And she drew closer still, close enough that he could feel her warm breath against his lips.
“I love you too,” she whispered. “Now kiss me, Magnus. Please.”
With a dark groan, Magnus crushed his mouth to hers, breathing her in, tasting the sweetness of her lips as her tongue slid against his. She kissed him back without restraint, deeper and sweeter and hotter even than the kiss they’d shared in Ravencrest.
This—this overpowering need—is what had been building between them ever since that night. He’d thought he could forget it, put it out of his mind, ignore his heart. But the memory of that kiss had been nightly haunting his dreams and daily sending him to distraction.
He needed her, longed for her, ached for her. Not for a single solitary moment had his desire for her ceased.
Cleo broke off the kiss. He immediately started to worry. Was she coming to her senses and now pushing him away? But instead, she just looked at him, her eyes wide and dark in the shadows of the cottage.
He gently took her face between his hands and kissed her again, and a small moan escaped from the back of her throat, a sound that nearly drove him insane.
Cleo slipped his cloak off his shoulders and then pulled at the ties of his shirt to bare his chest. She brushed her lips against his skin, and he grasped her shoulders.
“Cleo . . . please . . .”
“Shh.” She pressed her fingertips to his lips. “Don’t ruin this by talking. We might start arguing again.”
When she smiled then, he knew he was already ruined.
Her lips met his again, and Magnus surrendered any small grasp of control he had left.
He didn’t deserve her; he knew he didn’t. He was the Prince of Blood, the son of a monster, who said and did cruel things. Who preemptively leapt to hurt anyone before they could hurt him first.
But he would show her that he could change.
Magnus could change for her.
She was his princess. No. She was his goddess. With her golden skin and golden hair. She was his light. His life. His everything.
He loved her more than anything else in this world.
Magnus worshipped his beautiful goddess that night, both her body and her soul, before the heat of the blazing hearth, upon the rug bearing the symbol of the kingdom his father had stolen from her.
CHAPTER 32
LUCIA
THE FORBIDDEN MOUNTAINS
The closer Lucia came to the Forbidden Mountains, the more they started to resemble to her an arsenal of obsidian daggers slicing up into the gray sky. But she was accustomed to living amidst intimidating structures. After all, she had grown up in the cold, black Limerian palace.
She refused to be intimidated by the foreboding landscape around her. It would take a lot more than these so-called guardians to scare her away.
But that momentary recollection of her past, of the castle perched atop the cliffs where she’d lived for sixteen years, summoned an unfamiliar—and completely unwelcome—sensation in her.
Homesickness.
After so much time away from her home—first during her time in Auranos, and now on the road with Kyan—she’d finally become so weary that she found herself missing familiarities so banal as her own bed. She missed her attendants and the kind cook who always gave her an extra biscuit, a special treat just for her, with her breakfasts. She missed books, the collection she had at home and the incredible selection she’d only started to discover in the Auranian palace library. She missed her tutors, even the ones who taught the subjects she dreaded, especially drawing, which in Limeros was treated as more of a practical life skill than a fine art. Magnus was the artist in the family, not her.
She missed Magnus.
And most surprisingly of all, she missed her father.
She had to put them, put everything besides the task at hand, out of her mind. There would be no returning to her old life. She’d made her choice long ago, and now she had to stand by it.
Lucia concentrated instead on her surroundings as she and Kyan moved deeper into the mountains. It wasn’t all that cold here, but curiously, she still found herself shivering. She pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders.
Nothing grew here, no grass, no trees. No animals. No life.
No birds flew in the sky. No insects crawled across the dirt.
This was truly a wasteland.
“I don’t like it here,” Kyan said. “I think that wench from the inn was wrong. This isn’t a place of great elemental magic, this is a forgotten place of emptiness and death.”
Yes, she felt that too, but there was something about that emptiness, that stillness and lack of life, that compelled her as much as it concerned her.
Paelsia had wasted away over the generations, had become barren, dry, no longer able to sustain life at a prosperous rate. Some people said it was a cursed land—the same people who claimed that Limeros, too, was cursed, with its seemingly endless snow and ice. But Lucia knew the truth, that these extreme environmental shifts were due to the missing Kindred.
The Kindred made life itself possible. She didn’t understand exactly how they did this, especially now that she knew Kyan had been released from his crystal in the form of a young man who’d become part of her new family. But he wasn’t just an extraordinary young man; he was fire elementia. Pure fire elementia that could speak, breathe, eat, hate, need, love, and hope. And his Kindred siblings were just like him. Earth magic, air magic, water magic—all real, living beings, trapped inside their crystal cages.
Without these four exceptional siblings, there would be no life.
The entire world would be just as it was here in the Forbidden Mountains.
They’d only been exploring for a short time, but this stark environment had already begun to affect her mood. When they first trekked into the mountain range, she’d felt optimistic, so sure they were on the brink of finding the answers they sought, so ready to help Kyan gain his ultimate freedom and vanquish the immortal trying to control his fate.
But now, completely surrounded by dark, jagged mountains, with no flat land or villages in sight, all she felt was sad and tired and very alone.
