Chapter 11 #2
While he was never truly Lorathin’s bastard son, he was, however, correct in suspecting his ice magic came from his mother.
‘Thank you for showing us this, William.’ I try to smile, but my lips don’t seem to work. ‘Thank you for trusting us.’
Still chewing on his lip, he rubs his thumb into his palm before looking at me with new nervousness. Given what he just showed us, I can’t possibly imagine what he might still be reticent to tell us, but I wait until he finds the courage to keep speaking.
‘I explored the house alone a little earlier. I found a painting in one of the rooms here. I look just like our father.’ His voice cracks. ‘I could see myself in his eyes, his jaw, the shape of his face. I knew then. Really knew. I am your brother.’
I swallow. ‘You are, and you do look like him.’ My voice wobbles. ‘So much. I can’t believe I did not see it before.’
‘You weren’t looking for it. Why would you?’
‘I suppose.’ A small spark of hope ignites within me as I look at the still frozen glass of water. Maybe I don’t need Dinah’s advice after all. Maybe help is far closer to home.
‘Can you teach me?’ I ask, trying to keep my voice level. ‘Can you teach me how to control it?’
If he can, I need not travel to face the Issen at all. Need not endanger myself with a trip that can’t possibly end well.
But as William’s face falls, I know he’s not going to give me the answer I desperately want.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, and I can tell he means it.
‘I wish I could, but that’s all I’ve got.
I can cool a drink for you, but none of what you did.
Jonas told us how you stopped him from breathing.
I can’t do that. Nor the ice flung everywhere thing.
Your powers are different. Stronger. Far stronger.
And honestly, I can’t even tell you how I do this.
I did it by accident once and practised a couple of times, but then it occurred to me that practising was a very bad idea.
After that, I tried hard to never ever use it.
I didn’t want to encourage the magic to grow. ’
It’s sensible, though utterly disappointing.
We both look at Kay. She shakes her head. ‘I’ve still got nothing. Not just ice magic. I’ve still got no magic at all.’
I frown. That shouldn’t be so. When Etta returned all of my magic, she was supposed to return Kay’s, too. Everything should have been as it was.
‘Maybe the pregnancy is affecting things,’ I guess. ‘I’ve heard it can do so.’
‘Maybe,’ she says. She shrugs one shoulder as if she couldn’t care less about magic, and maybe she doesn’t. She doesn’t know what it’s like with magic. Doesn’t know the hole it left when it was ripped from us. She was so young that her magic hadn’t yet come in when we were stripped and cast out.
‘Ruben is upstairs,’ I say, changing the subject. I quickly explain his change in fortune and standing, and Noleen’s subsequent downward spiral in health, leading to today’s admission into the temple.
‘Poor Ruben,’ Kay murmurs, eyes soft. ‘He deserves so much more.’ She turns to her husband. ‘You’ll like him. He’s a good man.’
Jonas offers a stiff smile. ‘I’m sure I will.’
‘He needs to sleep, to rest. But I need answers. Benny and I looked through the library here yesterday, but there was nothing to help. But maybe in the main one …’
‘You’re going to ask Caroline? Can you trust her with this?’ Jonas says, as if I had actually invited him into this conversation rather than allowed him to remain in order to keep the peace.
‘She doesn’t need to know the details,’ I tell him. ‘Just enough. And I’m not going to tell her about William,’ I say with a glance at my brother. ‘The fewer people who know about him, the better.’
When Jonas nods, I just about manage to stop myself from rolling my eyes. As if I need his approval.
Kay lets out a sigh. ‘You’re going to the library now? Straight away?’ she says in exasperation. ‘I was hoping we could talk about the ball. You know, where the king will announce our marriage.’ She pointedly laces her fingers with Jonas’s.
Fucking hell. Unless she wants to know exactly what alcohols I’ll be drinking to get through the night, I’m not really sure what she thinks I’m going to add to the discussion.
‘Later,’ I promise. ‘I need to go to the library now. See if I can find out anything about our powers.’
‘Be careful,’ Jonas warns.
This time I do roll my eyes at him. ‘I survived the Retterheld. I think I’ll be okay withdrawing a book.’
The ground around me is littered with deep puddles as I head to the library, although it’s not until I’m outside of the courtiers’ arc that I realise something is different.
It’s no longer raining. There’s not a hint of a peridot cloud in the sky. Instead, it’s a blazing azure. Bright, pure, and cloudless.
So it took the prince all of two days to get past his broken heart. Well, fuck him. It’s not like I’ve been weeping into my coffee with everything I’ve had going on.
Pushing him back out of my mind, I fill it instead with thoughts of where to start my research – so much so that I don’t see him until he’s there, standing right in front of me.
Kyor.
My feet stop on the soaked earth, my body not sure if it wants to run to him or away from him. Instead, it chooses neither. It’s as if he has the power to paralyse me utterly. He’s not seen me yet because his eyes are very much elsewhere – on the petite redhead who has her arm threaded through his.
As I stand there, frozen and mute, she throws her head back and laughs as though the prince has said something hilarious. I scowl. Kyor is many things, but funny isn’t one of them.
My breath catches at his answering smile.
So that explains the end of the rain clouds, if they were even for his broken heart in the first place. No, it was probably just another of his fucking games. A way for him to toy with me without even being close.
I would laugh, but I’ve lost the ability to breathe properly.
He’s not even trying to pretend what we had was real, but maybe that’s because it never was for him. Not the way it was for me.