Lakesedge (World at the Lake's Edge #1)(36)

The Lord Under came to me. He called to me.

I watch as Arien tries desperately to wrestle control of his magic. His cheeks are reddened, his skin damp with sweat. Piece by piece, the mass of shadows begins to shift and change. It becomes smoother. No longer a cloud of dark, but neat strands of shadows. But then it all unfurls. The shadows dissipate into a cloud of opaque charcoal that wisps the air.

He slumps back and hits the ground hard, with a cry. “Damn it!”

Then he looks up and sees me. His teeth bite into his lip. I walk carefully around the sigil and sit down beside him. He rubs his wrist roughly across his face, leaves a streak of mud. He looks worn down, like a candle left alight too long, about to become nothing but a smear of smoke.

“Arien, my love. You don’t have to do this.”

“I do.”

“If you’re not ready…” I trail off, looking down at the grass, the sigil, the Corruption-filled jars. The ritual is only two weeks away. The ground is poisoned, and the poison wants to devour Rowan piece by piece.

Rowan, who dreams of his dead brother. Rowan, who slept beside me in the parlor. Rowan, who gave me a trunk full of dresses and a faerie book. Who looked at me with such tender fear when he told me he is slowly losing himself to that hungry darkness.

I don’t want Rowan to carve himself apart, to be devoured slowly. But Arien is his only hope of mending the Corruption. And he’s going to push himself to the point of breaking.

Arien huffs out a despairing sigh. “Clover and Rowan went to the village. The tithe goods have come from Greymere. And I thought, while they were gone, I’d practice. I thought I could get it right—that I could surprise them—and—” He wrenches angrily at his sleeve. “If you’re not going to help me, Leta, then just go away.”

“Let me help you, then.”

Arien stares at me, surprised. “You’re not going to argue more?”

“Oh, I want to argue plenty. I’m saving it up for later.”

“Can you just sit next to me?” He reaches out to adjust one of the jars. “I’m used to casting the spell with Clover. So it might help if you’re there.”

I step carefully over the edge of the sigil and kneel on the ground. Arien settles beside me. He takes a breath. Closes his eyes. Shadows fill the air, cold and smooth and slithery. I shift closer, so that we’re pressed together, side by side.

For the barest moment, he controls the magic. The strands of darkness move, stitch by stitch, into a mesh-fine web wrapped around the jar. Arien’s shoulders tense. His eyes scrunch closed. A vein throbs in his temple. His breath catches.

Then the shadows slip loose and cascade out into a thick, dark cloud. It unfurls around us in a rush. The cold is instant, chilling my skin. My lungs burn, and my mouth tastes of ash. The light blots out.

Arien sighs, dejected. “It’s no good. I just can’t do it.”

I put my hand against the ground, remembering last night, how the heat sparked in me and made the ground change. The earth beneath my palm is quiet. There’s no song or warmth under my skin. But doubt prickles me. When I held Rowan and tried to pull him back from the Corruption, something happened.

Slowly, I pick up the jar. “Arien, try the spell again.”

Our hands, together, wrap around the glass. The shadows gather. I think of the cottage, our room at night, the village on tithe day. All the times I’ve tried—and failed—to keep him safe. How I’ve felt since we came here, so frustrated and powerless.

I reach desperately for whatever I felt in the darkness beside the lake. There’s nothing and nothing, but then—a flicker of heat. It’s small and swift and I can hardly see it, hardly understand. Then the light or power or whatever this is washes through me—from me—into Arien.

The shadows knit together. The strands wrap around the jars; neat, fine, controlled. The afternoon sunlight streams back in, the sudden brightness overwhelming. Arien looks at me, wide eyed with shock.

“It worked.” He touches a shaking hand to the jar, now filled with clear water. He laughs. “I did it, I did it!”

The water is not just clear in the jar he held, but in all of them. And the sigil he carved is charred, as if something burned the ground. Arien stares down at it incredulously.

I get to my feet and start to back away, scattering gravel as I stumble toward the house. Arien calls after me, confused. “Leta, what’s the matter?”

He doesn’t realize. He doesn’t know that I helped him, that it was because of me the spell worked and the Corruption mended.

“I’m sorry, I have to go.” My mouth still tastes of ash. I can still feel it, that sudden heat that tore through me. I look down at the jars of now-cleared water and flex my hands as sparks of power burn under my skin.

I think of my desperate whisper into the shadows when Arien and I were lost in the Vair Woods. Please help us. And how the Lord Under replied from the darkness: What will you give me, if I do?

I have no magic. It can’t be possible. It can’t.



* * *



In the kitchen, Florence is at the table, dusted with flour as she kneads fresh bread dough. She looks at me and smiles, but I rush past and go down the hallway into the cool, dim dark, past the parlor and toward the stairs.

My room is full of afternoon sunlight. I turn a restless circle and scrunch my fingers into the folds of the cloak. The glass vials of sedatives are still on my quilt, scattered across the fabric like a handful of gemstones. I go from the window, to the corner, to the wall. Shakily, I rest my hand flat against the flower-patterned paper and take a deep breath.