Page 42 of Threaded

The Royals each inclined their heads in turn as Ryenne introduced them, still watching Mariah but also refusing to directly meet her gaze. The queen eventually moved on into a conversation of pleasantries, drawing the attention of the lords away. Even Lord Shawth pulled his gaze away, yet Mariah still noticed the lingering cruel smirk that touched his pallid face.

Mariah hardly listened to the words being exchanged between Ryenne and the Royals, focusing instead on keeping her temper and her magic in check. It still pulsed against her skin, clawing just below the surface, pushing forth outrage she was sure didn’t belong to her … or, perhaps, it did. She nodded and smiled when Ryenne did, using the Queen’s actions to lead her own as she lost herself in the whirlwind of her mind. Suddenly, she felt the heavy weight of eyes on her, and her gaze was pulled to the dark stare of Lord Beauchamp. Mariah remembered distantly that he was the Lord of Sacale, a southern coastal city nestled within the cliffs of the Attlehon Mountains, and was the birthplace of her father. Lord Beauchamp was the oldest amongst the lords, his skin wrinkled, body hunched, hair white.

“My Queen … a question, if I may.” The room grew silent as Ryenne turned her attention to the elderly lord.

“Of course, My Lord.” Ryenne dipped her head respectfully, urging him to continue.

The old man nodded at Mariah without looking at her. “What is her family name? I do feel like one of us would have remembered a face and body like that if she were of our own stock, even if she hailed from a distant branch.”

The entire room froze.

Behind her, Mariah felt more than saw the step forward that Sebastian and Quentin took. Across the room, in a corner wreathed in more shadow than the rest, Andrian perked up, the touch of an interested smile on his full lips.

She ignored them all as she locked her gaze on the old lord, his own still focused on Ryenne, as if Mariah were not even in the room.

Mariah saw Ryenne take a breath to speak.

Again, she decided she didn’t want the queen being the one to fight her battles for her.

“My family name, My Lord, is Salis.” Her voice was as cold as the cataclysmic anger now freezing over in her belly. She knew her eyes glinted with a hint of the magic coiling unchecked through her veins like a thousand snakes. “My father’s family hails from Sacale, just as you do. I am common born, but I am as much Onitan as you.” She paused, seething for a moment as she planned her next words carefully. “I’m also my own woman and am sitting at this table, just as Ryenne is. So please, do your future queen the simplecourtesyof directing your questions to her, and not speaking of her as if she weren’t seated no more than ten feet from you.”

The room was silent for several heartbeats, frozen as each player watched and waited for the move of the other. The world held its breath, the powers inside Mariah writhing to her skin as the last of her control vanished like mist. Threads of silver and gold ached for freedom, prodding their way into her fingertips, scraping for a chance to rip their way into the world.

Another aging lord—Lord Campion of Kasia—broke the silence. But instead of addressing Mariah, he chose to speak to the other gathered Royals, ignoring the blazing green gaze of the dark-haired woman with light pushing out from under her skin.

“Well, this is very much unfortunate, and I dread for the future of this kingdom. But there is naught to be done now. She wasn’t raised properly and will need to be trained before we can allow her to ascend the throne. Ryenne—”

The room erupted in burning light, silencing the Lord of Kasia.

CHAPTER19

Light and power poured from every inch of her, sweeping through the room in a wave of undiluted wrath. Somewhere, in the distant recesses of her mind, Mariah thought she heard someone scream.

Burning, burning, burning. She’d kept that magic forced down for too long, her still-weak grasp on her control not enough to hold it back when the Royals had set her anger on fire, those twin spheres of power unleashing themselves through her. Both the silver and gold threads of light craved freedom, to exact her will, to solidify the place the Goddess had chosen her to hold. And she gave in to that urge, letting the magic burn through the remaining shreds of her humanity.

Ryenne hadn’t warned her, hadn’t spoken of this feeling, this wild hunger and rage.

And truthfully, she wasn’t particularly keen to let it go.

Mariah thought she felt someone grab her arm, thought she saw a pair of ocean-blue eyes filled with panic flood her vision, but it all quickly faded away into the background of the hurricane of power enveloping her. All she could see, all she could feel, was silver and gold full of both death and life, spinning through the world as if different sides of the same coin.

It felt so good, felt soright. And she had no intentions of reining it back in.

That is, until a figure exuding solid strength gripped her arm, the hands on her skin firm yet calming, soothing. She couldn’t see much beyond eyes and auras, but when she turned her head in idle curiosity, she was met with hazel irises shrouded in a cool gray. A name filled her mind, a name that blocked out some of the vengeful chaos still flowing freely through the air.

Sebastian.

She repeated his name to herself like a chant, as if it were an anchor to bind her amidst the magic exploding from her. Mariah felt those threads of light slowly begin to retreat, pulling from the very edges of the room, seeping back to where they rested, hesitantly, under the surface of her skin. Sebastian’s form began to take the place of that dark shroud: olive skin, handsome face, dark hair, the black dress clothes detailed in gold that he and the rest of her Armature had donned for this meeting.

And that was when Mariah remembered.

Her blood ran cold as she felt herself regain just enough control to pull her gaze from Sebastian, glancing around the room as her magic began to filter back into her skin.

As she took in the devastation she’d wrought.

The Royals still sat around the table, but their eyes had dipped, arms thrown up to cover their faces to hide from the inferno of light that had poured from Mariah. Slowly, Mariah watched Shawth, Laurent, Cordaro, and Hareth drop their hands from where they’d been gripped tight over their eyes, blinking rapidly as if to clear the blinding light still lingering in their gazes. A part of her, the part that was less vengeful, more cautious, was relieved to see the lords relatively unharmed.

Her relief was fleeting, however, as she realized the same couldn’t be said of the two remaining lords. Her insides turned to ice as she turned her attention to Campion and Beauchamp. Campion was breathing, but his eyes … He’d clearly not been able to cover his gaze fast enough before Mariah erupted. The whites of his eyes were shot through with red, the eyelids frozen as if they, too, hadn’t snapped shut fast enough. A mist-gray shroud was slowly dropping over his irises, and his chest heaved as he snapped his head to and fro, trying and failing to focus his gaze on something, anything.

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