Chapter Twenty-Eight Riela #2
and the scorch marks went right up to the dais that was the door to Lohka.
I raised my magic, but I couldn’t sense anything from the circle of stone. The surface was inlaid with lines and glyphs in
silver. They were pretty, but I didn’t understand what they meant—or if they even had meaning.
I hesitated at the step and my wrist throbbed with phantom pain. I’d thought my life was going to end on this dais, and approaching
it again wasn’t as easy as I’d expected.
I stepped up onto the stone before memory could steal my courage.
Nothing happened, and I blew out a slow breath. Relief and disappointment were impossible to distinguish.
I moved to the middle of the circle, stepping gingerly, but the stone remained solid under my feet, and the view didn’t change.
So the door required more than my presence.
I knelt in case I was successful and raised my magic. I tried to recall exactly what I’d been feeling when Grim had thrown me across the clearing, but everything was a jumble of pain and fear.
I’d thought I was hallucinating the first time I’d crossed. How was I supposed to know his castle on the other side looked
the same, except that it was draped in winter?
I tried to recall the details as I let my magic wash around the courtyard, but the door remained stubbornly shut. Hopefully
the key wasn’t that my life had been in danger because that was going to be annoying to duplicate.
I asked the castle for help, but either it couldn’t or it didn’t know how. I sank my magic into the dais, but I couldn’t feel
the door. I lay flat on the stone on my back and wished I were in Lohka.
None of it worked.
Frustrated, I summoned the remembered fear and pinched the tender underside of my forearm until pain lanced up to my shoulder,
but I remained exactly where I was, and all I had was a new bruise that was going to be difficult to explain.
Enough of my magic coated the clearing that I felt Garrick before I saw him. I tipped my head his way but didn’t bother getting
up. He approached slowly, his arms loose at his sides and his expression carefully mild. He was trying to look nonthreatening,
which would’ve been laughable if he weren’t so sincere.
“Any luck?” he asked.
“No.”
His gaze arrowed to the angry red mark on my arm with unerring accuracy. “What did you do?”
I shrugged. “Experiment. It didn’t work.”
His magic swept through me and the pain faded. I frowned at him. “I thought healing was draining.”
“It is. So don’t do it again.”
I closed my eyes and grasped for patience. “You know how I react to orders, Your Highness.”
Footsteps drifted closer. “Please don’t do it again,” he amended.
“Better. But I promised to try to open the door, and I was in pain the first time. Maybe that’s necessary.”
He remained silent, and when I cracked an eye to check on him, I could see the conflict on his face. He desperately wanted
the door open, but his vow to protect me meant he couldn’t ask me to hurt myself to make it happen.
Or maybe he was just a decent person, and I was judging him based on stories rather than facts.
“I would prefer that you not hurt yourself in the future,” he finally said. “But if you must, please allow me to be here,
just in case.”
“A little pinch is hardly going to put my life in danger. Though, maybe that level of danger is what we need.” Garrick frowned,
and I held up a hand to forestall the argument. “Last resort,” I promised.
He stalked up the stairs onto the dais so he could scowl down at me. “No.”
“Then help me figure out how to open it before we get to last resorts.” I tapped my fingers against the stone. “I can’t feel
any magic at all.”
“That’s because Feylan bound it.”
“Shouldn’t I be able to feel his magic, then?”
Garrick shook his head. “Feylan’s magic is there, but it’s extremely faint. The beauty of the binding is that it uses my magic
against me. That’s why you can’t feel a difference. It’s my power keeping the door closed. And there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. As far as I can tell, even my death wouldn’t
open the door.”
Now it was my turn to scowl. “And you know this how?”
“Experiment,” he echoed succinctly.
It was a lot less fun when he used my own words against me. I lifted an arm. “Help me up, and maybe I won’t yell at you for
experimenting with your life.”
He easily hauled me to my feet, but the quick transition stole my balance. I stumbled, and Garrick snagged an arm around my
waist, lightning fast. He drew me closer, a frown on his face. “Are you well?”
I braced my arms against his chest and closed my eyes while I waited for blood to return to my head. “Got up too fast. Nothing to worry about.”
His magic swept through me again, lingering for a long moment until I tapped his chest. “Quit it. I’m fine. Don’t you ever
get dizzy when you stand up too fast?”
“No.”
I chuckled. “Must be nice.”
But Garrick wasn’t paying attention. He was frowning, his gaze distant. “Your magic is strange,” he murmured, seemingly more
to himself than to me.
“Thank you?”
Moonlight magic swept through me again, then swirled into the air, teasing my own magic out. Garrick tugged on my power and
we both flinched. I felt no pain, but my magic turned spiky, which meant the pain must’ve transferred to him. “What are you
doing?”
Garrick’s attention returned to me. “I’ve never seen magic react like this.”
“Is that bad?”
The flat line of his mouth made the answer pretty clear, but after a moment he shook his head. “I don’t know. There’s something . . .”
His voice drifted off.
I tapped him again. “There’s what?”
“You manifested last year?”
“Yes. Late in the spring, nearly to summer.” Most mages manifested around the time puberty hit, but my magic hadn’t appeared
until I was twenty-seven and in mortal danger from the flood—and no one knew why.
“Hmm.” His eyes narrowed and his magic swept through me for a third time. “You should have more control than this, even untrained.
Magic is mostly innate, and you’ve had enough time to get used to yours.”
I stepped back, breaking our connection, and his magic faded away.
Sharp shards of failure shifted in my chest, inflicting thousands of tiny cuts.
As an orphan living on the edge of town—and poverty—I’d never quite fit in the village, and now I wasn’t going to fit with other mages, either. Great. Fantastic. Best news ever.
Garrick reached for me. “What’s wrong?”
I shoved the pain deep and buried it beneath a placid smile. “Nothing.” I blew out a slow breath and worked on making it true.
I would make a place for myself, no matter where I ended up. If others didn’t like me because my magic was strange, that was
their problem, not mine.
I returned my attention to the problem of the door. “So your magic and King Roseguard’s are binding the door. How did I slip
past them?”
Garrick’s eyes gleamed. “That is a very good question.”