Chapter 30 #3
Then she was back, panting with her hands braced on a chair.
The markings at her feet faded, signaling the magic was fully reined in.
Her breathing returned to normal, steady and even.
Her body was stable, and the cut on her palm was now simply a dull ache.
Unlike before, there was no collapse or painful aftermath, only understanding.
Imani examined the blood-darkened hair in the dish before dropping it into her stained hands.
Blood had dried across her palm and between her fingers, darkening the shallow cut she had used to anchor the spell.
She crossed to the basin, poured water over them, and watched red unravel from her skin in thin ribbons before disappearing into the bowl.
A laugh escaped her as she braced both hands against the basin and bowed her head. “Of course,” she muttered to herself.
Of everyone in both kingdoms, Meira had been given Kiran’s brother. And if the bond was real, if the same ancient law governing her own heartmate connection had identified Saevel with absolute certainty, then he was no longer merely Kiran’s imprisoned brother.
He could be the second Mesial Realm monarch.
She had used this same heartmate Divination before, and if the old theory was right—that the monarchs of the realms were bound to their corresponding heartmates—then Meira being magically tied to Saevel gave his existence a significance Kiran’s imprisonment of him had not.
While it did not wholly prove Saevel had a claim to Niflheim’s Throne, it gave Imani a reason to test whether he did.
Still, the spell did not lie. Her sister had a heartmate, the one desire Meira had above all others. Growing up in the Riverlands, her sister had wanted belonging, and her heartmate had answered every lonely question.
Imani knew better than most how precarious that desire could be. Her grandmother’s warning the last night Imani saw her alive echoed in her head.
A heartmate can be a blessing, but also a nightmare.
She shook her head, trying to shake off Ara’s harsh, truthful words. A strangled laugh almost escaped her as the sheer absurdity and logic of two brothers being heartmated to two sisters dawned on her.
Did Meira already know? Had some part of the bond reached across the distance before either of them understood what it was? Had her sister been carrying some unexplained pull toward a man she had never even met?
Emotions welled in Imani’s throat before she could stop them. Despite Meira’s betrayal and the chasm it put between them, Imani had spent most of her life wanting to see Meira happy, but now that it was within reach, she wanted to rip it away, too.
She dried her hands as her thoughts widened beyond Stralas, beyond the petty fractures of Essenheim’s throne. Kiran was the biggest threat on the board, yes, but if the Fabric remained misaligned, instability would affect everything built upon it until someone corrected it.
Imani straightened fully, the last faint glow fading beneath her boots, balling her hand into a fist around her wand.
Thinking about Ara brought her darkest desires to the surface again.
Accepting everyone will soon hate and fear you will make things easier.
Imani had always known she wanted more. And now, with Essenheim under her rule and the Drasil in her hand, she wanted it all. She wanted the entire realm. Because that was the only way the Fabric’s magic would truly be fixed. Without it… Without her magic… she would be nothing again.
The thought was a cold, hard conclusion.
Essenheim was one piece. Niflheim was another.
The Fabric governing them both was vast, and its current weakness left room for something entirely new to take root.
Ambition was part of it, but fixing the Fabric had always sat in the back of her mind like a sickness she couldn’t cure.
A unified rule meant she would be free to make the laws and changes needed to keep the Fabric whole.
But only if someone stabilized the Fabric, either with the strength to realign magic or the will to enforce it. The once abstract monumental goal she shared with the Drasil now felt urgent and immediate, essential to everything that needed to happen next.
Imani touched the scab forming on the cut in her palm, then looked at the rest of the blood-darkened strand of hair still lying in the dish.
All of those ambitions could wait. Meira could not.
Saevel’s existence had just changed the problem waiting inside Imani’s own palace.
Her sister was no longer merely a prisoner carrying a second Crown of Life and an old betrayal between them.
She was now magically bound to the brother Kiran had hoped to hide from the world, and possibly to a man whose claim could be used against him.
Because Saevel was alive. If not, Kiran risked his entire kingdom.
Imani needed to know what Meira knew, whether she had ever felt the bond herself, and whether she would cooperate once Saevel’s name was placed in front of her.
More importantly, Imani needed to decide how much freedom she was willing to give the sister she still could not trust in order to reach the man who might help dismantle Kiran’s rule.
She left the chamber without looking back, prepared to confront her sister about all the unspoken truths between them and what was about to happen next.