Theron’s stoicism breaks in a gasp that matches my own.
This is what happened to Theron while he was imprisoned in Abril.
Green eyes narrow, Angra cocks his head as if he’s listening to an echo. His expression flashes with a look I never thought his face capable of. Eyes relaxed, lips parted: shocked awe.
Angra recovers, stroking his thumb along Theron’s jaw. “Do you really think he’ll come?”
Theron’s brows peak, a spasm of doubt that he might not even be aware of.
Angra latches on to it. “You and I are not so different. Shall I show you how similar we truly are?” He places his hand on Theron’s head.
Theron cries out. Whether or not this already happened, I can’t let him scream like that—I dive as Angra rips his hand back, letting Theron rock forward, eyes pinched shut.
Theron’s shoulders heave as he retches. “No,” is all he says, his first muffled word. Then, with more terror, “No! He didn’t kill her like yours did . . .”
Kill her? Who? What did Angra show him?
Angra clucks his tongue. “He did, little prince.” He pulls back and watches Theron squirm as the black magic retreats into the staff. “We’re the same.”
“Meira!”
I bolt upright in a haze of flickering yellow, clenching fistfuls of fabric that tug against my grip. I’m in my cottage in Gaos, the brown walls misshapen and cracked enough that cold air darts inside. The small room holds nothing more than a cot and a few tables, but on every table, candles burn. Dozens of them, and I blink at the light, my eyes darting from flame to twitching flame faster than my brain can process a reason.
The fabric in my fists tugs again and I start.
Sir is here, his hands braced on either side of my legs, and I clutch his collar as if I might draw him into a fight. Theron is here too, hovering at the end of the cot, an unlit candle in one hand and a match in the other.
Angra. The memory. I cave forward, head to my knees, releasing my grip on Sir. Why did I see that? How did I—
“The magic chasm,” I pant and burst upright. “The door—there was a barrier—”
It all rushes back to me: the stone door, the keyholes in the carvings, the sensation of being burned from the inside out. A barrier prevented us from approaching the door. A magic fail-safe that launched both Theron and me away, but only hurt me.
Since I am magic, maybe it reacted badly. Maybe it collided with the nearest person and dredged up memories, ricocheting my magic out in a frenzy. But Theron isn’t Winterian—how did I affect him? Or was it not me so much as the barrier’s magic reacting to my own? Whatever it was, whatever the reason, it’s only a spark in the fire of this horror.
“Whatever magic is down there, we can’t touch it,” I declare.
Theron gapes like it was the last thing he expected me to say.
“Here, my queen. Drink this.” Sir tries to hand me a goblet of water, but I shove it away.
“We found the magic chasm,” I state, forcing myself to hear it, to feel it. “Something’s blocking it—a barrier of some sort. We cannot take down that barrier. If we access the magic, if it spreads out to everyone—”
Theron pitches closer to my cot. “That’s exactly what needs to happen.”
I hesitate. The sight of Theron before me clashes with my memory of him writhing on the floor of Angra’s dungeon. Was what I saw real, though?
Hannah. I stretch out to my magic with tentative, uncertain thoughts. Was it—
Cold sparks up my chest. A normal reaction to seeking the magic, but where it usually flares and fades, this time—it doesn’t quiet.
It spurs higher, plummeting down my limbs, gathering speed and strength as it races to launch out of my body. I rear back, slamming into the wall beside my cot.
No, I will it, screaming in my head. STOP!
It doesn’t listen. Not in time anyway—it leaves my body a beat before I fling my will out to it, spiraling out of me and into—who? Where?
Sir.
He flies to his feet, mouth popping open in a choking huff like someone slammed a sword hilt into his lungs. “What—” He gags. “What did you—”
He stumbles back, boots slipping on the wooden floor, and bumps into the closed door to the rest of the cottage. His hand drops to the knob and he shoves, but instead of twisting under his fingers, the entire thing breaks apart and clatters to the ground.
I leap off the cot, hands out.
Sir ripped the door clean off its hinges.
No—I did it to him.
I drop back onto the bed. I’ve seen the magic give people strength before—but enough to endure a day of labor, not rip apart planks of wood. And it always reacted how it should—uncontrollable, but it did what my people needed it to do.
What happened?
Sir flexes his hand and shoots a questioning gaze at me. “My queen. Why did you do that?”
I shake my head. “I didn’t mean to. The magic down there—that barrier—it did something. I don’t feel . . . right.”
My chest is so cold. My heart is ice, my limbs snow, my every breath should be a cloud of condensation. The magic felt awakened before, but now it feels—unleashed.
Sir eases forward. “We’ll figure it out, my queen. We’ll send someone else down there, someone who isn’t connected to a Royal Conduit.”
I launch to my feet again. “No, it’s too dangerous. No one can go down there.”
“We found it, Meira,” Theron intercedes, his voice hoarse. “The magic chasm, after all this time, and you don’t want to at least investigate it? The world hasn’t seen such power in centuries. Imagine the good we could do with this!”