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CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“T HIS IS USELESS! ” Gwyn kicked a patch of grass with her boot. The amber glow around her fingertips faded as she stomped the ground, cursing under her breath.

Feron sat on a rock he had pulled from the ground two hours before. He had gotten Gwyn to try every gift he could think of, but her magic hadn’t responded to any of it.

Riven pushed my shoulders down to massage my neck. Even though Gwyn insisted she felt no pain when her fingers glowed, every attempt twisted my insides into knots.

What if she never got control of her magic? What if it festered inside of her until it tore at her mind and body, fracturing her like Riven’s had? She might not feel pain now, but neither had Riven for the first few years of his life, not until his gift had blossomed and he transformed that first time.

I swallowed. Part of me didn’t want Gwyn to discover her powers. I wanted her to stay in that in-between state where she was safe, even if it was for a little while. The other crueler part of me wanted her magic to explode out of her at its peak so I could glimpse the worst to come.

Catastrophizing was torture. I’d seen too much, done too much in my life, to imagine the worst for Gwyn.

I pulled at the collar of my tunic, letting the air cool the sweat from my skin.

“Perhaps the wind is your element.” Feron looked at me.

My jaw cocked to the side. Gwyn had started the day trying that gift. But his patient stare got the best of me.

“Stand on your mark,” I told Gwyn, pointing at the grass she’d kicked.

She sighed but took her place. I walked her through the exercise, holding my breath as her fingers came to life and waited for a gust or a tiny breeze to blow across my face.

But nothing came.

Gwyn shrieked in rage. A flock of birds nearby scattered like leaves in the wind Gwyn couldn’t conjure.

She kicked the back of Feron’s rock. “Fuck!”

Gwyn fell to the ground.

Fyrel ran to her side. “Maybe we should try again tomorrow.”

“No,” Gwyn snapped. “I can do this. I need to do this!”

I pulled off her boot. “You need to stay still. You have a broken toe.” I pressed my fingers around the rest of her foot, feeling for swelling and breaks along the ankle just as Rheih had taught me. “Look away,” I ordered, readying to snap her knuckle back into place.

Gwyn crossed her arms and didn’t break my gaze.

I shook my head.

Snap.

She groaned but refused to move. I called my healing gift forward and let it ease her pain as the bones fused back together. I didn’t call it back until Gwyn’s breathing had settled and her jaw relaxed.

I lifted her foot, checking my work. The scar along her ankle caught the light just like my names did on the rare occasions I let sunlight touch them. The tether that had bound Gwyn to the palace for most of her life hadn’t disappeared but settled into a fine silver line.

It had burned into her skin like a brand the day her mother died. And even though the magic was broken, she would carry the relic with her for the rest of her days. No matter how far she got from the kingdom, no matter who won the war I’d started, she would carry that past with her everywhere.

My magic prickled under my skin. But there were things magic couldn’t fix.

Gwyn sat up, tucking her chin onto her knees.

“You don’t need to be this hard on yourself.” I patted her leg.

Her amber eyes flashed. “Yes, I do. I need to be ready.”

I stilled. “Ready for what?”

Gwyn picked at the grass, unable to meet my eyes. “To fight.” Her jaw pulsed, and I knew she didn’t mean fight on the battlefield.

She only had one target in mind.

Her fingers traced the outline of her tether without looking. How many times had she done that in the palace, dreaming of her freedom? Now that she had it, all she could think about was going back and gutting Damien like he had her.

Panic pulled at my ribs until it hurt to breathe. No matter what happened, I would rather die than let Gwyn go after Damien on her own.

“Do that again, child,” Feron said. He nodded at Gwyn’s fingers on her ankle, tracing the tether.

They were glowing, leaving streaks of amber light in the air over her skin, but this time the light hadn’t disappeared. The strokes had fused together into a single symbol waiting for Gwyn to finish.

She stopped and the symbol fizzled out.

“Only draw the lines within that circle,” Feron said, eyeing her ankle from his stone seat with glowing irises. He was mapping the pattern along her skin with his magic, feeling the grooves of Gwyn’s scar like a river cutting through Elverath.

