CHAPTER 16
MIND MAGIC
Mind magic is not to be used for interrogation. No magic shall enter the unconscious mind uninvited.
– The Order of Magical Conduct, Clause XXII
She didn’t know exactly how to do it. Henry had only shown her how to read a fleeting thought. This was different. This was trespassing into the mind of someone unknowing. Hunting for specific memories whilst he was unconscious.
It was forbidden. For good reason.
Kara’s heart thudded against her ribs as she crouched beside him.
She placed her fingertips at his temples, trying to ignore the shake in them.
He was warm under her hands, his breathing deep and even.
His lashes lay dark against his cheek. She hesitated – he looked different like this, without the smirk or the anger.
He really was very handsome.
Focus, Kara.
One spark of Caldris magic, and she might have her answer.
She could still pull back. She should pull back.
The Council’s laws demanded it: he’d taken the Shards, and destruction had followed.
That was enough. But she looked at his sleeping face, the nightshade binding him, the trust already broken...
and knew she’d already decided. She had to know.
She reached again for her magic, but there was no familiar warmth.
It came hesitantly, that same cold, murky green.
Still resisting her. Frustrated, she closed her hands into fists.
Come on–
She leaned closer, and tried again.
I need the truth. Why are you here?
Her magic reached forward. She tried to force it to flare white, but the corruption dragged through it, leaving only a pale grey-green shimmer.
What have I done to myself?
It would have to be enough. It held at his temples, waiting for her command.
“I’m sorry, Sebastian,” she whispered. And she crossed the line.
The world around her vanished.
It was like falling into a nightmare.
Sebastian’s mind was a storm of pain, guilt, and fury.
His thoughts hit back. The moment she crossed the threshold she felt it – the shove she’d felt on the mountaintop.
Not nearly as strong, but enough to make her pause.
His presence filled the space, even unconscious, his suspicion and anger pressed in on her.
It hurt to be in his mind. Every step forward was heavy and unnatural.
It frightened her. Kara stumbled through it, seeing it not as images or words, but raw, visceral emotions.
They hit her in waves: aching loneliness, iron-willed purpose, and underneath it – the pain of being misunderstood, being hunted.
“Why are you here?” she called.
Nothing. Just darkness.
Then the world warped, pulsing, humming – and fought back.
It recognised her. And it rejected her. An image exploded into being – herself, not as she saw, but through his eyes only hours before: arms wrapped around him, trapping him in green light.
She heard her own voice echoing, It’s going to be okay, and his voice, ragged in disbelief: Kara?
She felt the snap of betrayal as he had, the pain of trust broken, and the raw hurt that had followed.
To see it how he had – to feel it – was unbearable.
She couldn’t watch anymore. She forced her magic past it, deeper into the storm, but something held her back. One more step might hurt him – hurt her – but she shoved forwards, her magic submitting to her will.
“What made you take the Arcanth Shards?”
His mind flashed. A vision surrounded her.
Draknor, spreading onto the shores of Vallenna.
Immense, terrible and impossibly real. Their magic, new but corrupted, a dark mirror to their own, spreading like a plague – an ebony smoke tearing across their lands, through people, homes, forests.
Crimson cloaks of Thorne soldiers collapsed around her, the black magic clawing at their will to fight.
Drakens poured onto their lands, scorching everything in their path.
She could smell burning. Feel the heat. Hear people screaming as the Drakens ripped their lives from them, the sky blood-red and weeping.
The Council running.
The darkness was winning.
Then – the power of the Arcanth – wielded by a figure, cloaked, weapon drawn, barely visible in the blaze.
The Arcanth whole. Radiant. Powerful beyond compare.
Its golden magic pushing them back.
The vision burned her, but Sebastian’s emotions hurt more. Fear. Resolve. And a conviction so fierce it was as if it were her own. He truly believed taking the Shards was the only way to stop what he’d seen.
She went further, desperate to see more, and felt in her bones – the Arcanth itself calling to Sebastian, but before the words became clear, the vision ripped apart.
Sebastian cried out – sharp and agonised.
Her eyes flew open. The camp rushed back into focus.
His whole body had started shaking beneath her hands, his legs kicking violently against the blanket.
“No!” she cried, snatching her hands away from his temples.
