Page 59 of Secrets & Curses of Cerithia

“I’ll marry Thea,” Cassius declared loudly. “Should we ask her if she’d rather marry me or Jesper?” He snapped viciously at my father. “I would tread very fucking lightly if I were you, Luren.” There was an unspoken statement that passed between them. His declaration made my stomach clench tightly.

“You disrespect me by using my first name,” my father hissed.

“You are not my king, and even if you were, I don’t respect you enough to ever address you formally. In fact, there is only one royal member in your family I respect, and that is Princess Thea.”

Gods, his words were affecting me. My cheeks burned as everyone seemed to be watching me. I tried to shield how I was feeling.

“She is not a princess,” my father snapped. “At least not yet.”

My father’s jab made Cassius take an angry step toward him, but he seemed to realize what he was doing and stopped.

“So, you’re saying that you will not declare peace with Crimson? Do you want war?” King Sybrien asked.

“Nobody wants war! The choice is not ours. Crimson can still concede our land back to us and admit their wrongdoing. We will give them a little longer to change their minds before we go to war. But if we do declare war, then we will expect the other kingdoms to make their alliances with us or with the heathens of Crimson.”

“This is not our war,” the King of Falgon scoffed. “You would make enemies out of all of us but Kizar?”

“If you do not stand with Cerithia, then you will fall just as the prophet spoke.” All the kings’ eyes shifted to me. “Thea has made her decision, and that is to fight for Cerithia and Kizar.”

I wanted to scream that I didn’t choose them.

“We are to believe that this woman is capable of all this destruction?” Falgon’s king looked at me with skepticism. “Shehas taken a beating from someone, obviously, yet she can kill us all with a single flick of her wrist. I don’t believe it.”

Jesper pushed me up so forcefully that I stumbled in front of them. I now stood in the center of the circle as the leaders of the kingdoms looked over me like I was nothing spectacular. Except for those from the Crimson Kingdom, who all looked like it pained them to see me like this.

“You want a show of Thea’s magic?” Jesper asked as he glared at me.

They all hesitated.

“Of course, Thea won’t hurt anyone. Right, darling?” Jesper demanded a verbal reply.

“Of course,” I said. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. Well, except Jesper and my father, that is. Even with Cassius so close, I didn’t feel the urge to hurt him anymore.

"Alright, Thea, darling, show them why they should fear you,” he smiled. I could only stand there and look at him like he was an idiot. Did he not remember I was in magic-barbed cuffs? “Thea?” he said, irritated.

I lifted the sleeves of my Cerithia captain uniform and showed my magic barbs. Jesper stood and came over to me, unwrapping them with more force than necessary. As soon as they were off, my fire mist shot out of me without permission, knocking Jesper back forcefully. It did not like to be contained like a caged animal.

“We thought you would all feel more comfortable knowing she was barbed,” Jesper lied through his teeth. “If you harm me or your father, I have guards on standby to slaughter every last one of them,” he whispered as he gave my cheek a soft kiss. Jesper sat down and nodded for me to give them some sort of show.

I rubbed my sore wrists for a moment, then did as he asked. My fire mist snaked across the ground toward each king, but it didn’t touch them. Instead, my fire mist rose up and around eachof the kings so that only the five of them and I were in my trap. All their eyes widened with fear, except for the King of Crimson. He smiled proudly at me. I lowered my fire wall and saw that all the guardsmen had weapons drawn at me. I ignored them as I pulled out Haden’s ice magic from deep within me.

I let it seep out of my hands and freeze the flowers in the room before moving to the guardsmen’s weapons. They froze instantly. It was then that I felt Cassius’ shadow magic surfacing around me, and I let it. Dark swarms of shadows grew and surrounded me in a black tornado, making my hair whip around at the force of it. My eyes met Cassius through my shadows, and his sadness nearly floored me. I turned away from him, and my eyes met King Sybrien. My healing magic hummed in my veins like it could sense that he needed it, but I didn’t do anything about it yet. I don’t think they wanted me to heal others. Instead, I closed my eyes and felt my invisible tendrils of darkness move throughout the crowd of men in here, looking for new magic to pull from. I smiled when I felt the first one.

I thought I was pulling shapeshifting from Kace, but instead of turning into the small animal I had seen him become at the trials, my body instead morphed into a large bird, and I shot up to the ceiling of the castle room we were in before dropping back down as myself. I needed to pull as much magic as I could from those around me while I had the chance. Using the excuse of showing off my powers was a perfect cover-up for it. The more I pulled, the more I collected inside of me. My darkness called out to me to keep taking.Take. Take. Take. Power. Power. Power.I closed my eyes and found my next magical victim quickly.

Looking around, I focused on a guard from Kizar staring at me in horror. I smiled at him as his elite magic pumped into my veins. As soon as I had made contact with him, though, a pulse shot out of me, radiating throughout the room, stopping everything in its tracks. The fire, the shadows, and even all of thepeople had stopped moving completely. I looked around us at everyone, frozen in time as I walked to him.

“You have elite magic.” He looked at me with terror as I spoke it.

“They do not know. I will be killed.”

“Your secret is safe with me,” I assured the guardsmen of Kizar. He immediately bowed to me. “How long does this last?” I asked.

“When I do it, I can only hold it for fifteen seconds at most. This is longer than anything I can do.” He stood and looked around at everyone, running his hand through his dark hair. “It only freezes this moment; outside of this room, everyone will be moving at a normal rate.”

“What a wonderful gift.” I smiled at him, my compliment taking him by surprise. I then moved away from him and unfroze the room. Then I played with this new magic again. I refroze everyone but kept my focus on keeping King Sybrien with me. He looked around the room as I walked toward him.

“What the fuck did you do?” he asked, as he tried scooting away from me like I was going to murder him. “Get back, Thea.”

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