Page 12 of A Court of Truth and Thorns (Royal Scout #2)

KALI

T he oily magic flows into my lungs, my muscles, my skin. A coalescence of agony and bliss.

My body yields to it. Absorbs it into its pores.

The fire blazing inside me turns to welcoming warmth, the magic a tangible thing.

A familiar feeling surfaces, a memory. Magic has been inside me before, when Trace healed my injuries.

That magic was different, still oily but refined and purposeful.

The healing magic, tuned by Trace and filtered through the living crystal, had a mission.

This magic is raw and untamed. It moves without purpose or direction.

Stinging bees who don’t know where to settle.

Like the wild magical tufts inside a novice whisperer’s crystal. Except I am the crystal and the whisperer, both.

I grope for the words I’ve heard Leaf recite to novices, words she tried to recite to me in her trials.

Concentrate. Feel the magic’s chaotic movements.

Now envision how you want it to weave together.

Coax the outermost strands toward the middle.

I guide the bees. Not with any muscles I’ve used before, but with another power inside me, one that is clumsy and uncertain from lack of use.

I push, pull, coax. The roaming magic makes me scream in pain one instant and writhe from its tickling touch the next.

But I am screaming, I realize. I am writhing. I am breathing. I am moving. I am alive.

I take deep breaths. I stroke the bees lovingly. They are together now, but they want something to do. They want a purpose. They would like to make something whole, but doing anything would be better than doing nothing.

Calm. I need to stay calm. Closing my eyes, I imagine myself in the safety of the shadows.

There are no shackles, no pain, no hateful eyes watching me writhe like a worm.

I imagine myself absorbing the light around me so only darkness remains.

I breathe in the darkness and breathe out the fear.

In and out. Even the stinging bees seem soothed by the rhythm. In and—

The scream that shatters the tent should have belonged to me, but I’m fairly certain I was inhaling when it sounded. Opening my eyes, I find Raza pressing her back against the canvas wall. Her one eye is so wide with panic, I can see the white around her iris glistening from across the tent.

“What’s going on in here?” General Hewe’s deep voice booms from the tent’s entrance. Copa, Wil, and Trace file in after him and stop dead. All of them. Staring at me with eyes as wide as the princess’s.

Following their gaze, I look down at myself and choke on air.

Darkness as thick as night covers me like a blanket. Bringing my hand up to my face, I can’t see even the outline of my fingers. Yet the people standing just a few paces away are crystal clear. As if I’m looking from inside the shadows into a lit room .

“Kal!” Trace screams, wheeling about to face Raza. He advances on her like a predator. “Where is Kal?”

“I’m here.” My voice sounds too loud, my heart beating so quickly it hurts.

Trace spins back around, braces himself, and plunges into the darkness around me.

His hands connect with my knee and shuffle quickly to my face.

Warm, calloused palms touch my cheeks and smooth my hair.

His forehead presses against mine. “Stars. Are you all right?” His voice is quiet, desperate. “Talk to me.”

“What did you do?” Copa demands of the princess. “Where is the wand?”

“What did I do?” Raza screeches. “What did that whore do?”

Trace’s hands roam down my arms, stopping at the manacles locked around my wrists. He growls. His hands move on, feeling the instrument beneath my shirt. He grips the wand and unceremoniously chucks it across the tent, then pulls me into his chest.

The crystal is a dull gray.

“Bloody stars, it’s depleted completely.” The horror in Copa’s words ripples like lightning through me. “That’s enough magic to kill ten men.”

Trace’s hold around me tightens. “You used a stim crystal on her?” The rage rumbles like thunder. “How dare you!”

“Enough!” General Hewe’s voice booms over Trace’s. “The stim crystal has its uses in questioning. It has no business in untrained hands. We shall address both of those issues once someone tells me what the bloody hells I am looking at right now.”

“A mage acting on instinct,” Trace growls toward the general.

“Then un- instinct it. Now. ”

I shudder at his tone, even as that word—mage—ricochets inside my head. My body curls in on itself. Mage? No. Bahir is a mage. I’m just an oddity. An anomaly of magic.

Trace’s hold tightens. His forehead presses against mine again, his hands on either side of my head.

“You are using magic to bend light into darkness, Kal. I need you to stop,” Trace whispers to me, the thunder beneath his voice so violent, I can feel its vibration. “Control the magic, and yourself.”

“How?” My voice trembles. My stinging bees, my magic, it wants to be doing something.

Trace draws a breath. He doesn’t know. My blood races, washing my insides with panic.

How could he know? He’s a whisperer, not a.

.. a mage. The mere fact that I absorbed and used an ex- healing crystal’s magic to manipulate light contradicts the whisperers’ principles.

Here is a corollary for you, Leaf. If you manage to extract magic from a crystal and feed it to a mage, a lot of things can happen.

“All right,” Trace’s calm interrupts my panic. “Take a breath. Can you feel where that magic is now?”

I close my eyes, matching my breathing to Trace’s. I feel the stinging bees inside me. “Yes.”

He exhales. “Good. Can you release your hold on it? Stop directing it?” His words flounder for a second, synonyms being offered like keys in hopes that one will match the lock. “Wall it off?”

The last one feels right. The way I visualized myself absorbing the light, I imagine a hive forming around the bees. As the beehive’s edges harden, my darkness—my glorious, safe, wonderful shadow—starts to ebb. I halt, my body trembling in Trace’s arms.

“Keep going,” Trace whispers softly. “You must show the general that you control the magic, not the other way around. If you can’t—” The words catch in his throat, but I understand.

I just absorbed enough magic to kill a squad of soldiers.

If the general deems me too volatile, he may order me put down like a rabid beast. I allow the beehive cocoon forming around my magic to mature and harden, cutting off the bees’ interaction with the outside world.

Around the tent, gasps confirm my success before I dare open my eyes. When I do, Trace’s dark ones are only inches away. Our breaths mingle.

“Princess Raza,” Wil’s words cut the air as he throws all the authority of a would-be king behind an adolescent, still-forming voice. “Attempting to murder a member of my court is an act of war. Unhand her at once.”

Raza raises her chin. “Last I checked, Your Highness, our nations were at war. It is you who come here begging for peace and pity. As for the member of your court, as you put it, I find it insulting that you attempt to deceive my people by pretending she is anything but what she is.”

Wil steps toward her, his chest forward. “Lady Kalianna is my cousin, a close member of the royal family. I demand you unhand her at once.” I smile despite myself.

“Or what?” says Raza. Her head cocks to the side. “You demand I unhand her or you shall do what, exactly?”

Trace gives my shoulder a final squeeze and rises, coming to stand beside Wil. “Or,” Trace’s low voice rumbles through the tent, “your day will turn out worse than you can imagine, sister.”