She rested her hand against her flat belly. If this barren bleakness were to spread further out into Mytica, vanquishing all the life it touched, her child wouldn’t have a future.
Death would be all that awaited the living being within her.
Luckily, one of the Kindred had been awakened. Soon, his siblings would join him and walk the earth. It was only a matter of time before the balance that had been lost over the last millennium would be restored.
The sun began to set and, with the growing darkness, it became much cooler. She didn’t relish spending the night in this place. She and Kyan conjured torchlike flames as they walked, to light their way but also to reassure themselves that their magic remained strong. Sera had mentioned that witches and exiled Watchers couldn’t access their elementia here, but that didn’t seem to be the case for a sorceress and a god.
Perhaps the Guardians—the name Lucia had adopted for the black mountains surrounding them, watching them—had the power to drain Watcher magic, just as Lucia had drained Melenia’s.
“Lucia,” Kyan said after a time. “I suddenly have a very good feeling that we’ve finally arrived exactly where we need to be.”
They’d come upon a small valley of black rock and dirt, at the center of which lay what looked like a garden.
They rushed over to the garden, which had a circumference of perhaps thirty paces. Soft green grass, colorful daisies and roses, olive trees. In the center of the garden was a large moss-covered rock as tall and wide as two of the stone wheels they’d previously found stacked atop each other.
Lucia gasped, taking in this small patch of beauty. “Do you feel anything?” Lucia asked. “Any magic?”
“No,” Kyan said, “but I do feel life here.” He walked around the circumference of the rock, sliding his hand along the moss. “There has to be some
sort of force at work to sustain this isolated oasis.”
Lucia’s melancholy had been chased away by this patch of life, flourishing in the midst of so much death. “Perhaps this is what made people believe that the Watchers lived in the mountains.”
He nodded in agreement. “The Watchers managed to keep this secret very well. But why would they do that?”
She wracked her mind, but came up blank. “I have no idea.”
In one blinding instant, a flood of fire poured down his arms. “Stand back, little sorceress.”
Lucia started. “What are you going to do?”
“Watch and see.” Kyan’s eyes turned bright blue.
Before she could say another word, he turned to the moss-covered rock, flung the flames toward it, and wrapped his fire magic around it. The moss burned away in an instant; the grass surrounding the rock turned black. Deeply dismayed, Lucia watched the swift destruction of this beautiful place, but held her tongue.
Kyan’s amber fire turned to blue, and then to a bright, blinding white.
Lucia had never seen this white fire before, but she quickly learned that it was scorching enough to transform solid rock into bubbling lava in seconds. The rock melted like an ice sculpture on a summer’s day.
Kyan snuffed his fire out. The lava glowed like an orange moat protecting a strange object now revealed beneath the rock.
Lucia craned her neck to look, expecting to see another stone wheel. Instead, she saw a jagged crystal monolith—light violet at the top fading into a darker shade of purple at the bottom.
The monolith lit up their surroundings with its otherworldly glow, like a magical bonfire. Lucia felt the warmth of that magic, the pure and pulsing life, emanating from the crystal.
She looked down, stunned, to see that her amethyst ring had begun to glow with the exact same violet light.
“This is an original gateway,” Kyan whispered, pressing his hand against the crystal’s surface. “One so rare it might lead to places even more secret, more sacred, than the Sanctuary. They’ve hidden it because of its power. What a dangerous, dangerous secret we’ve uncovered.” He grinned at Lucia. “And now it’s even more dangerous because we’re the ones who’ve found it. Tell me what you can do now, little sorceress.”
Lucia cautiously touched the crystal, and gasped.
It was the same sensation she’d felt when she’d stolen Melenia’s magic. A warmth, a glow, a hunger for more.
She knew instinctively that she could drain enough magic from this crystal monolith to draw Timotheus out of his safe Sanctuary in seconds.
And she could kill him just as quickly.
“I can access its magic,” she said. “I can draw out Timotheus. This is exactly what we’ve been looking for.”
Kyan lips stretched into a smile, and he laughed. “Oh, this is wonderful. You are a goddess, my little sorceress. And you will stand by my side, as I burn all of the weakness away from this world.”
“Just like a forest fire,” she said, remembering a lesson from her past. Despite the devastation they caused, forest fires made new life possible by forcing old life to run its course.
“Yes, just like a forest fire. Once the Sanctuary is gone, we will rebuild this world, reconstruct it just as it was in the beginning.”
“What beginning?” she asked.
He clasped her chin. “The very beginning. It will take patience, but we’ll get it right this time. We will create a perfect world.”
She willed the smile to stay on her face, but suddenly she felt unsteady. “I thought all you wanted was for Timotheus to die so he couldn’t imprison you again.”
“That is just the first step in my grand, revolutionary plan.”
She drew in a shaky breath. “So what you’re saying is, you believe this world—my world—to be one big forest that needs to be burned away so new life can grow in its place?”
“Exactly. It’s for the best.” Kyan’s smile faded a bit, and he watched her more carefully now. “There’s nothing to worry about, little sorceress. With magic as strong and pure as this”—he gazed up at the monolith—“you can become immortal, just like those who think they control me.”
