Page 34

I tapped my finger against the table. Everything irritated me tonight. Music played too loud. Guyan’s smug face smiled too often. The goblets held spirits instead of lemonade.

No lemonade. And no Callista.

My heart had grown accustomed to her presence, and her absence gripped it like a vise, tightening it so every movement—every beat—was a battle. If I didn’t stay focused, I might forget to breathe.

Focus. I tapped my finger against the table again, in tune to the music. It was a lively two-step, and a handful of children squealed with excitement as they ran around couples navigating the dance floor.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The blood in my head pounded against my skull. My head did not usually hurt, but if my heart and lungs were screaming, it wasn’t too surprising that my head would also. Perhaps I should leave the party to Guyan and go to bed—

A commotion at the door on the far side of the Dining Hall distracted me from my aching heart and mind. The two soldiers at the door stepped outside into the corridor. A few seconds later, another guard joined them.

My heart lunged for the door as if it thought Callista stood in that corridor and called to it. An empty hope.

I glanced at Guyan. He was staring at me, and his brows worried together. “Aedan. You don’t look well. Should I call a healer?”

“No.” I stood up. There was no reason for me to stay here. “But I think I will retire early.” My heart pushed my whole body toward the door. Perhaps I would return to my room by way of the far side of the Dining Hall. Something was happening out there.

Guyan didn’t question me leaving until I headed toward the steps that would take me off the dais and onto the dance floor. “You’re taking the long way?”

“Indeed.”

The pounding on my head eased as dancers and partiers surrounded me on the floor. Ironic. I would have expected it to intensify as the noise and movement surrounded me, but by the time I reached the door, it didn’t hurt at all.

And I heard a voice that made my jaw fall while my heart doubled in time.

“I know you’re at capacity, but I don’t need to stay. I just need to talk to the king for a few minutes. If you don’t want us to go in, would you ask him to come out? I’m sure he’ll come speak with me.”

I released a wave of power and everyone turned to see me standing outside the door frame. Three soldiers bowed. Callista’s brother and Lyam bowed. I had not seen Lyam in some time, but I could not think about him now. My eyes settled on Callista. She gripped her hands and held them close to her chest.

“Callista,” I whispered. She met my eyes, and in that one expression, I saw everything that mattered to me. Hope. Love. A fire that lit up the darkness that had been consuming me all night.

“Your Majesty,” one of the soldiers started, “she—”

I cut him off when I brushed past him and crushed Callista to my chest. She wrapped her arms around my waist and buried her face into the space between my shoulder and chest. My heart tried to burst out of my ribs in an effort to hold onto hers. I pressed a kiss into the top of her hair and cradled her head.

Air flowed into my lungs easily for the first time since I’d watched her walk away from me. My mind flashed back to the moment I’d held her after that lonely dream, and my heart repeated itself. This. This is right. I wanted to hold her forever.

But her brother cleared his throat.

Ignoring him, I pulled back just enough to look into her bright blue eyes. “Callista.” I cradled her face and let my thumbs brush her cheeks. “You should not have come back. I do not think I will be able to let go of you again.”

She smiled and pulled back as well, resting her hands on my wrists.

It was a beautiful moment—one that I would have savored all night—until her brother spoke. “You’re making me think you took advantage of your position and her agreement.”

His arms folded across his chest, and his scowl covered his whole face. He looked perfectly human, but I knew the mess his magic could make.

And I did not want to fight him. I might dislike him, but Callista loved him enough to risk her own life and safety to keep him alive. No. I wanted to win his approval. Callista had compared him to Koan so many times I’d lost track, and Koan had not needed much encouragement to grow up. A little responsibility and a little more respect than he deserved. Perhaps Alastor needed the same.

I took a deep breath. I wanted to strike him with flames for suggesting I had manipulated his sister at all, especially in front of my own soldiers, but he would rise to the fight. And I wanted to avoid that now.

I turned away from Callista, but shifted one of her hands into one of mine. I dipped my head in a polite—but not too polite—bow to her brother. “Alastor.” I needed to get used to saying his name without sneering.

Callista squeezed my hand, probably hoping I wasn’t going to torch her brother again. Maybe even trusting that I would not? That thought emboldened me, and I turned a small smile. “Alastor, I believe I owe you an apology.”

