Falling Kingdoms (Falling Kingdoms 1)

Like magic.

“Please.” The word was more of a soft cry. “Please work.”

She waited for what felt like forever, but nothing happened. Nothing.

It was too late.

Cleo finally turned to face Nic. His eyes brimmed with tears as he saw the grief on her face. A coldness, like shards of ice, sank slowly into her.

“My sister is dead.” She barely recognized her own voice. “She died alone looking at the stars.”

Emilia and Simon had counted stars the romantic night they’d spent together. He told her they’d become stars when they died and would watch over those they loved. It was why Emilia’s face had been turned to the window tonight. She’d been searching for him.

Nic stayed close but silent. She didn’t expect him to say anything. There was nothing he could say to make this better.

“I was too late,” she said. “I was too late. I could have saved her, but I was too late.”

She clutched her sister’s cold hand and sat on the side of the bed next to Emilia for so long that the sun began to rise. Nic stayed with her the whole time, sitting on the ground near the window, his legs crossed.

“We should close her eyes now,” he finally said.

Cleo couldn’t talk. All she could do was nod.

Nic came over and reached toward Emilia, closing her eyes so Cleo could almost fool herself again that her sister was only sleeping.

“We need to tell your father,” he said. “I’ll do it. Don’t worry. Don’t worry about anything. It’ll be all right.”

She shook her head. “Nothing will be all right ever again.”

“I know this isn’t going to be easy for you to hear right now, but you have to be strong. Can you do that?” He cupped her face. “Can you be strong?”

In her last conversation with Emilia she’d asked Cleo to be strong. It was all she wanted. And Cleo said she would.

“I can try,” she whispered.

Nic nodded. “Let’s go.”

He put his arm around her as they moved toward the door. Cleo glanced over her shoulder one more time at her sister. She looked so peaceful in her bed, as if she would wake up at any moment from a pleasant dream, ready for breakfast.

They began to walk down the hall toward her father’s chambers, Nic’s hand at Cleo’s back to support her in case her legs gave out again.

A moment later, an explosion shook the entire castle.

A sunrise was the most beautiful thing in the whole world, even during a time of war. Lucia has risen extra early and stood outside her tent as she waited for the sky to turn a vibrant mix of pink and orange beyond the city of tents.

She hated being here. She’d been kept away from the worst of the battle, but she wasn’t ignorant. Men were dying on all sides of this siege. And she wanted it over with.

Lucia had resolved to ask her father’s permission to return to Paelsia, but the thought was swept away the moment her brother was helped into her tent by two of her father’s guards. The king himself entered afterward, his expression grim. Magnus’s face was bloody, his eyes half-closed.

“What happened?” she exclaimed.

A medic rushed in as the guards stepped back, and he cut through Magnus’s jacket and shirt to remove them. His arm had been sliced all the way to the bone. A vicious, bloody wound on his abdomen showed he’d also been stabbed.

“I didn’t even know he was still out there until he was brought back here to camp on a stretcher,” the king said. “I hadn’t wanted him to be so involved in the combat so soon, but he likes to go against my orders. Foolish boy.”

Lucia reached for him but pulled her shaking hand back to press it against her mouth instead. “Magnus!”

“He’s lost a great deal of blood. I wanted him brought here for privacy.”