Page 85 of Vicious Is My Throne

I frowned at the box in my lap and the pile of jumbled shoes it was behind. Definitely hidden. Duke Edric and the duchess kept separate chambers, but I was most familiar with Evangeline’s bedroom since she was the Ravenshade I’d served most often.

Served. I paused, pinching the bridge of my nose.

Gods, I’d despised them, and I hadn’t even realized how much, not really. Not until I’d gotten out of Varitus and discovered what it meant to be free.

I wound the long laces around the boots, set them aside, and tugged the box closer.

Tavion and Raz were in front of the fire arguing over how far they’d have to go to find food, Bexley was poking curiously around the duke’s desk covered in papers and books and dried-up ink wells. Tristan, thank the gods, was hunched over the blazing fire, his hair steaming.

The front of the box had a lock, a small keyhole that didn’t seem the right shape for any key I’d ever seen. The hole was too small, too round. Another glance to make sure they were all distracted, and I sent a pulse of magic streaming into the tiny opening, grinning at the faint metallic click of success.

I flipped the lid back and promptly stopped breathing, blinking at what was nestled into a bed of forest-green, fraying velvet.

A keystone, that much I knew, set into a golden setting, finer than anything that had ever existed in this realm. The setting was engraved with markings and runes I recognized as witch-made, the symbols vaguely recognizable, most likely from all those books I’d paged through at Stormfall’s library.

A keystone, the light at its center gently pulsing.

A keystone set into a witch-made setting.

How had a relic this old and this valuable ended up in Varitus?

I peered at the top of the lid then carved the thick, oily dirt out of the grooves with my fingernail. The keystone in my pocket throbbed in tandem with the one in the box like two beating hearts that were slowly becoming synchronized, and I shivered.

“What did you find?” Raz crouched down, hands hanging loose between his knees.

Since I couldn’t find the words, I turned the box and flipped open the lid.

Raziel’s eyes flared. “What the fuck is something like that doing all the way over here?”

“Thieves and criminals, isn’t that what this place was made for?” I looked around the duke’s sumptuous chamber with new eyes. “It seems the duke…or his ancestors, had sticky fingers. But a keystone?” I shook my head. “There aren’t many of these, Raz. Not many at all.”

I pulled the one out of my pocket and laid them side by side where they pulsed gently with the same inner light, slowly coming into rhythm, as blood pulsed in my ears to that same, soundless beat.

They were the exact same shade of bone white. The same size. The same curve to the top and slightly flattened bottom. In fact, without the engraved, golden setting, I doubted even I could tell them apart.

“When I was inside the Oracle’s head, not this last time,” I clarified, “but before, in Southwell, these were everywhere. Strewn through the black sand like stars in the night sky. I thought I was imagining they were all the same, or by some strange coincidence they looked so similar.”

“And now?”

I closed the lid and scraped my nail through the groove one final time, a line of gold shining brightly. A circle with a meandering line through the center, exactly like a wyvern’s sinuous body. An exact match to the mark branded into Tristan’s chest.

“Now I wonder if these stones once belonged to us.” My voice was the barest whisper. “If we brought them here. As talismans, or lucky charms, or weapons, I don’t know, but Torin told me they’ve been sought after by kings and queens.”

Raz stared at the stone but made no move to touch it. “These stones give power to whomever possesses them. The duke…the Ravenshade bloodline…could have used this to remain in power. There is more latent power contained inside that stone than a full-blooded Fae can command.”

“So if a royal house possessed one of these stones, could that be the source of all their power? Not the magic a Descendant comes into when they turn eighteen?” I shook my head. “Was the whole coming-of-age thing smoke and mirrors?”

But after living amongst these monsters, that explanation made more sense than magic being bestowed upon the likes of Berenger. Or Estienne.

My skin prickled before I managed to throw the memories off, focusing on the stones and the box and the truth I’d uncovered.

The Descendants would have used any means to remain in power, while those who were magicless continued to serve on their knees. Nothing ever explained where the Descendants’ power came from.

Gods-given magic. I snorted. More like stolen.

“Keystones are so rare, I have only ever seen one other in my entire life. And never two at the same time.” Raziel frowned. “Can you feel their power now that they’re close?”

“Gods, yes,” I whispered. “Like I can feel my own heart beating.”

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