Chapter 20 #3
Her sister wrung her hands, her body coiled with an urge to move forward that she fought to contain. “Please—get me out of here. I can’t stay like this.”
Esa remained near the door, silent, her presence steady without interrupting the moment. Imani only spared her a brief glance, still unable to stop staring.
“You’re still here,” Imani said, her tone flat. “Locked away while he prepares for a war.”
Her sister’s expression fell, tears filling her eyes. “You think that’s why I’m here?”
She didn’t answer because she could already feel the truth forming through the same connection tightening between them.
Tanyl had secured Meira for use against Imani.
“You took more than you understood with the flesh magic,” Meira continued. “You didn’t just take my Divination.”
“I did it to save your damn life,” Imani snapped.
“Did you?” Meira’s gaze held hers. “Because it doesn’t feel like that’s all you did.”
“I don’t care if you don’t believe me.” Pointing the Drasil at her sister, she felt her cheeks heat. But the threat held no bite. “I did it to save your life,” she repeated, finally lowering the wand.
“And made something else,” Meira replied. “Something neither of us can separate now.”
A charged energy sparked with unspoken understanding that neither felt the need to voice. Imani sensed that if Meira mastered it, they’d share access both ways.
A vulnerability that Imani couldn’t afford right now.
With her head cocked, Imani gave her sister a questioning look. “You’re still here,” she said again. “Which means he hasn’t figured out what you are either. A queen.”
That made sense. Tanyl possessed enormous power through the Drasil and everything he had accumulated around his stolen reign, but none of it made him Essenheim’s true monarch. Meira was stronger. As long as she could sustain the glamour, his magic would accept what she showed him.
Imani had escaped that limitation only because their Divination bond reached beneath the disguise.
A muscle in Meira’s jaw jumped, just slightly. “That doesn’t mean he won’t. My glamour can only last so long without my wand.”
“True,” Imani agreed. “It won’t last forever.”
The implication of this discovery changed everything.
A second queen—not a distant possibility or future concern, but something present and unavoidable, connected to her in a way she couldn’t reverse.
For a moment, it unsettled her enough to think about killing Meira, and removing the risk before it worsened.
Yet, the idea didn’t take hold. It was tempting, but not urgent.
And right now, urgent was the only thing that mattered.
Meira studied her, searching for something deeper than the glare Imani was leveling at her. “You’re here for him. Not me.”
Her sister always did know her better than anyone. At least until Kiran.
“Yes.”
The answer came without hesitation, a queen's command. “You have to get me out of here.”
Imani glared harder. “I don’t.”
Tears fell freely down Meira’s face, despite her attempts to stay strong. “You’re leaving me here?”
“For now. After your betrayal, I haven’t decided what to do with you.”
“You think this ends with you taking the throne?” Meira said, her voice going slightly shrill. “With him gone?”
Imani didn’t answer. She could feel the truth of Meira’s words through the bond, through the Crown of Life, through the fact that her sister stood in front of her as a queen she hadn’t expected.
“Tanyl first,” Imani said to Esa, who nodded back.
Meira wrung her hands together again. “And then what?”
“Then we deal with you.”
For a moment, their bond seemed almost tangible, a taut and unbroken link that neither relinquished nor weakened. Then Imani turned, and the spell was broken. Walking back toward the door, Imani tried to ignore the roiling sickness still in her gut.
Esa came up next to her without question. Behind them, Meira neither called out nor tried to stop them. But she didn’t fade either.
They closed and locked the door again, because the heist needed to move forward.
Still, Meira wasn’t just a complication likely to fade.
Her sister was tethered too tightly to Imani for her to ignore, and her magic was powerful.
Killing Meira might also trigger the Crown of Life to grow on someone else, someone worse.
Imani couldn’t risk an unknown second monarch vying for Essenheim.
Better the one she knew than the one she didn’t.
Whatever bond had formed between them would need resolution, and it wouldn’t be tidy. But this wasn’t the time. Not here.
Esa and Imani resumed striding through the corridors, quickly reacquainting themselves with the palace’s rhythm as if the disruption had never occurred—yet Meira’s significance persisted, tugging at Imani’s thoughts.
Tanyl was growing more perilous by the minute.
Each turn grew more vital, and every hallway seemed shrouded in malevolent intent as they delved deeper into the building.
They didn’t slow. They couldn’t.
But there were two queens now.
And only one throne.