Page 33

Adira faced my brother. “Why does me showing up matter?”

“If you are the last blood mage of House Ravenwood, then you are quite possibly the only mage who can unravel the blood spells around the degeneration to find the crowns, and we are running out oftime.”

“How long until it spreads completely?”

This was the part of the tale I despised most.

“The writings of the cruel ones’ curse will be completed by the next Nóttbrull.”

“Why is that familiar?” She shook her head but I thought I caught her mutter something about dreams and death under her breath. Her inked fingers rubbed her forehead. “I guess I don’t know.”

“Nóttbrull is a celestial occurrence every season weave where our two moons align to give a final bloom of fields and herbs to be stored for the prosperity of the new season and brings the first frosts in upcoming weeks. We offer thanks to the goddess for seeing us through harvests on that night.”

“It’s more a tradition than anything,” I grumbled. “Another reason to have a festival.”

“Forgive Kagesh and his apathy,” Destin said, “he’s rather agnostic with the goddess.”

Adira cracked another finger under the table. “But this Nóttbrull . . .”

“Yes. The degeneration will be too fierce to stop.” Destin nodded. She didn’t need to finish for him to know what she meant. “Lady Adira, you must understand, very few of the common mage know of this part. I’d like to keep it that way. Until today, in truth, I’d begun to accept my hope of leading Magiaria into a new dawn would never come to pass.”

Adira blew out a rough breath. “But if whatever is concealing the crowns, you believe they are blood spells, and you wear the crown, you might be able to stop it?”

“It’s not quite so simple,” said Destin. “It will take a great effort of magics uniting, but we would have the true power of this land with the twoskallkrönor. It is our only chance.”

Her knee bounced with nerves. “I don’t know how to do magic.”

“You are a mage,” Destin whispered. “It radiates from you, the magic of this land, even if you do not yet recall how to summon it.”

“But if I try to touch this and I’m not part of this bloodline, I’ll die.”

“Yes,” I said. What was the point of misleading her? I did not soften words like Destin.

“But if I am,” she spoke, more to herself than anyone. “I might get . . . magic back that could save countless people.”

“We do not know how swiftly your abilities might return, but this is the first step. To know for certain.” Destin smiled, hope alight in his eyes.

I wanted to warn her not to risk it, but had no time.

With a soft curse on her tongue, Adira closed her eyes, and curled a hand around the golden curve of the Ravenwood arm ring. The moment her flesh collided with the gold, a force, sharp and brutal, pummeled my chest until the room spun, and fell into darkness.

CHAPTER 12

Adira

Something vicious. . . somethingincredible,unlocked within me.

Whether it was beneficial or wicked, I didn’t know. Heat rippled from the tips of my fingers to my skull, boiling in my veins like molten ore.

The dining hall faded. All around me shadows mingled with flashes of light, swirling with the violence of a sudden sand storm. My hair whipped my face. I closed my eyes. The burst of furious energy was terrifying, intoxicating. I had no clue how to use it or calm the storm.

Within the frenzy of shadows and slices of light, a strange sort of funnel of pressure wrapped around me, squeezing, crushing. I held the sides of my face, screaming, terrified it would swallow me whole.

Until pressure dulled and faces, voices, strange moments, rushed through my mind, so real it seemed perfectly reasonable to reach out and touch them.

Glimpses of the lights of Las Vegas, thick smoke from casinos. Moments from when I fell into the employ of Lloyd, were followed with the grimy, wandering hands of his goons. Various living rooms of foster homes flashed by next. Some were made of tile and white furnishings we were never allowed to touch, others were littered in toys and sleeping cots from the numerous kids in the house.

I steeled against the wind as time sped fiercer, drawing me to younger days, days where I had no memory. A family who nearly adopted me at age three, but changed their minds after finding out they were expecting twins.