Page 13 of Magic Forsaken
She had to be at least seven feet tall, with brown skin, dark hair, and eyes bluer than the ocean. One of her hands was wrapped around the neck of a man whose dark uniform suggested he was probably the club’s bouncer, dragging him behind her with seeming effortlessness as she strode forward at the center of a swirling whirlpool. Shards of broken glass crunched beneath her feet while water whipped at the air, somehow wreathing her body in constant motion and stirring her dark hair into a wild cloud.
The crowd panicked and immediately fled towards the margins of the room, where they huddled silently, as if unwilling to attract the newcomer’s attention. Drinks toppled off tables, glasses shattered, and the music stopped. Faris was still nowhere to be seen, and behind the bar, Seamus was looking both furious and a little wary.
Whoever this woman was, she seemed to inspire terror in every other Idrian in the room. The man dangling from her grip was beginning to turn color, but no one stepped forward to help him—as if all of them were waiting for someoneelseto intervene.
Someone else wasn’t coming.
“Where is the traitor?” the woman demanded, in a resonant voice that echoed with power. She glared around the room, as if expecting to find this “traitor” huddled under one of the tables. “Hiding behind yourpeople, Faris?” Her voice rose, pulsating with fury and frustration.
I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t stand there in silence and watch her choke some poor man to death. I knew it was stupid to speak up. Knew I shouldn’t get involved, but her abuse of power provoked a surge of rage that I simply could not ignore.
My mouth opened, and I took a single step towards her, but before I could voice my defiance, someone else spoke up from beside me.
“Faris isn’t here, Talia.”
I watched in surprise as the king of the shifters moved forward to confront the newcomer. His arms crossed over his chest in a deceptively mild pose, but I could see the clenched muscles of his jaw and the flash of anger in his eyes.
“But neither should you be trespassing in his city at this time—not without an invitation. The Symposium doesn’t begin for another two weeks, so would you care to tell me what you’redoing here, breaking the peace and causing a disturbance at a neutral place of business?”
Hiscity? There were those words again. Just how much power did Faris have?
“Invitation or no invitation, I will have answers,” Talia spat, the water around her swirling faster as if it were an echo of her rage. “I’ve been ignored long enough. The fae have denied me, the dragons responsible have isolated themselves, and Faris has refused to answer my messages, so here I am. And I will disrupt whatever I please until I receive an explanation.Tell me what has happened to my people.”
She might as well have shoved a mountain with her pinkie. The only sign of a reaction from Callum was a single raised eyebrow.
“I can’t tell what’s worse,” he returned coolly. “That you accuse us of hiding something of this magnitude, or that you think you can come here and sling your power around without consequences.” His voice dripped with disdain. “Have you forgotten who Faris is and what he is capable of? Are you that eager to limp home, licking your wounds and presenting a vulnerable front to your enemies?”
The water swirling around the newcomer suddenly turned to ice, and before I could take a breath, a thousand crystalline shards hung poised in the air.
Pointed right at Callum. And by extension, at me, Kira, and Declan.
Plus seventy or eighty other people who might easily become collateral damage if these two powerful Idrians chose to engage one another with their full strength.
Draven, I suddenly realized, was nowhere in sight.
And Callum had taken another step forward. Drawing Talia’s attention. Making himself the largest target.
“You were warned that all matters relating to Elayara’s crimes would have to wait until the Symposium,” he said coldly, “and my patience is not without limits. Either release Oliver and begin this conversation again, or I can promise that you won’t enjoy the consequences.”
Despite how annoyed I might be with him personally, part of me was silently cheering him on. I kind of hoped he would grow wings and claws right there and slap down the water elemental like swatting a fly.
But at the same time, part of my magic cringed from the tone of threat in his voice. Not because I feared him—no, this was that part of me that knew instinctively how to convince. Persuade. Entice. Even how to lie.
I didn’t know exactly what to call it, but I hated it. I’d sworn never to use it. But I’d possessed this strange power for long enough now that I also knew better than to ignore it when it gave me a warning.
Talia was not going to respond well to threats. She was frustrated. Filled with righteous fury. She felt confident she could defeat everyone in the room, and she was not in a mood that cared about collateral damage.
But what good did this knowledge do me? Without the magic buried deep at my core, I was little better than a gnat hovering at the edge of a hurricane. I knew nothing of Idrian political spats, still less the extent of the forces that warred within this room.
And yet, for some reason, a thread of power continued to tug at the edges of my awareness, as if trying to get my attention. My eyes seemed drawn to those glittering shards of ice, as if unable to look away, and my fingers twitched, as if yearning to touch each fractured blade.
I shoved away the impulse and clenched my hands around the hem of my shirt. There were already too many magicalheavyweights in this room, and none of them were likely to welcome my interference.
Thankfully, while I’d been distracted by my wayward impulses, everyone else in the club had responded to the heightening tension without any need for direction. Almost as if they’d practiced responding to powerful supernatural threats.
Seamus had eased out from behind the bar, and with Kira’s help, began herding the customers out one by one through the kitchen door. They all appeared more resigned now than frightened, and I saw Seamus shrug as if to say “what can you do?” Even the band slipped out behind them, followed by Kira’s brother, Declan, who was looking decidedly ashen.
It was only the shifter king who did not fall back or slink away through the kitchen. His shoulders were relaxed, and his whole body radiated a sense of peaceful superiority, as if no part of him were threatened by the outraged elemental.