Page 101 of A Promise of Peridot
“Has she woken at all?” I asked.
“No.” His voice was hoarse.
“She will, she just needs rest,” Briar said behind me.
I turned. “What happened to her?”
“She’s been poisoned,” Briar said, folding her arms elegantly and leaning back against the windowsill. Purple shafts of sunset highlighted little floating specks of dust hovering in the room’s still atmosphere and painted Briar’s angular face in warm contour.
“Cori and I checked for injuries, ailments, curses, hexes, charms...” She furrowed a brow at the memory. “The amulet she wore... I fashioned that amulet many, many years ago, for my closest friend, Queen Valeria Ravenwood.”
I had never heard Kane’s mother’s name before, but I swore I could feel the air in the room deplete as Kane sucked in a sharp breath.
“It held a simple spell. To protect her from death at the hands of the Fae king in the months leading up to our plot against him.” Briar cut a sidelong glance at Kane. “He wasn’t such a doting husband even before then, if you recall.”
“How come my mother never suffered the same fate as the witch?”
“Valeria was not of my coven. She could never have pulled frommy lineage when she wore it. The amulet only served its intended purpose around her neck. However, Mari here seems to have found a way to use the power I forged the amulet with to bolster her own.”
Mari had been right. The amulethadbeen boosting her power. All this time...
“You say she was doing magic far beyond her skill level?”
Kane nodded at Briar, his mind turning alongside my own.
“And she wore it day and night?”
“She never parted with it,” Griffin said from his corner.
“Once the amulet came off, the debt demanded to be paid. Months and months of bolstered magic... The overindulgence led to withdrawal. Her body is making up for lost time.”
“So, if she rests, she’ll wake up eventually? Fully recovered?”
“We hope.”
“And Mari’s mother... she must have been part of your coven, right? Mari knew the amulet was helping her reach her ancestors.”
Briar’s mouth twisted as she glared at me. “No. As I told you, your friend must have found a way to steal my magic against the wishes of nature. My coven has been extinct for centuries.”
“She would have told me if that were the case.” Mari would have been thrilled if she had discovered such a loophole. She would have shouted it from the Shadowhold rooftops.
“Perhaps she was delusional,” Briar said, eyes chilling. “Believed her own lies.”
Something about Briar’s callousness felt false. Like she was the one putting her faith in made-up stories. “If that’s really what you think,” I pressed, “why do you look so afraid?”
I only registered Cori’s sharp intake of breath as Briar stepped forward, and despite my better judgment, I flinched. But she only walked past me and toward Kane.
“Your castle healer is too bold,” she said, lips lifting upward. “I’m tired of her voice. If anyone is keeping secrets, it’syou, Prince Ravenwood.”
There was something so sinister about referring to Kane as a prince rather than the rightful king of Onyx. Reminding him, and everyone else in the room, who he used to be—who he came from. My mouth turned with distaste.
Kane’s face hardened. “None that I can recall.”
“You’ve spent the past fifty years looking for the last full-blooded Fae. Now you’ve been traveling with a witch pilfering my magic, the prince of a kingdom that despises you, and a healer who has been rumored to have obliterated an army just a month ago in a combustion of light and flame...”
Kane’s crushing silver eyes only flickered. But his lack of response was enough to stoke the tempest within Briar.
“How could you not have told me? I sacrificed everything for you. My life back in Lumera, my power,Perry.And still, I welcomed you into my home, healed your ailing witch, and you planned to leave and never tell me that youfound her? After all this time? After all we lost? Howdareyou?” The glass window behind Briar shattered with her rage and sent a gust of cold air through the room. I jumped at the sound and Cori shuffled out through the door like a well-trained dog.
