“If I pretend hard enough, I can almost believe that it’s all been a horrible nightmare.”
She said this aloud to Nerissa as her friend brushed the tangles out of her hair before the same mirror where she’d gotten ready for countless parties and banquets in the past.
The silver hilt of the brush only served as a painful reminder of a time when Magnus brushed her hair, uncertain whether such a strange act was befitting of a prince, but willing to try because she’d asked him to.
He’d loved her hair. She knew this because he’d never failed to mention how annoying it was that she wore it down, rather than pulled back from her face.
She’d learned to interpret Magnus’s particular way of speaking. He rarely said exactly what was on his mind.
But sometimes he did.
Sometimes, when it counted the most, he said exactly what was on his mind.
Nerissa placed the brush down on the vanity. “Do you want to pretend it’s all been a nightmare?”
“No,” she answered immediately.
“I am here for you, princess. Whatever you need.”
Cleo reached for her friend’s hand, squeezing it, wanting something to help anchor her here. “Thank you. Thank you . . . for everything you’ve done for me. But can you do me one huge favor?”
“Of course. What is it?”
“Call me Cleo.”
A smile touched Nerissa’s lips, and she nodded. “I can do that.” She turned Cleo’s hand over, studying the mark on her palm. “The lines haven’t changed since we left Paelsia.”
“I haven’t used the water magic again.”
Not since freezing the guard, she thought, shuddering at the memory.
“Have you tried?”
Cleo shook her head. “Amara thought I should try to control this magic, but I haven’t yet.” She was afraid to try, although she didn’t admit this aloud. “And the weather . . . I’m not even sure I’m responsible for that. Not consciously, anyway.”
Storms had followed them from Paelsia, sudden downpours of rain that seemed to correspond to Cleo’s darker moments of grief.
“What about Taran?” Nerissa asked. “The lines spreading from his air magic marking are more extensive than yours. They’re all the way up his right arm now.”
Cleo’s gaze snapped to hers. “Really?”
Nerissa nodded. “His air magic saved Felix’s life, but after that . . . I don’t know if he’s been trying to control it. Enzo is worried about him. He’s worried about you too.”
Cleo wanted to focus on something else, anything else. “Is Enzo worried about you?”
Nerissa gave her a small smile. “Constantly. He’s the jealous type, I’m afraid.”
“He’s in love.”
“That would make only one of us, unfortunately.” She sighed. “He was fun in the beginning, but now he wants something from me that I don’t think I can give him.” She visibly grimaced. “Commitment.”
“Perish the thought.” Cleo very nearly laughed out loud at that. “So you’re saying that you’re not ready to get married and have a dozen babies with him.”
“That would be putting it mildly,” Nerissa replied. “No, unfortunately there’s someone else on my mind lately. Someone I’ve come to care about more than I’d like.”
Such talk, despite what it meant for poor Enzo, had helped to brighten Cleo’s dark mood. It reminded her of a simpler time when she gossiped with her sister about the love lives of their circle of friends.
“Who?” Cleo asked. “Do I know him?”
Nerissa’s smile grew. “Why do you assume it’s a him?”
“Oh.” Cleo’s eyes widened. “Well, that’s certainly a good question, isn’t it? Why would I assume such a thing?”
“I’ve found in my life that love and attraction can take many forms. And if one is open to unexpected possibilities, there are no boundaries.”
That certainly was true, Cleo thought. It had been for her and Magnus. “You’re not going to tell me who it is, are you?”
“No. But don’t worry—it’s not you, princess.” Nerissa frowned. “I mean Cleo. Using your name rather than your title might take some getting used to. Now, I will wish you goodnight. You need sleep. And tomorrow, if you want to begin channeling this magic within you, I will be readily available to help you practice.”
“Perhaps,” Cleo allowed.
After Nerissa left, Cleo pondered Nerissa’s seemingly overcomplicated love life as she tried to fall asleep and think about anything other than Magnus.
She failed.
The lines spreading out from the water magic symbol on her palm glowed in the darkness, pulsing with the beat of her heart. She pulled up the sleeve of her nightgown and traced her fingers along the lines, like branches of a tree . . . or veins.
Or scars.
Scars like the one on Magnus’s cheek.
Cleo forced the thought of his face away from her. It hurt too much to dwell on everything she’d lost.
She had to focus on what she still had.
This magic—this water goddess residing within her . . . what did it mean?
Could she use it to regain her power?
Magnus would approve of that, she thought.
Unable to sleep, she dressed herself in a light silk cloak in the dead of night and decided to go to the palace library and read until dawn. Certainly, she could find more books about the Kindred. She’d glanced at some in the past but had never paid close enough attention to them.
The palace had a scattering of Kraeshian guards on duty, but not nearly as many as there had been when Amara’s occupation had started. Some were stationed in the same places where Auranian guards once stood. They were as still as statues, not seeming to pay her any attention or ask where she was going.
It wasn’t nearly the same as it had been when she’d been here last, a prisoner of war forced to marry the conquering king’s son, watched closely with every move she made.
I could leave here, she thought. Run away and start a new life—put this one far behind me.
Cleo scratched her left palm, knowing such thoughts were full of weakness and fear and utter denial.
She refused to be weak or fearful.
Entering the library, blazing with torchlight even in the wee hours of the night, felt like truly coming home. She’d only recently developed a love of books after ignoring the treasures in this expansive space for most of her life.
Thank the goddess that King Gaius had not burned them.
The library was even larger than the throne room, with shelves carved from mahogany wood that stretched thirty feet high with gold ladders to climb in order to obtain books higher than an arm’s reach. The titles and scribes of these thousands upon thousands of volumes of story and history were kept in yet another book, one that she remembered trying and failing to decipher one day when the curator wasn’t around.
Cleo couldn’t find that thick ledger tonight, so instead she traced her index finger along hundreds of spines until she found one that called out to her.
It was simply titled: Goddess.