Chapter 19
NINETEEN
TAMSIN
The door closes behind Auren, and I’m alone with my sister.
His frost lingers on my palm where he kissed it. A reminder. A promise. Something to hold onto in what’s about to come.
The ritual chamber feels smaller now. The focusing crystals pulse with dark light, casting shadows that move wrong across the carved floor.
The channels designed for blood gleam with silver inlay, branching out from the central circle like veins leading to a blackened heart.
The chains hanging from the ceiling sway slightly, enchanted manacles waiting to bind me—waiting for the moment Morrigan has been building toward since she murdered Lyric Valek in a room just like this one.
I’ve seen drawings of that ritual circle. Auren showed me, once, his voice carefully controlled as he described what he found when he arrived too late. The patterns are identical. My sister didn’t even bother to change them.
And Morrigan stands at the center of it all, her ritual circle blazing with power she’s spent decades accumulating.
“How touching.” Her voice drips with false sweetness. “The ice dragon couldn’t bear to watch. Does he know you’re going to die here, little sister? Does he know this room was built specifically for you?”
I don’t answer. I’m studying the ritual circle—really studying it, with the witch sight our mother taught us both. The patterns are familiar. Too familiar. This is the same configuration she used on Lyric, refined and expanded over years of obsessive modification.
She built a drain designed for a Fire-Bringer. But I’m not just a Fire-Bringer.
“You were always the special one.” Morrigan begins circling the edge of her ritual space, her dark robes trailing through the carved channels. “Mother’s favorite. Father’s pride. The perfect princess with her perfect gifts.”
“I was seven years old.” My voice comes out steadier than I expected. “I didn’t ask to manifest both bloodlines. I didn’t ask to be born at all.”
“No. You just existed. And your existence stole everything from me.” Her eyes shift from blue to violet, magic churning beneath her skin.
“Do you know what it’s like to be overshadowed by your baby sister?
To know you were supposed to be queen, supposed to wield the Crown, and have it all stolen by an accident of birth? ”
Memories surface unbidden. Morrigan teaching me to braid my hair. Morrigan defending me from a tutor who pushed too hard. Morrigan’s smile before it started looking practiced, before her eyes went cold every time someone mentioned my gifts.
“I loved you.” The words hurt more than I expected. “You were my big sister. I worshipped you.”
Something flickers across her face—too fast to read, too brief to trust. Then it’s gone, replaced by the cold hunger that’s become her default expression.
“Love.” She spits the word. “Love doesn’t matter. Power matters. And you had all of it while I had none.”
“You had witch magic. Powerful witch magic—some of the strongest in our generation.”
“Not enough to open the Crown. Not enough to be what our bloodline required.” Her hands clench at her sides. “I could seal it. Contain it. Guard it like a servant guards a treasure she can never touch. While you—you could wield it. Control it. Become something more than human.”
“So you murdered an innocent girl.” I let the accusation hang between us. “Lyric Valek never did anything to you. She was barely twenty years old, just learning to control her abilities. And you butchered her in a ritual circle just like this one.”
“She was a means to an end.” Morrigan’s voice doesn’t waver. “Her Fire-Bringer blood could have given me what I needed. It should have worked.”
“But it didn’t. Because you don’t have one drop of Fire-Bringer blood. You can’t absorb what you can’t contain.”
“No.” A smile spreads across her face—predatory, triumphant.
“But you can. You have both bloodlines, little sister. Witch magic and Fire-Bringer flame, perfectly combined. When I drain you, I won’t just get the flame.
I’ll get everything. The power to open the Crown.
The power to wield it. The power that should have been mine from the beginning. ”
She raises her hands, and the ritual circle blazes brighter.
The attack comes fast.
Dark magic lashes out from the ritual circle—tendrils of shadow that move with serpentine intelligence, seeking my throat, my heart, the places where my power runs closest to the surface. I throw a ward up instinctively, white fire blazing to meet the assault.
The shadows recoil from my flames, but they don’t disperse. They reform, adapt, come at me from different angles. Morrigan’s had decades to study Fire-Bringer abilities, to design countermeasures. Her shadows absorb the heat of my fire and keep coming.
“Did you think this would be easy?” She laughs as more shadows pour from her hands. “I’ve been preparing for this moment since you were a child. Every ward, every trap, every defense in this fortress—built specifically to counter you.”
I dodge a tendril that gets past my guard, feel it slice through the air where my head was a moment ago. Another catches my arm, and pain erupts—cold, numbing pain that spreads from the contact point.
My fire flares in response, burning away the shadow, but more take its place. She’s not trying to kill me quickly. She’s wearing me down. Depleting my reserves until I’m weak enough for the ritual.
Think. I need to think.
The ritual circle is the key. Everything flows from it—the shadows, the power amplification, the drain she’s preparing. If I can disrupt it—
I launch a blast of white fire at the circle’s edge. The flames hit the barrier Morrigan erected and splash harmlessly aside.
“Nice try.” She sounds almost fond. “But I told you—these wards are designed specifically for Fire-Bringer flame. The more power you throw at them, the stronger they get.”
She’s right. I can feel the barrier absorbing my fire, converting it to fuel for her defenses. Every attack makes her stronger.
So I stop attacking.
I shift to pure defense, my fire forming a shell around my body while I assess the situation. The ritual chamber. The focusing crystals. The chains waiting overhead. The channels in the floor, designed to direct power—or blood—toward the central circle.
Morrigan built this room to drain me. Every element serves that purpose. The crystals amplify the transfer. The chains suppress resistance. The channels ensure nothing is wasted.
It’s elegant, in a horrifying way. The work of someone who’s been obsessing over this moment.
“Getting tired, little sister?” Morrigan’s shadows press against my defensive shell. “You can’t hold that forever. And when it breaks, I’ll be waiting.”
She’s right about that too. My reserves are vast, but not infinite. The assault on the fortress depleted me more than I admitted to Auren. I can feel the edges of exhaustion creeping in, the fire burning lower with each passing minute.
I need a different approach.
“Why did you help Ulrik destroy Valdoria?” I ask, buying time to think. “You could have come home. You could have—”
“Come home to what? To watch you rule? To bow to my baby sister while the court whispered about the princess who couldn’t wield the Crown?” She hurls another wave of shadows at me. “I would rather burn it all than watch you take what should have been mine.”
“You killed our parents.”
“They chose you over me. Every day, every decision, every allocation of resources—you, you, you. The special one. The important one. The one worth protecting.” Her voice cracks, and for just a moment, I hear the sister I used to know.
The one who felt overlooked and overshadowed. The one whose pain turned to poison.
Then the moment passes, and she’s the monster again.
“Enough talk.” She raises both hands, and the ritual circle flares with blinding intensity. “Time to take what’s mine.”