Falling Kingdoms

Suddenly, the bright pink bloom rose from her hand and floated in the air as if suspended by invisible strings.

Magnus gasped out loud.

The flower dropped to the ground and Lucia’s startled gaze snapped to where he stood at the open doorway.

“Magnus.” She stood up, brushing off the front of her skirt. Her expression was tense. She beckoned to him. “Please come in.”

Hesitating only a moment longer, he pushed the door open all the way and entered her chambers.

“Close it,” she instructed. He did as she asked.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You saw what I just did?”

He nodded, his throat tight.

Lucia wrung her hands, pacing to her window to look outside just as a hawk flew away from its temporary perch on the edge of her balcony, its large golden wings flapping against the bright blue sky. He continued to wait, afraid to give voice to his racing thoughts.

This must be what he’d heard his father and Sabina talk about the night of her birthday banquet—of prophesies and elementia and signs held by the stars themselves. This was what he’d been asked to watch for.

“Lucia is now sixteen,” Sabina had said. “The time is drawing closer for her awakening, I know it is.”

The awakening of her magic.

It couldn’t be true.

Finally Lucia turned to him, her gaze as fierce as when she’d confronted him about what he’d said to Michol. Still hopelessly confused, Magnus opened his mouth to demand answers from her, but she walked directly to him and threw her arms around him.

“I haven’t been able to tell anyone this secret for fear of what it could mean. I’ve wanted to tell you for ages, but there’s never been the right opportunity.”

“I’m not sure what I saw.” He pressed a hand to her back to hold her close while his heart hammered in his chest. A sudden and fierce need to protect her any way he could rose to the surface. It helped to push away his own uncertainty. “You can tell me this secret, Lucia. I promise not to tell a soul.”

She let out a long, shaky breath and stepped back from his arms to look up into his face. “It started shortly before my birthday. I found that I could do things. Strange things.”

“Magic,” he said simply. The word felt foreign on his tongue.

She stared at him for a moment, her fiery and guarded expression turning bleak. Then she nodded.

“Elementia,” he clarified.

“I believe so.” Lucia drew in a shuddery breath. “I don’t know why. Or how. But I can. And it feels as if it’s been inside me my entire life waiting for the right time to emerge. I can do what I did with the flower. I can move things without touching them. I can light candles . . . without a match.”

Magnus took this all in and tried to sort through it in his head. “You’re a witch.”

He regretted saying it as soon as the words left his mouth. She looked devastated by this possibility. Witches were persecuted in Limeros—even if only suspected of witchcraft. It was a dangerous thing to even suggest of someone. Here witchcraft was associated with the goddess Cleiona—an evil act committed in the name of an evil deity.

“Magnus,” she whispered. “What am I to do?”

The king would want to know this. He’d wanted Magnus to keep an eye on Lucia—and to report back anything unusual he witnessed.

This was definitely unusual.

He paced the length of the room, his mind working and reworking what he’d seen. If Lucia was anyone else, he wouldn’t hesitated in letting his father know the truth. Whatever happened then would be none of his concern.

“Show me again,” he said quietly.

After a slight hesitation, Lucia took the flower and placed it on her palm again. She looked at him and he nodded, trying to put her mind at ease.

“It’s all right,” he told her. “Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid.” She said it so firmly that it made him smile. Despite her pretty dresses and the manners of a princess, his sister had a heart forged of steel. His own steely heart pounded harder.

Lucia turned her attention to the flower. With a small crease between her eyebrows, she focused on the bloom. Slowly it rose from her hand as Magnus watched in stunned silence. It revolved slowly in the air.

“Incredible,” he breathed.

“What does this mean?” Her troubled gaze shot to his, and for the first time, he noticed the sheen in her eyes. She might say that she wasn’t afraid, but she was. And she should be.

“I don’t know.” He studied her face, fighting the strong urge take her into his arms again and hold her tight. His gaze brushed over her features—her small, straight nose, her high cheekbones, her full red lips. His mother’s eyes were a bluish-gray color, his father’s dark brown like his own. But Lucia’s eyes stood out like sapphires—like precious jewels.

She was so incredibly beautiful it took his breath away.

“What is it?” she asked. “Do you see something on my face that shows I’m touched by this evil?”

The king had taken him farther north several years ago to witness the execution of one who was accused of witchcraft. The woman had slaughtered several animals and used their blood to try to summon dark magic. The king spoke with her briefly in private and then made the final judgment on her fate. Magnus was required to watch the execution so he would learn from it. He still remembered the witch’s screams of pain and terror piercing the cold air as she was lit ablaze.