this worked out.
Zor had let me keep his precious knife, saying I needed a weapon more than he did, and I had to admit, I felt better with a blade strapped to my thigh beneath the filthy dress.
Tavion, Tristan, and Adele should have been through the portal by now, hopefully past those horrid skulls and close to the end of the tunnels. Whether or not they’d stop to see Lucius on their way was anyone’s guess, though in my heart, I hoped Tavion took the time.
Somehow, the thought made me feel heavy, the image of Adele clinging to Tavion’s back as he loped away seeming more like a premonition than a rescue.
Who was to say how long any of us had to say the things we wanted to say to the people we had in our lives?
And how many regrets would we have once they were gone, and we realized how much time we’d selfishly wasted? Maybe Tavion would realize that before it was too late.
“Are you all right back there?” Raz asked for the umpteenth time.
“I’m good,” I told him with a false brightness I didn’t feel.
The pressure of my still-building magic was almost too much to take. I kept fidgeting in the saddle, trying to get comfortable, which was hard when I was bursting at the seams.
