Page 39

The Magic That Was Us

I stand in the open doorway, arms crossed and my shoulder propped against the jamb, staring into the darkness of the hidden room off my sister’s old chambers that was mine for eighteen summer solstices.

After our triumphant announcement that there are now two queens, not one, the instant we stepped back inside the palace, I was immediately hustled away, split up from Tabra, who was taken to the queen’s chambers—she’s the older, after all—while I was brought to the princess’s rooms that were ours. Here, I’ve been bathed—or scoured, more like—oiled, perfumed, primped, and dressed by an army of silent, smiling servants.

All with a watchful, wary light in their eyes. I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out why. I have known most of them for a good long while, only they always thought I was Tabra. They have no idea what to make of a second one of us.

They only loosened up when I finally said, “Let’s air this out a bit. Any time in the last nineteen years that you thought Tabra was acting funny…it was probably me.” Which made them laugh, and even share a moment or two that fit that description.

All of which were spot on, by the way. I guess I wasn’t as good at pretending to be my sister as I thought I had been.

My servants are gone now, leaving me abandoned with a thousand thoughts that I’d rather not be alone with. I sigh and say to myself, “I guess we should do something with this room now.”

And our glass flower garden, too. Or do we keep that just for us?

A knock at the door has me frowning, even more so when Nhalin, the poor woman who drew the lot of being my own personal companion, like Achlys has been for Tabra, opens the door. “The high priestess of the temple is here, domina, along with…” She stumbles, and a deep voice sounds from behind her. “Reven Shadowraith.”

I don’t blame her for the stumbling. A man who looks like a younger version of King Eidolon, but is something else altogether, would make even the boldest of hearts pause. I’m personally stumbling over the fact that he’s here now, given that he had disappeared by the time Tabra and I left the balcony earlier. And he’s here with a priestess of all people.

At least I don’t say what the hells out loud.

Instead, I nod, and try to force my features into benign curiosity as the priestess enters. “Yes?”

There. That sounds queenly—the perfect combination of polite and impatient.

Apparently, the priestess doesn’t know why they’re here, either, because she turns to look at Reven with raised eyebrows.

He’s standing just inside the door, still dressed in his Wanderer clothing, staring at me now full-on princess in a strapless gown of rust red, shot through with glittering threads and woven with geometric patterns across the hem and bodice. My hair is simpler, still braided though still fancier than earlier, formed into two loops on either side.

When he doesn’t answer immediately, I have to stop myself from crossing my arms to cover my body. Goddess, I feel more like a liar in these clothes as myself than I ever did imitating Tabra. I don’t shift on my feet, though. I don’t speak. I wait.

He came to me with a priestess. He should definitely be the one to talk—

“You didn’t tell me we were bondmates,” he says.

Regret is more weight, I’m learning. Heavy and hard to carry.

“I…was waiting to tell you,” I say quietly, trying to ignore the third person in the room with us for this awkward conversation as well as my shaking knees and hands. I knew this was coming, but not like this.

“For what?”

“More trust. It would have seemed like a play to convince you—”

He looks away. “Now it seems like another lie.”

I flinch. What else can I say? I held that back for the right reasons. I’d do it again. But I hate the way he found out. “I’m sorry.”

After a second, Reven gives a single nod.

“So…why are you here?” I shoot the priestess a deliberate questioning look.

Reven answers for them both. “The priestess is here to see what she can do.”

My eyebrows shoot up. “Do? About what?”

“Our bonds hold our memories of each other.”

You would think, after all I’ve been through lately, that I would never again allow hope any room in my heart. But it starbursts inside me all the same, lighting me up from the inside. “They do?”

The priestess nods. “Yes, domina. It’s what helps you find each other in the afterlives. The memory of what you were before.” She smiles. “Some call it love at first sight, but truly it’s your bonds remembering for you.”

Mother goddess. Is it possible?

The memories that have been bombarding me, all the echoes of the past in what we do together now, is that what that is? I glance at Reven, expecting to see the same shining hope in his eyes, only to mentally stumble at the way he’s holding himself so stiffly.

“Do you want to remember…us?” I ask.

Those beautiful ocean water eyes are as hard as cut gems. “I want to remember. That’s all.”

Not us . All of the light flees from me so fast I feel like a dark cloud has passed before the sun and can’t help the shiver that builds and scatters over my skin. He didn’t even bother to soften it.

I blow out a breath full of frustration and longing and pent-up everything. “You really can be a dick sometimes.”

He pulls back slightly, blinking.

“Is it difficult?” I ask the priestess. “Does it hurt?”

Her smile is gentle, eyes kind as she shakes her head. “It is very easy, and no, there is no pain nor danger.”

She pulls out a spool of gossamer-fine thread from a pocket in her long sleeve, the same kind that was used to bind us by a priestess in Tropikis. Cutting off a small length, she holds the ends between her fingers and thumbs and lifts it into the air before her, stretched out, then whispers a few words that I can’t catch. The thread itself ignites with tiny pale pink flames that make it glitter and spark.

The priestess lets go and it remains there, suspended in the air with nothing holding it.

“Now,” she says, beckoning us with a wave of her hands. “Both of you touch one end at the same time.”

Reven and I move to stand opposite each other, separated by the burning thread. We both lift our hands to touch a single finger to the ends.

I gasp. I can’t help it. The sensation that jolts through me isn’t fire or burning…it’s ice. Like when I pull Eidolon’s power through the curse and it fills my veins. I almost let go, but the sensation is gone quickly, replaced by warmth. The kind that reminds me of sitting around a fire in the desert when I was a child, safe in the circle of its light but with the cold of the desert at my back.

It seeps through my fingertips, filling my hand before climbing up my wrist. The warmth shifts into heat, a sharp burn that sears through blood and bones and flesh and into my core, taking up a thrumming inside me.

I grit my teeth and try not to move, to not squirm with this delicious intensity. This need . A need for him I’ve been holding back, locking tight inside myself but away from the Shadows, trying not to overwhelm Reven unless he’s mine again. Truly mine.

The first flicker of light on my skin has relief coming out in a whoosh. The bond is still there. My lips lift into a trembling smile. The sparkling golden lines of our bond brighten yet again, turning more dazzling with each passing second. I peek at Reven, who appears…arrested by the sight.

“That’s not possible,” the priestess whispers.

“We already know,” I say. We have two sets of bonding marks. Mine, though, will be fainter than his.

“But—”

I smile at her visible confusion. “We bonded in my previous life, but his current life. He is a Shadow of King Eidolon made flesh—”

“Not that.”

I frown, then it finally sinks in that she’s staring at his arm, not mine.

His lines are there, both of them, but they’re broken in many different places and blackened like wood charred by fire.

Dawning horror takes root.

No. Goddess no.

“I can’t fix this.” The priestess turns her head away, like she can’t stand the sight, but her gaze snags on my arm now.

A new line snakes around the brighter line of my bond in this life. A line made of shadow.

And I know.

Eidolon.

Eidolon did this.

He broke our bond, I’m assuming while Reven was inside him, or took it over, or inserted himself in there. After all, Reven is a fragment of the king who originally bonded with my ancestress, my previous life.

I let go of the thread.

Immediately, the lines on our arms fade. But not fast enough, and the shattering pieces of my glass heart slowly chip away and cut me open.

Our bond failed us…for the second time.