Gathering Darkness

Melenia summoned her magic once more, and again Lucia stole it with a thought. Fear entered the elder’s eyes as Lucia focused with all her strength and, using what she’d learned from Alexius, drained as much magic—earth, air, water, fire—as she could from this beautiful but evil creature.

Lucia’s hands glowed with golden power. The cold wind and stinging snow no longer bothered her. Warmth flowed through her veins and her entire body sang with Melenia’s elementia.

When she’d taken all she could, Melenia began to tremble.

“Spare me,” she whispered, her gaze fixed on the young man who hadn’t made a single move to save her. “My love, please, spare me . . .”

“Kill her,” he said, nodding at Lucia.

Lucia thrust her dagger into the Watcher’s heart, then pulled it out.

Lucia had lied. The dagger was for Melenia, after all.

Melenia looked down at the wound welling with blood as if hypnotized with disbelief. She reached out for the young man with a trembling hand.

He stepped out of her reach.

“But I love you,” she whispered.

“And I hate you.”

She stared at him with horror. “Why would you hate me when I did everything for you?”

“You helped to keep me enslaved, Melenia. I’m no one’s slave. I never was. And I never shall be again.”

As he cast a fearsome, furious look upon her, she took a shaky step back from him before she stumbled and fell off the side of the cliff. Mere seconds before she hit the water, her body vanished in a flash of bright light, illuminating the unforgiving landscape all around them for a long, blazing moment.

Lucia dropped the dagger, her gaze fixed on the black water at the bottom of the cliff.

It felt momentous to witness the death of an ancient and powerful Watcher. This wasn’t her first kill—her first had been the malicious Sabina. She’d been wracked with guilt over that moment of uncontrollable fury.

Her emotions tonight were much more controlled. Melenia deserved death and Lucia allowed herself to feel just a small edge of satisfaction that she’d been the one to kill her.

After a moment, she looked up at the fire god she’d summoned here with her blood.

“Are you going to kill me?” she asked, surprised that the thought of it didn’t fill her with fear anymore.

“No,” he replied simply. “I need your help.”

“My help?” The thought was ludicrous. “Why would someone like you need my help?”

“Because you can do that.” He nodded toward the water below. “You have the power to destroy those that want to control me. And I never, ever want to be controlled or imprisoned again.”

She fell silent, her heart pounding.

“My sisters and brother are also out in this land, lost now. They’re not as strong as me. They can’t as easily take mortal form. They’re at the mercy of whoever found them. We must locate them and keep them safe.”

This could be her destiny—to be here at the break of dawn with the blood of two Watchers on her hands. Melenia and Alexius. One she hated. One she loved.

There was no one in the world she trusted anymore; no one who didn’t want to use her for her magic and cast her aside once they were done.

With Alexius gone, she had no one to guide or teach her.

Her magic burned within her, her ring blazed on her finger, but despite the pain and suffering of this night, she’d never felt more powerful in her entire life.

“Will you help me?” he asked again when silence fell between them.

He was dangerous—she felt it down in her very soul. The price of this young man’s freedom would be forged from pain, death, and fire.

“Yes,” she said.

The single word sealed her fate.

Standing there on the steep Limerian cliffs, she was ready to watch the world burn.