Blood streamed from his nose and ears. His arms jerked in wild, uneven spasms as the fit took hold. It was fast and brutal. The nightshade bindings pulled tighter with each convulsion, digging cruelly into his wrists, until blood dripped from them as well.
“Sebastian!” She tried to hold his head still, to protect him from hitting it on the forest floor. It hardly worked – he was too strong, even unconscious. “I didn’t mean–”
I did it wrong. I hurt him.
“I’m sorry,” she cried. “I’m so sorry.”
Olive green light poured from her hands and wrapped around him. Her healing magic surged instinctively, wildly. It pulsed with her guilt, her fear, her desperate need to make it right. She found it quickly. A bleed inside his skull. She had caused that.
A wound inside his mind.
Her magic hovered, unsure. She remembered what Henry had said:
Permanent damage that emerald can’t heal.
Pure panic seized her. She had to be able to heal him. She had to. Remorse unlike anything she’d ever felt took hold of her.
“I’ll fix it. I’ll make it better,” she swore.
Her magic obeyed. Answered in full. It poured into him, more powerful than it had ever been. His body began to still and something shifted. A spark of warmth bled through the dark green hue, as if her magic itself knew the truth: this was what it was meant for. Not binding. Healing.
Healing him.
But then it surged past what she intended. The olive light burned brighter, wilder.
Wait. No.
The first thing she saw disappear was the jagged scar on his chin. Then the faint, healed burn mark on his collarbone, just visible beneath his tunic. The array of white and pink marks across his arms – all vanished in front of her.
“No, no,” she gasped, trying to pull back. But her magic was frenzied. Out of control – she couldn’t stop it.
It was rewriting him.
Every scar. Every mark that told the story of who he was – her magic was erasing it all.
She yanked her hands back with enormous effort.
But it was too late. The only scar that had survived her was the one beneath his eye.
From the trials. The rest were gone. In her panic, her desperation, she hadn’t realised what else she’d done.
She had lifted everything.
Even the enchanted sleep.
And then–
He moved.
Kara’s breath came as a gasp when Sebastian’s eyes fluttered open, and met hers.
First, with confusion. “Kara?”
Then with fury. He looked livid.
She froze. Neither of them said anything; the only sound was the crackle of the fire.
Then he moved so suddenly it made her jump and scramble backwards.
He pushed himself up from the ground to his knees, but his hands stopped short at an odd angle, the nightshade ropes keeping him from straightening fully.
He blinked, confused. Then he caught sight of the cords binding him to the tree. He tested them once.
Then twice.
Magic sparked at his fingertips – a flicker of crimson – but it stuttered and died. He grunted in frustration, looking down to his now empty hip, where his blade had been before Henry had removed that too.
“Nightshade,” he said hoarsely. “Clever, Healer.”
When he looked back to her, it wasn’t anger in his eyes. It was hurt. Hurt and wounded pride. He tried to mask it, but she’d seen it.
“Of course. Stolen Shards, dangerous Thorne traitor. A killer. That’s what they’re saying about me, isn’t it? All I am now.” His mouth curved in a hard smile.
Kara swallowed. She wasn’t sure if he meant the words as a shield, or if he truly believed them. Either way, she couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
“I thought they’d send Thorne soldiers. I never imagined it would be you.” His gaze lingered, searching her face. “I’d have tied me up too,” he added quietly.
“I didn’t,” Kara said quickly, the words escaping her. They sounded defensive. Pathetic, even to her own ears.
His jaw tightened. “You didn’t?”
Kara shook her head imperceptibly.
“Then who?” he demanded.
“Henry,” she answered, her voice small.
“But you let him.”
He wasn’t asking. He already knew. And the truth of it was a wall between them.
“So that’s how it is. Brought down by a healer girl,” he scoffed. “I should have known better than to trust you.”
He shook his head, his expression growing cold. Exactly like she’d imagined. Only far, far worse. She wrapped her arms around herself, as if that could protect her from it.
“Now what?” he asked, icily. “You’ll take me for execution? March me to the noose? Or the pyre? Maybe the good little heir will even light it herself.”
Kara flinched. It wasn’t just his words that did it.
Beneath the cold, detached facade she heard pain.
The fear of what awaited him. Her mind filled with the unwanted images she’d shoved away.
Him being sentenced. Dragged away. Rope pulled tight around his neck or...
firelight on his skin. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block them out.
No, of course not.
I can’t let you die.