Magnus couldn’t believe his eyes. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
“And I would be if it weren’t for your sister’s magic. Here I was prepared to despise the both of you for the rest of my life. You, I’m still undecided about. Her . . . I now owe my life.” He looked at Nerissa. “What do we do with the guard?”
“This way.” She grabbed the sleeve of the dead guard’s uniform, and she and Nic pulled him out of the main corridor and into a shadowed alcove. “This will have to do. We need to move quickly.”
Magnus, still stunned, grappled to regain his composure. “Where are we going?”
“We’re going to Amara’s chambers to retrieve the water Kindred,” Nerissa whispered. “She knows how to perform the ritual to release its magic. I don’t know how she learned it, but she’s confident that it’ll work. The prisoners will be used for their blood, to strengthen the magic. I want to do what I can to help them, but right now we need that Kindred in our hands, not hers.”
Magnus nodded. “Then let’s stop talking and start moving.”
Nerissa hurried down the hallway, and Nic and Magnus followed closely behind. Finally they came to a doorway. Nerissa looked both ways before unlocking the door. They entered a lavish bedroom with several adjoining rooms full of windows that looked out at the small walled city.
Nerissa went immediately to the wardrobe, checking the pockets of a long line of gowns and cloaks. “Check everywhere else, just in case she moved it.”
Magnus and Nic did as she said, checking shelves, cabinets, and under the cushions of chairs.
“Are you sure it’s here?” Magnus asked.
“All I know for sure is that she didn’t have it with her earlier.”
“How do you know?”
“I helped her dress, and it was definitely not in any of her pockets. Check the other room.”
Magnus wasn’t sure how he felt about being ordered around by a servant, but he continued to do as she instructed. This girl had far more talents than simply being a personal attendant.
But, of course, he now realized that Nerissa Florens wasn’t just any attendant. She was a rebel.
His search left him empty-handed, and he returned to the bedroom, but Nic and Nerissa were nowhere to be seen. “Where did you go? Nic? Nerissa?”
He scanned the large room until his gaze fell on two bodies lying on the floor.
Nic’s eyes were shut, an angry red mark on his temple. A few paces away, Nerissa groaned with pain.
Her eyes met Magnus’s and immediately widened with fear.
Magnus felt a sharp pain on the back of his head, and then the world went dark.
CHAPTER 30
AMARA
PAELSIA
“Little empress.”
The sound of Kyan’s voice surprised her, but Amara was relieved to hear it. She’d been certain he’d left her after their disagreement yesterday.
“You’re still here,” she whispered. She sat in the small room adjacent to her bedchambers that she’d turned into a meditation room, one empty of everything except the mat she sat upon.
“The storm is nearly upon us. It is time for me to regain my power and for you to reap every reward you so greatly deserve.”
Her heart leapt. “The prisoners are waiting,” she told him.
“Excellent. Their blood will seal the ritual and make it permanent.”
Amara pushed away all her remaining doubts, finding that there were very few. To second-guess herself now would be the ultimate weakness after all she’d sacrificed for this day.
“Wait for me outside with the water Kindred.”
She agreed to this without hesitation.
Amara wanted Cleo with her, both for support and, if required, as an additional sacrifice. Together, they left the royal chambers and went outside to the direct center of the compound, where the pit was located. Amara instructed a dozen of her soldiers to surround it, half with crossbows aimed at the prisoners below.
Nothing could go wrong now.
“Well, look who’s come to visit.” Felix peered up at her, shielding his one good eye from the bright sky that had only just begun to darken with storm clouds. “The great and powerful empress. Come on down here, your grace. I’d love a chance to catch up. I’m sure your brother would too!”
Amara reluctantly glanced at Ashur sitting next to Felix and the other rebel, Taran. Her brother looked up at her, not with rage or hate but with bottomless disappointment in his gray-blue eyes.
“Sister, you can still change the path you’ve chosen,” he said to her.
“Unfortunately, you can’t change yours,” she replied. “You never should have returned here.”
“I had no choice.”
“There’s always a choice. And I have made mine.”
Gaius sat with his back against the side of the pit, his arms crossed over his chest. He said nothing at all, just looked up at her with that maddeningly blank expression of his. How sad it was to see the former king so defeated. How sad and yet how deeply satisfying.
There was also another young man at the bottom of the pit—one Amara vaguely recognized from the day Nerissa became her attendant. Enzo, she believed his name was.