Chapter 65
Her magic burned.
It boiled and crested and rolled through Mariah, set free from its chains. Light and heat scorched her veins, igniting every inch of her flesh.
And in her mind…
“Mariah?”
“Queenie? Is that you?”
“Oh, thank fuck—”
Mariah gasped, knees buckling in the shallow water. She pressed her palm to her temple, screwing her eyes shut.
Seven bonds were awake and alive. And they were all yelling, all at once.
“I’m fine. I promise. I have my magic back. I’ll reach out when I can.”
“Wait, Mariah—”
She couldn’t share her mind with so many. Not right now, not after what she’d just seen. Everything felt too bright, too frazzled, too surreal. She gritted her teeth and closed the bonds to her Armature with all the force she could muster.
Six of them snapped shut. The seventh—and the only that was quiet—refused to budge. But she didn’t mind that so much.
Maybe she should feel guilty for shutting out the men who’d given up their lives to serve her. Maybe she would, when things had settled.
Right now, she could hardly do more than draw a breath.
She didn’t know how long she knelt in the icy water of the too-still pool, light spilling from her fingers like the threads of an unraveled tapestry.
A whisper brushed against her mind. A shadow curled down a woven bridge. “Are you all right, nio?”
Mariah dragged in a breath. She forced her eyes open, blinking against the harsh sunlight. Reality settled around her: the towering Everheim Mountains, the block of aberrant at her back, the four figures watching her on the banks of the pool.
She found a gaze of crushing tanzanite, and a piece of her settled. “Yes. I think so.”
That’s when it struck her.
She’d just spoken to him. Down their bond.
And before, she’d heard all their voices. Not just feelings or emotions. Words.
Her spine straightened. “Can you hear me?”
Andrian nodded. His brows lifted, the corners of his mouth kicking up, his eyes twinkling with a bit of awe.
Mariah swallowed. She’d only ever been able to do that—speak through her mind—when talking to the gods as dragons or when she was a dragon. Never in her true body.
“This is new,” she pushed to Andrian.
“You never cease to surprise me, nio,” he said back, and she couldn’t help her jolt of surprise. “So, I take it that it worked?”
As if in answer, her magic roiled through her, that beast in her chest shaking out her wings. There was a lot to process and more questions she needed answering, but for now…
For now, she gave Andrian a feral grin. And set the beast free.
It didn’t hurt as much as it had the first time. She pushed to her feet, magic already swirling around her, limbs already shifting and stretching. With a great leap, she jumped into the air, silver-gold light flashing off the mountains.
The wind caught the underside of her sensitive, leathery wings, her serpentine neck winding toward the sky.
Her vision sharpened, shifted, expanding to see colors she never could’ve imagined.
Energy and might pulsed through her body, down into her powerful legs, deadly talons grappling with the sky as she climbed into the air.
It was a stark difference to the last time she’d shifted.
She was confused still, and somewhat terrified, but she was no longer driven by broken rage.
This was not a state of survival, but one of exploration.
A willful growth into a part of herself that she’d thought for a moment would be lost for good.
Revelry in her heart, Mariah opened her maw and roared. Heat built in her chest, the taste of magic stinging her tongue.
The beast in her took over, ancient instincts sweeping through as dragonfire spilled into air.
“Welcome back to us, Mariah,” a deep voice rumbled. Mariah tilted her head, sweeping the sky.
She yelped when an indigo shape blurred up from beneath her, his wings tucked. Callamus snapped them out at the last moment, righting himself, galaxy eyes shining. “This form suits you. I’m glad to finally see you don it.”
Mariah growled, banking after him. “I didn’t think it was possible to miss.”
“A part of you belongs to this. It is natural to miss it.” Callamus swung his massive head to her. “Did you find the answers you were looking for?”
The fire in Mariah’s chest quelled. Memories from the staor flashed through her mind. Did she get her questions answered? Or was she left wondering more about what she was than before?
And why, through all of it, had her magic finally awoken?
“I’m not sure,” she answered, the only honest response she could find.
Her and Callamus flew beside each other, wings beating the air, soaring high over the Everheim Mountains. Mariah knew it was cold, but she felt none of it; only the sun warming her scales, the wind folding under her wings, the beating magic deep in her chest.
She scanned the ground far below. The magic of this form sharpened her vision. She could make out the winding road through the mountains, the hidden pool beneath the rise. The three figures standing on its banks, eyes turned skyward.
Something tugged in her chest. Something that led to the black-haired man wearing a proud, uninhibited smile on his face.
