Chapter 2
Chapter Two
My gown pools around me like ink on parchment as I pick up gem after gem, each one unnaturally cold to the touch. “How?”
“I don’t know.” Sterling rises and approaches one of the remaining waterfalls. The glimmering transparent substance ripples like liquid glass.
Sterling’s eyes narrow in concentration until a faint blue glow emanates from his fingertips.
The muscles in his jaw tighten. “If this were ordinary water, I could freeze it, direct it. But it’s…
” The tendons on his neck stand out as the blue glow intensifies and water vapor forms around his fingers.
The prism shudders and curves away, like prey avoiding a predator. “It’s resisting me. It’s aware.”
Aware.
The word hangs between us, heavy and wrong, while the hairs on my arms prickle.
Sterling sweeps his hand in a firm arc and tries again. The waterfall retreats farther and winks out of existence. The remaining falls vanish in sequence, like candles being snuffed out one by one.
The diamonds stay scattered across the floor, throwing in fractured rainbows.
Beautiful. Valuable. And freaking cold as hells. The temperature in the room has dropped enough for goose bumps to pebble my skin.
I straighten, remembering to pull my shoulders back like a queen rather than slump like the girl who still sometimes wakes screaming from nightmares. “We need to gather the palace guards. And the others.”
“Agreed.” He steps to the door and issues clipped orders to the guards stationed outside.
Within minutes, Captain Griffin Fitz strides in and bows. Sharp brown eyes regard me from beneath a scarred left eyebrow, the flaw a white slice through his mahogany skin. His leather armor is covered by a tabard bearing my sigil, the phoenix and dragon. “Your Highness?”
Sterling points to the wrapping that covered the gift. “Find anyone who saw this package arrive. Who delivered it, when, and on whose orders.”
“Yes, Your Highness.” I catch the slight widening of Fitz’s eyes as they sweep over the diamonds. “We’ll begin immediately.”
Agnar Kerrin arrives next, a little out of breath and with sweat glistening on his battle-scarred face.
Coppery hair flows untamed around his broad shoulders as he scans us from head to toe.
Once he reassures himself we’re both unharmed, a relieved smile softens his mouth.
This man is like a brother to Sterling. Closer even, considering they served as soldiers together.
His smile quickly fades when he takes in the rest of the scene.
“Well,” he rakes a hand through his unruly hair, “that’s not something you see every day. If those are the kinds of gifts you get, it’s almost enough to convince me to get married.”
Leesa and Bastian enter together with linked hands that quickly separate once they see the assembled group.
Leesa’s dark golden blond waves bounce as she hurries to my side.
My adoptive sister and the half-brother I’ve only met this year make the perfect couple.
Their love produces adorable displays of affection and lots of blushing on Leesa’s part.
“What happened?” Her olive complexion pales as she surveys the diamond-littered floor. “Are those real?”
“Very.” I nudge a gem with my toe. The icy chill seeps through my leather slippers. “And no one knows where they came from.”
Astrid Fleming slips in last, quietly and efficiently as always. Her honey brown eyes miss nothing as she absorbs the situation.
I raise an eyebrow, but she shakes her head, sending her short chestnut waves flying. As my personal scribe and assistant, Astrid is the one who catalogued all the delivered presents. Yet even she has no idea who’s responsible for this particular present.
“The servants report no unusual deliveries.” Fitz returns from his initial inquiries. “No packages, no messengers.”
“The sentries?” Sterling’s voice is tight.
“Nothing, Your Highness. No strangers approached the palace today.”
I examine the diamonds again as the chill from my feet spreads to the rest of my body. “So whatever…whoever…sent this either has access to the palace or—”
“Or can bypass our security entirely.” Sterling’s lower lip curls in.
I address Astrid. “Whatever this is, it started out as water and recoiled from Sterling’s magic. Almost as if it were sentient.”
Sterling’s eyebrows dip. “Before transforming into these,” he gestures at the diamonds, “I got the sense that the water was aware.”
Bastian squats to examine a handful of stones with troubled hazel eyes. “This isn’t just complex magic. This is impossible magic.”
“Who could afford to gift this many diamonds?” That’s Agnar, practical as always. “Assuming they’re real, we could buy everything we need to rebuild a few countries. Or have three hells of a wild party.”
“They’re real.” Leesa and I speak simultaneously. My adoptive mother—Leesa’s birth mother—taught us how to identify genuine gemstones.
My chest aches. Her death is still fresh in my mind. Another casualty racked up by King Xenon. Thanks to his relentless quest for power, Leesa will forever bear the scars of killing our mother while under the drachen’s influence.
Astrid steps forward and picks up one of the larger diamonds. She examines the gem, then places it on the floor. A small flame appears on her fingertip, which she touches to the stone. The diamond absorbs the heat without changing. “Real. And this small pile is worth more than some small kingdoms.”
Bastian glances at the plain wrapper discarded on the floor. “Aclaris?”
Leesa’s already shaking her head before he can finish. “No, they’re still recovering from King Xenon’s tyrannical drachen occupation. They barely have enough to rebuild…”
Sterling nods. “They have a green provisional ruler too, and their new government is still finding its footing.”
“The Free Cities?” Fitz offers.
“Collectively, maybe, but they rarely agree on anything, and I doubt they could coordinate such a gift. None of them are powerful enough for this.” I sweep my arm over the glittering floor. “Their magic is practically nonexistent now.”
