Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
I grit my teeth. “Florentius will never forgive you.”
His spell wavers.
I churn out more words. “Is losing one son not enough?”
Chiron almost stops. I feel the slackening of his spell, taste the salt of tears springing into his eyes through it. But before he lets go completely, the regent spears a nail through his leg. “My way of losing hurts more.”
At this, Chiron pushes in his spell with more force.
I buckle forward. Every limb shakes and shudders and my light has nowhere to hide anymore.
The spell’s claws hook onto it and yank—
It’s shredding me apart, layer by layer.
Glittering golden plumes are ripped from me, spiralling upward. Chiron’s spell pulls—harder, deeper.
I shouldn’t scream for him. Shouldn’t bring him here.
But . . . it hurts. It hurts so much.
The memories we made—our dromveske, our stolen moments—they’re all that hold me together. They tether me, keep me from splintering into nothing.
I see him—his dangling braids as he leans close, the glitter in his eye reflecting fireflies, the weight of my name as he tugs me onto his lap, the sweep of his thumb over an escaped tear.
His barely-there kiss.
My head tips back, voice shattering.
The doors do not just break.
They explode.
Shards of splintered wood punch into the luminarium like daggers, and a storm surges in.
Winds roar, howling through the chamber; violet oak leaves rip from their branches, scattering. The air crackles—charged, boiling—
A whip of blinding energy cracks through the chamber, striking Chiron like thunder. The force of it rips him from his feet, hurling him back into the violet oak with a sickening crack.
Redcloaks stagger. One fumbles for his weapon.
Through the chaos, through the storm—
My king comes.
My head is heavy, my vision blurring, but I keep my eyes on him.
A flash of dark robes, wind roaring in his wake. Magic crackles from him, whips of pure light: he isn’t summoning a tempest. He is the tempest.
And the tempest is coming for me.
My heart pounds, and with each beat my lovelight pulses brighter.
Quin.
To be so relieved, and so devastated at once.
He came for me.
But what have I brought him into?
My mouth forms his name but everything aches. My voice is lost. I fall—
Quin catches me.
His cloak billows and a domed shield slams around us. His magic is as commanding and defiant as he is. He clutches me desperately, hold almost strangling. Quin—who could always control his expression, who could fight calmly through anything—
His face is wretched.
His arms shake as he holds me closer. His hands press over my chest—as if trying to keep me here, keep me whole.
His magic surges—he tries to steer my lovelight back inside me.
But he can’t.
It’s only tethered to me by a thin, fragile thread.
A tremor rolls through me—the pain surges again. My muscles scream. I can’t seem to move them voluntarily. They’re too heavy, too exhausted, too agonised.
Quin yanks the flutette from his throat and presses it to my lips.
Relief.
It floods through me.
The magic within the flutette that he’s hoarded, sparingly used—all that remains of my magic—he gives it back.
It curls deep—everywhere Chiron’s spell touched, it fills. Soothes. Heals.
His trembling fingers push my hair back, touch achingly gentle. His voice breaks with it.
“I didn’t know we’d both face him,” he murmurs.
His hands tighten. A vow.
“But with you by my side . . . it’ll be enough.”
The regent coughs violently—and it turns into a laugh. A raw, brittle thing that echoes around the luminarium.
Spells hammer against Quin’s shield. Not a single crack forms. Not even a tremor.
But the regent isn’t looking at them.
His gaze locks onto us. And for the first time, his face contorts—not with rage, but with memory. With something far more dangerous. Perhaps our closeness reminds him of Liandros. Of what he lost . . .
“You think love makes you strong,” he sneers, voice curdling, bitter—hurt. “But love . . . love can be ripped away.”
Quin’s voice rings out like a blade drawn from its sheath.
“You think power makes you strong. But power can also be ripped away.”
The regent’s lips twitch. The air shudders. “I will not let everything be taken from me.”
Quin doesn’t hesitate. His dome explodes outward. “Neither will I!”
The force hurls the redcloaks back like puppets, slamming them against the walls. Another whip of light lances through the luminarium, striking the regent—flipping him through the air. He crashes to the ground before the glowing, leafless violet oak.
Quin’s hands clench in the air, magic blazing.
Chiron, staggering upright, latches onto Akilah. Scrambles away.
Even through the haze of pain, I see it. The flicker of something in him. A choice.
At least this.
At least he’s helping her.
Quin’s arms tighten around me—then, carefully, he lowers me to the ground. A shielding spell weaves around me, settling over my skin like the one used when I was sick.
My lovelight still drifts in the air, shimmering—a fragile, beautiful dance in the middle of this destruction.