Immortal Reign(36)

Cleo had always seemed so perfect—so effortlessly beautiful, so poised . . . a girl who drew everyone’s eye and appreciation. So very different from Lucia.

A part of her had wanted to destroy this small, golden piece of perfection.

Especially when it became clear that Magnus had begun to take interest in her.

Was it jealousy Lucia had felt? Not romantic jealousy, certainly. Lucia had never loved Magnus as more than a brother. But all her life she’d had his full attention and possessed his whole heart.

Magnus had belonged only to her until Cleo came into their lives.

No wonder I’ve hated her all this time, Lucia thought with shocked realization.

She reached out a hand to the other princess. “Let me see your mark.”

Cleo hesitated a moment before taking a seat next to the sorceress and holding out her left hand. Lucia studied the water magic symbol and the lines branching out from it, her brows drawing together in concentration.

“The magic is unpredictable,” Cleo said, her voice hushed now. “And so powerful. It can control the weather. It can create sheets of ice out of nothing at all. It can freeze a man to death . . .”

Lucia quickly looked up at Cleo, searching the other princess’s face for the truth.

“You killed someone with this water magic,” she said.

Cleo nodded. “A guard who had helped to torture Magnus.”

Lucia’s grip on Cleo’s hand increased. “I hope you made him suffer.”

“That’s just it . . . I didn’t try to do anything at all. It just happened. The magic manifests when I’m angry, or sad, or in pain. I can feel it—cool and bottomless within my skin. But I can’t seem to control it.”

“When it does manifest, are these lines the only side effect?”

“My nose bled the first time, but not since. These lines appeared, yes. And I also have nightmares, but I’m not sure if they’re related. Nightmares that I’m drowning. And not only when I’m asleep . . . sometimes I feel like I’m drowning in the middle of the day.”

Lucia pondered this for a moment. In the beginning, her magic was also overpowering, lashing out when her emotions became erratic.

“So you want my help,” she began, “to rid yourself of this affliction.”

“No,” Cleo said without hesitation. “I want your help to learn how to control it.”

Lucia shook her head. “Cleo, do you realize what this is? This isn’t a simple and accessible thread of water magic that could be contained within a common witch—or even within me.” Or, at least, how Lucia had been for a short time before her pregnancy. “You have the water Kindred inside you—a thinking, feeling entity that wants to gain full control over your body, like how Kyan now controls Nic. The water Kindred wants to live, to exist, and to experience life . . . and you’re the only one now standing in its way.”

Cleo’s expression turned stubborn. “I’ve been reading more about Valoria in a book I found in the palace library. She also had the water and earth Kindred within her, but she could control that magic at will.”

“Valoria was an immortal, created from magic itself,” Lucia explained. “You are mortal, flesh and blood, and vulnerable to pain and injury.”

Cleo eyes grew glossy, and her grip on Lucia’s hand tightened. “You don’t understand.” She looked down at the water symbol. “I have to figure out how to use it. I have to save Nic and my kingdom. My sister, my father . . . they told me to be strong, but I”—she drew in a ragged breath—“I don’t know if I can be strong much longer. What I’ve always believed about my family, about my mother and father and the love they shared . . .” Her voice broke. “Everything has fallen away into ruin, and I’m lost. Without this magic, I have nothing left. Without this magic . . . I am nothing.”

Lucia had hated Cleo for so long for reasons she’d all but forgotten, but the princess’s pain tugged on a heart she’d thought had turned hard and black months ago.

“You’re not nothing,” she said firmly. “You are Cleiona Aurora Bellos. And you are going to survive this. You’re going to survive because I know my brother would have wanted you to.”

Tears streaked down Cleo’s cheeks, and she stared into Lucia’s eyes for a long time before she finally nodded.

“I’ll try,” she said.

“Do better than try.”

Cleo fell silent for a moment, her brows drawn together. “Taran wants the air magic out of him. He must have even less control over his emotions than I do, because the lines have gone far higher on his arm than mine have.” She stared down at them, touching the blue lines gingerly with her right hand. “He . . . he says he’d rather die than become nothing but a vessel for the air Kindred.”

Lucia didn’t blame Taran at all for this. To have one’s body and one’s life stolen away by a greedy god . . .

Death would be kinder.

“I swear I will figure out how to imprison Kyan again and stop this—all of this. I won’t let him win.” Lucia stood up from the bench. “I need to check on my daughter now.”

“Of course,” Cleo whispered.

As she walked down the stone path and into the palace, Lucia’s mind spun with a thousand different scenarios of how to stop Kyan and help Cleo. Not so long ago, she wouldn’t have cared about the princess’s fate.