Page 84 of The Blood Crown

She glanced down at the fully healed skin on her forefinger that had been blistered and raw from the dark magick, all evidence of it gone.

Silence hung heavy in the room.

“Lightning,” Nira murmured.

“And compulsion,” Ven added, exchanging a glance with her.

Neither of them had mentioned the new power she’d displayed in that cavern while they’d been intertwined . . .

“Shadows,” she admitted.

Karro stopped his pacing, dark brows flicking up from across the room.

“The shadows are our magick—that’s simple enough,” Nira contemplated, “Andvoraresare rare, but not particular to any one kingdom . . ." She turned to her twin. "Storm magick?”

“The Etheri,” Seth answered.

A fist tightened around her chest at the name. A kingdom she’d never heard them speak of.

“They could control the winds, the tides," Seth explained, his ruby eyes snagging on hers. "Send a summer squall in the dead of winter or throw a battlefield into chaos with impenetrable fog.”

“I suspected the same,” Ven murmured beside her, “but none of them could command lightning—not like you.” Pride resonated in his voice as Aurelia glanced down at her hand, intertwined with his. “They were the only ones who posed a true threat to the King of the Void.” His eyes caught on the map beneath their fingers, to the marred region beside the Allokin kingdom.

Whatever name had been etched there once was now blackened with scorch marks.

“What happened to them.” Dread sluiced down her spine, already guessing at the answer.

“Skyhelm was the first to fall in the war . . . the Dark King struck hard and fast before any of us knew of his plans,” Ven uttered.

Seth loosed a sigh. “The battle for the city was—”

“It was no battle,” Karro spat. “It was an extermination. Children. Infants . . .” Nira clasped a hand around Karro’s arm, breaking off the haunted look in the Wraith’s eyes.

“It would explain why he’s been hunting you,” Nira said.

“One way to find out,” Karro said, earning a pointed look from Ven.

He slipped his fingers inside the pocket at his chest. An iron disk poised between them.

The room was silent, save for the grate of metal on stone as Karro slid the heavy coin across the table.

Aurelia toyed with the collar of her shirt, uncertain why she felt a spark of fear as her eyes fell to it.

It would be a confirmation of what she was—what theythoughtshe was—so why did she hesitate?

Reluctantly releasing her hold on the shirt, she reached for the coin.

Magick hummed in response as her fingers hovered over it, seeming to vibrate with recognition.

Unbidden—a flare of white leapt from her palm, disappearing beneath the age-worn surface of the iron.

Nira blanched. “How—” She jabbed a slender finger onto the moonstone. “If there had been any survivors, we would have found them—we would have known.”

Aurelia clasped her fingertips around the smooth edges of the coin, closing her eyes as she let her power speak to whatever residual magick was still contained in the ancient metal.

I know you,it seemed to say.

And for some inexplicable reason—tears lined her eyes.

---