Page 44 of Unraveled (A Kingdom of Beasts and Ruins #1)

The knot in my throat thickens as I focus on that emotion and what I felt back in Eponde, when Finley, Nera, and I walked through its streets and saw all those fae frozen in time.

My fingers prickle, and I weave the words of the fire spell in my mind.

A few sparks burst out of my fingertips, falling into the kindling and producing a decent amount of smoke.

I’ve never struggled this much to cast a fire spell, but even though the flames take several minutes to catch, this is the proudest I’ve felt in a long time.

When Ash comes back with a small linen sack in one hand and a pitcher of water in the other, weak licks of flames peek through the wood.

Warmth blooms in my chest as I watch the fire grow slowly, pushing back the unnatural cold in the room.

He doesn’t coddle me, nor does he comment on the fact that I did it. Instead, he lays a spread of dried fruit and aged cheese in front of us, settling himself by my side, and we eat while staring into the fire.

Ash’s rumbly voice breaks the silence. “Let’s see what else you can do with your magic before we turn in for the night.”

I tuck my legs under myself, turning to face him from where I sit on the floor. A thousand questions churn in my mind, but I choose not to get hung up on the idea of where I might sleep in this place. “How are you going to help me?”

He stands from the floor and arches his back into a deep stretch before extending his hand to me. “We can start with you giving me the trinket you use as a crutch.”

I narrow my gaze at him. “Are you going to give it back? Last time you took my amulet, it ended up sticking to Nera.”

“Come on, Monster, surely you’re aware things have changed? Back then, I couldn’t have you setting me on fire whenever you pleased.” He watches me intently as I get to my feet and brush the dust off my wrinkled gown.

Of all the clothes I could have been wearing to go trekking through the forest, a tight corset and silky dress are far from ideal. I take off my amulet and hand it to him. “I guess you’ve got a point, though I could reconsider and set you on fire now.”

“Perhaps I wouldn’t be opposed to burning up for you,” he whispers, closing his hand around my amulet and pocketing it.

I meet his gaze and can’t decide if the burn traveling through me is magic, or memories of our kiss last night.

“So what now? I’m not feeling threatened or afraid.

” At least not for my life. My heart is another subject altogether.

“I’d rather not focus on how sad this place makes me, or I may spiral down somewhere I don’t want to go. ”

Ash circles me, like a predator does prey. “You need to work around the enchantment that’s holding you captive and not rely on your emotions.”

“Can you break my spell? I’ve seen you do magic, Ash, and it’s breathtaking. I’ve never met anyone as powerful as you.”

“Now, easy there, Monster. Your feelings for me are showing,” he says, grinning at my glare. He sobers a little, his expression softening. “I can’t. I tried to unravel it while you slept, back in my chambers, with no luck.”

“What if it can’t be undone? I don’t know how I came to have it in the first place...”

“There is always a counterspell. No matter the enchantment.” Ash tilts his head, an intense curiosity shining behind his eyes. “The night we met, I had you paralyzed, but you unraveled that spell. How did you do it?”

I suspect the answer is going to be disappointing, and say with a shrug, “I asked it to release me.”

“You asked the spell to release you... and it listened?” Ash’s eyes round as he stares at me.

“I take it that’s not common? Is it connected to me speaking to artifacts?”

“Possibly... I’ve lived a long time, and I’ve met no one like you.”

My stomach flutters. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It was intended as such,” he says, rolling one of his sleeves up over his forearm. “Other than asking it, do you feel or see anything else?”

“I guess I see the threads that make a spell, and sometimes that makes it easy to break them. It’s how I could get through the wards protecting the forbidden grimoires back in the library.”

Ash lets out a deep breath and continues his circling. “It’s not uncommon for hybrids to possess peculiar gifts. When did you start wearing your amulet?”

“My father gave it to me five years ago.” I wring my hands, and the bubbling in my stomach begins.

“How do the librarians find who has magic and who doesn’t?”

There’s something fuzzy in my mind, like a veil blocking my access to my memories. When I think back to those days—to the specific afternoon I received the letter with my new assignment—all I can remember is being excited, confused, and afraid.

“After we turn twenty, all young adults go to the governor’s house and are asked to hold a spherical artifact that detects an affinity to wield magic in simple humans. We were told we aren’t true sorcerers, as no magical artifact would bind to us.”

I press my fingers to my temple as a dull headache throbs. “I took my mother’s amulet to my first meeting with the librarians. My father told me to not let them see it... but they must have.”

Ash hums thoughtfully, and I know he’s putting together his own puzzle with the pieces I’m finally sharing. “The artifact they used to detect your magic, did it turn colors when you held it?”

Somehow, that question makes my stomach sour.

“Yes, it turns blue if someone has an affinity for magic, and remains white if they don’t.” I add, “Mine didn’t turn blue the first time I held it. Let me guess, it’s a fae artifact, isn’t it?”