His brows shot up so quickly that I knew I’d surprised him. At the same time, I felt a warm happiness emanate from Callista. Those two reactions gave me all the motivation I needed to continue. “I attacked you without giving you a chance to explain what appeared to be an attack to me. I now suspect you were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. I am sorry for the harm you experienced at my hand.”

Callista squeezed my hand again, and her brother lifted his chin in a twitchy acknowledgement of what I said. His arms remained folded. “I appreciate that, but what about the harm you did to my sister?”

“I have apologized to her,” I said at the same time she answered, “He never harmed me.”

We both gave her dubious looks.

She grinned at me. “You didn’t. Things happened that were stressful, but they were not at your hand."

I brushed a lock of hair behind her shoulder. “I cannot believe you would reduce several life-threatening situations to merely stressful .”

She squeezed my hand. “And I cannot believe you would take credit for those when you went to considerable lengths to protect me from them.”

Alastor unfolded his arms. “Regardless, we’re going to talk about this—” He waved his hand at Callista and I. “Later. We actually came to deliver a message.”

I raised a brow and looked at Callista.

She tightened her hold on my hand and nodded. “It’s something Alastor told me, but I’m not sure this is the best place for it.”

I created a sound barrier with magic around Callista, her brother, Lyam, and myself. “Nobody will hear us,” I told her. I knew she could see the magic, but I doubted her brother could.

His eyes tracked to Callista. She gave him an encouraging nod, and he took a deep breath. “Guyan and I had a deal. I broke the barrier to let him inside Sirun. He was going to kill you and bring Callista back to me.”

An icy pang cut down my chest. Nothing he said could have surprised me more. My own cousin. And yet… there might have been signs. “Was there anything else he said? Any hint about how he intended to kill me?”

Alastor had the decency to look ashamed of having been party to murder. “I… no, not really. I had been trying to get any elf I met to go in and get Callista. He told me he would do it. I doubted his ability to get her away from your bond, and he said when you died, it would disintegrate.”

I nodded slowly. “It would have, but I already removed it myself. It will be impossible for him to uphold his end of that deal now.” I glanced at the small group of people who knew my greatest vulnerability. “I will confront him about it now. You three should stay out here.”

Callista shook her head. “No. I already walked away from you once today, and it nearly ripped me in half. Do not ask me to do that again.”

A wild smile leaped from my heart to my face. “Firehawk. I would burn my own fortress down before I asked you to leave it again. No, I just want you to wait in a different room so you do not get caught in the cross-fire that is sure to happen. You have a rather stunning tendency to step into flames you cannot fight.”

Her brother snorted.

She threw him a glare.

“What?” He shrugged. “A certain argument comes to mind with a drekkan and a half-fae who were throwing flames around…”

She folded her arms. “And yet we all survived.”

“Callista.” I touched her upper arm, hoping the contact would help us all stay calm. “I am not an easy elf to kill. If I go in alone, I have the advantage of surprising him. If you all come with me, he will know I know something, especially if he sees Alastor. Trust me on this. Please. We will all survive again.”

Her eyes looked stormy, like she was planning to start another fire, but she said, “I will agree to stay in this corridor unless I think you need me. There are things I can do, even if I don’t have magic.”

“Oh, I know it.” I raised my hand to her face. “And do not discount your magic sight. You are more powerful than you give yourself credit for.” The drive to clutch her to my chest again was nearly overwhelming. I wanted to hold her and kiss her and never let her leave.

But I had to confront Guyan. If I found even a hint of the treason Alastor talked about, he would spend the rest of his life in a dungeon. And Callista—

Callista looked up at me with her soul-searing gaze, and something feral inside me answered. I tightened the sound barrier, so it only surrounded the two of us, and then I raised a wall of smoke to block us from her brother’s view.

I kept one hand on her face and moved the other to cradle her head. “I desperately want to kiss you without your brother watching.”

She gripped my biceps, lighting up my entire world with so many emotions that I couldn’t even see. “Then the smoke was a wonderful idea.”

I bent down so my lips grazed her cheek. “I missed you.”

Her hand landed on my neck, and the heat from her touch spread like a wildfire. I whispered, “Firehawk,” against her lips and then relaxed as she met my kiss.

