Magnus flicked a glance at the attendant, Mira, on the far side of the room. She cleaned the balcony railing, running a rag along it. Her plain gray dress, the innocuous outfit of a servant, allowed her to move about dim rooms without notice, hiding in the shadows, available when needed but otherwise unnoticeable.

But Magnus couldn’t help but notice that the girl’s face held both worry and outrage. She knew of Cleo’s kidnapping. Her brother, Magnus remembered, had gone along with the carriage as additional protection.

Some protection. Magnus personally would have taken the opportunity to have Nic punished for such a failure if the boy hadn’t looked absolutely destroyed when he’d returned with the rest of the guards.

“Kill me now,” Nic had spat at him, his voice breaking. “I deserve it for letting this happen.”

“And interrupt your misery?” Magnus had studied his tortured expression for a moment before turning away. “Not today.”

Magnus would not admit it to anyone but himself that the idea of the rebels capturing the princess disturbed him greatly. He didn’t want to care what horrors she might be experiencing at this very moment. Besides, the princess’s death would put an end to this ridiculous betrothal his father had insisted upon. It would be for the best.

But, still . . . it bothered him.

Irrelevant.

There was only one beautiful girl he gave a damn about and she was the one that lay in this bed.

“Do you know someone named Alexius?” the king asked after silence fell between them for a time.

“No. Who is that?”

“I visited Lucia yesterday for a few moments after your mother left her side. She murmured the name in her sleep.”

Magnus’s shoulders stiffened. Lucia had spoken in her sleep? “Did she say anything else?”

“No, only the name.”

He wracked his mind, but came up blank. “I don’t know anyone named Alexius.”

“Perhaps it’s a boy she was enamored with back in Limeros.”

“Perhaps.” His mouth was suddenly dry. He reached for the nearly empty pitcher of water on the bedside table and poured himself what was left. He’d never heard of an Alexius before. And now this boy resided in Lucia’s dreams? A ribbon of jealousy twisted within him.

“She’ll wake soon,” said the king.

“How can you sound so certain?”

“Because it’s her destiny to help me reach my destiny.”

There was something in the way the king said this, an absolute confidence that resonated like an echo in a canyon. “Who told you this?”

The king’s dark gaze flicked to Magnus, sweeping the length of him as if assessing his son’s worth. “Her name is Melenia.”

“Let me guess. Your mysterious new advisor.”

“That’s right.”

“Tell me, Father, will I ever meet this Melenia?”

“Perhaps one day. For now, it’s impossible.”

“Why?”

The king again hesitated before replying. “Because I see her only in my dreams.”

Magnus blinked. Surely he had misheard. “I don’t understand.”

“Melenia is a Watcher, one with great knowledge about the Kindred and how to go about finding them. She is over four thousand years old but blessed with eternal youth and incredible beauty.”

“Your new advisor is a beautiful four-thousand-year-old Watcher who visits you in your dreams.” The words were heavy in his mouth.

“Yes.” The king smiled at this, as if recognizing the absurdity of what he claimed. “Melenia has confirmed for me that Lucia is the key to finding the Kindred and harnessing its power. That before this, before she existed, it was simply not possible to find it. That’s why no one has ever succeeded in such a quest.”

This was one of those moments that Magnus had come to recognize. A test. The king was giving him a test. How he responded to something so fantastical would set the tone for the immediate future.

Would he assume his father mad for making such statements? Believing such things? Would he be unable to hold himself back from laughing?

Once he would have, earning the king’s wrath and perhaps another scar.

No more.

His entire life, he’d denied the existence of such a thing as magic, but Lucia had proved to him it was true. It was real. Elementia, according the books he’d recently read here in the Auranian palace library, tied back to the immortal Watchers. And Watchers, so legend told, could sometimes visit mortals in their dreams.

Magnus knew his father was dangerous, vengeful, and remorseless. However, there was one thing the king was not.

He was not stupid enough to believe in imaginary things that served no true purpose.

If his father said this, if he admitted such a thing aloud, then it had to be true. And Magnus needed to know more.

“How is Lucia the key?” he asked evenly.

“This I don’t yet know.” The king’s brows drew together slightly. “All I know for certain is she will wake.”

“Then I believe you.”

The king’s eyes lit with approval and he reached across the bed to pat Magnus’s scarred cheek. “Very good, my son. Very good. Together we will find the Kindred.”

“With Lucia.”

“Yes.” He nodded. “With Lucia.”

Four crystals holding the essence of elementia. Magnus saw their worth, just as his father did. Such incredible and endless power and strength. If he possessed them, even one of them, he would feel equal to Lucia in more ways than he did now. He would be more than just a prince, more than just a brother. They would have magic in common and she would see and appreciate this. Appreciate him. And such strength would show the king that Magnus was not a boy any longer; he was a man who went after what he desired most, no matter the cost.