The Queen's Rising (Untitled Trilogy #1)(18)

He walked back to her, stood so close his chest nearly brushed her breastplate, so close that he could smell the fragrance of mountain air in her hair, and he whispered, “You do realize that your mother could annihilate Grimhildor? Could turn Valenia into her slaves? Could cast Bandecca in eternal darkness? That your mother could shatter the realm into pieces with her battle magic?”

“Yes,” she whispered in return.

It wasn’t fair, he thought. It wasn’t fair that the Kavanaghs were the only magical House, that the other thirteen were decidedly frail, weak, and human. That the slender woman before him could burn his land with a mere snap of her fingers, that she could stop his heart with a mere word. And yet he would have to kindle the fire to burn the land; he would have to draw a blade to end her. He could feel the magic teem about her, as tiny flecks of diamonds in her armor, as stardust in her hair, as moonlight on her skin.

Ah, he had always resented the Kavanaghs.

He thought back to what he had just read in The Book of Hours, about the Stone of Eventide’s ancient origins. Why should he believe such a foolish myth, that the Kavanagh elders would actually shackle their magic to the stone? Either they were foolish, or they were afraid of their own power. So they tempered it.

And he was about to make a great assumption—she would probably laugh when he told her—yet this was what he had wanted for quite some time.

“You must bring me the Stone of Eventide,” he said to her, watched a frown pull along her brow.

“What? Why?”

“Your mother’s magic, your sisters’ magic, your magic, Princess, is contingent that one of you wear the stone over your heart, against your flesh. That if the stone is separated from the Kavanaghs, your magic will go dormant.”

She drew in a deep breath through her teeth, but he could tell this was no surprise to her. So she knew? She knew that her House required wearing the stone in order to wield magic? And yet her clan, the Kavanaghs, had kept that secret. Who had begun it? Liadan herself?

“How do you know this, my lord?”

He smiled down at her; it tasted sour on his lips. “Years and years of reading your lore, Princess. It is an assumption of mine, but I can see in your eyes that I have stumbled onto truth.”

“I cannot take the Stone of Eventide,” Norah all but growled. “It never leaves my mother’s neck.”

“You cannot or will not?” he countered. “You are afraid of feeling the magic dim in your blood, aren’t you?”

Norah glanced to the window, where the storm finally broke, lashing the glass. “My mother would behead me if she caught me taking the stone. If she knew I handed it to . . . to you.”

“You think I could destroy such a thing?” he snapped, his patience waning. “Lest you forget, Princess Norah, that the Stone of Eventide would burn me if I dared to touch it.”

“She will think I have conspired with you,” she went on, paying him no heed.

He sighed, weary of trying to coax her. “I think you need more time to think on this. Return to the castle, Princess. Consider what I have said to you, what I ask of you. If you think you can temper your mother’s magic another way, then we shall consider a different approach. But if not . . . you must bring the stone to me. Or else we will witness your mother’s battle magic sunder the world.”

Norah’s face was carefully guarded; he could not read what she was thinking, what she was feeling.

He watched her leave, the library doors banging behind her.

She would return, he knew it. She would return because there was no other way. She would return because she was afraid of her own magic.

I was hardly aware of him leaving me, of his body dissolving as mist about mine, drifting out the open window. But my eyes cleared, as if I were blinking away the sand of sleep, finding myself standing in Magnalia’s familiar library. My hands still gripped The Book of Hours— it was old and tattered and threadbare again. But this book had once been his, the man I had shifted into. This book had once been in the hall of a Maevan castle one hundred and thirty-six years ago.

I winced, the sunlight deepening the ache in my head. I grappled for the door and shuffled down the hall, up the stairs, clenching my jaw when Sibylle’s sudden laughter rattled my ears.

It felt as if I had just slammed my head upon a rock. I was halfway tempted to feel my skull, to see if there was a crack.

Into my room I went, closing the door behind me.

I should be studying. I should be preparing.

But all I could do was set the book aside and lie down on my bed, closing my eyes and willing the pain in my mind to go away, trying to calm the alarm that began to thrum in my heart.

I retraced what I had seen, over and over, until all I could wonder was why and who. Why had I seen this? And who was this man?

Because I had never discovered his name.





SIX


THE FALL



The next morning, I arrived to Cartier’s lesson half an hour late. That might have been a little excessive; I had never been late, not even when I was an arden of the other four passions. But I couldn’t bear to imagine that Ciri thought Cartier favored me. I couldn’t bear to let this come between her and me, between our sisterhood and friendship. I wanted to ease Ciri’s mind; I wanted to prove to her that Cartier would not treat me any differently from her. And the best way to get under his skin was to be tardy.