Raw emotion ran through my veins as my heart clung to hers. Were we already preparing for a marriage bond? The fact that I’d let her go, sent her away, and she’d come back—without any threats or promises or coercion—meant everything. Standing here, walled off from everyone else by magic smoke, she kissed me back and held onto me with the same enthusiasm I offered her. The possibility of happiness stood like a bright fire in front of me… and no twisted bonds or lost brothers or past mistakes were stopping us.

I pulled back and then left quick kisses on both her cheeks and the top of her head. She smiled, and I pulled her hand up to my mouth. I kissed the middle of her palm with a slow and firm energy that I wanted her to remember. Then I wrapped her fist closed. “A kiss to keep,” I whispered, “until I see you again… hopefully very soon.”

As I dissolved the smoky wall and sound barrier, I chuckled to see Lyam standing between Alastor and me like a soldier. “About time,” Alastor grumbled. “You have no shame.”

I raised a brow, but did not respond to him. Instead I spoke to the three soldiers who had kept a diligent post around us, but had not been privy to any of our conversations. “I am going inside to confront a threat they’ve told me about. I expect you to protect Callista, especially—”

I pulled my signet ring off my index finger and handed it Callista. “Especially if she feels the need to go inside the Dining Hall.” I pointed at the ring with my chin. “That should get you past any other well-meaning guards. It is, essentially, the key to my kingdom.” I turned back to the guards. “And you three have seen me give it to her.” They dropped into a bow.

“Lyam, I’d like you to find Mylo and give him an update on what we’ve just learned. Please.”

Lyam also bowed.

“And Lyam,” I added. He raised a brow. “Thank you for bringing them. I know we’ve had differences in the past, but this…” How did I finish without sounding ridiculously sentimental? Oh, flames. I was well past sentimental tonight. “This means a lot to me.”

“I’ve never wished you harm, Your Majesty,” he said. “The threat they talked about was believable, and it is why I came.” He smirked. “I’d rather you rule than Guyan, especially after what I’ve just seen here.”

I bowed to Callista and stormed back into the Dining Hall.

As soon as I crossed the steps up to the dais, the pounding headache from earlier returned.

And I understood.

It was Guyan. Guyan attacked me with magic, but he did it slowly so it weakened me without making him look suspicious. But I knew that his magic was most gifted in blood. And my blood was hurting my head.

And then another mystery made sense. My parents’ unexplained poisoning. What had made their blood turn on their own bodies? My cousin. My cousin, who nobody had suspected because he was still young and had recently lost his own parents. Only Guyan and his parents had blood magic, and his parents had died before mine. Guyan had killed my parents.

“Aedan! Are you feeling better?” Guyan’s smile twisted my stomach.

“Traitor.” I hissed the words, palming the table. “I should incinerate you where you stand.”

“And yet you have not.” He stood opposite me and also palmed the table. He knew I knew. “Despite all your efforts at protecting everyone around you with an ironclad ruthlessness, you continually fail when the stakes are highest. You won’t admit it, but you are weak. You secretly care too much.”

“And you are a coward. If you want the throne so badly, why don’t you challenge me?”

“Boys.” Acantha cut in, lowering her narrow brows and pinching her thin lips. She hadn’t called us boys for more than fifty years. “What is this about?”

I glared at my cousin. “This is about Guyan trying to steal the throne of Hemlit.” I spread my arms, filling my hands with fire. “This is about Guyan killing my parents.” My head still pounded, but this was no longer about a threat of treason. This was about murder.

Gasps from below us on the floor replaced the music that had been playing. Apparently pointing flames at my cousin struck them as scandalous.

Guyan smiled. A horrible, smug, far-too-confident smile. “But here’s a complication, Aedan. I know your head hurts. And only I am capable of curing it.”

It was a good reason to keep him alive, but… he’d been plotting for fourteen years. He killed my parents, and he planned to kill me. He was a danger to our entire kingdom. I’d killed for less before.

I willed the flames in my hands to grow bigger. It would only take one thought to ignite his body, but…

Throwing the fire at him with my hands seemed more just—it gave him a chance to fight. “I’d rather live with a headache than a murderer.”

I pulled my arm back to shoot the fire at him, but as I did so, a streak of flames crossed the ceiling of the Dining Hall, sending sparks showering down on the hundreds of elves who’d been dancing. I turned, shocked, to my aunt. “Acantha?” Why had she released a bolt of fire?

“A fight like this will not help either of you,” she hissed out.

