Page 43 of House of Embers (Royal Houses #5)

“If you use this,” Cleora warned, “for good or evil, it will exact a price, Kerrigan. Are you prepared for what that could be?”

“If it’s how we win the war,” Kerrigan told her.

Cleora nodded. “Make sure you know what you’re willing to give up for it.”

“I will. Do you have any idea how I could track this thing down? Where it might be? How to look for it?”

“There is no such thing.”

Danae leaned forward. “Actually, one of my father’s gladiators was a hunter of the crown. He said that the same pure white crystal that was used for the knife that killed Fairgate was a way to find magical artifacts.”

“They could not have been that intelligent if they continued looking for the crown when it was not even in Domara,” Cleora muttered.

“But they found other artifacts,” Danae argued. “It’s not nothing.”

“Pure white crystal,” Kerrigan said with a frown. “I wonder if they mean tendrille. Does it have magic immunity properties?”

“Yes!” Danae said. “That’s the one.”

“All right. It’s worth a try. Thank you. Both of you.”

“Good luck,” Cleora said. “Now, if you are going to win this war, we should finish our final lesson, should we not?”

“Energy magic?” Kerrigan gasped. “Is it really time?”

Cleora nodded once. “In theoretical spiritcasting, energy magic is the most difficult art to master and the one that has the most chance of backfiring. It should not be used lightly as it can easily kill everyone in the vicinity as well as yourself.”

“My kind of weapon,” Zina teased.

“I’ve used it before,” Kerrigan said. “Twice actually. Without knowing that I was using it. It was like a defense mechanism when I was going to be killed. I just exploded, and then everyone around me was dead.”

Danae covered her mouth with her hand. Zina looked appreciative.

But Cleora just shook her head. “That’s dangerous. It could have burned your magic out. It should always be intentionally used. Otherwise, you will self-destruct like a dying sun.”

“So how do I control it?”

“In the sun analogy, I want you to be a sunbeam. You feel its warmth. You radiate from its energy, but you do not destroy entire universes, okay?” Kerrigan nodded as Cleora focused her energy.

“It reminds me of the first work we did with crux bonds. You can push your intent into the magic and draw on your powers to form a beam.”

A crux bond appeared in her hands, glowing faintly orange. Kerrigan had first had to use a crux bond to bond with Tieran before she found out that Doma could not create bonds in the same way. They were a common thing in Domara, but Kerrigan had never even heard of it.

“But instead of using your regular pool of magic,” Cleora continued, “I want you to pull from your spirit energy.”

Kerrigan focused her power as she would a sunbeam, pointing her spirit magic directly.

“Good,” Cleora said. “Now, I want you to throw the beam like a knife. Find your target, and only hit that target. Anything more than that and you’ll destroy everything around you.”

“No pressure,” Zina muttered.

Kerrigan tossed the energy. It was lifeless on the plane, and yet it still felt like a meteor had just struck.

“A little less energy next time,” Cleora said. “I forget that you have Doma magic, and it is so much more volatile.” She turned her head and sighed. “Someone is coming. Danae, intercept them.”

Danae threw herself into Kerrigan’s arms. “Be careful. Come back to us.”

Then in a blink, she was gone.

“Our time runs short, as it always does. You should practice this again. We’ll meet up on the next full moon, and if you have not won your war by then, we can discuss it more. Try it somewhere wide open , without people. I don’t want you to blow up a mountain or something.”

“Can I do that?” Kerrigan asked with wide eyes.

“Try not to,” Cleora said with a laugh before hugging Kerrigan and waving goodbye to Zina.

“She’s a delight,” Zina said as she sank back into her conjured chair. “Just one more minute in the sun. Herasi is too cold this time of year.”

Kerrigan let Zina soak in the sun before she dropped the connection and returned to her body. Fordham sat before her. His eyes jerked open the moment she began to move.

“You’re back. You were gone all night,” he said.

She yawned. “Yeah, it feels like it.”

“Did you learn anything?”

Kerrigan told him the bizarre story about He Who Reigns and his brother, Fairgate. Fordham listened, rapt and incredulous.

“Every time I hear more things about that place, it sounds utterly unbelievable. We’ve been there, and that still sounds unlikely.”

“I know,” Kerrigan admitted. “I was hoping for something more concrete.”

Zina yawned and stretched. “You know where I’d start if I were looking?”

“The base of a mountain?”

She waved her hand away. “Clearly Irena found it at the base of a mountain long ago and used it. Who knows where it went from there? The tale is old and useless for our purposes. But it eliminated a lot of possibilities for me and solidified some of my father’s research.”

“What part?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, waving her hand.

“You know after the Great War, magical artifacts were rounded up. Many were destroyed. Many were put in a treasure trove and deemed acceptable for use, like honeycombs to store extra magic. That sort of thing. But the ones that were too dangerous or couldn’t be destroyed or they didn’t know what it did, those were stored in the Society vault, in the belly of Draco Mountain. ”

“Okay.” Kerrigan had known this. Bastian had gotten access to a cache of artifacts to teach Kerrigan and eventually other Society members how to counter them. Now he had full access to that vault and whatever horrors were within.

“So I was part of those expeditions for a time. We rounded up a ton of artifacts. Treasure hunters, we called ourselves. I saw inside that vault, and it’s much bigger than you think it is.

It’s a ballroom or two or three full of junk.

If I had a scary metal crown artifact and no one knew what it did because the dragons never told anyone it had created the binding in the first place, that’s where I’d put it. ”

“Yeah, but it’s in the Society. I can’t portal in there. Even if I could, I’ve never been in the vault,” Kerrigan told her.

Zina reached into her pockets and plucked out a creamy white envelope with the Society seal on the back. It was open when Zina passed it to Kerrigan, and she read it.

“A Society Ball?” Kerrigan glanced up at her. “This sounds like a trap.”

“Easy cover at least,” Zina said with a wink.