Gwyn straightened, her fingers hovering over her tether. She took a quick breath and started marking the air with light. The symbol was made of five straight lines encased by a circle. It reminded me of the shapes I had cut into the earth at each seal.

The amber streaks pulsed when Gwyn finally connected the shape. They turned gold, and a thick stone grew from the ground until it pierced the light like a sword through a belly.

Gwyn’s eyes went wide with delight.

“I did it.”

I stilled, assessing Gwyn for any oncoming pain. “How do you feel?”

“Amazing.” Gwyn looked at her fingertips. “Everything inside me is buzzing and warm. Whatever that was, my magic liked it.”

“No pain?” Gwyn shook her head and my shoulders finally fell from my ears. “You’re an earth wielder.”

“Awesome,” Fyrel whispered.

“No, she is not,” Feron said, his brow tense over the straight line of his mouth. “That symbol on her leg is not just decoration. It is an ancient rune for stone. I assume Aemon used it in his tether to represent the palace of Koratha, as it is carved from a single piece of stone. Gwyn does not have command over the earth like you and me; the stone appeared because she traced the rune to command it.”

Riven’s voice had that same bookish curiosity that Vrail’s used to have. “Like a spell?”

“Much more powerful than anything the Mages or Elves have ever conjured. Together or alone.” Feron bit his lip and turned toward Fyrel. “Fetch me a piece of parchment and a glass pen.”

She ran to the equipment room, throwing drawers open with lightning speed until she found what he had asked for.

Feron sketched a shape onto the paper. It was made of seven jagged lines also encased in a circle. “Draw this,” he said to Gwyn.

The parchment shook in her hand, but the other glowed with the light of her magic. She traced the lines with her finger, finishing in a circular arc. Once more, the amber light pulsed and turned gold the moment the rune was finished. This time, the paper combusted into crimson flames, burning hot and tall before finally falling to the ground and snuffing out.

“Earth and fire?” Riven cocked his head back, impressed. “Those are two powerful gifts.”

Feron shook his head. “One gift. Of unknown and untapped potential.” He turned to Gwyn. “Do you feel tired at all?”

She smirked and shook her head. “I feel like I never need to sleep again.” She drew the fire rune once more and giggled as a ball of flame hung in the air for a few moments before dropping to the ground.

“Do spell wielders grow weary more quickly than other wielders?” I asked. Feron’s mindwalking gift took more from him than his earth wielding, just as shifting between forms depleted my own gifts more quickly.

Feron blinked. “There is no such thing as a spell wielder.” His lips pursed, studying Gwyn once more. “Until now.”

Gwyn’s eyes went wide and a sly smile crept up her lips. “Until now,” she repeated under her breath.

I froze. “You have never seen magic like this before?”

Feron shook his head. “Mages and some Elves were practiced in the art of spell casting. But it was never like this. Runes were the foundation of the spell, but they would spend weeks waiting for the stars and moon to align as they harvested the correct ingredients. And I never saw a spell that worked so directly as this.”

“Not even the Faemothers?” Riven crossed his arms.

Feron shook his head. “None of the niinokwenar nor their descendants have ever held this power. At least not to my knowledge.” He turned to Gwyn and uttered the same cursed words Elaran had. “You, my child, are something entirely new.”

Gwyn lifted her chin and claimed a name for herself. “An Amber Fae.”

I bit my cheek. “But what does that mean? If I turn any more Halflings into Fae, they could all have powers that you have never seen?”

Feron gave a noncommittal shrug. “It would appear so. But the blessings of Elverath should never be assumed.”

“But what if these new powers are too much? What if they can’t be controlled? What if they hurt people?” I started to pace. “What if you and the other Fae can’t train them, Feron?”

Gwyn stood. From the way she still stared at her hands, it was clear she hadn’t heard a word I said. “I’m going to the library,” she shouted, already running toward the tunnel.

Fyrel trailed after her. It would only take them minutes to convince Vrail to give them every book with runes she had.