Guyan looked as surprised as I felt. “And what would you suggest?” he asked her.

The ceiling creaked and two chandeliers that both hung from the same beam teetered, their weight straining the now compromised ceiling. Elves on the dance floor screamed and pointed at the precarious structures while stampeding toward the door.

I threw a magic shield across the middle of the great hall’s air space to protect everyone from more falling sparks, though it would not stop any of the ceiling’s beams or chandeliers from falling. Acantha ignored the mess she’d created and spoke louder for us to hear her over the din below. “I suggest a compromise that benefits you both.”

I did not let go of my flames, and Guyan’s magic continued to pound my head, but we both turned toward our aunt so she could elaborate.

“If Aedan publicly abdicates, Guyan could create a new advisor position for him to make sure his interests in the kingdom are met.” She turned to me. “You could transfer your bond to the rose tree and your access to the King’s Library, and then be free of the burden of rule while still having the influence to control things you care about.”

She turned to Guyan. “You could take charge of the kingdom without worrying about usurpers fighting against what they perceive as treason or injustice because Aedan publicly made you king. You keep his staunchest supporters because he is still part of your innermost council.”

Guyan nodded slowly, but my face morphed into an incredulous look. “What could possibly make you think I would want to do that?”

Acantha had the gall to look surprised. “I thought you wanted to marry the half-fae? It would be ludicrous to make someone like her your queen, but if you were an advisor… I can’t imagine anyone would protest.” It was ludicrous for her to protest when she was just as fae as Callista, but I co uldn’t point that out without announcing my ancestry as well.

“Jorlan!” A screech from below turned my attention. Lady Carmine searched frantically for her son near the exit. She must have been taking him out, but he ran off. I scanned the room and saw him climbing on top of a table, out of her sight, and eating a frosted pastry.

Next to me, Guyan laughed. “There you go, caring too much again. As a king, you must be separate, above. You cannot take the time to worry about an obnoxious noble and her baby.”

I faced him again. “The only obnoxious noble here is you.” Callista’s unfiltered words from months ago came to me again, and I knew exactly what disgusted me about my cousin. “Power means nothing without love for the people you serve. I am ashamed to call you family.”

I threw the fire at his feet, lighting his clothes on fire.

He laughed.

It was maniacal and twisted, and it made me wonder what he could find so funny about his death. Then…

My heart froze. I felt it stop pumping blood. Everything in my body tensed, and I collapsed over the table.

“Put out these flames, Aedan,” Guyan yelled, “or you will die with me!” Guyan and his cursed blood magic!

Would it be worth it? If we both died? Guyan’s treachery would be gone, but I would die too. I would lose Callista. And who would lead Hemlit?

Acantha.

One glance at her pleased face as she watched us both gasp for air told me this was exactly what she wanted. She had fire magic. She could have helped him survive my first angry attack .

But no. She wanted us to destroy each other. She wanted the throne, but she had never had enough magic to challenge me or my parents. Guyan and his power in blood had been her plan. Her very long-term plan. But even fifty years was nothing to an elf who lived thousands.

I extinguished the flames on Guyan the moment I realized he was a pawn. He released my heart an instant later.

I pushed myself up off the table and leaned on my arms while I recovered my breath.

Guyan brushed ashes off his singed layers of remaining clothes. “It seems, Cousin , we are at an impasse. Neither of us can kill the other fast enough to escape unscathed.”

I rolled my shoulders back as my body finished recovering from his attack. “Then, perhaps, you will be interested in hearing the epiphany I just had.”

He tipped his head at the same time one of the chandeliers broke free from the support beam in the ceiling that had held it. The stone fixture crushed the table that it landed on, and hundreds of crystals—still glowing with magic—fell out of the clasps that held them to the chandelier. My mind jumped to Callista, grateful she had agreed to stay in the corridor.

More elves screamed. How long did it take for a couple hundred people to get out of one door? Jorlan yelled, his pitch a little higher than the older people around him. Apparently, the broken chandelier distracted him from his pastries. His mother’s view of him was still blocked by lines of elves rushing at the door.

And I could not help the boy now. I focused on Guyan. “Did you look at Acantha while the two of us nearly killed each other?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her face blanch. “She could have helped you, but she did not. What happened thirty years ago when your parents died?”

I plowed into him with more questions. “Why was she so keen to take you in? How much time did she spend planting treason in your mind? Why was she so happy to watch us both die a minute ago?”

