Page 4

Chapter

Two

EZABELL

S ix hours later, I was beginning to regret my earlier statement.

Lum Laras had long since faded behind me, the city’s streets replaced with countryside crisscrossed by dusty roads and lush forests.

My feet ached. The straps of my pack dug into my shoulders.

Sweat trickled down my back and dampened my hairline.

The tug of the Dokimasi was an insistent thread in my chest.

And Helios had kept up a relentless stream of chatter since we left Lum Laras.

“So,” he said, trailing sparks as he bobbed alongside me, “how long do you really think it’ll take to find the sunstone? A day? A week? A month?” He frowned. “I should have done a betting pool at the palace. I could have been rich.”

I unclenched my teeth. “Hopefully not too long.”

“Sure, sure.” Helios fell silent.

I released a careful breath.

“But how do you find it?” he asked, flinging his arms wide. “Do you just…feel for it? Does the Dokimasi come with a compass? How does it work?”

I stopped in the middle of the road, one hand on the strap of my pack.

“Don’t you remember my lessons?” He’d been present for most of them, perching on the edge of the desk in the palace’s library while my tutors gave me instruction on everything the heir to the throne needed to know.

Arithmetic. Art. Magic. Defensive magic. Sun-based magic.

Helios lifted a shoulder. “I must have been sick the day you covered the Dokimasi.”

A sigh built in my chest. “We spent a lot longer than a day on the Dokimasi. And you don’t get sick.”

He brightened. “That’s true.” His frown returned, and he scratched at his jaw. “Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention.”

“That sounds more likely,” I said, starting down the road again.

He drifted beside me, and I let the sigh gust from between my lips.

“The histories say I have to follow my instincts.” I brushed the center of my chest, where the tugging sensation had guided me along unfamiliar roads all day.

“The sunstone knows I’m looking for it. As long as I’m careful to listen, it’ll call to me. ”

Helios nodded, a sage expression on his round face. “That’s right. You have to follow your heart. It’s kind of romantic.”

Pain shot through my foot, and I winced as I bent and pried a rock from the sole of my boot. I tossed the rock into the tall grass lining the side of the road. Magic tugged, jerking me forward.

“It doesn’t feel very romantic,” I muttered.

Romantic would be dining in my chamber with Corvus, the two of us discussing the latest court gossip.

We’d have dessert—something chocolate, probably—and then go to the balcony and look at the stars.

He’d point out constellations. I’d correct him.

He’d pretend to argue before pulling me into a kiss that made my blood sing.

Then he’d back me to the bed and make me forget about gossip and constellations.

That would be romantic. Adjusting my pack, I released another sigh.

Helios gave me a thoughtful look, but he said nothing, and we fell into a companionable silence as we continued down the road. The landscape changed, the vivid greens and sunbaked golds of Summer fading into more muted tones.

And it wasn’t just the sunstone’s absence. As we rounded a bend, a hazy blue spread over the road and the surrounding fields. The air buzzed. Foreboding raised goosebumps on my skin. We approached the Covenant.

I slowed, my gaze fixed on the barrier, which shimmered roughly five hundred feet ahead. It stretched across the horizon like a blue fog. But this was no ordinary fog. The Covenant was the boundary between worlds, the magical wall that had separated elves and humans for a thousand years.

“We can’t cross that,” Helios whispered, his tone uncharacteristically subdued. He wrung his hands, the gesture producing a crackling sound.

“I know the history,” I said softly. Even the smallest child in Ishulum knew what the Covenant stood for—and why our people had raised it.

A thousand years previously, Ishulum and Andulum had been a land united, and elves had controlled every inch of it. Magic had spread across the realm. Elves ruled, and humans served.

The scholars said humans grew jealous of the elves’ magic and immortality. Eventually, the humans rebelled, launching a violent and bloody war. Elves had magic, but my people reproduced sparingly, and we’d been vastly outnumbered. Humans exploited the imbalance, hunting and killing us.

Pushed to the edge of extinction, the elders among the elves struck a bargain with the humans, creating a magical contract that split the realm in two: Ishulum for the elves, and Andulum for the humans.

We took our magic with us, withdrawing behind the Covenant and leaving the humans to rule their own kingdoms.

The Dokimasi tugged hard, ripping a gasp from my throat and sending me stumbling forward. I stopped, but the magic tugged harder, yanking me until I stumbled again.

