Chapter 12 #2
She followed those differences by instinct, feeling where the Fabric strained and where it could bend without tearing.
Shattering it as she’d planned didn’t seem wise. It kept rumbling and swirling around her magic, and she felt that destroying it would only make things worse.
So, instead of breaking it open, she aligned herself with those lines, gently guiding and bending it until it yielded. Her wand arm shook under the pressure, and she added her other hand to steady it.
Come on, she thought. Her shadows dipped deeper into the openings she had found.
Imani expected resistance again, but they went straight through.
The sensation startled her enough that her breath caught.
One moment the Fabric pushed against her with enough force to make her arm shake; the next, her shadows were inside it, winding through the structure without friction.
They curled around taut strands of magic, slid beneath crossed layers, and tightened around the points holding the fracture open.
What changed?
A pull against one shadow tugged low in her stomach. Another vibrated along her spine. A third tightened around her wrist as though the Fabric itself had looped there.
The shadows now covered the entire opening, blackening it entirely. She heard shouting, but couldn’t look away.
Imani drew one shadow inward, and a line of magic beneath the slip tightened. Growling with the effort, she loosened another, and the pressure above it moved sideways instead of tearing. Her third shadow wrapped around the central strand holding the fracture apart. It vibrated through her teeth.
There.
Imani tugged.
The Crown of Life, Drasil, and shadow surged together. The first strand folded inward. The next followed. Then the entire structure began collapsing along the paths she had already marked, each section drawing the next closed behind it.
Resistance vanished in stages rather than all at once—first against her palm, then her arm, then the pressure against her chest—until the final line slipped free beneath her shadows, and the fracture sealed. It unwound almost in slow motion, then closed with a wink, as if it had never been open.
The pressure that had been pushing against everything released, leaving a sudden, disorienting absence in its wake. The sea lurched, then steadied, the warped currents smoothing as the unnatural pull vanished.
Her magic receded as she lowered her trembling wand, the surge quieting but not fully leaving the churning water.
Across the battlefield, the change was instant.
Magic regained its form, no longer errantly twisting during casting.
Spells struck true, ships adjusted course, and the delicate balance tipped in the Norn favor.
The sea, though still stormy, settled into a consistent churn.
Without the slip to maintain their advantage, the stunned Lochheim’s advance slowed, and their coordinated attack fell into chaos.
Shouts erupted as soldiers turned in unison when the slip was gone.
The Norn line advanced, filling the sudden gap, while Lochheim forces faltered, their momentum disrupted by the unexpected loss of control.
In that brief moment of realization, everyone’s focus fell on her, still clinging to the bow above the water, because it was clear what had changed and who was responsible.
She turned around and saw Ellisar watching her with an unreadable look. Then an acknowledgment, with a hint of approval, flashed across his face.
“I’m… impressed,” he said, wand still tight in one hand. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”
Satisfaction burrowed into her belly, not fleeting but anchored in the certainty of what she had just done. They had all seen it, and for the first time since escaping Niflheim, there was no question, no doubt, of who the true monarch was.
Unease slithered up her spine, though.
As her mind replayed the events on the ship, Imani couldn’t shake the feeling that her magic didn’t feel quite right.
The outcome was acceptable, but the minimal resistance her shadows had encountered made her wary.
It had felt so natural, as if the control didn’t need to be learned but merely remembered.
The shadows had merged into it, like a power that they could read effortlessly.
Indeed, her magic had seemed to wield the same unnatural power the Lochheim were wielding.
Breathing heavily above the water, she listened to the last echoes of battle fade into a steady hum around her.
The battlefield was transforming in the slip’s absence.
The wind tugged at her, and the sea kept moving, but the fracture that had caused everything was gone, and she had been the one to end it.
Everyone had seen it. She had shown her strength, seized the power, and made her claim to the throne unmistakable.
That same unease still climbed up her spine.
The pressure had been enormous, and her arms still trembled from holding that much power.
What unnerved her, though, was where the resistance had disappeared.
The air around the slip had distorted every spell that entered it, bending trajectories and pulling loose energy from their edges.
The Drasil had strained beneath the pressure, and even the crown had forced power through a structure determined to remain open.
Her shadows had done neither. In fact, they had entered the slip effortlessly, and once inside, they moved through its layers as though they already understood the pathways, slipping around the foreign magic instead of fighting it.
Imani had tracked their movement and somehow known which lines to bend, which ones to leave intact, and exactly where to push.
No one had taught her that, certainly not Zadie, who understood her Under magic better than anyone Imani had met.
She bit her lip, trying to shut down her fears and revel in the success. But she couldn’t tell whether she had forced the slip to seal, or whether, for reasons she did not understand, it had recognized her magic and let it in.