Page 63 of Golden Queen (Idrigard #1)

“And Veles let you fall?”

“He wasn’t as insightful in those days.”

"How old were you when that happened?" I asked, glancing back at him to be sure he wasn't teasing me.

"Nine," he answered with a self-effacing grin.

I laughed. "I can see it now. Reckless little dark-eyed boy who believed he could do anything."

He smiled, but something flitted across his features faintly. "My eyes were not dark in those days. They were bright, Alduran blue like Aben's.”

"They changed?" I asked, curiously.

He closed his eyes for a moment, and I felt the shield around us waver. The wind began to whip my hair around as I stared at his closed eyes.

And then he opened them, and they were bright, sky blue—the color so clear and unspoiled it was nearly heartbreaking.

The blue was such a sharp contrast against his dark skin that it took my breath away.

And then it faded—quickly, shadows leaking from the pupils outward until they had stained the sky blue back to midnight.

The shield went back around us, and the air on my cheeks grew warm.

"I've never seen you smile like that," he said. "You are absolutely breathtaking when you do."

His words surprised me. I hadn't realized I was smiling at all, but then I had been utterly enchanted by the sight of his eyes.

It was as though he showed me some other part of him—laid some secret bare.

I was honored by it.

"So when did they change?" I asked, turning away to look out across the golden plains.

"Gradually, as I got older. I suppose I was around fifteen when I realized they had gone as dark as they are now."

"Is that common...in Darkwatch, I mean?" I asked.

"No, I don't think that's common anywhere," he said.

"And you don't know why?"

"It's the darkness in me. It...leaks." He breathed a shaky laugh.

"Tell me about it," I said, considering his words. I'd seen enough of the light in him, but the darkness was only ever on the edges of his anger, it seemed.

"There’s not much to tell. I don't know how I came by it—no one does, really.

But I like to think it's like using a sword as a plow," he said thoughtfully.

"The tool might have been made for killing, but if you put it in the hands of a farmer, it will not be used for bloodshed.

It's the same with these shadows inside me. "

I let the words sit with me for longer than I liked to admit before the realization of what exactly he was saying filtered through into my mind.

"Are you saying that the darkness—that's shadow magic?" A chill raced down my spine.

He huffed a laugh. "I really thought you would have recognized it when I got so angry at that worm, Elias Addison."

That was why he had been so surprised when I was not afraid of him that night in the carriage—when his face had gone so beautifully fearsome. Would I have been afraid if I had recognized it as shadow magic, the magic of Penjan and the elves who'd taken everything from me—if I hadn't been so naive?

I didn't think so. I never had been afraid of him.

"But...I don't understand," I said, turning to look over my shoulder again. "Your magic doesn't have that smell—that horrible scent of death that shadow magic has."

"That smell is necromancy—a complete perversion of all systems of magic.

Those creatures have no magic of their own.

They rip it away from the fabric of the natural world.

The smell is corruption and breaking the laws of nature.

A true shadow mage will not need to steal the magic as necromancers do.

The energy is already inside them—they source it from their own body, the same way any other elemental mage will do. "

I bit my lip, considering. "So, does that mean you have an elf somewhere in your family?”

"I don't think so," he said. "And I look enough like my father to never question my mother’s fidelity.

I told you about mages who are born with an affinity for certain magic—how they can learn to access other elements—well, I have always been able to access them all—across the board.

Whatever it is in me that allows me to wield all elemental magic also gives me the shadows and that endless gold fire that, when it comes down to it, is many times more powerful than all the rest and far less understood. "

It didn’t surprise me to learn that he could wield all the different forms of elemental magic, even if he had been rather vague about admitting it when he showed me his magic in Juriae’s manor house.

My mind had snagged on another facet of magic I was curious about. "You say the gold fire is endless," I began. "Does that mean that other magic is limited?"

"All magic has limits, and so too does the gold fire, I'm sure. I've just never found the end of it. Recognizing your magic's limit is very important for a mage, since depleting it can lead to being completely helpless in the face of battle."

"Are there others with the gold fire?" I asked.

"I’ve spent many years trying to find another mage anywhere with the same gift. I eventually gave up. But..." He trailed off, and I looked at him curiously.

"What?" I asked as he studied me intently.

"I think you have it, Sera."

I shook my head doubtfully, looking away again. "Why would you think that?"

"Because it does not burn you and because of the way it makes you feel. How did you describe it? Like it rushed through you, chasing away every dark thought you’ve ever had?"

I considered the first time I’d felt it. It had been nearly impossible to describe. "I said it was like the sun seeped into my mind and pushed away every shadow that had ever existed in there."

"That was it," he said, and I heard the smile in his words. "And it's not only that. When I touch you, I can almost feel it, just under the surface."

He reached around with the hand that wasn't curled around my waist and took my hand.

I felt the warmth immediately as the flames wreathed just his fingers where they touched mine. Near euphoria followed, seeming to unburden my mind in an instant.

"That feeling is relief, Sera. Your power is trapped in you, building and building, and it wants out."

I watched the flames dance around our intertwined fingers as he went on.

"When we touch, I think it lets your own fire come to the surface, even just a little, and you feel it as the release it is."

I closed my eyes as that calm serenity washed through me, and I knew it was true. I knew it in my very bones. It was relief—sweet, aching relief.

Io let the flames retreat as he slid his fingers up to the mellitrium cuff on my wrist. I now knew definitively that it bound me.

However unlikely—no matter that it defied explanation—I was a mage.

Had some part of me always known that and been unwilling to acknowledge the implications of it—the question of my parentage, who I was, and how I ended up in Windemere?

"When these come off," he said, a note of pride in his voice, "I think even you will not believe how powerful you are."

I huffed a laugh. That seemed like a bit of a stretch even if I did have this mysterious golden power.

I wondered suddenly if the magic was what drew me to him; like calling to like.

I didn’t care for the thought. Even in my own mind, the concept filled me with indignation. I loved him—me, not my magic. I would never accept that anything else was responsible for how dear he was to me.

As I considered it all, though, I could not shake the feeling that the fates—those fickle forces—might have had a hand in us coming together.

After all, if I did have the golden fire, what were the chances that two people with the same seemingly unique form of magic would come together out of all the people in all the world?