But mostly, she saw her mother.
Daughter of Daybreak.
Aenwyn’s entire life unfurled before Kestrel like a tapestry of tangled threads. A peaceful childhood among a gatherer community. A rambunctious adolescence of three untamed sisters and their powerful clan. A gift. A dragon egg hatching. Regret powerful enough that she had sacrificed her own happiness to serve her people and all the kingdoms.
Queen Aenwyn had not been a vicious sorceress.
She had been a caring sister. A doting daughter. A dutiful queen.
She had been caught between vows and temptation, betrayal and duty.
Daughter of Daybreak.
Kestrel had seen her mother the day of the Cursed Night. That magic had been no accident, though Aenwyn hadn’t known it was within her either. She had just felt pain. The discovery of her family’s betrayal—her own father and sister and husband plotting and construing her entire life without any regard for her well-being—it had pushed her over the edge. Darkness and rage had filled her to the core. And only Darius had been there for her.
When King Everard’s men had landed the killing blow on the dragon—the same creature who had shown Aenwyn everything—Kestrel had watched as black magic had surged from her mother in one dreadful thought: make them suffer for what they have done, let them be the monsters they truly are.
Queen Aenwyn’s magic had done her bidding. Not the Sky-Blessed.Hermagic. Ancient and powerful. A magic that spanned lifetimes.
The same magic that was inside Kestrel.
Daughter of Daybreak.
All the king’s men were burned by eternal flames. The rulers of Grimtol were punished for their conniving and scheming—even though Aenwyn was only certain about the complicity of a few, she knew political corruption ran deep in Grimtol, and she wasn’t about to risk letting any of them go unscathed.
And now, back on dry land, facing the same people who had betrayed her mother, the same bloodlines who had lied repeatedly and tricked her as well, now Kestrel would do the same.
She was the new Daughter of Daybreak. A source of power as magnificent as the sun. Like her mother, she could heallife. Or she could take it.
Kestrel channeled all of that heartbreak—two lifetimes worth—and summoned the black magic that dwelled within her.
They would know suffering again. They would rue the day they ever crossed the Daughters of Daybreak.
Chapter 38
The Cursed Beast
ELORA
The clouds flashed, cracks of light that illuminated the deadly scene below. Black smoke rose up from the earth around Kestrel, like sprouting trees—thick ones, hundreds of years old. They writhed below where Kestrel hovered, these dark columns of power, like a shield moving with languid but deadly intent.
Whatever they were, Elora knew no one would survive them.
She staggered back, but she was too close to get far enough away.
Magic erupted from Kestrel like a star bursting in the night sky. The might of it alone knocked Elora back onto her rear. But as she squinted through the power, she realized it wasn’t actually reaching her. It rolled over her like a grey stream of water, like she was guarded by some impenetrable shield. Never in her life had she seen such a thing. Was this the hailstone protecting her? Preventing the magic from reaching her? Or something else entirely?
Through the black haze of magic surrounding everything, Elora peered up at Kestrel and wondered at her sheer power.
This wasn’t the work of the water-horror—how ridiculous she could have been to have ever thought as much. This magic was familiar, even though she herself had not seen it. But she had heard of its descriptions. This was curse magic. The same that Queen Aenwyn had wielded, all those years ago.
Everyone else near the blast was sent flying.
Leighton surged across the meadow, his body flung like a ragdoll into a mound of stickerbushes with thorns as long as fingers. Even through the smoky magic, Elora could see the blood trickling from his face. Hear his guttural cries as he pawed at the thorns that pierced his eyes.
Efrem’s body was sent careening through the air as well, until his spine smacked against a massive tree. The crack of his bones was sickening. His body fell limp, but no one could rush to see if he was alright, for the gravemoors at the tree’s base clambered for him, dragging him below the moment he landed.
Micah had already been low to the ground, so the blast mostly just held him in place. But seeing his brothers flung, hearing their cries of pain, he couldn’t stay put. Slowly, with immense effort, Micah fought to drag himself across the earth, through the dense and heavy magic, toward the sounds of his brothers. He screamed too, for he watched as Efrem’s body disappeared beneath the earth. Still, he kept crawling, kept calling out for his lost twin.
