Page 85 of A Crown of Tears and Treason
“Yes, exactly. Learn how to dig inside you and decide when and how you want to channel it,” Allie said. “And when you do…it’s going to be amazing.”
Did I hope? Could I dare? “Really?”
“Channeling power without incantations? That’s the stuff of legends, Evie.” Allie smiled. “Imagine what you can do in battle if you don’t waste time on incantations. I think Adriana herself might come out of the grave, wherever that is, to witness it.”
The bubble of excitement quickly dissipated as Allie’s smile grew. She trusted me. She believed in me.
And I had to disappoint her.
I twisted my sore fingers. Maybe if I could focus on the physical pain, it would eat up the emotional one.
“I–I actually wanted to ask you about warding spells.” I struggled to meet Allie’s confused eyes. “Protectorate warding spells.”
“They’re a mix of protective and concealment charms, depending on the caster’s needs–”
“No. An important question.”
“I’m listening,” Allie said cautiously.
And she did. She listened as I mumbled and trembled my way through that awful night. The running away that didn’t even happen. The masks. The three men. My parents. Their lifeless eyes and slit throats.
By the end of it, both I and Allie had tears in our eyes that refused to fall down our cheeks. A hollow silence clung between us.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” were the first words out of Allie’s mouth, choked and ragged. “I would have gutted the entire world to protect you from Fabrian.”
“I was afraid he’d kill you, too. If he was involved with the assassins who managed to find and kill my parents…I didn’t know what he was capable of and I wasn’t about to risk any of your lives to find out.”
“I still can’t believe it.” Allie took an uneven breath. “Throats slit?”
I nodded, gulping down more tears that refused to fall. My parents hated seeing me cry.
“There’s been a slew of murders like that in the past three years,” Allie said.
I froze. “Think they’re connected?”
She hesitated. Finally, Allie shook her head. “It’s a coward’s way to take a life. It’s fast. You can attack before true magic wielders can obliterate you. They were muggings, nothing more.Whoever those assassins are, they weren’t there to rob your parents.”
“They stole me.”
Allie shook her head. “The other attackers have already been caught and executed. Common cutpurses couldn’t have killed Mara and Falor.”
I kept on nodding, stuck in ghostly memories.
“Evie…it wasn’t your fault,” Allie whispered.
Instead of relief, my heart tightened. Zandyr had said the same thing, but I still couldn’t believe it, not really.
Allie cleared her throat and licked her lips. Two blinks later, she was back to her unflinching self. The Huntress had come out to deal with the issue that was too harsh for Allie to tame. “What I’m about to tell you will be difficult to hear.”
I gulped. “I’m ready.”
“May the gods go easy on them, but…” Allie shook her head. “Mara and Falor lied to you.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Excuse me?”
“Protectorate wards don’t work like that. Any piece of magic, minor or major, takes something from you. Power means sacrifice,” Allie said. I thought back to how utterly depleted I felt after my light tendrils had incinerated the Serpents. “Even Mara and Falor, who had more power than the rest of the family, couldn’t have sustained a protective zone that vast for so long. A week, maybe. Two weeks, and they would’ve been bedridden. No living being can maintain a concealment spell for years.”
My breaths turned shorter. Harsher. A part of me wanted to believe, but the other…the other seethed.
