A Darker Shade of Magic (45 page)

The stillness rippled as Kell forced his eyes open, and he saw her descending the stairs. She seemed far away. Everything seemed far away.

“Kell,” she said again as she reached him. Her eyes took in the scene—the ruined courtyard; Athos’s corpse; his own, battered form—and the talisman, now whole.

“It’s over,” she said. “It’s time to let it go.”

He looked down at the talisman in his hand, at the way the black threads had thickened and become like rope, wrapping around his body.

“Please,” said Lila. “I know you can do this. I know you can hear me.” She held out her hand, eyes wide with worry. Kell frowned, power still coursing through him, distorting his vision, his thoughts.

“Please,”
she said again.

“Lila,” he said softly, desperately. He reached out and steadied himself on her shoulder.

“I’m here,” she whispered. “Just give me the stone.”

He considered the talisman. And then his fingers closed over it, and smoke whispered out. He didn’t have to speak. The magic was in his head now, and it knew what he wanted. Between one instant and the next, the smoke became a knife. He stared down at the metal’s glinting edge.

“Lila,” he said again.

“Yes, Kell?”

His fingers tightened on it. “Catch.”

And then he drove the blade into her stomach.

Lila let out a gasp of pain. And then her whole body shuddered, rippled, and became someone else’s. It stretched into the form of Astrid Dane, dark blood blossoming against her white clothes.

“How …” she growled, but Kell willed her body still, her jaw shut. No words—no spell—would save her now. He wanted to kill Astrid Dane. But more than that, he wanted her to
suffer
. For his brother. His prince. Because in that moment, staring into her wide blue eyes, all he could see was Rhy.

Rhy wearing her talisman.

Rhy flashing a smile that was too cruel and too cold to be his own.

Rhy curling his fingers around Kell’s throat and whispering in his ear with someone else’s words.

Rhy thrusting a knife into his stomach.

Rhy—
his
Rhy—crumpling to the stone floor.

Rhy bleeding.

Rhy dying.

Kell wanted to
crush
her for what she’d done. And in his hands, the want became a will, and the darkness began to spread out from the knife buried in her stomach. It crawled over her clothes and under her skin, and turned everything it touched to pale white stone. Astrid tried to open her mouth, to speak or to scream, but before any sound could escape her clenched teeth, the stone had reached her chest, her throat, her faded red lips. It overtook her stomach, trailed down her legs and over her boots before running straight into the pitted ground. Kell stood there, staring at the statue of Astrid Dane, her eyes frozen wide with shock, lips drawn into a permanent snarl. She looked like the rest of the courtyard now.

But it wasn’t enough.

As much as he wanted to leave her there in the broken garden with her brother’s corpse, he couldn’t. Magic, like everything, faded. Spells were broken. Astrid could be free again one day. And he couldn’t let that happen.

Kell gripped her white stone shoulder. His fingers were bloody, like the rest of him, and the
Antari
magic came as easily as air.
“As Steno,”
he said.

Deep cracks formed across the queen’s face, jagged fissures carving down her body, and when his fingers tightened, the stone statue of Astrid Dane shattered under his touch.

V

Kell shivered, the strange calm settling over him again.

It was heavier this time. And then someone called his name, just as they had moments earlier, and he looked up to see Lila clutching her shoulder as she half ran, half limped down the stairs, bruised and bloody, but alive. Her black mask hung from her bloody fingers.

“You all right?” she asked when she reached him.

“Never better,” he said, even though it was taking every ounce of his strength to focus his eyes on her, his mind on her.

“How did you know?” she asked, looking down at the rubble of the queen. “How did you know she wasn’t me?”

Kell managed an exhausted smile. “Because she said
please
.”

Lila stared at him, aghast. “Is that a joke?”

Kell shrugged slightly. It took a lot of effort. “I just knew,” he said.

“You just knew,” she echoed.

Kell nodded. Lila took him in with careful eyes, and he wondered what he must look like in that moment.

“You look terrible,” she said. “You better get rid of that rock.”

Kell nodded.

“I could come with you.”

Kell shook his head. “No. Please. I don’t want you to.” It was the honest answer. He didn’t know what waited on the other side, but whatever it was, he would face it alone.

“Fine,” said Lila, swallowing. “I’ll stay here.”

“What will you do?” he asked.

Lila forced a shrug. “Saw some nice ships on the dock when we were running for our lives. One of them will do.”

“Lila …”

“I’ll be okay,” she said tightly. “Now, hurry up before someone notices we’ve killed the monarchs.”

Kell tried to laugh, and something shot through him, like pain but darker. He doubled over, his vision blurring.

“Kell?” Lila dropped to her knees beside him. “What is it? What’s happening?”

No
, he pleaded with his body.
No. Not now.
He was so close. So close. All he had to do was—

Another wave sent him to his hands and knees.

“Kell!” demanded Lila. “Talk to me.”

He tried to answer, tried to say something, anything, but his jaw locked shut, his teeth grinding together. He fought the darkness, but the darkness fought back. And it was winning.

Lila’s voice was getting further and further away. “Kell … can you hear me? Stay with me. Stay with me.”

Stop fighting
, said a voice in his head.
You’ve already lost.

