The more she spoke, the more she realized she was actually telling the truth. Magnus wasn’t evil like his father. He never had been. She’d heard him try to reason with the council. She’d seen how much he cared about this kingdom. And she was certain that he would never try to harm her, no matter what she said or did. All of this, this cold, seemingly impenetrable façade, was just that: a thin shell protecting the genuine soul that lay beneath.

“How curious that you’ve come to this monumental realization only after I found the orb.”

But he truly was infuriating sometimes.

“Kurtis came to see me earlier,” Magnus said, before Cleo could reply. “Do you know why?”

“To tell you I’ve quit archery?”

“No, but it’s adorable that you think I’d care about something so trivial. Kurtis came to me because he wanted me to know he’d been discussing politics with you. He told me about all the issues you and he seem to agree upon, my being unfit to rule Limeros being one of them.”

Cleo waved her hand dismissively. “He greatly exaggerates.”

“Does he? Or is this another little partnership you’ve hidden from me?”

“Can’t you see that I’m here today trying to right the wrongs between us, Magnus?” she said, her patience wearing thin and brittle. “But you refuse to let me.”

“If I told you about the things Kurtis has done in the past, you wouldn’t want to go anywhere near him.”

If Magnus refused to play nice, neither would she. “I suppose that’s something you two have in common, then.”

Magnus furrowed his brow, as if confused. “When we were children, Kurtis used to enjoy murdering animals, watching them suffer.”

The thought of having spent so much time with a deranged young man sickened her. But Magnus couldn’t possibly be telling her the truth. She decided to send a jab right back at him. “And you, on the other hand, enjoy murdering people I love. Which pastime is worse?”

Magnus glared at her with sudden fury. “You pretend to know me? You spit out venom like that moments after trying to gain my confidence, and all it shows is that you don’t know me at all. You want this orb so badly, do you? Perhaps we can split it.”

He turned, a look of rage still fixed on his face, and threw the earth Kindred against the stone wall. All went silent as he looked down at his empty hand in shock.

A moment later, the ground began to rumble beneath their feet.

“No,” he whispered.

Cleo’s heart leapt into her throat. Her memory shot back to their wedding day, and the elemental earthquake that had destroyed the Temple of Cleiona, killing so many.

Frozen with fear, she watched as a gaping crack snaked across the floor, creating a deep rift in the stone that separated her and Magnus, then traveling up to the spot on the wall where the orb had made contact.

Then, as suddenly as the quake had started, the earth ceased shaking.

Cleo covered her mouth as relief flowed over and through her.

Magnus darted toward the orb and picked it up, inspecting it closely. “It’s not damaged at all.”

Cleo drew closer to see for herself. He was right; though the room was now in chaotic disrepair, the Kindred itself had remained fully intact. The thread of magic within it now spun faster, more frantically, than she’d seen it before.

“I think you made it mad,” she said, breathlessly.

“For a moment, I thought—” Magnus locked his gaze with hers and his brows drew together. “Cleo . . .”

A loud squawk startled them.

They turned to see a hawk come to perch on a windowsill. It looked in at them with a cocked head, then flapped its wings, flew up and in through the window, and swooped toward them, so close that they both had to duck. The hawk dropped something onto the council table and then, after one final squawk, flew back out the window.

Magnus stared after it, jaw slack. “That’s never happened before.”

He picked up the piece of parchment the hawk had left behind, unrolled it, and read the message.

When he finished, he swore loudly, then roughly handed the message to Cleo.

Prince Magnus—

I write to warn you that the king will be arriving on Mytican shores very soon, followed by a Kraeshian armada of twenty ships. Your father believes he has entered into an agreement that will make Mytica a part of the Kraeshian Empire, with him ruling over all. But he’s wrong. Amara has poisoned her family—the emperor and her brothers—and is now Empress of Kraeshia. She’s interested in Mytica only for its magic. She will stop at nothing to possess it. The king will come to Mytica bearing news of a peaceful occupation, but because of Amara, we believe it will be anything but.

We will return as soon as we can.—Jonas

Cleo’s hands trembled as she placed Jonas’s message back on the table.

“I had no idea my father was this stupid,” Magnus said.

“We need to warn everyone that we may soon be under attack,” Cleo said.

“I agree with Agallon that my father has done nothing to earn a reputation as a peaceful ruler . . . but I don’t believe that he would just stand by and let Amara have her way with Mytica. Perhaps he agreed to this under duress. Perhaps he has another plan, and he’ll come straight to us with it when he arrives.”

“No, Magnus. I’m sorry, but I think Jonas is right. The king is thinking only of himself, he’s driven by nothing but his own greed. You and I know how dangerous Amara can be, but he probably he sees her as nothing more than a weak, young girl he can manipulate and control.”

“A weak, young girl who apparently murdered her family in cold blood to take all the power for her own. We watched her kill Prince Ashur right in front of us, we should have known something like this would happen next. I wonder how long she’s planned this.”

Cleo wrung her hands. “What are we going to do?”

He began pacing back and forth alongside the table. “Cronus was always the expert on defensive strategy,” he said. A mournful tone entered his voice as he mentioned the name of the captain of the guard who’d stood watch over Cleo as she awaited execution in the dungeon.

“How unfortunate, then, that you killed him,” Cleo said unpleasantly.

“Yes, it is unfortunate. That was a mistake I’ve come to regret more and more with each passing day.”

Her breath caught in her chest. “Do you mean to tell me that you regret saving my life?”

“That one, foolish choice marks the moment that has destroyed my entire life. This”—he gestured at the note—“is final evidence of that.”

Even at his harshest, even when he was being unbearably hateful, at least Cleo had been able to hold on to the memory of that day when he’d chosen to save her life whenever she needed to convince herself Magnus wasn’t the monster his father had tried to create. No matter the motivations he claimed were driving him on that day—he was worried about Lucia, he was mad at his father, it had nothing to do with Cleo herself—the end result remained. He, alone, had saved her life. He, alone, had defied the king and acted out of kindness.

But if he really did regret it, then that hope, that belief in his good heart . . . all of it was erased.

A stormy mixture of anger and pain swirled within her. “How dare you say that to me!”