Marai reached for her magic. She tried to create a portal, but she came up empty, a mere pulse. A tendril of dark magic stroked across her consciousness. Anger and desperation flaring, Marai contemplated reaching for it.
I could use it again to save Ruenen.
“Don’t you dare call upon it.” Keshel’s voice was as sharp as the crack of a whip.
The desert came back into focus. Marai hadn’t realized how quickly she’d tunneled into herself, into her empty well of magic. She’d never seen Keshel so concerned.
“I can feel it in the air; the dark magic writhing, a heaving weight. You can do nothing for the prince. He’s dead. You cannot use that magic ever again, not for any reason. Not even to save a friend.”
“You said it yourself, if Ruenen dies, then we all die. I have to do something to save him,” Marai said. The ring on her finger vibrated, sensing her pull on the dark magic.
“You’ll do more harm if you let that magic consume you. You’re stronger than dark magic.” Keshel put his hands on her shoulders and stared directly into her eyes. It was unnerving; Marai had always hated direct eye contact. It had always felt too intimate, and Keshel’s gaze burned. “The prince wouldn’t want that. You need to let him go.”
She didn’t know what was right anymore. Her resolve crumbled. Keshel pulled her into his arms. He said nothing more. All he did was breathe with her. Big breaths, in and out. He helped steady her. Marai’s head cleared, the dark magic receded its pull, and Marai felt empty once again.
She could do nothing for him, not in her weakened state. She couldn’t portal. She couldn’t stop the chain of events from happening. Ruenen would die, and Astye would be thrown into peril. Marai would never reach him in time, and if she left, she’d abandon her people to fend off Rayghast’s forces alone. He would come for the last of the fae. Rayghast would track them down to the Badlands and slaughter them in their cave, and Marai would lose everyone she cared about.
She had to make a choice. A gut-wrenching, devastating choice: go after Ruenen, but fail to save him, dooming her people in the process . . . or stay. Stay and fight. Stay and grow stronger; learn to control her magic.
Marai couldn’t wallow in despair any longer. With a breaking heart, she made her decision.
I’m so sorry, Ruen.
As Keshel said, she had to let him go.
I can protect my people. At least I can do that much.
She didn’t know how skilled Raife, Leif, and Aresti were in fighting. They could help fend off the hunters, but Marai alone knew Rayghast, had felt his twisted faerie magic in his mortal body, the dark magic that snaked under his skin. If her people wouldn’t leave the safety of the cave, she’d have to prepare herself, prepare them all, to fight him and the legions he would send their way.
War was coming.
Marai stepped back from Keshel. “I won’t let us die here. I won’t allow Rayghast’s men to massacre us, the way he did our parents.”
No, she knew what needed to be done. Tomorrow, Marai would need to convince her people to fight back.
Chapter 4
Marai
Ruenen plagued Marai at night, as if he knew her decision to stay. He dangled from the ceiling in the Tacorn dungeon as Rayghast whipped him. Strips of leather flayed the skin from Ruenen’s back; it peeled away in bloody patches. Chained to the wall, Marai was forced to watch every strike. Flames of black magic consumed Ruenen’s wrecked body, melting bones as he screamed. Until he went silent. Until his body hung limp. Until his heart stopped beating . . .
Marai bolted awake, sweat plastering her shirt to her chest.
It had felt real, visceral, as Marai’s nightmares always did. She used to dream of Slate’s hands on her body. Of how he used to force himself upon her. This time, she’d smelled the tang of Ruenen’s blood that coated the floor.
Marai steeled herself for the path she’d chosen. She couldn’t save Ruenen, but she could save herself and her people.
The others were surprised to see her at breakfast. A piece of egg dangled from Leif’s open mouth. Raife’s eyebrows were high on his forehead as he watched Marai sit.
“You seem better today,” Kadiatu said with a smile.
Marai had decided to take a step forward. It hurt less than standing still. She shoveled fried lizard eggs into her mouth.
“You no longer look like a lost forlorn child, at least,” said Aresti, who received an agreeing murmur from Leif. “What’s put you in such a vigorous mood?”
Marai glanced at Keshel, who met her gaze across the fire, but said nothing. “He hasn’t told you what he saw last night?”
The others stilled.
Keshel remained silent.
“King Rayghast of Tacorn will soon control the entire Middle Kingdoms. I’ve had the unfortunate experience of meeting him, so he knows that not everyone with faerie blood was slaughtered when he attacked the camps years ago. He knows we still exist.”
“And how is that our problem?” asked Leif.
“You’d be foolish to think Rayghast won’t come sniffing around, searching for more of us,” Marai said. “He won’t believe that I’m the only fae still living. Keshel saw the riders. They’re coming.”
“Then perhaps you should leave, so you won’t draw his attention here?” Leif asked with a dark glare. “He’s after you, not us.”
Before Marai could retort with something snide, Raife said, “He doesn’t mean that.”
Marai’s fingers tightened on her fork, which she then thrust in Keshel’s direction. “He saw the ruin of our way of life.”
Thora and Kadiatu gasped. Raife dropped his fork with a clatter onto his clay plate.
“Ruin?” repeated Kadiatu with a wavering lower lip.
Keshel frowned. “This isn’t how I wanted to tell you all.”
