Frozen Tides

“What are you saying?”

“Only this.” Lucia pulled his face to hers and kissed him, making him gasp with surprise.

He’d kissed her only once before, when he foolishly chose to expose his heart and soul and tell her how he’d been secretly harboring intense feelings for her. They might have been raised together, but they weren’t blood. That revelation had made it acceptable to him to want her as more than just a sibling, but it hadn’t for her.

When he’d kissed her then, she’d pushed him away in disgust. But now she was the one so unexpectedly kissing him, and she just pulled him closer, her lips warm and soft against his.

How different everything would be if this were the way she’d kissed him back those many months ago.

“Magnus.” Cleo grabbed hold of his arm, breaking him free from the moment.

His head swam and he felt unsteady on his feet. “Unhand me.”

She did as requested, but then fixed him with a glare. Nic remained close to his princess’s side, his arms crossed over his chest. “Magnus, listen to me. She’s trying to manipulate you, are you too stupid to see that?”

“I supposed you know all about manipulation, don’t you, princess?” he countered.

A smile played at Lucia’s lips. “Why do you tolerate this fallen princess, Magnus? I should have killed her when I had the chance.”

“But you didn’t,” Cleo said. “You stopped yourself because you knew it was wrong. Has that sane and good part of you been somehow erased?”

Lucia groaned. “I am so very weary of the sound of your voice.” She flicked a finger at Cleo and a burst of air magic blew the princess backward, sending her crashing into a heap of snow. Nic rushed to her side immediately, checking her for wounds and helping to get her upright.

Lucia looked down at Magnus’s sling. “Poor brother. That looks painful. Ever since her, your life has been filled with so much pain. This only proves that you still need me.”

“Of course I need you,” he agreed.

“Shh. I need to concentrate.” She placed her hands atop his damaged arm, pressed down gently, and poured healing earth magic into him.

His knees buckled in response to a sudden blaze of pain, so similar to the sensation that overcame him when he was moments from death in the Auranian battle, and he collapsed to the ground, gritting his teeth and trying not to cry out.

When the pain finally faded, he squeezed his hand and bent his elbow, barely believing that the break had been healed and his arm felt just as strong as ever. He looked up at her with awe. “Thank you, Lucia.”

She slid her fingers up into his hair, tucking it behind his ears, as he pushed back up to his feet. “Now, my darling Magnus, look at me.”

He smiled and did as she asked, but then—with no warning, no movement on his part—he was overcome by a sort of dizziness that pulled his mind backward into what felt like a dark and endless abyss. Suddenly, it was as if Magnus couldn’t look away from her familiar bright blue eyes, even if he wanted to.

“Where is the stone wheel?” Lucia asked.

Immediately, the answer rose up painfully in his throat, summoned by the utmost need to tell her the truth, but he managed to swallow the words back down, each one as sharp as a blade.

“Don’t resist,” she said. “Please, Magnus, for your own good, don’t resist this.”

The unrelenting pressure of a thousand vises clamped down on either side of his skull. “What are you doing to me?”

“Tell us where the wheel is,” she said again.

When he resisted, a thick, coppery taste flooded his mouth and he gagged.

“Lucia . . .” he sputtered, and blood spilled over his bottom lip.

“What are you doing to him?” Cleo shrieked as she drew closer again.

Lucia didn’t move her gaze from Magnus. “Quiet.”

“You’re hurting him!”

“And if I do? What would you care? Magnus, please stop resisting my magic and tell me the truth, and this will all be over in an instant. Where is it?”

He couldn’t hold back any longer; the pressure—the pain—was far too strong. The words rushed forward. “The far . . . side . . . of the labyrinth. Near the cliff’s edge.”

She nodded, her eyes bereft of pleasure. “Well done.” She turned to Kyan. “That’s only a hundred paces from here.”

“Lead the way, little sorceress.”

Resisting the overwhelming compulsion to speak had been torture unlike anything Magnus ever before experienced. He dropped to his knees and braced himself against the ground, his chest heaving, as drops of his blood stained the white snow.

“We’ll be back shortly,” Lucia promised him, before she and Kyan began moving toward the wheel.

Cleo took hold of Magnus’s arm. “Get up.”

“I can’t,” Magnus heaved through heavy breaths.

“You must. We need to follow them. If this has something to do with the Kindred, we need to know.”

“Leave him,” Nic said. “We can go by ourselves.”

“What did you know about the wheel before today?” Magnus snarled at Cleo, wincing at how strained and weak his voice sounded.

“Next to nothing,” Cleo said. “But if a sorceress and her strange new friend want to find it badly enough that they’d resort to magical torment to wrench the truth out of you, then it has to be important.” She knelt down and roughly wiped the blood off his chin with the discarded bandages from his arm. “We’re not allies and we never will be, but now Lucia has shown herself to be an enemy to both of us. My ring—the ring that now sits upon your sister’s finger—had a strange reaction to that wheel the last time we were here. I’m afraid of what it might do today. Now get up. If Nic and I approach her without you, I’m sure she’ll kill us.”

“Cleo . . .” Nic protested.

She shot him a sharp look, and he clamped his mouth shut.

The last thing Magnus wanted to admit was that Cleo was right, but it was true: The sister he’d once known would never have wanted to inflict such pain upon him, no matter what kind of truth she was seeking. What new magic was this? She’d grown so much more powerful since the last time he saw her.

The Kindred were meant to be his; they were the only way to ensure his future, and three of the crystals were still unaccounted for. He knew, now more than ever, that Lucia was the key to finding them.

He didn’t doubt that her new friend Kyan knew this as well.

Magnus pushed himself up to standing and mustered all the strength and willpower he could to trudge around the side of the labyrinth with Cleo and Nic trailing closely behind him. He could see the pair; they’d reached the ancient stone wheel, half-buried in snow and taller than any man he’d ever met. He watched them inspect it together, and the anger in his heart gave him fuel to straighten up and walk faster.

Kyan’s amber gaze narrowed at Magnus as he approached. “Who has visited this wheel here before us?” the angry young man demanded.

“I have no idea what you mean.” Magnus came to a halt, as did Cleo, only an arm’s reach away from him.

“The magic . . .” Kyan placed his palms against the rough surface and pushed. “I feel nothing, even this close.”