And again. I headed straight for the Covenant. Saldu Kuum, the southernmost human kingdom in Andulum, lay across the barrier.

“Ezabell?” Panic laced Helios’s voice as he zipped in front of me. Fire rippled over his form, his snug-fitting jacket swirling and then reforming. “What are you doing?”

“I—” A gasp caught in my throat as the magic yanked harder. My skirts tangled around my legs, and I hurried forward to keep from falling.

Helios kept pace with me, darting anxious looks at the Covenant as we moved even closer to the barrier. “We have to turn back.”

“I know!” I cried even as the magic forced me into a jog. The Covenant’s wall of shimmering magic blocked my path, its blue haze spreading over everything. I dug in my heels, but the pull was too strong. My boots scraped the road, digging furrows into the dirt. “I’m trying to turn back.”

Helios shot the boundary another worried look. “Well, try harder!”

I glared at him, my pack bouncing against my back. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Honestly? Like you’re not trying at all.”

The buzz in the air intensified, the Covenant’s magic brushing my skin.

Helios darted to my other side. “If you cross, you’ll lose your magic! And I can’t follow.”

Fear and frustration gripped me. “You think I don’t know that?” My ancestors’ contract was clear: magic didn’t thrive in Andulum. Helios was pure magic. If I stepped through the barrier, I’d do it alone.

The anchor in my chest dragged me forward, the pull so strong I tripped and almost went sprawling. A yelp escaped me as I barely stayed on my feet. I was running now, my pack bouncing wildly.

“Ezabell!” Helios hissed, his hair shooting higher on his head.

Shouts carried across the barrier, a man’s deep voice booming in the air.

“Last chance!” he said, his voice ringing with authority. “Will anyone pay these men’s debts? If not, they hang!”

Magic jerked me toward the voice—a human voice. My heart pounded. Blue filled my vision. I stumbled forward, fighting the pull, but it was useless. The Covenant’s surface rippled like water as I crashed into it, a scream lodged in my throat.

“Ezabell, don’t!” Helios cried.

But it was too late. The boundary parted around me, its magic tingling over my skin like a thousand tiny needles. A flash of brilliant blue blinded me, and then I was through.

My ears popped .

I staggered and then fell to my knees in a patch of scrubby grass.

A forest surrounded me, its trees thick with green leaves.

Birds chirped. Late afternoon sunlight gilded the grass around me.

Blood rushed in my ears. My magic was gone , and its absence was a curious weight, as if someone had thrown a thick blanket over me.

My body felt heavier. Hollow and cold. Gasping, I pressed a palm to my chest, where the Dokimasi’s pull still thrummed.

Twisting on my knees, I looked at the Covenant over my shoulder. “Helios?” I whispered.

Nothing. The wall was intact, its blue haze climbing hundreds of feet into the air.

I stood, straining to make out Helios’s fiery shape.

“No one?” the booming voice called.

I jerked around, my heart pumping faster.

The unmistakable jeering of a crowd drifted on the air. The magic in my chest yanked hard , tugging me forward so sharply that I thrust out a hand to stop myself from face-planting in the grass.

“Not one taker?” the man shouted.

More jeers.

“Get on with it!” a second voice yelled, followed by cruel-sounding laughter.

Another tug. Muffling a cry, I scrambled to my feet.

The sunstone. It had to be close! The histories said nothing about the stone hiding itself in Andulum. Then again, every Dokimasi was different.

With trembling hands, I dropped my pack and rifled through it, yanking a cloak from the bottom. I swung it around my shoulders and tugged the hood over my head, concealing my pointed ears. The cloak’s long sleeves covered my sigils.

The Dokimasi yanked the second I slung my pack over my shoulder. “I’m coming,” I grumbled, letting the magic hurry me forward.

Fear pounded in my chest as I moved through the forest, following the sound of the crowd. My magic was gone, but I retained my reflexes, and my steps were soundless as I neared a clearing.

Humans gathered around a crude platform. A barrel-chested man with a bushy beard and a shining badge pinned to his chest stood at the platform’s base, one hand resting on a thick wooden lever.

Two men stood in the platform’s center. A beam rose over their heads. Nooses descended from the beam and fit snugly around their necks. Their hands were bound behind their backs.