Kingdom of Sea and Stone

With a silent prayer that Father would understand, I shed the red gown like a creature emerging from a shell that no longer fit. I took a deep breath and dove into the lake. This time, I was the one in pursuit of Ceren. I saw him turn as I rose for my first breath, and I was glad he knew I was coming. Let him experience being the prey for a change.

By the time I reached the small opening leading outside, my shift was partially dried. I stumbled into the sunlight just in time to see Ceren mounting his black horse. As I had suspected, there were thousands more troops waiting, though these weren’t wearing the black armor of his trained soldiers. They were villagers, I realized, like Jerem had been before he was conscripted. They carried everything from rakes to shovels to scythes, and every one of them wore a bloodstone at their throat.

“Please work,” I whispered as I removed one of the golden pins from my hair. It was in the shape of a swallow. I knew Ceren well enough to know that he had given me bird-shaped hairpins for a reason. He had called me a little bird in the dungeon, when he caught me in his arms and told me I was trapped.

I understood why Talin’s arms had felt like a cage these past weeks, why the idea of being constrained by a person, a place, or even a corset, was so intolerable. They were all a reminder of the powerlessness I’d felt as Ceren’s prisoner. But I wasn’t powerless anymore. I tore a piece of cloth from my hem and stepped onto the field.

I might not have the kind of control Ceren had with the bloodstones, but I could still feel the link between the two of us as strong as ever. I screamed his name through the bond.

He turned to face me, and the confusion I saw there made it clear he had not figured out what I had. He may have created a blood bond between us, but he didn’t know how to break it. Why would he have concerned himself with that, when this bond was what had given him everything he ever wanted?

I dragged the sharp edge of the swallow’s wing across my forearm, deep enough to draw blood, and quickly tied the strip of cloth around the broken skin.

If my guess was correct, I didn’t need Adriel for this. I didn’t need anyone.

If I really had Ceren’s blood in my veins, then maybe, just maybe, I had enough magic to cast a spell.

I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to remember the words Adriel had read to me—it had only been once, and I had never considered repeating them myself—but I felt something rise up from deep inside, and the words fell from my lips as easily as a lullaby.

“‘Two hearts beating now as one; the bond must break to come undone.’” I untied the bandage from my arm and gripped it between my fists. “‘Free them from the spell they’re under; what was made now tear asunder.’”

I ripped the blood-soaked fabric down the center as I spoke.

Nothing happened, and for one heart-stopping moment, I doubted everything. Who had I thought I was, to cast a spell? I wasn’t a witch like Adriel or a healer like Elder Nemea. I had never been chosen, the way Zadie was. I was just a girl with a scar from a tiny village in the middle of the sea.

In that moment, I realized that Adriel was right. I hadn’t just been judging myself by Ilarean standards of beauty; I had been judging myself by the opinions of people who didn’t even know me, let alone care about me. I always tried to see the best in the people who had wronged me, but I never saw the best in myself.

I had learned to look in the mirror and accept myself, scars and all, but I hadn’t done that for the scars I bore on the inside.

Bonds of blood will not be broken, ’less the blood spell...

What had Adriel said the rest of the line was? My hold on the bloodstone began to slip as I tried to remember the rest of the words. Ceren began to move toward me on his massive stallion. What was the rest of the line?

Twice is spoken. It was as if Adriel had whispered the words into my ear herself. I repeated the spell, knowing if it didn’t work, it would be too late. Ceren was nearly upon me.

Pain radiated through my skull, as if a piece of me really was being ripped apart, and I fell to my knees, a wave of loss unexpectedly rushing over me.

I watched as the veins in Ceren’s neck bulged, his face contorting in a combination of agony and rage, followed by what looked strangely like relief. A howl eerily similar to the one he made when I stabbed him erupted out of him.

By some miracle, the spell had worked. It was a lucky guess. Adriel said I needed Ceren’s blood in my veins for a bond to form, and though I hadn’t believed her then, something about Ceren saying he would give me the blood from his veins had sparked a memory.

The liver stew he’d given me in the dungeon. It had revolted me at the time, but I’d forced myself to eat it to regain the strength lost in the bleedings. The metallic taste had been overwhelming; Ceren could easily have mixed his own blood into the stew without me realizing.

The feeling of loss was subsiding now. I hadn’t realized how much the blood bond had taken from me, but I felt stronger and more alive than I had in months. I watched, breathless, as one by one the people on the field awakened. Some screamed, some collapsed, and others stared at the weapons in their hands in confusion.

Ceren was riding among them, barking commands, but no one obeyed him. Instead, many turned to look at him, and there were hints of recognition on their faces, of memories coming back from the last moment of clarity before they put on the bloodstones. First one man raised a pitchfork over his head and sprinted toward Ceren, then another, holding aloft a scythe.

Suddenly realizing that he was surrounded by thousands of armed men he had forced into submission, Ceren fled.

I couldn’t imagine he would get very far, with his body weakened by the broken bond and both Talia’s army and his own after him. My priority had to be making it clear to everyone that the fighting could cease. I would send someone to free Father and the other prisoners soon after.

Still clad in my slippers and shift, I found a horse wandering riderless among the turmoil and climbed into the saddle.

The battlefield was chaos, with a vast majority of the people present not entirely sure what they were doing there. The last thing they remembered was Ceren putting a bloodstone necklace on them, and now they were awakening to find themselves in combat. Fortunately, the confusion allowed me to make it to Talia’s side of the battlefield.

It wasn’t hard to spot Talin. Xander was massive, and there was a wide swath of clear ground around him. I was relieved to see he had stopped fighting, but there were men and women still going after Ceren’s guards, who had continued to fight even without their master’s command.

When Talin spotted me, he screamed my name, and I dug my heels into the horse’s sides. We flew toward each other, both dismounting simultaneously. This time, when he pulled me into his arms and held me, as if he never wanted to let go, it didn’t cause my chest to tighten with dread.

“Thank the gods you’re all right,” he breathed against my hair. His face was streaked with dirt and blood, but all I could see were his ocean eyes, searching mine.