Chapter 26
Belle
Cooks and scullions screamed in terror as pots and pans rattled to life, leaping from hooks and flying through the air. Sheer pandemonium broke out in the kitchen as people ran screaming for the doors.
The aprons hanging by the tables reached out with their ties as the mop raced past, trying to entangle it.
The mop pulled away, flinging one of the writhing aprons over the face of a fleeing scullion.
He shrieked and clawed at it, darting through the door as soon as he was free.
Disregarding the high magister’s shouts, the kitchen staff fled the exits.
A heavy pot landed atop the handle of the mop, spinning, as if by force of will it could bring the mop down. A simmering cauldron crashed off its irons and tumbled across the floor on its side, pouring boiling water from its mouth and cutting off the escape of two maids.
Oh my gods, do something!
I leapt to a heavy wooden prep table and slammed my hands on it. “Protect them!”
Ice flared, and the table flipped up and over, spilling eggs and bowls of flour and dough across the floor.
It crashed down in front of the maids, shielding them from the river of boiling water in the nick of time.
The cauldron glanced off the table and tumbled straight for Locke.
He leapt out of the way, only to have the flames of one of the kitchen’s large cook hearths jet toward him like the dragon’s breath.
He pivoted, his expression livid in the firelight. “Enough!”
A bolt of green lightning erupted from his fingertips. The tumbling cauldron detonated, and I dove behind the table with the maids. Smoke and sulfur filled the air, and glowing shards of iron ricocheted across the wall behind us.
I grabbed the two girls and hauled them toward the nearest door.
One was screaming, the other sobbing. To their horror, the table upended itself and scraped alongside us like a shield bearer running in front of his lord.
Locke was trapped on the other side of the table.
I couldn’t see him, but he could clearly handle himself.
I rushed the maids through the open door and shoved it shut behind us. They fled down the hall after the baker and cooks, their skirts bunched in their fists as they cried prayers to the Fates.
Deafening cracks thundered from the room, followed by the muffled sounds of splintered wood clattering against the walls. The thread connecting me to the table severed, its light snuffed out.
The door wrenched open a second later, and Locke slipped through. A copper kettle clanged off the jamb beside his head as he yanked the door shut just in time. Turmoil roared from within.
The high magister turned on me, his eyes laced with fury. “What in the gods were you thinking?”
The door shuddered under a barrage of pots and pans, as if they were trying to break through.
His magic crackled around him, a furious power I didn’t see so much as felt deep beneath my skin.
“I didn’t mean to. I don’t know—I was trying, but there were so many—”
“Excuses!” Locke snapped. “I should—”
The king was between us then, tall and powerful. “What the fuck is going on?”
My shoulders sagged, and I slipped into the safety of his shadow, loathing how grateful I felt for it.
“Ask her.” Locke’s scalding gaze flicked to me. His clothes were scorched and torn, and his flour-covered cheek was bleeding. “Your little witch can’t control her power. She was supposed to mop the kitchen, but instead she unleashed a storm! Gods know how many could have been hurt.”
The king turned on him. “If it was that dangerous, why did you let her use her magic near my staff?”
My eyes rounded. He was worried about his staff? The bastard who’d commissioned tortured statues to fill the halls?
“I thought it would be a skill familiar to a peasant, but I clearly underestimated her ability to sow chaos. I’ve never seen the like. The objects came alive as if possessed by devils.” His eyes narrowed as he dabbed at the blood and flour from his cheek with the sleeve of his jacket. “Or a demon.”
In a breath, the king’s demeanor changed. The anger vanished, replaced by something cold and lethal. A cloud of accusation shadowed his face, a threatening storm. “What have you unleashed, Belle?”
As if in answer, the pots and pans renewed their attack on the door.
“I don’t know,” I whispered, trying to keep my voice steady. My body was shaking from cold, my legs weak with exhaustion.
The king stepped close, the heat and commanding presence of him silencing all thought and reason. “Get your magic under control.”
There was no way to quell the panic rising in me. “Don’t you think I’ve tried?”
He took my chin between his fingers, warm and unyielding, forcing me to meet his eyes. I fell into them, lost and reeling amidst the hazel and gold, before his cold voice snapped me back to reality. “You’ve been a peasant for far too long.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“The magic is yours, but you don’t know how to rule it. Take command. Act like a queen, not a cowering scullery maid. You should be in there facing what you created, not out here waiting for us to save you.”
“That’s not what I’m—”
“Fix it. Now.”
His words were iron, leaving me no room for dissent or excuse. He was right. The chaos was mine, and mine alone to end—and I wasn’t going to get that done hiding out here.
I reached for the door, and Locke quickly backed away. My hand trembled, but I pushed through and slammed it shut behind me.
Copper flashed as a battered kettle skidded past, and the room echoed with kitchenware clattering and banging against the walls and across the floor. I grasped for the threads connecting me to them, pushing what little there was left of my magic. “Stop!”
It was like pouring a glass of wine into a river.
