“You and me, Kurtis, we’re all alone up here. No councilmen, no guards are going stroll by and help you out.” He sliced downward along Kurtis’s spine, making him whimper in pain. “You will tell me what I need to know swiftly, or I promise I’ll have you begging for death when I start carving off body parts.” Magnus grabbed a handful of Kurtis’s hair, yanked him backward, and brought the sword’s edge to his cheek. “I think I’ll start with your nose.”

“No, don’t! Please!” Kurtis shrieked. “If—if I tell you, you will promise to let me leave the palace, alive and unharmed.”

“Very well. And if you lie, I will hunt you down and make you suffer like one of the stray cats you adored so much as a child.”

Kurtis swallowed hard. “The princess has been taken to my father’s castle, where Amara and your father are staying.”

“Much gratitude for the information, Kurtis.”

“Now let me go.”

Magnus pulled his sword away. “A promise is a promise.”

Kurtis reached for the door handle, but before he could turn it, Magnus interrupted him.

“That’s the hand you used to strike her, isn’t it?” Magnus said.

“What are you—?”

Magnus swung his sword, severing the kingsliege’s right hand at the wrist. Kurtis screamed, his eyes wide and wild with shock and pain.

Magnus grabbed him by his shirtfront, turned him around to face him, and slammed him against the wall. “By the way? I lied about not killing you.”

Just before he could plunge his sword into Kurtis’s soft belly, a servant appeared in the hallway, shrieking, pursued by a Kraeshian guard. Magnus turned to look, and Kurtis slammed his head against Magnus’s forehead before tearing off down the hallway, dripping blood in his wake.

Magnus roared with anger and immediately ran after him, but when he turned the next corner, Kurtis had disappeared.

He charged down the stairs and pushed through the palace doors, frantically searching outside for his enemy. The light snowfall of this morning had now become a storm, the skies thick with dark clouds, making it difficult to see more than twenty paces away.

The Limerian palace had been captured. Amara’s army was in control, her guards swarming the grounds like ants. And Magnus was trapped.

He knew he had to fight for his people, to destroy his father and Amara, to take back his kingdom before it was too late.

But right now, at this very moment, all he could think of was Cleo.

CHAPTER 29

LUCIA

PAELSIA

Downstairs at the inn, Lucia forced herself to eat some bread and honey, chewing each piece slowly and methodically before swallowing.

“Rough night?” the server girl asked as she brought some cider to Lucia’s table. “Had a bit too much to drink, did you? I know what that’s like. Stick with Paelsian wine and you won’t have to suffer the next day.”

“I appreciate the advice,” Lucia replied as the girl left to attend to another table of travelers crossing the barren plains of Paelsia.

She’d tried to deny it at first, but now she knew it to be true.

She was pregnant with Alexius’s child.

And she had never felt more confused, terrified, and alone in her entire life.

Kyan slowly approached her table and took a seat across from her. She sipped her cider, not bothering to spare him a glance.

“I need to apologize to you, little sorceress.”

Lucia dunked a piece of the dry bread into the honey and popped it in her mouth.

“My behavior last night . . .” Kyan continued. “My behavior during these past several days, has been inexcusable.”

“I’m glad to hear you admit it,” Lucia said drily.

“That you’re still here this morning, that you haven’t abandoned me, is a miracle.”

Finally she looked up at him. “Do you think I have anywhere else to go?” she said, her tone wracked with accusation. Kyan’s hands were clasped in front of him on the table, and he wore an extremely grave expression.

“I’m unbearable to be around, I know it. I’ve always been this way. It’s . . . in my nature. Fire, you know.”

“Oh, I know it. I know it very well by now.” She let out a long sigh and leaned back in her chair. “So what do you propose we do?”

“You are important to me, little sorceress. You’re the only living thing on earth that still connects me to my family. You are my family.”

Her throat tightened. “Is this how you treat family? With cruelty and abuse?”

“You’re right. You’re absolutely right. I’m sorry.” He leaned forward until she had no choice but to gaze right into his sincere amber eyes. “Here is what I propose. There’s no sense in continuing on in vain with our search for a gateway to the Sanctuary. Instead, we need to find that boy again, the one from the village market. Are you certain he has the obsidian orb?”

She felt a pang in her belly as she thought back to Jonas Agallon and the girl Kyan had killed. “I can’t be completely certain,” she said solemnly. “I thought he did, but perhaps I was wrong. We can look for him. But if we find him, you’ll let me handle him, understood? I won’t let you get carried away again.”

A smile tugged at his lips. “Lucia Damora, magical protector of unworthy mortals.”

“Only because you’ve given me no other choice, oh fearsome fire god.” She let out a sigh and fought a smile of her own. “I forgive you this time. But if you lose your temper again, if you do anything to make me feel like I’m not worthy of your company because I’m nothing but a filthy mortal, we will have a very big problem, you and I.”

“Completely understood,” said Kyan, placing his hands on top of hers. “So. Now that all ill will is healed between us, tell me, little sorceress, how do you feel on this”—he turned and glanced out the window at a sky full of dark storm clouds—“rather gloomy and unpleasant Paelsian day?”

She’d heard it was always gloomy and unpleasant near the Forbidden Mountains.

“How am I?” she repeated.

Pregnant, she thought. I’m pregnant and my magic is weakening because of it.

Lucia couldn’t help but think about the warning Queen Althea had issued her when she was little more than twelve years old.

“Men will tell you lies to get you into their bed, to use you for their own pleasure, only to discard you right after. You must not let this happen. If you do, all you’ll end up with is unwanted children, a wasted life, and squandered potential—all because of a stupid decision to share flesh before a proper marriage. And if your father were to get word of that kind of behavior, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill you.”

What helpful, motherly advice from the woman who’d resented Lucia’s existence since the day Gaius brought her home.

Alexius had used her for plenty of deceitful reasons, but not for her body. She’d given herself to him freely because she thought she was in love with him.

Perhaps she really was.

“Little sorceress,” Kyan said, leaning forward. “Are you still here with me?”

She pulled herself out of her thoughts. “Yes, I’m here. Where else would I be?”