He turned his stunned gaze from his currently immobile legs to the woman. “You’re a witch—a real witch.”
“Something like that.” She took the weapon and placed it in his unwounded hand. He stared down at it, dazed. “Now, listen carefully. You must find a woman named Samara Balto in the city beyond this villa—”
“What city?” he managed. “There’s nothing but more ruins beyond this property, unoccupied for centuries!”
“Show her this blade,” the woman continued, ignoring his protests, “and she will know what I want and why I want it. When you’ve successfully done this, return to this garden before the sun sets, place your hand against this stone statue, and you will return here.”
Her words were absolutely ludicrous.
“Return here? You make no sense at all!”
“It will make sense soon enough,” she assured him. “And at that time you will do as I say.”
“I will do nothing of the sort!”
She regarded him for a moment in silence. “There’s not much that you care for in this world, is there? Apart from, say, your beautiful sister.”
Magnus’s eyes narrowed upon this evil and insane creature, surely coughed up by the darklands themselves. “If you dare to threaten Lucia—”
“I don’t threaten, I only try to explain. Should you fail me, you will not return here. You will be separated from your sister, and from your future throne, forever.” There was no maliciousness in the woman’s faded eyes, only bottomless determination. “I do this only out of necessity, Prince Magnus. You were here at the moment I needed you, and so you are the one fated for this task. There can be no one else.”
She grabbed his injured hand and pressed it, bloody palm down, on the very statue he’d been leaning against earlier.
The statue began to glow as if lit from within. Symbols etched into its surface now blazed bright white against the gray stone.
“Should you return here after sunset,” she said solemnly, “there will be nothing I can do to save you.”
The light from the statue swelled, surrounding Magnus, blinding him. And then it felt as if the world dropped out beneath his very feet.
The brightness disappeared, and for a moment, his entire world turned to darkness.
Chapter 2
Slowly, the darkness lifted, replaced by the glare of the midday sun. Magnus’s eyes widened as he took in the view before him.
Gone were the ice and the ruins. In their place was a garden, green and fragrant with sweet-smelling, colorful flowers. A summer butterfly flitted past, its iridescent blue wings flapping through the air as it floated down to perch upon a ruby-colored lily.
A narrow, winding trail of sparkling stones led through the expansive garden to a tall, stone villa, fit for the finest lord in the land.
“How . . . ?” Magnus said, his voice small. “How did I get here?”
He stumbled backward, momentarily overwhelmed, but something solid stopped him. He turned to see a marble statue protruding from the ground—one in the likeness of the goddess Valoria and twice the size of an actual person. She held her hands out to her sides, and in her palms were the symbols of her elemental magic: two parallel wavy lines for water, and a circle within a circle for earth.
Magnus took a step closer. His breath quickened. This was the same statue from the ruins. It was nearly unrecognizable now, since before it had been crumbling and ice-covered, but Magnus was sure this was the same statue the witch had forced his hand upon.
Magnus touched it again, bloody palm down, hoping that it would begin to glow with the strange symbols as it had before. He pressed his hand against the cool marble until his wound ached even more, then he pulled away, defeated. He dug into his pocket to pull out a handkerchief and wound the cotton material around his right hand.
“Now what do I do?” he murmured, turning around in a slow circle, looking for clues as to where he was and how to get home.
He took another look at the statue. The goddess’s beautiful stone face was carved with exact precision. It looked just like the many other statues bearing her likeness throughout Limeros. Most Limerians stayed true to their religion, one that demanded strict adherence to the many rules and laws of the land, including no alcohol, no frivolous art or music, and two days of every week devoted to silence and prayer.
Magnus had never been terribly religious, only doing enough to not stand out when he was unable to find a reasonable excuse not to go to services in the palace temple or the grand temple in Ravencrest.
But right now, as he found himself in such unfamiliar and uncertain surroundings, he was ready to fall to his knees and pray to Valoria for assistance.
“Who are you?” a sharp voice made him jump. He spun around to face a man as fat and bald as the royal entourage’s guide Vesper, however this man wore an unfriendly, narrowed expression.
Magnus let out a sigh of relief. “I am Prince Magnus, and you will help me find my father.”