Tucking in her wings, Mariah dived. She tore through the skies like an arrow, the ground roaring up to greet her, Callamus chasing at her tail. She braced at the last moment, wings snapping out. Her muscles burned as she slowed, beating furiously against the air.
She tugged on the winding thread of magic in her core just before her legs hit the soft earth. The world shifted and snapped, the vibrancy dimming with a flash of silver-gold light. Her feet—no longer taloned—touched the ground, humanity settling back around her like a shroud.
Andrian was still grinning, but it had softened, replaced with something filled with a bit more awe and a little more concern.
“Welcome back, princess.”
Mariah lurched forward, bare feet churning up the soft grass. She slammed into Andrian’s waiting embrace, inhaling a deep lungful of his rain and sandalwood scent.
His chest rumbled as he chuckled, folding his arms around her shoulders. “I mean, you weren’t gone for that long.”
She pulled back, finding Andrian’s gaze. “How long?”
“Fifteen minutes; maybe twenty? Long enough for Matheo to shit himself, but not long enough for us to be truly concerned. I knew you were fine.”
Mariah blinked. She felt like she’d been in the staor for hours. Like her conversations with the Crieré had lasted a lifetime.
Matheo scoffed. “I was shitting myself? You were pacing around like a wild animal. I had to keep you from diving into that pool at least five times—”
Mariah grinned, shaking off her confusion at how differently time had passed. “I’m glad Matheo was able to keep it together.” She leaned around Andrian’s shoulder, tossing the younger man a wink. Matheo’s eyes widened then blinked, and he gave her a crooked grin.
Andrian growled. Mariah laughed softly, laying a hand on the side of his face, bringing his forehead to hers. “I promise,” she whispered, “that I won’t do anything like that ever again.”
Andrian sighed heavily, breath ghosting over her lips. “You will,” he murmured. “And I’ll hate it just as much the next time. But there is, unfortunately, nowhere else I’d rather be.”
Mariah smiled. Their kiss was quick, chaste, but said more words than she had left.
When she pulled back, he was watching her with a lifted, scrutinizing brow. “So? How does it feel?”
“It feels—” She was going to say good, or maybe normal. But as she reached into herself, to that place where those threads had wound into one, she wasn’t sure that was true.
Her magic was there, right in her grasp. She could pull it out, wind it around her wrists. It felt as much like a part of her as it always had, ever since that day it had burst to life below her ribs.
There was also something different. Something foreign about the way it sang in her veins, a bit older in the way it crawled up her spine.
Mariah swallowed. “If I’m being honest,” she said quietly, “I’m glad to have it back. But it feels like I brought something else back with me.”
“Mariah.” Callamus stood a few paces away, back in his human form. His spine was rigid, his brow furrowed into a hard line. His eyes were on her wrists.
Mariah followed the line of his gaze.
Shock rippled through her, stinging and cold. She drew in a sharp breath, stepping out of Andrian’s embrace, holding her hands up before her.
Andrian’s eyes widened in alarm.
“What the fuck,” he growled, “is that?”
Markings—tattoos—scrawled across the skin of her hands and forearms, skin that had once been smooth and unmarred.
They were not black like an Armature Mark or any other tattoo that some inked purposely on their skin.
Instead, these shimmered and glowed, catching the sunlight and changing color as she turned over her hands.
They carried a luminosity that reminded her of lunestair, the moonstone that housed allume back in Onita.
They stretched up her arms like stalks of wheat. And hidden within the vines were a smattering of feathers and eyes.
A blurred memory flashed through her mind. One of swaying tendrils glowing with power wrapping around her wrists as she was flung from the gods’ plane.
Mariah found Callamus’s stare, a chill snaking down her spine.
For the first time since she’d met him, real fear shone in his galaxy eyes.
“You met them, didn’t you?”
Mariah didn’t need to ask to whom Callamus referred. She simply nodded, fighting to keep her hands from trembling.
Callamus bowed his head, murmuring words under his breath that Mariah didn’t recognize.
“Met whom?” Andrian demanded, glare snapping between Callamus and Mariah. “What the fuck is going on? What do those markings mean?”
Matheo and Signe crept closer, eyes wide as they took in Mariah’s tattoos.
“It means,” Callamus rumbled, taking a hesitant step toward Mariah. He gingerly took her hand, fingers tracing the patterns on her skin. “It means the Crieré are awake. They have come. And you, Mariah…” Callamus swallowed.
It was quite something, seeing an ageless god terrified. So much so that Mariah felt herself go numb, settling into a comfortable, unfeeling place.
“Tell me, Callamus.”
Callamus bowed his head, indigo hair falling forward.
“The Crieré have Marked you. I do not know why.” His sad gaze met hers. “But your fate belongs to them now.”