I saw the doubts fill his eyes. He turned on her. “Why did you not help me when Aedan set me on fire? Why did you not slow his flames?”

His eyes were not the only ones to scramble for answers. I saw her decision in the tip of her head and the set of her jaw. She was about to change tactics.

The ceiling retched again, and another chandelier fell ten feet closer to the ground—this time directly over the table where Jorlan sat crying. It teetered recklessly, swaying from the cord that bound it to the failing beam.

And then I heard a voice that made my stomach drop. “Jor Jor!”

Callista darted out of the shadows and raced for the young child. My stomach turned in knots as I wished for her to get out of the Dining Hall, but also in relief as someone finally lifted that child out from under a moving death zone.

As she picked him up, another tearing sound ripped across the ceiling, and the chandelier crashed toward them.

Callista looked up just in time to see it start to fall. She rushed away from it, but it was too large and fell too fast for her to make it out in time. I made a fire explode below it, hoping to slow it with a wave of heat, but it was not enough. At the last possible instant, an intense, targeted wind blew through the middle of the great hall at high tornado speeds. The chandelier tipped and landed five feet away from Callista and Jorlan. Then it careened with momentum from the wind until it collided with a wall, sending a new set of vibrations and snapping, tearing sounds across the hall’s framework.

A wind of that power could only have come from one family. I caught sight of Koan and Jolter just in time to see them clap each other’s hands in a victory slap.

I turned my attention back to Guyan and Acantha. Guyan had followed my gaze and seen Callista. His mouth drew back in a smirk, and he pointed a dramatic finger at her, as if firing an invisible bolt of magic.

She had just handed Jorlan back to his mother and turned to check on us. Guyan’s magic was not invisible to her. Her jaw dropped and a hand clutched her chest. Koan and Jolter ran toward her as I turned my wrath on Guyan.

“Relax, Aedan. It’s just a bit of insurance to make sure you keep me alive.”

“What. Did. You. Do?”

He smiled and whispered. “Look at her. She is fine. Blood flowing and lungs breathing.”

Flames ignited around my entire body, giving a physical form to my anger. “I don’t trust those looks.”

He smirked. “You’re right.” He pointed again, and she fell to her knees. “Now you can see she’s struggling for air, but she will live, for weeks, like this.” He leaned toward me. “But kill me now, and know this: You’ve signed her death certificate as well.” He shrugged. “But maybe a few weeks with her is worth it.”

My own lungs hurt as she rubbed her chest and looked at us frantically.

And then Acantha struck. “That’s not true, Aedan. You don’t have to believe him. He wants your throne, so he will tell you anything to drag this out long enough to have another chance at it. Aedan!”

The intensity in her voice rose, so I turned to look at her, though all I could think about was Callista.

“Aedan!” Acantha demanded my attention. She fought for eye-contact. “Guyan killed your parents. He poisoned their blood so it would turn on their bodies but look like an ailment instead of magic. I did kill his parents, but it was because they were planning to kill yours. They, too, had power over blood—”

“Lies!” Guyan yelled. “You killed my parents so you could groom me in your own plots of treason. Do not try to blame them!”

Acantha’s words came faster, as if she was afraid of Guyan silencing her. “Guyan killed your parents and has been looking for a way past the curse to kill you for years. He blackmailed me into feeding him information. I didn’t help him a few minutes ago because I am on your side! Kill him, and Callista will be free from his attacks!”

A wave of power erupted from Guyan as he yelled at Acantha. “You told me to kill his parents! You fed me every bit of information necessary to destroy them! Told me how to dose them, how to manipulate their blood, and what to say to everyone who asked questions. And now you would turn on me?”

“Aedan!” she shrieked. “I have always been your faithful advisor!”

I almost believed her. But then I remembered how she had just tried to get me to abdicate. How she had insulted Callista over and over even though she, too, was half fae. How she had set fire to the Dining Hall.

How she had set fire to Callista’s room.

A new section of ceiling erupted into loud flames, but another unnatural gust of wind blew it—and a pile of debris—out and away from any people. Most of the elves were finally out of the hall. The ones that remained looked ready for war.

Mylo led a group of soldiers and nobles toward the dais. Koan, Jolter, and Forten had gathered around Callista.

