The prince slammed his head into Vorl, nearly knocking the archon out, and then his affinity was like death on wings. Vorl let out a torturous bellow as an answering throb of power came from my gut when Vorl’s head lolled back. The archon’s body seized. His eyes rolled white.
Something wispy rose from his body. Translucent and sheer.
Vorl’s body slackened in the prince’s grip as that shimmering shadow rose higher and higher.
Dying.
The archon was dying.
Prince Norivun was sucking his soul, his face cold, the deadly intent in his expression clear.
“No,” I whispered. My affinity shot out of me and latched onto that floating shadow, as though I’d somehow commanded it to do so. Vorl’s soul stopped. It hovered mid-air, and my conscience tugged between death and life.
I could let him go.
I could let the prince finish what he’d started.
But despite all that Vorl had done to me, despite all of his tormenting, bullying, and vindictive rage, this wasn’t the answer. Punishment, yes, but not death. There had been too much death.
“No, my prince,” I croaked quietly as my throat ached.
The prince whipped toward me, just as my magic fully wrapped around Vorl’s soul. Phantom hands enclosed his departing spirit as an instinct awakened within me. It was the same sensation I’d sensed in High Liss when the prince had killed the shapeshifter and then when the guard had nearly died at my arrival to the castle.
This. This was what I could do. My affinity didn’t create orem. It created life. The prince was slightly wrong about my power. Only the gods could create natural orem, but my life-giving affinity was able to replenish our land’s natural orem while also giving life to plants and souls that were being taken to the divine realms. My affinity was the opposite of the prince’s momentous power.
I grabbed Vorl’s spirit and wrenched it from the air before slamming it back into the archon.
Vorl’s eyes opened wide as his mouth gaped in a sudden inhale. Shocked screams and muffled cries came from the crowd as the prince’s eyes widened in shock.
I staggered under the depth of magic that had just been pulled from me, but Nuwin supported me, holding me up.
The prince dropped Vorl as though he’d been burned. He stared at his hands, disbelief lining his features as the crowd erupted in a flurry of shouts and hissed comments.
“What is she?”
“What did she do?”
Their comments drifted toward me, but I barely heard them.
I swayed away from the maze, toward Vorl as he sat on the ground, breathing but unconscious. When I reached his side, the prince shifted closer to me.
“Ilara?” he said quietly, a tremor to his tone.
But then the magnitude of what I’d done stole all of the energy from me. It felt as though a veil descended over my eyes, and then the ground was rushing up to greet me.
A scream came from the crowd as a crescendo of fireworks exploded in the court’s finale.
The last thing I remembered was someone catching me before my head cracked onto the ice.
And then I remembered nothing at all.
CHAPTER 27
I awoke to the feel of soft hands dabbing a cool cloth over my face. Sweet scents of juniper blossoms tickled my nose as a strum of immense magic pulsed around me.
“She’s awakening.” Daiseeum’s sweet voice cut through the fog in my mind.
“Thank the Mother! Ilara? Can you hear me? I’m here.” My sister’s frantic words grew stronger and sharper with every breath she took.
“Cailis?” I croaked.
Another hand patted mine, then a male said, “She shall be all right. It’s not as serious as you’d feared, my prince.”
I briefly recognized Murl, the castle healer, and then warm hands were closing over mine as my sister and Daiseeum let go.
Strong, hard, unyielding hands. Those hands could only belong to one fairy.
I opened my eyes to see Prince Norivun hovering above me as he held my hands in his own.
“Blessed Mother,” he breathed. His expression looked haggard, his hair tousled, his eyes bloodshot.
I glanced over his shoulder. I was in the Exorbiant Chamber, and Cailis stood to the side of my bed, her features twisting, but an intense rush of relief filled me at seeing her again. Nuwin was also in my room, along with the prince’s four guards.
“What happened?” I brought a hand to my forehead as I struggled to remember how I ended up here and why all of them were looking at me as though I were at death’s door.
And then it came crashing back.
Fireworks.
Vorl.
Being choked.
Air and Fire.
Creating life.
My breath sucked in. “What did I do?”
“What you did is fully manifest.” Murl still stood to the side of my bed, wearing a stern expression. “Your affinities collided and were born at once. I’ve been told you had one affinity manifest in the previous weeks, but it seems there were others that wanted to be born.”
My eyes widened more. “Affinities? I have more than one?”
“You have at least four, possibly more,” the prince replied. “You have an air element, fire element, the ability to create orem, and the ability to—” His brow furrowed.
“Return a soul,” I whispered. A vivid memory slammed to the front of my mind. The prince had enacted his affinity on Vorl. If not for me, the archon would be dead. I’d wielded enough power to counteract the prince’s strongest affinity. Blessed Mother indeed. “What happened to Vorl?”
The prince’s gaze dipped to my throat, to where bruises no doubt lay unless Murl had healed them. His lip curled as his aura pounded out of him. “He’s been detained for assaulting a lady of the court.”
I straightened more as the soft covers swirled around me. “But I’m not a lady.”
“You are now.”
I frowned. “What?”
The four guards all ruffled their wings from behind the prince. Nish scowled.
The crown prince watched me closely. “The king has officially appointed you as a lady of the court.”
Ice slid through my veins. “Why would he do that?”
“Because you’re to join the Rising Queen Trial.” Nuwin smiled, looking quite pleased. “Only a lady can become a queen.”
“What?”
The prince winced. “I shall try not to be offended by your reaction.”
“But I don’t actually have four affinities. I think my affinity that replenishes the orem is actually the same affinity that pulls a soul back into a body. I believe what it does is create life, in our land and in fae. So if it’s true that I have affinities for two elements, then I only have three affinities total. Surely, that doesn’t make me a contender in the Trial.”
The prince’s scowl deepened as Nish sniggered. Haxil cut his fellow guard a sharp glare.
“Three affinities is still enough to have you in the Trial,” the prince said stiffly.