Falling Kingdoms

She shook her head. “Nothing will be all right ever again.”

“I know this isn’t going to be easy for you to hear right now, but you have to be strong. Can you do that?” He cupped her face. “Can you be strong?”

In her last conversation with Emilia she’d asked Cleo to be strong. It was all she wanted. And Cleo said she would.

“I can try,” she whispered.

Nic nodded. “Let’s go.”

He put his arm around her as they moved toward the door. Cleo glanced over her shoulder one more time at her sister. She looked so peaceful in her bed, as if she would wake up at any moment from a pleasant dream, ready for breakfast.

They began to walk down the hall toward her father’s chambers, Nic’s hand at Cleo’s back to support her in case her legs gave out again.

A moment later, an explosion shook the entire castle.

A sunrise was the most beautiful thing in the whole world, even during a time of war. Lucia has risen extra early and stood outside her tent as she waited for the sky to turn a vibrant mix of pink and orange beyond the city of tents.

She hated being here. She’d been kept away from the worst of the battle, but she wasn’t ignorant. Men were dying on all sides of this siege. And she wanted it over with.

Lucia had resolved to ask her father’s permission to return to Paelsia, but the thought was swept away the moment her brother was helped into her tent by two of her father’s guards. The king himself entered afterward, his expression grim. Magnus’s face was bloody, his eyes half-closed.

“What happened?” she exclaimed.

A medic rushed in as the guards stepped back, and he cut through Magnus’s jacket and shirt to remove them. His arm had been sliced all the way to the bone. A vicious, bloody wound on his abdomen showed he’d also been stabbed.

“I didn’t even know he was still out there until he was brought back here to camp on a stretcher,” the king said. “I hadn’t wanted him to be so involved in the combat so soon, but he likes to go against my orders. Foolish boy.”

Lucia reached for him but pulled her shaking hand back to press it against her mouth instead. “Magnus!”

“He’s lost a great deal of blood. I wanted him brought here for privacy.”

Anger lit up inside her. “Magnus, why would you do such a thing? Why would you be so irresponsible as to put yourself in this kind of danger?”

Magnus’s pained face and half-glazed gaze tracked to where she stood only a few feet away. He didn’t reply.

The medic suddenly looked afraid and Lucia’s attention shot to him. “What are you doing? Help him! Save him!”

The man’s face had paled a great deal as he’d examined the prince’s injuries. “I’m afraid it’s too late for that, your highness. He’s close to death.”

The king swore, drawing his sword and holding its tip to the medic’s throat. “You are speaking about the heir to the throne of Limeros.”

“I—I can’t help him. His injuries are too severe.” His voice trembled and he squeezed his eyes shut, as if expecting his punishment for this announcement would be death.

“I can help my brother,” Lucia said. “But tell the medic to leave first.”

“Leave,” the king snarled, nicking the medic’s throat with his sword. Blood immediately gushed from the wound. “Attend your own injuries.”

Holding his hand to his neck, the medic scrambled away from the king’s sword and fled from the tent.

Lucia sank to her knees next to where her brother now lay. The floor of the tent was soaked with his blood. His breath came slower, but his gaze didn’t leave hers. Even through the pain, he looked at her with anger. And wariness.

“I’ve heard what you’ve done to the boys from your swordsmanship classes,” she said softly. “I don’t like who you’re trying to become. My brother is better than that.”

His eyes narrowed, his brows drawing together.

“You wish to go out into the thick of the battle so you can draw another’s blood. Is it so you can sink steel into flesh believing it will make you feel like more of a man? How many did you kill today?” She didn’t expect an answer. Even if he was currently capable of speech, they hadn’t spoken since the night he’d arrived home from Paelsia.

“If you were anyone but my brother, I would let you die. But no matter how many men you kill, no matter how much of an ass you insist on being, no matter how much you despise me—I still love you. You hear me?”

Pain slid through his gaze, and Magnus turned his attention to the wall of the tent as if he couldn’t bear the sight of her face anymore.

Her heart ached, but it didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered except her magic.

Luckily, she was feeling extremely angry at the moment. It would help.

She didn’t know how her magic worked, only that it did. She’d been practicing, alone and with the tutor her father had provided—the old woman who claimed to also be a witch, despite not being able to demonstrate any real magic of her own.

Air, water, fire, earth.

She shot her father a look as she pressed her hands against Magnus’s arm. Bone was easily visible beneath the blood and muscle. Her stomach lurched.

“I asked to help with other injuries, Father. I could have practiced before this. I might fail.” The king had denied her the chance to help others who were hurt, leaving the medics to the insurmountable task of dealing with the injured.