“But don’t you need your siblings to be present for this?”
“They’d be better off remaining where they are for now. It’s best that I be the one in control in these beginning days. But very soon we’ll be reunited.” His kind, broad grin returned. “Summon Timotheus here now, little sorceress. I’ve waited an eternity for this moment.”
Timotheus knew this already—Kyan’s grand plan for the world. He had to. But he hadn’t said a word to her about this in her dreams. Not that she would have believed him if he had. Which was exactly why he’d left her to discover this all on her own.
On the cliffs the night Alexius died, after she’d killed Melenia, Lucia had been left feeling so hurt, so betrayed, that she’d wanted nothing more than to hurt everyone else in return. She’d nothing left to live for, so she hadn’t cared if everyone else died right along with her.
Lucia had wanted to watch the world burn.
And now, because of Kyan, it would.
“No,” she said softly.
“Sorry? What did you say?”
“I said no.”
“No? No to what? Do you feel ill? Do you need to rest before we begin?”
She looked up into his amber eyes. “I won’t help you do this, Kyan.”
Kyan frowned, his brow furrowing and his eyes glowing hot. “But you promised.”
“Yes, I promised to help you reclaim your freedom, reunite you with your family, to go so far as to kill someone I considered an enemy to get you what you desired most. But this . . . destroying everything and everyone.” She shook her head, gesturing to the mountains and barren forest around her. “I’ll be no part of this.”
“The world is tragically flawed, little sorceress. Even in our short time together we’ve seen countless examples of this—men and women obsessed with their own little lives, their greed, their lust, their vanity, every weakness compounding on the next.”
“Mortals are weak—that’s what makes them mortals. But they’re also strong, resilient during crises that test their faith or threaten the people and things they love. There’s no such thing as perfection, Kyan.”
“There will be once I carry out my plan. I will create perfection in this world.”
“You aren’t meant to create it. You aren’t meant to destroy it. You’re only meant to sustain it.”
His expression had turned from plaintive to downright unpleasant. “You would dare judge me—you, a mortal child who’s barely even tasted life?”
It was rare for her to feel this certain about anything. Even rarer that she’d take a stand when another opposed her.
She had changed.
“It’s over, Kyan. I’ve made my decision. And now, I’m leaving. Of course you don’t have to come with me; you can stay here as long as you like.”
With a small nod, she turned from him and began to walk away.
But only a short moment later, she felt the rising heat behind her.
“If you think I’ll let you walk away from this so easily,” he said, “you’re stupider than I thought. You still don’t realize exactly what I am, do you?”
Slowly, she turned to look at him.
Fire rolled over his skin, burning away his clothing, until he blazed from head to toe. His eyes burned blue within the sea of amber flames.
“Yes, I know what you are,” she said, her throat tight. “You are the god of fire.”
“Yes. But you have no concept of what that truly means. Allow me to educate you.”
With narrowed eyes locked directly on her, he began to grow in size. Twice, three times . . . four times as tall and wide as his usual stature.
He towered above her, a monster created from fire.
A monster who was fire itself.
The fire Kindred in his truest form.
As she trembled at
the sight of him, Lucia fought to stand her ground, to not cower before this creature she had dared defy.
She had come so very close to helping him destroy the world. And now she needed to get as far away from him as possible so she could have the chance to save it.
He lowered his blazing face to hers, coming close enough to singe her hair. “I am eternal. I am fire. And you will do as I say, or you will burn.”
“Is this who you really are?” she asked, breathless. “Have you been lying to me all this time? Using me like all the others have? I thought we were family.”
He roared, and more flames rose up all around Lucia. Her cloak caught fire, so she shrugged it off, quickly stepping away from it.
“You won’t kill me!” she yelled at him. “If you kill me, your dream of destruction and re-creation is over.”
“I can do plenty of damage without you.”
“Not nearly as much as you need to.”
“Do you really think you’re so special? That you’re the only one blessed with these gifts? I will wait until a new sorceress is born, and she will help me. As you like to remind me, I have time to wait. You, though, are fragile—even more fragile than Eva was.”
With that, a gigantic blast of his fire hit her full on. She squeezed her eyes shut and raised her arms, as if that pathetic effort might shield her from his elemental rage. She screamed, expecting the whole of her body to be consumed by burning pain as her flesh melted from her bones.
But she felt nothing.
Tentatively, she opened her eyes.
A whirlwind of fire swirled violently around her, but didn’t touch her. It had been stopped by a barrier of violet light, surrounding her like a cool, glowing halo.
She looked down at her ring, the amethyst now blazing like a tiny violet sun on her finger, its light bright enough to blind.
She saw the fire Kindred standing just beyond the blocked wall of flames. “What have you done?” he demanded.
The ring—this had been the key all along. It held far more secrets, more power, than she’d ever imagined. This is what had allowed Eva to safely handle the Kindred in their crystal forms, while all other Watchers, like Valoria and Cleiona, were corrupted by them. For Lucia, the ring brought balance to the eternal conflict brought by being a sorceress trapped within a mortal shell.