Page 27 of Song of Night

Theft of all the magic in Aureon?

My mind spins. Does that mean the day Asher accidentally unleashed the wild magic that nearly demolished Night, over two hundred years prior, he summoned it from…

Everywhere?

I can’t even wrap my head around it.

“It was a nice touch, though insulting, that you tried to hide your magic from me when you came here,” Vyrin continues, his sadistic smile back in place. “But I felt it stir last night, and I feel it now, crouching within you.”

Horror rises in my throat. He had felt when we…dark goddess.

“You have everything wrong,” Asher growls, his eyes shooting daggers at the king. “We did not attempt to steal the magic. It was a terrible accident that caused—still causes—great suffering for our people. We had no idea there was a loss of magic beyond our borders.”

Vyrin laughs, high-pitched and sharp like broken bottles. “A likely story. One that I do not believe even for a moment.”

“But if you don’t have magic,” I begin, shaking my head, “Then how did you…last night, at the ball. Everything seemed strange.”

“Without magic, we have become skilled alchemists,” Vyrin responds. “I find that adding a little something to the air makes the ball more exciting for everyone.” A grin, revealing teeth that look wrong somehow. Too pointed.

I remember the sweet floral smell in the ballroom, and my eyes widen.

“I swear to you, we are not hiding magic intentionally,” Asher says. “If I knew how to give it back, I would.”

“Full of altruism, are you?” Vyrin’s face twists with anger. “How convenient that when my armies were within days of crushing your father’s forces you somehow erect an impenetrable barrier around your city and siphon all the power in all the realms behind that barrier. It’s genius, really. Why would any sane man give it back?” He runs a hand over his face. “You must think me an imbecile. A fool of the highest order.”

“I can share the truth, but I cannot force you to accept it,” Asher growls.

“Truth.” Vyrin pauses for several long moments, a strangling silence falling across the room like fingers around my throat. “I will share my truth now,” he finally says.

“Last night, while you danced and drank and enjoyed my hospitality, five thousand warriors traveled through the rift you made in the Waste. They are, as we stand here, waging war on your dear city, and preparing to reclaim what was taken from us. From me.”

Nausea and horror rush through my body at the thought of Vyrin’s forces taking over Night. My home. And following on the heels of that emotion is rage. It is not black, it is violet, that heart of wild magic within me.

“You’re making a grave error,” I say, my voice burning with the flame of that power. “You cannot control the magic of Night.”

Vyrin’s face twists, his beautiful features morphing. For a moment, I swear I see ram’s horns sprouting from his head and fangs protruding from his mouth, superimposed over his own skull.

“I am the creator of you all,” he intones, and his voice resonates around the room. “I was here at the dawn of time, and I will be here when the earth dissolves into the blood-red sea. I will be the stardust that remains, eons after you are dead and devoured by worms. There is no magic I cannot master.”

A shiver runs through me, and Asher takes a step closer.

“This is what I will do, to make you pay for your crimes. Crimes of the highest order.” Vyrin points at Asher. “I am going to take you with me in three days time, when your city has fallen to its knees and is no longer recognizable. We will travel there so you can stare upon the waste of everything you built, and I will taste your pain. Then I will chain you up somewhere with a good view of the destruction and watch as you waste away, deprived of blood and souls, going mad from hunger. And then, I will revive you just before you expire so I can start the whole process again.”

Asher trembles with fury beside me and the line that runs between us, the string of wild magic that connects me to him, burns hotter than a star.

“But first,” Vyrin says, and his gaze pivots to mine. “First, I will spend those three days enjoying your little blood slave in all the ways I know you do. Because we both know she’s more than that. And I’m going to find out exactly how much more.”

“If you touch me, I will kill you slowly in ways your imagination cannot comprehend,” I growl.

Vyrin laughs again. “It would bring me great pleasure to see you try.”

He makes a gesture, and the guards at our back swarm us.

There are only a dozen of them, and within moments we’ve taken them all down, even without weapons. That, however, is when the other three dozen, who’d been lined up along the walls, come rushing to their aid. And the tiny glimmer of magic we’d recovered isn’t enough to fight off that many.

They drag us apart, leading us in opposite directions.

“Zara!” Asher yells.

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