Ruler [Blood Magic, Book 3]

Chapter 50: Worst Case Scenario

After that spectacular kiss - and flying! - in the arena, I expected Keel to rush back to the royal chambers once done with the night's royal duties. There was so much to talk about. Our magic. Us. And then maybe more kissing. But he didn't return. By 7:00 a.m. my mind had shifted from the previous evening's intimacies to my growing suspicion that something was seriously wrong.

I paced the suite, longing for my old security clearances. If I was back on the royal detail, I'd already know what was going on and, who knows, I might even be able to help. But here, sequestered away in the king's quarters, all I could do was worry and wait and feel useless. By 8:00 a.m. the dread crawled across my skin like an army of fire ants marching without destination and without end. I tapped the bond, reaching out for Keel. It returned a mountainous wallop of fear and anger, an emotional gut punch that sent me reeling. My stomach did a sickly somersault and I severed the connection, though far too late to stop my own fear from rising to meet his. "Seriously wrong" may have been a gross understatement, what I felt through our connection had been nothing short of catastrophic.

I went back to pacing and when that only proved to agitate me further, I disappeared into the bathroom for the cleaning supplies and started sprucing up the place. Since Keel and I began studying the bond in here, the king had cancelled all his cleaning services. Too much chance of something being unintentionally discovered or accidentally uprooted. It meant the wood gleamed a lot less these days, but I was thankful for it, because it also meant I didn't have to face any strange vampires. And right now, it was something to take my brain off whatever terrible thing was happening elsewhere, because if I didn't find a distraction, I was going to follow the bond tether straight to Keel and demand an explanation.

At 8:23 a.m. - I know because I was checking the time obsessively - Keel walked through the door, his face stripped of every ounce of triumph and wonder from our sky-high float in the arena.

"What is it?" I said, putting down my rag and the spray can of lemon-scented furniture polish.

"The sorcerers have declared war."

I wobbled. We'd known it was the most probable outcome given everything, but hearing it out loud, pronounced like that, gave it a different, suffocating kind of weight, making it hard to breathe.

I'm not sure how long we stared at each other not talking. I didn't know what to say and he didn't know what more to say. Seven hours ago, the world had seemed like one great big endless possibility. Magic. Keel. Kissing. And now that world was about to end before I even got to see what it could be like. Change would steal it all away again.

"It's bad, isn't it?" I said finally, but I already knew, from the darkness in his face to the brightness in his eyes to all the awful things rolling through the bond to me.

"If we don't surrender before the deadline, they'll come at us with all their magical might."

"And if we surrender, we die, because by coming here I forfeited my life and if the sorcerers are scared enough of our bond to declare war, that would be the quickest end to it."

"That's what your father said too."

"So we have no option, we have to fight." 

Keel looked grim.

"How long do we have?" I asked. "How long until we're past their deadline?"

"Three weeks."

I exhaled. It was hardly any time, but better than no time at all. "What are we going to do?"

"We're going to war."

Later that morning as Keel slept, my pacing continued. I moved from the desk to the couch to the dining table, unable to get comfortable, unable to slow the Ferris wheel of terror rotating in my head. In twenty-one days, an army of magic users would be headed our way with orders to take down this enclave and Keel and me specifically.

I walked to the bed and sat down on my side of the mattress, watching Keel breathe in and out so slowly it was almost as if he wasn't breathing at all. In sleep, the whole of him always looked softer, more like the boy I'd first fallen for. It was an illusion that coaxed forth a familiar ache beneath my ribs, and a strange kind of guilt too, because he hadn't been the only Keel on my mind in that moment. The king he'd become now held a place there too, regardless of what that said about me.

But it was hard to think about that in the face of impending doom.

I returned to my cleaning, desperate to shake the feeling that this was all happening too fast and way too soon. Keel and I had only scratched the surface of our powers. Would our magic be enough to fortify the place or in a month's time would Keel be king of a mausoleum?

I shuddered, put an extra burst of vigor into my polishing, and gave up all hope of sleeping.