He looks mildly sick as he says, “It’s called the Nagine, and a race of dangerous, snake-like beings called the Naga created it to track magical humans.

My father stole it from them, from where they live in Sylas’s kingdom, in order to track hybrids.

When I took the throne, I sent someone I trusted to destroy it, but that obviously didn’t happen. ”

I’m thinking a person close enough for Ash to trust them with such an artifact could be the same person who betrayed him with the curse. A hybrid who roamed the castle before me.

“The Nagine needs Naga blood to work properly, but pure fae blood also does the trick most of the time. I never expected it to be used by hybrids, though I guess it could still detect a magical person if they were to hold it in their hands...”

I chew the inside of my cheek. Part of me still wants to defend them—defend myself and my old life built in lies. The sensation in my stomach turns uncomfortable almost immediately.

My hold on my power slips through the flimsy grasp I have on it.

“Do you think the librarians put the block on my power?”

“No, I think had they known what you can do, they’d never have allowed you close to my grimoires.

” He resumes his prowling around me, and I feel our brief history lesson is over.

“If you can unravel spells, Monster, then you need to search inside yourself for something that feels wrong. Your power should feel familiar. A part of you. The spell blocking it will feel like a strange invasion in your body.”

I close my eyes to focus on the magic I feel simmering within my skin and find it warm.

I search inside myself for something that feels alien. But it all feels familiar, too familiar. Like a hug I received as a child that never let me go. Like the warmth of my father’s voice.

I gasp, but don’t lose focus as I pull at that buzzing energy in my center— my energy—and find threads of magic tightly woven over it. They feel like my own, but slightly different.

A spell made by someone who is part of me, a person I trusted. I tug at the threads again, but they hold tight, and it hurts if I pull too hard.

Let go , I whisper in my head, and the spell wavers a little but doesn’t ease.

My breathing turns ragged as I open my eyes, and the ceiling and walls shift over my head.

“Is it working?” I think Ash asks, but there’s another voice, one I haven’t heard in a long time, that drowns him out.

No . The familiar voice breaks through the webs that cloud my mind, louder than the whooshing of my heart.

Let go , I whisper again.

The room spins, and my surroundings change. One second, I’m staring at the moldy walls of the fae home, and the next, I’m sitting in my old dining room, staring into my father’s brown eyes as he leans over the table, pinning me with a sorrowful expression.

“The pain will only last a second, Mia. This is for your own good.”

Tears prickle in my eyes, and I hear myself say, “No, it’s not. Don’t do this.” I’m paralyzed where I sit as a glowing enchantment wraps around my father’s hands, reaching toward me. I never knew he could do magic—not like this. He’s a scientist, a man of numbers and logic.

“Don’t do this, please. No one saw me do anything—the globe just turned light blue. It’s nothing.”

A breeze that smells like shadows, pine, and mint breaks through the layers of my memories. Ash. He’s close by, even though I can’t see him.

“They don’t know who you are, and it must remain that way,” my father says, turning to the door as if expecting someone to kick it open. His magic suppresses the electric power in my veins. It’s a sedative that makes me slump onto the wooden chair.

I can’t answer him. Not even as he locks me away with a spell that he hasn’t told me how to unlock. An ache squeezes my chest, and tears spill down my cheeks as my mind clouds.

“Please,” I beg.

I feel Ash’s arms tighten around me.

“We didn’t want to do this, Mia. We wouldn’t have come here had we known the prophecy existed. You won’t remember this. It will keep you safe.”

“No. Please.”

Ash catches me before I plummet to the ground, his body almost feverish against my frigid skin. “What happened, Mia?”

The feeling of betrayal is immediate and overwhelming. But I’d rather feel this way than afraid to lose control like I did back in the castle. Ash scoops me into his arms and carries me down the hall. Darkness surrounds us, but I’m too groggy to feel scared. Too sad.

“My father... he must’ve been a strix. He helped the scientists build the veil, and we both know what they do to the lunargyres there.” My lips thin as I struggle to not break down.

Ash tenses against me but continues on toward wherever he’s taking me without a word.

“I think he locked my magic because I’m able to break your curse. It has to be.”

“Did he tell you that? You remembered everything that happened?”

A wave of nausea hits me before I can force the words out. “I remember something from that day. He mentioned a prophecy. He said, ‘They don’t know who you are, and it must remain that way.’”

Ash’s jaw clenches, and he stops in front of a black-painted door. “Can you stand?”

After I nod, he sets me back on the floor, and we stand facing each other in complete silence for a long moment before he says, “I’ve never heard of a prophecy about a hybrid that’s not my own, and I’ve been searching everywhere, including the stars, for an answer.

Sometimes I feel I’m getting closer to something, but the words—the prophecy fades before I grasp it. ”

“Unless.” I swallow the deep knot in my throat and try again. “Unless it’s a prophecy unknown to the unseelie, and it’s protected in Penumbra.”