No
, thought Kell.
No. Not yet.
He managed to bring his fingers to the shallow gash across his stomach, and began to draw a mark on the cracked stone. But before he could press his stone-bound hand against it, a force slammed him backward to the ground. The darkness twined around him and dragged him down. He fought against the magic, but it was already inside him, coursing through his veins. He tried to tear free of its hold, to push it away, but it was too late.

He took one last gasp of air, and then the magic dragged him under.

* * *

Kell couldn’t move.

Shadows wove around his limbs and held like stone, pinning him still. The more he fought, the tighter they coiled, leeching the last of his strength. Lila’s voice was far, far away and then gone, and Kell was left in a world filled with only darkness.

A darkness that was everywhere.

And then, somehow, it wasn’t. It drew itself together, coiling in front of him, coalescing until it was first a shadow and then a man. He was shaped like Kell, from his height and his hair to his coat, but every inch of him was the smooth and glossy black of the recovered stone.

“Hello, Kell,” said the darkness, the words not in English or Arnesian or Maktahn, but the native tongue of magic. And finally, Kell understood. This was
Vitari
. The thing that had been pulling at him, pushing to get in, making him stronger while weakening his will and feeding on his life.

“Where are we?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

“We are in you,” said
Vitari
. “We are
becoming
you.”

Kell struggled uselessly against the dark ropes. “Get out of my body,” he growled.

Vitari
smiled his shadowy black smile and took a step toward Kell.

“You’ve fought well,” he said. “But the time for fighting is over.” He closed the gap and brought a hand to Kell’s chest. “You were made for me,
Antari
,” he said. “A perfect vessel. I will wear your skin forever.”

Kell twisted under his touch. He had to fight. He’d come so far. He couldn’t give up now.

“It’s too late,” said
Vitari
. “I already have your heart.” At that, his fingertips pressed down, and Kell gasped as
Vitari
’s hand passed
into
his chest. He felt
Vitari
’s fingers close around his beating heart, felt it lurch, darkness spilling across his tattered shirtfront like blood.

“It’s over, Kell,” said the magic. “You’re mine.”

* * *

Kell’s body shuddered on the ground. Lila took his face in her hands. It was burning up. The veins on his throat and at his temple had darkened to black, and the strain showed in the lines of his jaw, but he wasn’t moving, wouldn’t open his eyes.

“Fight this!” she shouted as his body spasmed. “You’ve come all this way. You can’t just
give up
.”

His back arched against the ground, and Lila pushed open Kell’s shirt and saw black spreading over his heart.

“Dammit,” she swore, trying to pry the stone out of his hand. It wouldn’t budge.

“If you die,” she snapped, “what happens to Rhy?”

Kell’s back hit the ground, and he let out a labored breath.

Lila had recovered her weapons, and now she freed her knife, weighing it in her palm. She didn’t want to have to kill him. But she could. And she didn’t want to cut off his hand, but she certainly would.

A groan escaped between his lips.

“Don’t you fucking give up, Kell. Do you hear me?”

* * *

Kell’s heart stuttered, skipping a beat.

“I asked so nicely,” said
Vitari
, his hand still buried in Kell’s chest. “I gave you the chance to give in. You made me use force.”

Heat spread through Kell’s limbs, leaving a strange cold in its wake. He heard Lila’s voice. Far away and stretched so thin, the words, an echo of an echo, barely reached him. But he heard a name.
Rhy.

If he died, so would Rhy. He couldn’t stop fighting.

“I’m not going to kill you, Kell. Not exactly.”

Kell squeezed his eyes shut, darkness folding over him.

“Isn’t there a word for this?”
Lila’s voice echoed through his head.
“What is it? Come on, Kell. Say the blasted word.”

Kell forced himself to focus. Of course. Lila was right. There was a word.
Vitari
was pure magic. And all magic was bound by rules. By order.
Vitari
was a creation, but everything that could be created could also be destroyed.
Dispelled.

“As Anasae,”
said Kell. He felt a glimmer of power. But nothing happened.

Vitari’s free hand closed around his throat.

“Did you really think that would work?” sneered the magic in Kell’s shape, but there was something in his voice and in the way he tensed.
Fear.
It could work. It would work. It had to.

But
Antari
magic was a verbal pact. He’d never been able to summon it with thought alone, and here, in his head, everything was thought. Kell had to
say
the word. He focused, reaching with his fading senses until he could feel his body, not as it was here in this illusion, this mental plane, but as it was in truth, stretched on the bitterly cold ground of the broken courtyard, Lila crouching over it. Over him. He clung to that chill, focusing on the way it pressed into his back. He struggled to feel his fingers, wrapped around the stone so hard that they ached. He focused on his mouth, clenched shut in pain, and forced it to unlock. Forced his lips to part.

To form the words.
“As An—”

His heart faltered as
Vitari
’s fingers tightened around it.

“No,”
growled the magic, the fear bold now, twisting his impatience into anger. And Kell understood his fear.
Vitari
wasn’t simply a spell. He was the
source
of all the stone’s power. Dispelling him would dispel the talisman itself. It would all be over.

Kell fought to hold on to his body. To himself. He forced air into his lungs and out his mouth.

“As Anas—”
he managed before Vitari’s hand shifted from heart to lungs, crushing the air out of them.

“You can’t,” said the magic desperately. “I am the only thing keeping your brother alive.”