My stomach hardened. I turned back to Feron.

“How do we help her hone her gift?” My shoulders tightened around my neck once more. “How do we train her for battle with a gift like that?”

Riven and Feron held the same hard expression on their faces. For a moment they looked like father and son instead of distant kin.

Then Feron said the scariest words I had ever heard. “I don’t know if we can.”

“Is she coming?” Riven asked, leaning against the outside of my burl.

I shook my head. “She didn’t even speak to me. She just stared at the wall as I explained the mission. I’m not even sure if she heard me.”

Riven grazed my cheek with the back of his hand. “Syrra blames herself.”

I rubbed my brow, exhaustion getting the best of me. “She shouldn’t.”

“No.” Riven’s voice was hard. “She shouldn’t.”

I bit my lip. I wanted to console Riven, to tell him that he shouldn’t blame himself for Maerhal’s death either, but I didn’t know if I believed it. I had spent so long wrapped up in my own guilt that I had no measure for what was healthy and what was the darkness digging its talons deeper into me. All I knew for sure was that if my lie had been exploited by Damien and ended with someone dead, I would feel guilty too. More than I already did.

I walked into my burl, discarding my cloak on a chair. Riven lingered in the doorway. I took out my braid and turned back to him. “You can come in.”

He stepped through the threshold like a child stepping into unknown waters. So much had happened between us, yet he had spent so little time in my chambers. We were like two people lost at sea, clamoring onto each other to save ourselves from the pain and guilt. I didn’t regret it. But we hadn’t had the chance to grow slowly together, stacking tiny little moments over the course of years. There hadn’t been time, but part of me wished there had been.

“When I first came to Myrelinth, you started to tell me little details about yourself.” I unlaced my vest and let it fall to the floor. “Why did you stop?”

Riven swallowed from his seat on the chaise. “Because I ran out of things to tell you without telling you the truth about … who I was.”

“I know now. Tell me something.” I grabbed the back of the chair. I was still dressed but I felt completely naked.

Riven bunched his trousers in his fist. “I know I run away from problems when they arise. I think I convince myself that if no one is dying then it can wait, but making others wait—making you wait—hurts. I know that but I still don’t know if I can stop.”

I perched on Riven’s armrest and tucked a loose strand back into his half braid. “Why run at all?”

Riven leaned his head back to look at me. “All I ever saw was my father cause pain. Pain to his servants, pain to his lords, pain to the people he claimed to love.” Riven’s jaw pulsed. “Sometimes I wonder if that’s all I’m capable of. Hurting people. Sometimes it feels like if anyone spends enough time with me, they will get hurt and that staying far away is the best thing for everyone.”

My chest tore at Riven’s words; they were too familiar. I had lived that way for thirty years, keeping others at a distance for that very reason. But I’d been wrong.

I sighed. “You run to save them from the hurt, but the leaving is what does it.”

Riven’s face crumpled and he nodded.

“Thank you for telling me.” I pressed a kiss to his forehead.

Riven’s eyes widened like he’d thought I would never touch him like that again. “Thank you, diizra . For listening and for asking.”

“Confess all you like,” I said jokingly, but Riven’s face hardened.

“I’m scared for Nik.”

I caressed his cheek with my hand. “I am too.” Every night I went to bed, I hoped that I wasn’t woken by a messenger announcing Nik was dead.

“No. Not like that.” Riven cleared his throat. “I’m terrified of Nik dying without coming home but I am more scared of him living and never forgiving me.” Riven peered up at me. “Is that selfish?”

“A little,” I answered, smoothing his hair. “But I don’t think it’s wrong. You want to make things right, Riven. Your heart is true even if it’s a little wanting.”

He laid his head on my lap. “Did you get the sleeping draught?”

I pulled a small case out of my pocket. “I had Rheih increase the dosage.”

Riven grunted. He opened the case to reveal two small darts inside. “You’re certain you don’t need more help tomorrow.”

I shook my head. “You get Kairn out, and Dynara and I will take care of the rest.”