Page 33 of Burdened Bonds

But though the darkness had been driven away, it lingered out there, just beyond the border.

The threat from those disposed to the West remained and the council, wanting to keep its promise to the people, decreed that all magicals should be registered and a protection force – an army – be formed to protect the new republic from attack.

Decades passed. The academy was formed to train the next generation of magicals in battle. The threat from the West never diminished, but it never grew either.

That was until the black prince.

They say he was descended from dragons themselves. They say he had unknown powers – that he could turn day to night and night to day. They say he could wield crimson magic as if it was nothing but child’s play.

The forces in the West had been fractured and splintered. They had spent as much time fighting one another as they had the new republic. But the black prince was ruthlessand cunning, murdering his enemies, slaughtering anyone who stood in his way, until eventually the magicals in the West fell under his command, united by his fist. He formed them into an army with the intention of overthrowing the republic and reuniting the two countries. Ruling them both.

His attacks on the republic were stronger, more ruthless than anything that had come before. There were tales of dragons, of ancient magic, of new sinister curses. For a time, the republic struggled to keep him at bay. It looked as if the republic would fall.

And then as quickly as the black prince had risen to power, he fell, disappeared, vanished.

A dark cloud dispersed by the wind.

Some say he was killed by his own men, some by an assassin from the republic, some that he succumbed to the charms of a siren.

But he was gone and the threat from the West fell with him.

15

Rhi

The animatedpictures fall away and it’s just me and him, the fire and Pip once more.

I swallow. The pictures may be gone but they remain dancing in my mind. This man, powerful and dangerous, determined to rule both lands.

“You really think he was my dad?”

The assassin picks up a stick, snapping it in half between his hands and letting one end catch alight; he twists it in the flames, watching as the fire consumes the wood.

“I’m no scholar, little rabbit. But I remember things. Things like faces.”

“But you don’t know for sure. You could be wrong. It’s not like you ever met him. You just have this picturein your mind.”

“I guess that picture came from somewhere, though, didn’t it? An illustration. A photo.”

I chew on my lip and stare down at my hands. I can feel the magic tingling in my nerves. That light, airy magic that’s always been there, and that dark, more sinister magic too. The magic that wants to tear everything and everyone apart. Does that come from him? My dad?

Was he really this black prince – if such a man even existed? Or is this a clever story created by a crazy mind?

I wish I had my locket. I wish I could open it right now and stare down at the picture. The one of my mom cradling a tiny baby in her arms, that man by her side. Were they in love? Was I created from that love? Or was he only ever using my mom as a weapon, like the chancellor did, like the council.

“This is why we have to get the hell away,” Renzo says, the flames racing closer and closer to his fingers as he grips the stick. “If they suspect you are who you are, then you’re too fucking dangerous to let wander about … the black prince’s daughter.”

“Do you think … do you think I’m like him?” Dark, dangerous, evil.

The flames lick right against his fingertips and he turns to look at me, excitement flickering across his face.

“I think you’re fucking incredible, little rabbit. I think I’d follow you anywhere, do anything for you. I’ve never met anyone like you before.”

“You mean … the crimson magic?” I say with a disappointment that surprises me. The man is sick and twisted and I can’t forget the way his face had lit up when the scarlet magic had sizzled on my fingers.

“Everything about you. The dark and the light. The shadows and the blaze. The way you get real mad at me, theway you scream, the way you’re always fighting.” His eyes swim down my form. “I’ve never wanted to consume anything as badly as I have you.”

The intensity of his gaze and his words make me shiver and he tosses the remainder of the stick into the fire making the flames burn higher.