Page 48 of The King's Queen

“Good news, my theory was correct. Bad news, you’re dying.”

“What theory, you asshole!” I hiss as the searing pain reaches my head. The scent of charred human flesh floods my nostrils, and a slight rumbling begins to appear.

“I’ll explain in a minute.” He groans. “Hold your breath!” Deciding not to argue due to both pain and fatigue, I inhale one last time right before I hear a splash and a coolness washing over my body. The swelling of my body dies down enough for me to open my eyes. Rowan and I are underwater. His chest and arms are red and bubbling with blisters from carrying me, but I watch in shock as the skin slowly knits itself back together, and his burns heal. Slowly the heat in my body rescinds, and I’m left feeling nothing but the cool water around me.

We breach the surface moments later, a wild fear and guilt plaguing Rowan’s tense features. We both sputter for breath, and his wet hair splatters across his forehead.

“What fucking theory, you jerk.” I shove hard against his chest, sending us both back under the water as I disentangle our limbs. His eyebrows furrow, and he jumps up immediately.

“You have magic.”

I’m left blindly stuttering at that. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He snarls lowly. “Don’t lie to me Vera, we’re beyond that.”

A retort fights its way up my throat, but I’m quick to swallow it. Any progress we had made only a few moments before is destroyed with a few simple words. I wasn’t brought here for anything other than Rowan’s personal motives, as per usual. I was foolish to think that anything could change.

“It’s nothing more than a party trick.” I wait for Rowan to nod his head before diving to the bottom of the natural pool and grabbing a handful of silt. The water smooths out the edges of my anger. Perhaps it contains both sedatives and healing properties. I stay under the water a moment more until I feel the desire to strangle Rowan subside enough to emerge back into the open.

“You were down there a while.” The urge returns.

Nonetheless, I lead him to a shallow point of the lake, where I don’t have to continue to tread water. The mercenary follows, shaking his hair out like some giant wet dog. The droplets platter across my face, and if he hadn’t just saved my life, I would’ve smacked him.

Though he did put it in danger in the first place, for whatever this theory was.

Some of the silt escapes my hands as my fingers unfurl, and Rowan watches unamused as I lift my palms skyward. Taking a deep steadying breath, I feel deep into my core, reaching for the magic that threatened to burn me alive only moments before. For a moment, fear grips my heart, if I burn up again…

The gentle waves of the lake and rumble of the waterfall behind us steadies my hands, and I breathe deeply. Rowan watches intently as I latch onto the magic and siphon it into the silt.

“Lumis.”

Immediately, a dull glow forms, but it’s not enough. I reach into myself again and push the magic to flow through my veins, enhanced by my pureblood blessings, and let it flow freely from my hands into the silt. Slowly, it is no longer silt in my hands, but glowing specs of light that float forwards into the air.

More. I push the lights higher, until they float around us of their own accord, some going as far as to stick in Rowan’s hair and across his face. We wade deeper out into the water, the lights fluttering slowly. I’m sure many are stuck in my hair now and laugh to myself. Rowan’s face is a mixture of horror and wonder as the lights bob gently against the water or our skin before drifting into the air again.

Slight steam begins to form around my hands as the water dries. Too much, I was using too much all at once. I rarely used this gift in the palace, Irene’s warnings of what would happen if people learned that I had these powers still stark in my mind. Her deep, violet eyes stare into my heart, and the lights extinguish all at once, and the lights turn back into dirt before falling to the ground.

“Vera?”

“Does that prove your theory?” I pant, my limbs suddenly heavy and hanging by my side like lead. The fatigue seeps deep into my bones, and I swim back to shore before I drown. The thrum of power beneath my skin dulls, content with being released.

I turn to lay on my back, still in the shallow water. I can’t say I’m particularly mad at Rowan. I should have expected there to be some convoluted scheme behind this trip, but a heavy disappointment still settles in my chest. I thought we’d come far enough to consider ourselves friends, and yet, I feel like no more than a stepping stone for him to achieve his own goals.

The water ripples, and I can hear a slight sloshing before Rowan settles next to me, following suit and laying sprawled out on his back. He folds his hands across his chest and stares skywards, as if he could still see the lights floating around us in the dying daylight.

“I never thought it would hurt you.” He lifts his arms to show his burns fully healed, but his white tunic is still charred from where my burning skin had scorched him. “There’s so little information written on people like you that I just didn’t know. I thought it didn’t have any repercussions, unlike dark magic. I guess I wasn’t thinking realistically.”

His hair floats around his face as if in a golden halo. Compared to my dark and angular features, I think he looks more like a pureblood than I do. In this light, he is the spitting image of Emilie.

“I was trying to help you. The only thing I could find in the library on the pureblood mages is that if they went without using their magic for prolonged periods of time, the magic would burn them up from inside. When I started seeing those signs in you, like your eyes faintly glowing during training, or this raw aura of power that seems to follow you, I… I wanted to spare you from that fate. I thought this would awaken the magic enough for a release; I never would have brought you here if I had known what would happen. I would’ve found another way.”

We don’t look at each other, but I can still feel the lingering question in the air. How would things shift after today? With both this knowledge of my magic being greater than I’d thought and Rowan suddenly behaving like a decent human, it feels like the earth is being pulled out from beneath my feet. But in the end, he had been honest, something that is rare in my life these days.

I close my eyes. “You’re lucky I’m too exhausted to punch you.”

Rowan’s laughter sends waves through the small pool that splashes up against the sides of my face. “I suppose I should be relieved.”

I hum, the weariness in my bones settling deep now as I fight the urge to doze off. If this was only the surface of my power and using it drained me this much, I can’t imagine how exhausting the full extent of my magic could be. Gift of the Pureblood my ass.

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