Kisimyr held her ground.
“I hope I haven’t interrupted,” he continued, his voice becoming two—one soft, the other resonant, one scattered on the air like that pile of sand, the other crystal clear inside her head.
His black eyes tracked over the roof. “Where is your king?”
The question rang through Kisimyr’s skull, and when she tried to force his presence back, the stranger’s attention flicked toward her, landing like a stone.
“Strong,” he mused. “Everything here is strong.”
“Who are you?” demanded Kisimyr, her own voice sounding thin by comparison.
The man seemed to consider this a moment and then said, “Your new king.”
That sent a ripple through the crowd.
Kisimyr stretched out one arm, and the nearest pitcher of wine emptied, its contents sailing toward her fingers and hardening into an icy spear.
“Is that a threat?” she said, trying to focus on the man’s hands instead of those eerie black eyes, that resonant voice. “I am a high magician of Arnes. A victor of the Essen Tasch. I bear the favored sigil of the House of Maresh. And I will not let you harm my king.”
The stranger cocked his head, amused. “You are strong, mage,” he said, spreading his arms as if to welcome her embrace. His smile widened. “But you are not strong enough to stop me.”
Kisimyr spun her spear once, almost idly, and then lunged.
She made it two steps before the marble floor splashed beneath her feet, stone one instant and water the next, and then, before she could reach him, stone again. Kisimyr gasped, her body shuddering to a halt as the rock hardened around her ankles.
Losen was starting toward her, but she held a hand up without taking her gaze off the stranger.
It wasn’t possible.
The man hadn’t even moved. Hadn’t touched the stone, or said anything to change its shape. He’d simply willed it, out of one form, and into another, as if it were nothing.
“It is nothing,” he said, words filling the air and slinking through her head. “My will is magic. And magic is my will.”
The stone began to climb her shins as he continued forward, crossing to her in long, slow strides.
Behind him, Jinnar and Brost moved to attack. They made it to the edge of the circle before he sent them back with a flick of his wrist, their bodies crashing hard into pillars. Neither rose.
Kisimyr growled and summoned the other facet of her power. The marble rumbled at her feet. It cracked, and split, and still the stranger came toward her. By the time she staggered free, he was there, close enough to kiss. She didn’t even feel his fingers until they were already circling her wrist. She looked down, shocked by the touch, at once feather-light and solid as stone.
“Strong,” he mused again. “But are you strong enough to hold me?”
Something passed between them, skin to skin, and then deeper, spreading up her arm and through her blood, strange and wonderful, like light, like honey in her veins, sweet and warm and—
No.
She pushed back, trying to force the magic away, but his fingers only tightened, and suddenly the pleasant heat became a burn, the light became a fire. Her bones went hot, her skin cracked, every inch of her ablaze, and Kisimyr began to scream.
II
Kell told them everything.
Or, at least, everything they needed to know. He didn’t say that he’d gone with Ojka willingly, still fuming from his imprisonment and his fight with the king. He didn’t say that he’d condemned the prince’s life and his own rather than agreeing to the creature’s terms. And he didn’t say that, at some point, he’d given up. But he did tell the king and queen of Lila, and how she’d saved his life—and Rhy’s—and brought him home. He told them of Holland’s survival, and Osaron’s power, of the cursed metal collar, and the Red London token in the demon’s hand.
“Where is this monster now?” demanded the king.
Kell sagged. “I don’t know.” He needed to say more, to warn them of Osaron’s strength, but all he could manage was, “I promise, Your Majesty, I will find him.” His anger didn’t rage—he was too tired for that—but it burned coldly in his veins.
“And I will kill him.”
“You will stay here,” said the king, gesturing to the prince’s bed. “At least until Rhy wakes.”
Kell started to protest, but Tieren’s hand settled again on his shoulder, and he felt himself sway beneath the priest’s influence. He sank into a chair beside his brother’s bed as the king left to summon his guards.
Beyond the windows, the fireworks had begun, showering the sky in red and gold.
Hastra, who hadn’t taken his eyes from the sleeping prince, stood against the wall nearby, whispering softly. His brown curls were touched with gold in the lamplight, and he was turning something over and over in his fingers. A coin. And at first Kell thought the words were some spell for calm, remembering that Hastra had once been destined for the Sanctuary, but soon the words registered as simple Arnesian. It was a prayer, of sorts, but he was asking for, of all things, forgiveness.
“What’s wrong?” asked Kell.
Hastra reddened. “It’s my fault she found you,” whispered his former guard. “My fault she took you.”
She. Hastra meant Ojka.
Kell rubbed his eyes. “It’s not,” he said, but the youth just shook his head stubbornly, and Kell couldn’t bear the guilt in his eyes, too close a mirror of his own. He glanced instead at Tieren, who now stood with Lila, her chin in his hand as he tilted her head to see the damage to her eye, not even the hint of surprise in his own.