The truth sits heavy in the room.
Tirene alone still possesses magic. Following Narc’s destruction, the elemental powers in every other kingdom faded away. To kill the god and prevent his return, the eyril plants were destroyed. And without distilled eyril to bolster non-Tirenese magic, their powers are close to extinct.
I shudder, recalling how my blood dripped onto the altar where Narc’s bones rested, courtesy of a drachen’s talon. The scar from that shoulder wound still aches sometimes, especially whenever nightmares yank me from sleep.
Those tiny drops of dragoncaller blood were enough to revive him. Give him flesh.
Once I found my phoenix fire, buried deep inside me, I managed to purge the land of his taint. He died in the process…or something like that. The details of that night feel like a distant dream.
Freedom from corruption came at a price—the loss of other people’s magic. A price I never meant to exact when I destroyed the eyril to eliminate the drachen.
Even so, I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat to rid the world of Narc and his hideous monsters.
“That leaves us with no suspects,” Sterling crosses his arms over his chest, “and impossible magic.”
“Someone is clearly eager to show us they can do the impossible. That’s not a gift. That’s a threat.” I bend down to sweep my fingers across the stones. They remain cold, as if they’ve been buried in ice for centuries. “Something much bigger than diamond waterfalls is happening here.”
“Agreed. We’ll quarantine this room until we know more.” Sterling addresses the captain. “Double the guard rotations. No one enters or exits the palace without being verified by at least two guards who personally know them. Every package is to be inspected before being brought inside the palace.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“And these,” Sterling gestures at the gems, “remain here until we determine whether they’re safe.”
“Safe?” Agnar raises an eyebrow. “They’re diamonds.”
“Diamonds that were water mere minutes ago. Water that left nothing wet. And they’re still cold.” I wave a fire-wreathed hand over them. “We don’t know what they’ll be in twenty minutes.”
Guards are summoned to seal off the room. As we leave, Leesa studies the diamonds with a mixture of awe and fear. “They’re beautiful.”
“So are many other deadly things.”
We stride down the long corridor, flanked by open windows that allow the crisp winter wind to chase away the staleness. Sterling sticks beside me. Agnar, Bastian, and Leesa follow. Captain Fitz and his guards form a protective barrier around us all.
City sounds echo through the open windows and partially repaired palace walls. Market vendors call their wares. Children laugh. These are the everyday noises of a kingdom at peace.
Then angry shouting reaches our ears.
“Now magic is gone in all the lands but Tirene?” The voice rises in pitch, trembling with outrage. “Such inequities! The gods despair at the imbalance.”
I pause at a window to peer down at the crowd gathered around a thin man in a dark robe.
His arms wave wildly as he preaches to the growing audience. “The old ways are forgotten. The balance is broken. How can any kingdom survive when Tirene hoards magic?”
The crowd murmurs in response, some nodding, others shaking their heads and arguing. Even from this distance, the tension is palpable.
The warm hand Sterling places on my shoulder steadies me. “Don’t worry about him. People always find ways to blame others for their unhappiness.”
My chest feels tight, constricted by the weight of desperate decisions. Guilt writhes in my gut.
“What else were we to do?” I’m not really asking Sterling, but the universe itself. “Let Narc’s evil seep into the land? Let him and Xenon and the drachen take over and corrupt us all?”
Sterling says nothing. Probably because there’s no answer that doesn’t somehow taste of ash.
We continue walking, and eventually the city’s hum swallows the preacher’s voice.
Every day, the fallout from our victory becomes clearer.
People are growing more desperate. Angry.
Scared. A world without magic, save for one kingdom, is a world fundamentally altered. The balance of power has shifted.
The patter of running feet breaks the quiet.
A woman in the simple gray, tunic-like dress of a temple acolyte races up the stairs, nearly tripping on the length of her drab garb.
Her face, young and nondescript, is flushed with exertion, or maybe fear.
Guards draw their swords, moving to intercept her, but she falls to her knees before they can reach her.
“Your Majesties!” The words are torn from her throat between desperate gulps of air.
Beside me, Sterling’s silver wings snap out, as if he’s preparing to take flight at the first mention of bad news.
Alarm needles my scalp as I release his hand and step forward. “What is it? What’s happened?”
The acolyte’s eyes are wide with terror, and her hands shake as she raises them in supplication. “The Victory Goddesses’ temple. The stone warrior statues. They’ve come alive!”
Agnar’s eyebrows nearly meet his hairline, disbelief plain on his handsome face. “Alive?”
The woman nods while drawing in ragged breaths. “They’re attacking people. The stone moves like flesh, but it’s impenetrable. Swords shatter against the warriors, and they feel no pain.” Her voice breaks. “Everyone is dying!”
The blood drains from my face. This is no coincidence. First the strange water that resists magic and transforms into diamonds, and now stone statues coming to life.
There must be a connection.
Horror floods my veins with ice water. Reaching into the pocket of my dress, I open the hidden slit, withdraw the short sword strapped beneath my gown, and expand my wings. “Agnar, assemble the guards. Have a few of them gather medical supplies and meet us at the Victory Goddesses’ temple.”
Time to defend our city against a brand-new threat.
I can only pray this one is easier to eliminate than the drachen.