The Shadow Queen (Ravenspire, #1)(4)

She let him think she was afraid of her magic. Of being a mardushka in Ravenspire, where outside of Irina and the princess, practitioners of magic didn’t exist. Where magic wasn’t passed through bloodlines as it was in Lorelai’s mother’s kingdom of Morcant, but was feared, and the rare mardushka who left her home country and traveled south into Ravenspire was cursed by peasants and nobility alike.

Letting him believe she feared her own power was better than admitting that she could still remember the warmth of Irina’s arm beneath her hand and the shape of her lips as she spoke the incantor to undo all Irina’s spells. Still hear the screams and smell the blood as the castle itself turned against everyone but the queen.

Still feel the weight of Leo’s hand in hers as her father spent his last words telling her to protect her brother.

If she wasn’t stronger than Irina, she wouldn’t be able to protect Leo. She wouldn’t be able to save her kingdom.

She’d fail.

Swiftly she picked up the green jewel. Its jagged edges gleamed in the dull light, and its weight was a solid presence. Her jaw clenched until it ached, and her power responded to the determination in her heart.

Magic rushed through her veins and gathered in her palms, sparking and burning and begging for release. The heart of the jewel surged to meet her power and put up no resistance to her will.

“Rast`lozh! Become the image that is in my mind.” Her magic flooded the emerald. She threw it into the air, and it exploded into a hundred razor-sharp needles that hovered, all pointed toward the barn’s door, waiting for a threat that wasn’t going to appear.

“You called your magic much faster this time,” Gabril said, approval warming his eyes.

“I thought of Irina.” Or more precisely, how badly she wanted Irina to pay for killing their father and stealing their kingdom.

“Any residual weariness?” he asked.

“Plenty. Thanks for asking.” Leo widened his eyes at the look Gabril gave him, then quickly hefted another sack and started back up the ladder.

Lorelai slowly lowered her hand. The needles rushed together and fused into the stone again. “Not really. Jewels don’t put up much resistance to magic. They like to change form. Now, if you really want me to test the limits of my magic and how much it will drain me to forcibly subdue something, you should let me heal your leg.”

“Not a chance,” Gabril said as he pressed his fist against his left leg. He’d broken it the night he’d rescued the two of them and hadn’t taken the time to have a doctor properly set because his priority had been putting as much distance as possible between the children and the queen. Lorelai’s determination to heal him and his determination to refuse her formed the backbone of an argument that had worn a groove through their relationship for the past nine years.

“Gabril—”

“I spent months bespelled to follow Irina’s every whim. I don’t know how long residual magic lingers on someone Irina has touched, but we aren’t risking it. If you use magic to heal me, and any of Irina’s magic remains, she’ll learn that you’re alive before you’re ready to challenge her for the throne, and she’ll hunt you relentlessly.” His tone warned her not to argue. “We aren’t risking that for an old man’s leg.”

Lorelai locked gazes with him, magic burning in her palms.

“Now that we have that settled, who wants to help me with the last of these sacks before it’s so dark that I misjudge the ladder and fall to my untimely death?” Leo asked.

Gabril leaned forward and brushed his hand over Lorelai’s long, black hair. “I’m fine. My leg hardly bothers me.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

His smile was gentle. “So are you.” He lowered his voice as Leo took the last sack up the ladder. “You’re as strong as Irina, Lorelai. As a child of eight with only a few months of training, you were strong enough to undo the spells of a full-fledged mardushka. You’ve only grown stronger since.”

“But I could miss something. I could make a mistake.” Her heart thudded painfully as she forced herself to say, “I could lose, and then there will be no one left to protect Ravenspire.”

To protect Leo.

“Is that why the plan you put into place this past summer is supposed to take eighteen months before you’re finally ready to face the queen?”

“Eighteen months is forever,” Leo said as he hopped off the ladder and walked toward them. “We could just head to the capital now and yell, ‘Surprise, you slimy coward! We’re not dead, but you’re about to be!’ and then you can turn her into a pile of fungus.”

“And what if I can’t?” Her words hung in the air, punctuated by Sasha cracking open the mouse’s bones and pecking at the marrow.

Leo crouched beside her and met her gaze. His brown eyes, so like hers, were serious for once. “You can. You never let anything stop you.”

“I just have to be sure of every contingency.” She placed the jewel back on the blanket and reached for her gloves with trembling fingers. “I have to be sure I can succeed.”

“You don’t go into battle because you’re sure of victory,” Gabril said. “You go into battle because it’s the right thing to do. Now get some sleep. We leave at dawn.”