Jasce cups my face in his hands. “Listen to me, Annora. This is not your fault. Aleksander is the one to blame. He’s the one who bound your magic to him. You didn’t have a choice.”
I want to believe Jasce, want to cling to the absolution he’s offering, but the guilt is too heavy, the shame too deep.
Pain squeezes around my heart as I shake my head. “But I’m the one who did it. I’m the one who killed them.”
“Because you had no choice,” Jasce says, his voice fierce and unyielding.
With everything in me, I want to believe Jasce, want to let his words sink into my skin and chase away the darkness coiling like poison in my chest.
“I should have—”
Jasce’s fingers slide under my chin, tilting my face up to meet his gaze. “If there had been a way to fight him, you would have found it. But this magic, this bond, it’s not something you can overpower with sheer will.” His words wrap around me like armor, shielding me from the sharpest edges of my guilt.
“I’m so tired of being used. Of being a pawn in other people’s games.”
His arms tighten around me, pulling me closer until there’s no space left between us. “I know. You deserve so much more than what you’ve been given. You deserve to be yourself and to thrive.”
He’s right.
I do deserve more.
I deserve a life where my choices are my own.
“I cannot thrive in Bakva.” I rise onto my tiptoes and slide my arms around Jasce’s neck. “It’s too far from you. My heart withers without you.”
“Mine withers without you. I need you so damn much.” His words wrap around my chest, filling the cracks and fissures.
His fingers lace through mine as he guides me across the room to a curved stone bench tucked into an alcove.
He sits and pulls me onto his lap. “Talk to me. Let me carry some of your burdens.”
Using my index finger, I trace the crimson Phoenix on his surcoat—that coat of arms that should divide us but doesn’t. “Every time I close my eyes, I see their faces. The way they looked at me right before...” My voice breaks, but I force myselfto continue, to say the words. “They knew what was coming. They knew, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.”
Jasce strokes one hand up and down my back.
“A second bracelet appeared today.” I hold out my wrist, allowing the silver bands to catch the light. “I don’t know when or how, but I feel the difference. The tugging inside me.”
Lightly, Jasce brushes his hand over the metal. “Does it hurt?”
“No, but it terrifies me.” I swallow through the ache in my chest. “Each day, I lose another piece of myself. First my magic, then my will, and now...” I shake my head. “What’s next? My heart?”
“Your heart is yours, Annora. Always.”
“But for how long?” The words scratch my throat as I continue. “I keep thinking about what grandfather did to Asha—how he twisted her until she became someone else entirely. What if Aleksander does the same to me?”
“I won’t let that happen.”
“But you’re not there.” The truth sends threads of pain coiling around my chest. “You’re not there when he commands me, when he uses my magic for his own ends. You’re not there when I have to watch Asha fall deeper under his influence.” I press my face into Jasce’s neck. “And the worst part is, sometimes I see glimpses of good in him. When he helps feed the poor or defends someone weaker. It makes it harder to hate him completely.”
“The most dangerous monsters are the ones who show you just enough humanity to make you doubt yourself.” The truth of Jasce’s words settles inside me like stone.
“I’m scared. Not just of what he might make me do, but of who I might become.”
“Listen to me. Every waking moment, I’m searching for a way to break this bond. My scholars are combing through ancienttexts. My spies are hunting down anyone who might know something about binding magic.”
“But what if there isn’t a way?” I ask, my voice fracturing under the weight of that question.
“There’s always a way.”
