20. Chapter 20 #2
Bella slams the book shut, grounding me back to the present moment and coating herself in a thick layer of dust. “And what about your magic?” she imposes, waving the lingering dust away with her free hand as if it hasn’t already powdered the inside of her lungs.
Meanwhile, I blink twice, trying to make sense of the intrusive thought.
What the fuck was that?
“My magic?” The vendor laughs. “What about it?”
“Are you able to use it with the ring on?” Bella coughs and sets the book on the counter.
“Of course I am,” the vendor scoffs, her breathing coming to a shuddering halt, almost as if she’s just realized something.
“Actually,” she holds up a finger in thought, “I can’t say that I’ve tried.
I’m a Restoromancer, but I haven’t come across anything broken all week.
Do you have any broken trinkets in your pocket, by chance?
Any gaping wounds that need stitching back together? ”
“I’m quite sure that my friends have an insurmountable number of deep inner wounds, likely stemming from childhood, for you to fix,” Maxine interjects.
“Who invited you to this conversation?” I ask, suddenly realizing Maxine has materialized beside us.
“Listen,” Maxine continues, ignoring my comment and focusing her attention on the vendor as she adds, “if you’re truly in need of a wound, I’m happy to create one for you.
” Before anyone can object, Maxine unsheathes her dagger from the hidden compartment of her boot and balances it in her grip.
Then, she delivers a fatal, bludgeoning blow of her blade in the general vicinity of my hand, missing by mere inches and impaling a stray potato instead.
“Are you insane?” I bristle, hardly able to imagine the utter chaos that would’ve ensued had they all learned that my blood is silver, not gold. A secret that I’ll take to my grave if I can help it.
“Yes,” Maxine says, looking me dead in the eye and smiling.
“That’ll do!” The vendor jumps in, snatching up the maimed potato and cradling it like it’s an infant. The three of us stare at her in curious silence. “That’s strange,” she mutters after a moment. “Usually my hands glow like stardust when I hold something that’s broken. But nothing’s happening.”
Maxine prods the impaled potato with her fingertip. “Either your magic has dried up, or Bella is correct… that ring is muting your powers. Unless of course, you’re a terrible Restoromancer. That might also be the case.”
The vendor’s color slowly uproots from her cheeks as a look of panic settles in, spreading like a pernicious weed. “I’m one of the best Restoromancers in Riverhall,” she says assuredly, her voice cracking to smithereens.
“I knew that damned marriage law was a farce,” Bella swears beneath her breath. “The timing of it was too convenient.”
“What are you saying?” I ask.
“If the gods fail to secure the heart of a mortal by the seventh sundown of the week, they’ll be exiled to Purgatory,” Bella recalls. “But that’s not all.”
“No?” I inquire breathlessly. “What else could there possibly be?”
“Last night after the ball, when you were asleep…” Bella trails off. “I grew curious and decided to wander around the castle.”
“By yourself?” I squeak. Bella nods. “Do you know how dangerous—” I start, only to be silenced by Maxine, who lifts a hand and motions for Bella to finish her story.
“One of the doors spit me out into the queen’s library,” Bella reveals, dropping her voice down a pitch.
“That's when I overheard her conferring with the priestess about stealing the realm's magic.
With it, she intends on stopping the curse's effects.” Her eyes dart around at all of us, pausing on me.
“Did she see you?” I whisper. “In her library?”
Bella shakes her head. “I kept to the shadows and snuck out before she noticed me. But I’ve been thinking about it ever since.
Stealing the realm’s magic?” She pauses to blow out a breath.
“It’s a brilliant strategy, really, one concealed in pretty frills and tender heartstrings so that no one ever suspects the act of love has teeth. ”
“How is she going to do that?” the vendor asks.
Bella motions toward the ring seated on her finger. The poor woman’s face turns a pallid shade of white. She tries to pry the ring off her finger, to no avail.
“The ring is a parasite,” I realize.
“At least it’s a pretty parasite though, am I right?” Maxine points out, giving the vendor a wry smile. “What?” she adds. “I’m trying to see the bright side of things for once. Will you all stop looking at me like that?”
The vendor chokes down a sob, and the whites of her eyes streak with pink. But I don’t hear the rest of the conversation. It becomes a garbled mess falling somewhere into the abyss of my mind, suddenly eclipsed by the supermassive silhouette of a beast that fills up the entire sky.
A white dragon emerges from the clouds, flapping a set of veiny, frosted wings. Its shadow engulfs the entire sleepy town as it releases a soul-splitting shriek.
Holy shit.
Time ceases to exist, unveiling a carved-out space of nothingness just for me.
An unseasoned chill takes up root in my bloodstream, festering like an icy ball of fizzling energy.
The desolation of a thousand winters rips into my heartbeat as the beast releases a breath of arctic air in a shade of cataclysmic, world-ending, searing blue.
The lagoons turn into ice and the balmy air shifts into a frosty shade of white.
A frost dragon.
The silver dragon lands with a reverberating thud in the center of the market, sending dust swirling like smoke over the din and blinding us.
Once the dust settles and the screams sink in, my friends start to panic.
I remain frozen in place, drinking in its shimmering scales like crystallized rain scooped right out of Purgatory's ice-ridden lakes. Three horns erupt from its face like the jagged edges of a lethal blade, and three prongs curl out of its white-whipped tail. But that’s not the reason that I can’t look away.
The dragon's eyes are hewn from frostbite, like glacierized tears long ago forgotten to time. They’re so soulful, so universe-defying, that I imagine an artist once ripped out a dragon’s beating heart, drew it on a page, and then breathed life back into its body with his unadulterated heartache.
The beast unfolds its wings and looks around.
It unleashes an ear-splitting screech across the clearing, then shatters a vendor’s stand to smithereens with a careless sweep of its tail.
The sight of all the glass breaking to pieces beneath the pale afternoon light is almost as bone-chilling as the ground beneath its feet crystallizing like vaporous ice.
Gods save us.
“Dragon!” The once organized crowd becomes a pandemonium of panic as people scatter down the narrow foothill in an effort to escape.
I watch in horror as their panicked bodies tumble off the cliffside and plummet into the forked rivers below, each one landing with a sickening crack.
Others go up in frostflames, falling prey to the subzero blue fires that are feasting on the market’s pretty stalls and embroidered canopies.
Well, so much for the idyllic view.