Page 38 of Wings of Snow
“What in all the realm is happening?” my sister cried, her chest heaving.
I looked to Norivun, then Drachu, then Tylen before Drachu grinned. “Tylen is a null.”
Norivun’s chest rose rapidly, and it suddenly struck me that I no longer felt his commanding aura.
“What happened?” I rasped, still rocking, but before Norivun could respond, the Lochen king gave my mate a triumphant smile.
“You shall never command me again, Solis prince. I now control the magic of your mate. Should you come to my shores again and demand that we stop our raids, you’ll be met with a far different outcome than you did last time.”
A portal key appeared in Drachu’s grip, and the fae king smirked in my direction. I wanted him and hated him simultaneously with such intensity. I’d never despised someone like this before, not even Vorl, and the way Drachu had just used me...
All of it made me sick.
The Lochen king winked, and then he whispered the words to activate the portal key. In a flash of power, Drachu and Tylen disappeared, taking the diamond that contained my channeled affinities with them.
CHAPTER 12 - NORIVUN
“Ilara?” I flew to her side, my arms going around her as I helped my mate to her feet even though rage was still making my entire body shake.
Groaning, she stood, still clutching her stomach.
“Are you all right?” I carefully assessed her, but she had no outward wounds.
“I’ll be okay. Now that he’s stopped pulling on my magic, it’s getting better.”
“I’m going tofucking kill him.” My chest heaved as Ilara trembled in my arms. Her white-feathered wings fluttered in the breeze, and if so much hadn’t happened in the past few minutes, I would still be marveling that my matehad wings.
But now was not the time for celebration. Drachu was gone. His power-nulling son had disappeared with him, and my mate would forever be in the Lochen king’s clutches unless we found a way to free her.
It was my biggest fear come true.
The salty ocean wind whipped around us as my guards’ feral expressions grew. Cailis looked ready to vomit.
“I knew he might have something up his sleeve, but I didn’t think it would be this bad,” Ilara breathed. Shivers continued to wrack her frame.
“We’ll find a way to undo it.”
She gave a small nod, but worry still rolled across her features as she peered up at me. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” I tentatively called upon my death affinity, but it still refused to respond. I cut off the snarl that wanted to work up my throat as Haxil assessed me with a frown.
“Is your magic coming back?” my guard asked.
I shook my head. “No, not yet. He was a powerful null.” So powerful that all it took was a fleeting brush of contact to lock down my affinities so tightly it was as though a steel door had slammed shut on them.
“A null?” Cailis said, her gaze whipping between me and my guards. “What in the realm is anull?” Her chest still heaved, as did Ilara’s, but my only concern was for my mate.
I placed a hand on Ilara’s lower back, drawing her closer in hopes of soothing her frayed nerves. Addressing Cailis, I said, “A null is a Lochen fairy that has the ability to cut off fae from their own magic, or in a Solis’s case, from their affinities.”
“You mean...” Cailis’s eyes widened. “When Tylen touched you, he stopped you from accessing any of your magic?”
As much as it pained me to admit how vulnerable I was, I nodded. “Yes, but it’s more than that. He stripped me of them. In that moment, and even now, I’m as magicless as a child. My speed and strength, which I’m able to amplify with magic, were also cut off. It’s why I didn’t kill Drachu. I couldn’t.”
Ilara’s arms wrapped around me, and she buried her face in my chest.
Something in me instantly calmed, and I forgot about Cailis, Drachu, his son, and my guards.
I gathered Ilara to me and wrapped my arms and wings around her. Breathing in her scent brought the first stirring of peace within me since the final test of the Rising Queen Trial despite the predicament we currently found ourselves in.