The thought that Kyan had found another way to carry out his mission to destroy the world sickened her. But perhaps he was only bluffing. “So this is just a quick visit between old friends?” she asked.

“Perhaps.” The voice moved around her, and she staggered in a circle to keep the sound of it in front of her. She didn’t like the idea of having an invisible god of fire behind her. “You’re with child. Alexius’s, is it?”

Lucia said nothing to this. She’d hoped her condition had been concealed by her cloak.

“Mothers are known to be fighters when it comes to protecting their children. I will give you one more chance, little sorceress. I offer immortality to both you and your child. You will survive and help to build the next world at my side.”

“I thought you said you could do your evil without me.”

“It’s not evil. It’s destiny.”

“Destiny,” she murmured. “Yes, I believe in destiny, Kyan. I believe it was my destiny to possess this.”

Lucia pulled the amber orb out of her pocket and held it on the palm of her hand. She focused her thoughts and inhaled slowly. Her elementia had been easiest to access in the beginning when her emotions were elevated—hate and fear were the most useful to trigger her magic.

But now, even weakened, with Eva’s ring firmly on her finger, she could coax the beast out of its cage. The fine hairs on her arms raised, and she felt the combination of air, earth, water, and fire within her rise to the surface of her skin—a crackling sensation in her veins that ached to be free. Today, she didn’t wish to unleash it upon the world around her—she wished to feed it.

It hungered for stolen magic.

Just as she’d done with Melenia, she focused on the magic that existed in the very air before her, seeing it with a vision that went far beyond common sight. It was a red glow swirling around her, incorporeal, eternal. And, she sensed without any doubt, currently vulnerable.

Kyan’s very essence. Fire.

The orb began to glow, and Kyan made a choked, pained sound.

“What are you doing?”

“Seems Timotheus isn’t the only one you need to fear, is he?” she said.

Fire flared up in a circle around Lucia and Jonas. It was so hot and blazing that Lucia lost her concentration, and the sleeve of her cloak caught fire.

Was that Kyan’s magic, or had she done that?

Jonas smothered the flames with his cloak, putting them out as quickly as he could. They extinguished as quickly as they’d appeared, leaving a scorched black circle around them.

“Did it work?” he demanded. “You tried to trap him, right?”

Lucia nodded and inspected the amber orb. “I don’t know.”

Jonas peered at the crystal. “I don’t see the black swirly thing.”

“Your companion has such a way with words, little sorceress,” Kyan hissed. “Your magic is still formidable, but you failed.”

“Then I’ll try again.” Lucia gripped the orb and tried to summon her magic, but it had weakened too much already. “Damn it!”

“My, my, little sorceress. You are certainly not the innocent, grieving girl I met in her darkest hour, are you?”

“No, I’m the witch who’s going to be the end of you.”

“We’ll see. I believe you seek your father and brother? I suggest you travel as quickly as you can to get to them before the empress tears out both of their hearts.”

CHAPTER 27

AMARA

PAELSIA

“Fifty-three were killed in the rebel attack, empress, many of them trampled by the crowd.”

“Unfortunate.” Amara took a steady sip of her wine as Kurtis presented the day’s news to her. “Do they hate me now? These violent peasants?”

“No. Favor among Paelsians remains high for you.”

“Good.”

“Do you want the prisoners executed?” Kurtis asked as scratched at his bandages. “I would suggest a swift public beheading, as well as mounting the heads of the other dead rebels on spikes, to show everyone that such crimes won’t be tolerated.”

Amara raised a brow as she considered this. “Is that how you do public executions here?”

He nodded. “In Limeros it is, empress.”

“In Kraeshia, my father liked to have his prisoners tied to posts, publicly skinned alive, and left there until they stopped screaming. It usually didn’t take long. I’ve witnessed many of these executions in my life.”

Kurtis blanched. “That could be arranged if that is what pleases the empress.”

She glared at him. “No, that would not please the empress.”

The only thing that would please the empress would be for Kyan to finally return from his travels and give her further instructions on how to unleash the powerful being within her water Kindred.

While it was quite unfortunate, the lives of a handful of Paelsians ultimately didn’t matter. And a failed assassination attempt by a former lover didn’t matter either.

Only magic mattered.

Nerissa silently topped up Amara’s glass of wine.

“No execution,” Amara told Kurtis, sliding her fingertip around the edge of the goblet. “They can stay in the pit until I decide what I wish to do with them.”

Chief Basilius had been kind enough to leave behind an ingenious prison. In the center of his walled compound was a large hole thirty feet deep, its sides crafted from smooth sandstone. There was no escaping from it, but Amara had asked for ten guards to keep watch on Felix and Taran just in case they might be able to sprout wings and fly away.