Page 58 of A Crown of Tears and Treason
Seventeen
EVIE
“It should have been a normal night. I went to bed, plotting my fiance’s murder and checking for any traps hidden between my sheets. Then I get jolted awake by a six foot five Commander telling me one of my cousins might die and that the Blood Brotherhood master healer, who I trust less than their king and queen, are doing their best to save said cousin. I thought for sure Dax had gotten into a row with his poisonous fiancee. Then I found out it was you,” Allie said, her forehead crinkled with concerned wrinkles. “And that you fought the most venomous snake in all of Malhaven. In your own house.”
“And I won.” I raised my steaming cup of tea to Allie’s face in the portal and took a sip. I shivered at the bitter taste, but Goose had been right. It helped with the pain–and to give me some courage to seek out Adara later.
“You did.” Allie sighed in relief and gave me a small smile, before the creases returned with a vengeance. “I still can’tbelieve their magic can freeze us. Bastards. How did you break past it?
“I honestly don’t know.” My brush with death was still a blur. “One second I couldn’t move, and then my chest heated up. I felt…” I licked my lips. My gaze wandered, willing my mind to grasp onto the shreds of memories trying to escape my grasp. “Like an inferno tried to break out of me. It let me move enough to cut myself, but I couldn’t control it. Or direct it.”
When I finally looked back at Allie, she was staring at me with a strange expression on her face. Was that…pride?
“It’s always unnerving when your magic first manifests,” she said, beaming.
The cup almost slipped from my fingers. “That wasn’t your magic?”
“It wasyours.”
The realization struck me with the power of a hundred lightning bolts. Thousands.
I’d done magic.
Ihad donemagic.
Well, the magic had done whatever it had wanted, but I’d been its very willing conduit.
“I did it,” I said slowly, not really believing it, a smile blooming on my own face. “I did it!”
“You did!”
“I–” I tried jumping to my feet, but the bands swathing my leg burned. The skin was still raw and red underneath the white gauze. I hissed and sat back down. “I can’t walk, but I didthat.”
Allie pierced me with her forest gaze, endless and intimidating. “Do it again.”
“What?”
Allie nodded encouragingly, scrapping her chair closer to her own side of the portal. “Do it.”
“I don’t know how I managed the first time.”
“You’ve felt magic through my spell. Your power must be hungry to come out after that first whiff, so let it. Don’t worry, I’ll guide you through it.”
I wiggled in my chair, careful not to jostle my leg, eager to stretch my power and find its limits. There was still a hint of hesitation dampening my enthusiasm, but I shook my head, splayed my palms on the table, and took a deep, centering breath. “Let’s do it.”
I was in the Blood Brotherhood Capital, almost two months away from marrying Zandyr, and doing magic. I blinked away the ghosts of my parents’ disappointed gazes, instead focusing on Allie’s smiling face.
“Close your eyes and breathe deeply,” Allie said, voice a lullaby.
I did as she instructed, blood pumping fast. I flexed my fingers on top of the table, grounding myself in the feel of the wooden grooves.
“Reach inside yourself. Remember the sensation that coursed through you when you felt the first tendrils of magic. How was it?” Allie went on.
I frowned. “There weren’t any tendrils.”
“No?”
“No. It was more of a…burst?”
