“Lucia,” Valia repeated. “Princess Lucia Damora, the prophesied sorceress. Yes, she would be quite helpful, wouldn’t she? I would enjoy meeting her in person. The stories I’ve heard, especially of her travels the last couple of months, are very interesting.”
Cleo didn’t like this woman. Didn’t like how she looked, how she stood, how she spoke. She didn’t like that Valia had known her father and had turned her back on him when she could have helped during that fateful battle, yet she seemingly felt no sense of responsibility or remorse over his death.
Valia’s demeanor held an arrogance, a snide confidence that Cleo found repelling.
But Magnus was right. Lucia wasn’t here. So she would have to swallow her pride and hope very much that this witch could help them.
“I’ll go first,” Taran said, moving forward to stand between Cleo and the witch. He pulled the sleeve of his shirt up and offered his right arm to her. “Cut me if you need to.”
“Where is the moonstone orb?” Valia asked. “I think that would help greatly.”
Magnus and Cleo shared a concerned look. This witch knew a great deal about the Kindred, far more than many others would.
“I don’t have it,” Taran said. “I gave it to Princess Lucia when she asked for it. Only she’d know where it is right now.”
“I see.” Valia glanced at Cleo. “And the aquamarine?”
“The very same,” Cleo lied. “Lucia has all four of them.”
Her crystal orb was where it always was: in the pocket of her gown, enclosed in a velvet pouch so Cleo wouldn’t have to physically touch it.
“Very well. We will try to make do without.” Valia nodded and, with Cleo, Magnus, and Ashur looking on, traced the tip of her blade against Taran’s marked skin. It wasn’t a straight cut; she twisted and turned the blade, as if drawing specific symbols upon his flesh.
Taran didn’t flinch as his blood welled to the surface.
Valia swiped her hand against his arm and looked down at the blood on her palm.
“You have made some choices in your life, choices that have caused you great pain,” she said. “What you did to your mother haunts you to this very day.”
“What is this?” Taran growled. “I’m not looking to have my fortune told.”
“Your blood is the essence of who you are. It contains your past, present, and future. This is not a simple fortune-telling, young man.” Valia returned her gaze to Taran’s slick blood on her hand. “I can see your jealousy toward your brother: the well-behaved one, the one who followed all the rules. When you heard of his murder, your need for vengeance did not stem only from the love of a brother but from your guilt at turning your back on him to seek your destiny far away. True?”
Taran’s face had gone pale, making the circles under his eyes look even darker. “True.”
Magnus cleared his throat. “Let’s move this along, shall we? No need to dwell in the past.”
“Do you hear the voice inside you?” Valia asked Taran, ignoring the prince. “The one that tells you to let go of your control?”
A shiver went up Cleo’s spine.
“Yes,” Taran said, nodding with a jerk of his head. “I can hear it even now. It wants me to go to Kyan. It says it will lead me there if I let it. But I don’t want to. I’d rather die than let this demon inside me take over my body and my life. I want to—”
He started to tremble then, and his hands flew to his throat as he gasped for breath.
“He’s suffocating,” Ashur said. “Stop this, Valia. Whatever you’re doing to him, stop it right now!”
“I’m not doing anything to him,” Valia said, shaking her head. “I see now that I can’t do anything. It’s too late for him—too late for either of them.”
“Get out,” Magnus growled. “You’ve done enough. Just leave, and don’t come back.”
“I believe I can still help in other ways,” Valia replied calmly.
“We don’t want your help! Go now!”
Cleo grabbed hold of Taran’s face. He was starting to turn a frightening shade of blue. Glowing white lines now spread over his jaw and up his cheeks.
“Look at me,” she said frantically. “Please look at me! It’s all right. Just try to breathe.”
Taran held her gaze, his brown eyes filled with pain and fear just before they rolled back and he slipped from her grasp. Ashur was there to catch him before he hit the marble floor. He put two fingers to Taran’s pulse at his throat and then held his hand under Taran’s nose.
“He’s unconscious, but he’s still breathing,” Ashur said.
“That witch did this,” Magnus said darkly.
Cleo looked around to see that Valia had disappeared from the throne room. It was a relief to see she was gone. And it was an even greater relief that Taran was still alive.
Then she focused her attention on Magnus.
“You should have told me where you were going last night,” she said. “All of this could have been avoided.”
His lips thinned. “I was trying to protect you.”
“You think you can protect me from this?” She wrenched her hair from the left side of her throat. “You can’t. Like Valia just said, it’s too late.”
“It’s not too late. I refuse to believe that.”
She didn’t want to fight with him, didn’t want to say anything she’d regret later. “Ashur, please take care of Taran. I . . . I need to leave this place, clear my head. I’ll take Enzo with me for protection.”
“Where are you going?” Magnus asked as she moved toward the exit.
She wasn’t sure.
Somewhere that wasn’t here. Somewhere that would make her think of happier times, times long ago and mostly forgotten.
Somewhere she could try to regain her strength and focus.
“To the festival,” she said.
CHAPTER 22
MAGNUS
AURANOS
Of course, Magnus immediately followed her.
He watched Cleo and Enzo from beneath the heavy black hood of his cloak, which helped to shield his identity from prying eyes, through the labyrinth of streets filled with citizens in the midst of their celebration. In the bright sun of midafternoon, the gaudy, colorful festival banners and temporary paintings sloshed onto the sides of buildings were impossible to ignore.
The original Cleiona must have enjoyed her hedonistic lifestyle every bit as much as her current citizens, Magnus thought. Valoria was said to be of much calmer demeanor. She valued silence rather than revelry, calmness and thoughtfulness over drunken debauchery.
This gave Limerians, as a whole, a sense of superiority over their southern neighbors.
But Magnus knew not all were as devoted as the law decreed. He’d found a Limerian tavern that secretly served wine to those who asked for it, and surely it was not the only one. Also, a large part of the gold his father had obtained, at least until the expensive war against Auranos had stripped him of any access to his fortune, had come from fines levied against those who did not observe the two days per week of silence.