I traced one of them with my finger—a collection of triangles and circles.
“King Adrian has not yet turned you?” Safira asked.
My finger froze on the page.
“He has not,” I said, without looking away from my book “Though, it is not from lack of wanting.”
Although, last time, it had been me who begged Adrian to change me. I understood why he had said no in the aftermath of the lake attack. I had only recently come to accept the use of my aufhocker form, but that acceptance had yet to help me shift.
“Is it you who are not convinced?” Safira asked. “Do you not wish for immortality?”
I paused for a moment and looked up from my book. She had stopped scrubbing her skin and now hugged her knees to her chest. “I wish for invincibility,” I said. “It seems more practical.”
Though no longer guaranteed, apparently.
I set my book aside.
“Why don’t you tell me who you are?” I said.
Safira straightened. “What do you mean?”
“You are angry like I am angry,” I said. “Why? Where did you come from? How did you end up as a vassal?”
“I suppose I am like anyone who just wants to survive in this world,” she said.
“What does that mean?”
She shrugged. “My family is very poor, and I thought I could come here and make money to send back. And I did, for a while.”
“Will you seek to become a vassal once more?” I asked.
Her gaze returned to mine. “Am I allowed?”
“I do not see why you wouldn’t. It is nothing that will interfere with your role as my lady’s maid,” I said.
She shook her head. “I still do not understand why you chose me.”
“Because you have a use,” I said and leaned forward in my chair. “Before my coronation, someone in this castle poisoned me. Only a few days ago, Adrian’s fish were also poisoned. Someone within these walls is a traitor. I want you to find them.”
I chose not to explain how Adrian and I suspected one of his four closest advisors of treason because I did not wish Safira to know of the bloodletting or its consequences. It was knowledge I did not trust her to have.
“Outside these doors, you are to gather information and follow any hint of treason. You are to report only to me—no one else. Not even Adrian. Am I clear?”
With anything of this nature, I felt the fewer who knew the truth the better. I thought of Adrian’s earlier words—once the truth is spoken, it always seems to find its target. I expected her to question why I wished to keep Adrian ignorant, but that was not her worry.
“You trust me?” she asked. “To do this?”
“Not at all,” I said, rising with my book. “This is how you earn my trust.”
Safira finished bathing, and I gave her a nightgown to change into, sending her down the hall to one of the guest suites for the evening.
Once she was gone, I settled on my bed and began to study the spell book, specifically, the various shapes I could use to summon and bind magic.
Each shape has a frequency, an assigned energy. Alone, a circle, an oval, a triangle, are sacred symbols. Together, they are a language that makes up a spell.
This language had a range of power based on how the shapes were layered and intertwined. With this type of casting, no words were needed. I found myself mindlessly tracing the shapes into the air while I continued to read—a circle first and several triangles within.
“A summoning spell,” said a voice. “Well, aren’t you quite the novice.”
I looked up, locking eyes with Ravena who hovered in my mirror. I searched for changes in her—a difference in her hair color, aging in her face, a withered limb, signs that she might have performed spells from The Book of Dis, but she looked much the same—ginger-colored hair and narrow eyes, her skin stippled with freckles.
“You.” My voice quaked, and I rose from my bed, snatching my blade from the side table. She laughed as I armed myself.
“I plan to build a throne from your bones,” I said.
“Perhaps that is what I should do with yours and the rest of High Coven’s.”
“It makes sense that you would need our magic. You were never quite as powerful.”
Ravena smiled, narrowed her eyes, and suddenly, I felt a grip on my neck and I was lifted off the ground. The impact against my throat made me want to vomit, but I couldn’t even if I tried. I was slowly suffocating.
“I think you forget who is powerless now,” she said.
I was still clutching my blade, and I lifted my hands to my neck, hoping to stab at whatever magic she used to hold me. But there was nothing to grasp, nothing to pry away.
“You know this is what they wanted? All of us, divided, at war with one another. It’s hard to reach a goal when everyone is fighting.”
I could not form words; my mouth was full of saliva and my tongue felt swollen.
Suddenly, she released me, and I collapsed to the floor, coughing while simultaneously gasping for breath.
“It’s no fun talking to myself,” she said.
“Fuck you,” I rasped, but the words were choked. “What do you want?”
“To restore balance to the world,” she said.
I crawled forward and sat up, wincing as I swallowed, knife still in hand. “What does that even mean?”
“It means people have to die,” she said. “Peace makes no one powerful, Isolde. Even High Coven knew that. It is what tore us apart in the end.”
“You tore us apart.”
“Vada tore us apart,” Ravena snapped. “She was the one who sent us across Cordova to serve kings in their courts, all because she wanted power. That was the beginning of our end.”
Vada was an elder. She had handed me off to Dragos dressed in red, though I’d begged her to let me wear another color. She’d frowned at me, too proud of her work.
“But you are beautiful,” she’d said.
“This color is associated with depravity among my people,” I’d argued.
“But that is not the truth in Revekka. You must respect their customs.”
“Or they could respect mine,” I snapped. I was the one with real power.
“Yesenia.” Vada cupped my face between her cold and wrinkled hands. Her palms were softer than mine. They always had been. Vada had never planted her own herbs or harvested them. “We will not survive if we are not docile.”
“Is survival worth it, then?” I asked.
“When you have someone to live for, no sacrifice is too great,” she’d said.
But then we had gone on to give up our power, our autonomy, our lives, and we had lost those we loved anyway.
“You cannot believe that you have true power just because you sit upon a throne and wear a crown,” said Ravena.
“Adrian treats me as his equal,” I said.
“You do not know the man you married,” she said. “Adrian sees a use for you just as he sees a use for everyone else he allows into his life. He just happens to fuck you.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, my fingers tightening around the hilt of my blade.
“You think Adrian wants to be free of Dis?” she asked. “What he really wants is to take her place.”