“I was trying to find you!” he blurted before realization took over his face. His balled fists loosened before he repeated, “I was trying to find you. Without my magic, I couldn’t track your distress like I could during the ritual. Seventeen years later, with no leads, I learned about the sorceress and I was desperate. So, yeah, I gave up ten years so that I could maybe live just one with you.”
I stared at him, feeling my own ire dwindling as his did. Heartbreak wrapped around his words, settling in my heart with tension.
Slowly, he walked to me, until our bodies were inches apart and he rested his hand over my heart with gentle care. But, the tension in his jaw told me it was a strain for him to remain calm. “You can’t. You can’t die early. Not for me.”
With both my hands, I covered his. “For you, I would.”
He let out a long exhale, his breath as sweet as an ocaberry. “Why give your magic too?”
“She said the only way you could get your magic back was if I die,” I said with a teary smile. “Or you could have everything.”
He dragged his hand away from me. All that was left was a vast emptiness in its wake. “Then you should have kept my magic. I’ve told you many times that it’s yours.”
“They are ours. And I thought I’d had them long enough. But, dammit,” I scrubbed my face with my hands, “I messed up, Fletcher. You’ll have to go back to the Cidris Facility possibly with my split magic. I-I-I’m terrified you’ll be exposed now if it acts unpredictably.”
He huffed and said, “It won’t,” then turned sharply to leave.
I clutched his arm and yanked him back. “Where are you going?”
His jaw feathered. “To fix this.”
“Take me with you.”
Then, he was staring at me with those venomous eyes again. “Yourhusbandcan keep you safe for the night.”
The way he said “husband” gutted me.
He raised his glowing violet arm to summon Graff. Another racing of his magic sent the binds on Graff’s wrist breaking apart. Fletcher stalked off into the shadows and disappeared.
“I can’t stand that guy,” Graff gritted out, rubbing his wrists. He sighed then rested a kind hand on my shoulder. “Come on, I’m taking you to the crystal fields for the night. It’s the safest place for you to be outside the barriers.”
I nodded and he whisked me away.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
Everything in me felt like it had been stripped away.
I sat in the middle of the flat obsidian field alone. Graff decided it was best to stay in the castle for the night in case the queen came snooping. He’d be there to cover for me. But even with the fleet of invisible Elizians guarding the crystal fields, I felt utterly alone. The towers of crystals being mined that jutted up from the ground were my only company.
The feeling of dozens of eyes watching me made me feel like a prisoner.
I curled myself into a ball in a long black coat Graff had given me to keep warm. I rested on a particularly rough section of the ground and wept. Last time I was here, I had Cuddles by my side. His teal eyes appeared in my mind as I pretended he was here, licking my face.
In an attempt to fix everything, I’d now obliterated my chances of destroying the Cidris. I could not protect myself. Fletcher had my split. And I was going to die eighteen years early. The only solace I could find was that I sacrificed it all for Fletcher.
I tuned into the energy of the Ölden Lands, feeling its life rumble quietly under my body then spread out across the expanse of the field. It was calm and gentle. It caressed me when I let my eyes close to really listen.
A tingle on my tattoo turned to a familiar burning. I pulled down my collar to see the number eighteen fading to seamless, pale skin. Magic swelled in my chest and my heart hitched.
Fletcher!
The mass of chaotic magic spindled into my chest, exploring all the corners of my body and finding its home at my core. I brought forth my magic before mysplit could adjust, teleporting myself to the sorceress’s den.
As the domed-rock home came into view, I watched the opening as Fletcher stepped out. His eyes locked on mine. Without a word, he strode past me.
Whatever deal he had made had to have been so grave that he didn’t even bother to acknowledge me.