My magic evaporated into the current of power racing through me, and a sudden awareness rose in the midst of the chaos: this wasn’t my magic alone.
It was something trapped in the castle, flowing through the connections I’d forged. Fury. Anger. Sadness.
Emotions become magic.
I pressed myself back against the wall to avoid a whirling rolling pin and tried to make sense of the chaotic tangle of connections I’d made with the objects. There were too many, too much chaos—I couldn’t sort through them or pinch them off with my mind.
The pots and pans continued to bang against the wall and whirl through the air.
“I said, like a queen,” the king growled as he stepped into the room. “Don’t ask. Demand!”
Objects converged on the door. He seized the mop as it tried to launch itself through the crack and snapped it in half, then shattered an earthenware jug with his forearm as it hurtled through the air. Both threads evaporated, and I felt an aching pang of loss, the need to protect these things.
Be a queen.
Like Ella.
My hatred for the king collided with the love of my sister, and a truth dawned: the king and the magister knew nothing of what it meant to be a queen.
My sister was everything Locke and the king were not. She coaxed animals to speak and trees to bow before her, but she never shouted or demanded. She was a whisperer—she owned her magic, and she knew the woods would listen if she asked, no matter how softly.
That was how to rule, how I would rule—if I only had the strength.
I stepped into the center of the maelstrom. The objects hurtling through the air converged, wheeling around me like a flock of birds, but in that moment, I realized they wouldn’t harm me. It was almost as if they were trying to protect me—a shield between me and the king.
They were trying to help, just as I’d asked.
Asking, that was the key. Not ordering, not demanding. I reached for the threads of power that bound us, envisioning what I truly needed. “Please listen to me.”
A familiar chill raced over my skin, and my breath became ice. The objects spun to a halt and hovered there, floating in the air. Waiting. For me.
I stilled my rising heart, not allowing the triumph of the moment to break my concentration. I drew in the last traces of strength and power I possessed. “I don’t want to hurt you, and the people here are scared. Please stop.”
One after the other, the connections in my mind flickered out, and the torrent of power racing through me cut off. They all dropped from the air, clattering across the ground.
My lips parted as I stared at the fallen objects, each inert in the chaos and quiet of the kitchen. It was over.
A thread of loss cut through me—like a memory of old friends, long parted. I picked up the copper pan and ran my fingers over the new dents in its side. “I’m sorry. I let things get out of control.”
I set the pot on a bench, then exhaustion pulled me down beside it, and I leaned back against the stone wall, breathing hard.
The king approached, studying me closely. “It seems you’ve found your voice.”
It was a subtle acknowledgement, almost imperceptible.
I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “Maybe.”
The lines around his mouth drew taut, his eyes turning to embers, the hint of praise replaced by absolute fury. “You will never do anything like this again.”
I winced, the illusion of his approval shattered. It was bitter medicine. Why did I care what he thought? He was my captor. A tyrant. His opinion shouldn’t matter.
But it did.
I forced a smile. “Maybe this is what practicing my magic looks like.”
He towered over me, the heat of his anger sweltering. “Until you learn to control your power, you’re forbidden from using it around my staff or my court. Understood?”
I let my head roll to the side, taking in the destruction I’d caused. Overturned tables. Shattered wood. Fragments of a cauldron and a broken mop. Flooded floors. The chaotic energy I’d felt beneath everything earlier was gone, replaced by a subtle melancholy and calm.
“I’m surprised you even care what happens to your staff,” I said, with barely enough strength to spar.
He extended his hand to me. “I’m their lord. Their protection is my duty.”
Against better judgment, I took it—glorious warmth against my frigid skin.
He pulled me up effortlessly, and I stumbled to my feet, pressing my hand against his chest to catch my balance. His muscles tightened beneath my fingers, and I fought the urge to lean into him, to give in to my fatigue.
Gods, what would it be like to be protected by someone like him?
Terrifying. Unbearable. Spellbinding.
No. Not him. Never him.
I stepped back. “If you actually cared about protecting your staff, you wouldn’t let bloodthirsty psychopaths roam the halls of your castle, drinking from whomever they like.”
His gaze grew dark, and a muscle in his cheek jumped. “The members of my court are forbidden from feeding from the staff, or any humans, without permission. If they violate my rules, I rip out their fangs.”
I stared at him. In the Bloodvale, harming an immortal was punishable by death, yet never the opposite. How could our kind have better protection here from this tyrant?
He’s protecting his possessions.
That was all we were to him, all I was: a plaything to be covetously guarded. That was the only reason he’d intervened at the reception or attacked the bloodsucker who’d cornered me at their bloodthirsty revel. Nothing more.
I turned away and plodded through the kitchen toward the overturned bucket.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“To clean up my mess.” I bent to pick up the overturned bucket, muscles screaming, then looked back at him with a feigned smile. “Don’t worry, Your Highness, I don’t have a scrap of power left in me.”
If I had, I likely would’ve used it to impale him with a kitchen knife.