A streak of flames burst past me and landed on Guyan. Acantha had attacked him. He yelled out again. “If you don’t stop her, Aedan, you will die with me!”

My heart seized… but I wasn’t the only one. Acantha collapsed as I gripped the table, and Callista fell to the floor.

This had to end.

I raised a hand and summoned a beam of vibrant magic, intense enough to level the fortress. Before I could point it at Guyan, the strength in my legs failed from a lack of moving blood.

I growled, and tried to move limbs with no oxygen, but they refused.

Was this it? Were we all going to die together in one flaming event?

No! I screamed in my head, ignoring Guyan’s rants from the flames. I had to find a way to end this before I could not recover.

And then a surge of energy hit me. I whipped my head to the side and saw golden beams of light from Koan, Jolter, Shancy, Mylo, and a dozen other nobles pour into my back. The soldiers with them added more energy until my muscles moved out of obedience more than strength.

I pointed the pure energy at Guyan, and he burst into millions of streams of light that dissipated into the air above us.

Like morning mists fleeing the sunlight, any evidence of his treason evaporated.

And the grips on my heart vanished.

I gasped in chunks of air and, as soon as I could control my muscles, I staggered down the charred steps off the dais and to Callista.

She lay unconscious on the floor. Her brother now knelt next to Koan on her right while Jolter, Molanna, and Forten knelt on her left. They all moved back a few feet as I rushed haphazardly to her side. I searched for a pulse on her throat with one hand and wiped the hair away from her face with my other.

“She’s alive,” I whispered, keeping a hand on the side of her head.

Koan knelt next to me. “She said he shot magic at her that would poison her blood like the rose bush.”

I groaned. Guyan had poisoned the rose tree and my parents… and now Callista.

“Then,” Koan added, “he used magic to attack her lungs. She could still breathe and talk, but it sounded like she was wheezing.” His voice caught, but he pressed on. “She struggled for breath, but she kept saying it would be okay until she suddenly just collapsed. I checked… She didn’t have a pulse. But when you… When Guyan disappeared, her pulse came back. But she’s still unconscious. I… I tried to heal her, but my magic can’t find any injuries.”

I moved my hand to the top of her chest, as close to her heart as I dared get without offending her brother’s sensibilities. Koan’s family was powerful, and their magic was strong—there was a reason they were some of the oldest and richest nobles—but Koan was barely an adult. I had decades more practice in healing.

I poured my magic into her body, scanning for internal injuries and moving to her blood. It had to be some kind of blood poisoning—probably Guyan’s first strike that had seemed so harmless. But like the healers who had attended my parents, I could not isolate an injury.

My heart hurt. I felt it ripping in response to Callista’s pain, like it protested the agony that burned through her blood now.

My heart felt her pain.

The realization dawned on me with so much power I gasped out loud. Not all of the emotions I’d felt during the last few weeks had come through the mistek bond. Some of them—every emotion I’d felt from her today—had come to me through the tender connections we’d offered each other as we’d shared our feelings, our vulnerabilities, and our hopes. They were the links of love—the fragile hopes that the most powerful marriage bonds were built on.

“Did you find it?” Koan asked.

“Not yet,” I whispered. “But… wait.”

I could not tell them that our hearts had been building a bridge between each other for weeks. I was not ready to confess to the crowd around us that I needed her to live more than I needed to live myself. They did not need to know that my heart, cursed organ that it was, had found the key to saving her.

I might leave them without a king after all, but I would give them a queen who would love them.

I stopped channeling magic the way I had for my entire life. I lifted up her hand and pressed the back of her palm to my lips. “Live, Callista,” I whispered against her skin. “Give me the poison and live.”

I clutched her hand close to my heart and closed my eyes, focusing all my energy on the raw link between us.

If only you were married, my mind mourned. Then you would have a proper bond between you, and finding the poison would be simple.

Ah, my heart corrected, but that marriage bond would make this procedure impossible. If you were bound by marriage, a lethal blood poison would kill you both.

And then I found it. The magic poison Guyan had buried so deeply that it masqueraded as an untouchable illness. Power surged from my heart into hers. It traced through her body, touching every drop of blood and every particle of poison, and drawing it out. I could not destroy the poison with my magic—Guyan had tied it to her blood in a way that my flames could not isolate.

But my heart touched hers.

My heart could draw the poison out of hers.

And I did so gladly.