There had been a time when she’d wished for Magnus to die for what he’d done to Theon just over a year ago—she had wanted to kill him herself.
And yet, the moment Magnus’s life was in danger, she focused nowhere but on the prince. Any need for revenge had fallen away from her months ago, like shedding the skin of her former self.
It wasn’t forgiveness that she felt. She still hated the boy Magnus had been that day.
But she’d come to understand him over the months since, perhaps even better than she understood herself.
“There is a threat far greater than Amara in Mytica right now, I’m afraid to say,” Jonas said, breaking Cleo’s reverie. He was wiping the dancer’s kiss marks from his face with a handkerchief handed to him by Olivia, and Cleo couldn’t help but find the contrast between this silly act and his solemn tone amusing.
“Let me guess,” Magnus said. “You’re referring to my sister? I know you must be grieving your friend, Jonas, but there is no sense expending any of your vengeful energies on either Lucia or her companion, Kyan.”
Jonas met Magnus’s gaze directly. “You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“You’ve searched for the Kindred. People have died over these crystals. You already revealed in front of everyone that Cleo has one in her possession, and we know that Amara has water and your father has air.”
“Yes. This is all known to me, rebel. And we already know that Kyan has the fire Kindred.”
“Wrong.” Jonas’s expression tensed. “Kyan is the fire Kindred.”
Cleo stared at him, certain she’d heard him wrong. “What do you mean he is the fire Kindred?”
“The magic you’ve been seeking—that we’ve all be seeking—it can think. It can speak. And it can kill without remorse. And three more just like Kyan are waiting to escape their prisons. They’re not magic rocks, princess, they’re elemental gods.”
The room went silent, and Cleo frantically searched the faces of the others, hoping to find someone rolling their eyes. Hoping this was only an amusing lie to break the tension.
This couldn’t possibly be true.
But even Nic nodded his grim agreement.
And at this very moment, right in her pocket, she held one of those very prisons.
She looked at Magnus, his deep frown the only outward sign of his surprise.
“Lucia must have helped him escape the amber orb,” Magnus said.
“I think that’s obvious,” Jonas replied tightly, earning him a dark look from the prince.
Cleo clamped her hands together to stop them from trembling. “Do we know for certain that whatever goals Kyan has are evil? The Kindred could still help us defeat Amara.”
“I watched him burn Lys to nothing,” Jonas snarled. “Not even a single ash was left when he was through with her.” The rebel turned to Magnus. “Kyan is evil. And so is that bitch sister of yours.”
Magnus rose to his feet, fists clenched at his sides. “I don’t care what’s happened, you will not speak that way about Lucia in my presence. I won’t allow it.”
“No? And do you think you can stop me?” Now Jonas also had his fists clenched, and the two of them drew closer together.
“Perhaps he won’t stop you,” said a new voice, cutting into the conversation and causing the rebel and the prince to freeze where they were. “But I am certainly willing to try.”
With that promise, the King of Blood entered the room.
CHAPTER 14
JONAS
PAELSIA
King Gaius Damora. The King of Blood. Murderer. Sadist, torturer, enslaver, betrayer. Enemy. Target.
And currently standing in the very same room as Jonas.
There had been many surprises this evening—the first being an encounter with Laelia Basilius, to whom Jonas had briefly, and reluctantly, been betrothed—but all of them disappeared from his mind the moment the king entered the room.
Gaius swept his gaze over the group, ending on Jonas. “Jonas Agallon. It’s been a long time since I last saw you. I believe it was at my son’s wedding.”
Jonas found he could do nothing but stare at the man who had killed so many and destroyed so much.
“Magnus . . .” Cleo said from across the room.
“Oh, yes,” Magnus said, his tone now void of the outrage over any slurs against his sister. “Did I forget to mention that I’m traveling with my father?”
“You did,” Jonas replied tightly.
“Yes,” the king agreed. “And it’s so good of my son to bring his new friends back here without prior notice.”
Jonas fought to keep his composure, to not show how stunned he was. “Not as new as you might think.”
King Gaius’s skin was pale, his face bruised as if he’d been held down and beaten. He leaned, as if casually, against the wall by the staircase, but there was something to the angle. A weakness, a frailty, that he’d never seen in the man before.
“Go back upstairs,” Magnus snapped.
“I don’t take orders from you.” The king smiled without humor at this. “Tell me, Magnus, do your new friends know we’re all on the same side now?”
The very suggestion of an alliance with Gaius rendered Jonas utterly speechless. The others—Nic and Olivia—remained silent as well, their expressions tense.
“Oh?” It was Felix’s dry growl, like the warning of a caged beast, that broke the silence. “Did you decide this before or after you allowed Amara to let me take the blame for killing her family?”