Gathering Darkness (Falling Kingdoms 3)

“What’s the truth?” Lucia asked. “And why hasn’t anyone been able to find the crystals?”

“Because in the thousand years since Cleiona and Valoria ceased to exist, the Kindred have not been physically here. Not buried, not hidden, not anywhere in this world. But now they can be summoned back. Melenia has worked so hard to lay the groundwork for this quest. No one is more dedicated to it than she is.”

Cleo recognized the name Melenia from the conversation she’d overheard between the king and Magnus. She must also be a Watcher. Cleo desperately wanted to ask for clarification, but she held her tongue.

“I’m ready, Alexius,” Lucia said brightly, as if this strange conversation had energized her. “If this is really my destiny, I’m ready to do whatever it takes. It’s all so hard to wrap my mind around, but I want to help you, and Melenia. My magic can be used for good, like you said. To help save the world from destruction. This, precisely, is what you meant, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Alexius’s expression remained rigid, pained even. “Perhaps tomorrow . . .”

“No, today. Our morning lessons haven’t exhausted me. I’m ready. If we’re going to do something, let’s do it now. Why wait a day longer than necessary when you’ve waited so long already?” She smiled, her sky-blue eyes lighting up with excitement. “Show me what to do. You’re my tutor. Tutor me.”

“Very well.” His jaw was tight. “Do you want her to stay?”

Lucia glanced at Cleo for a long, heavy moment. “That depends,” she said. “After all you’ve heard here, do you even want to stay?”

Was that a trick question? To gauge how strong Cleo’s interest was in this subject?

No reason for her to falter now.

“Yes,” Cleo said firmly. “It’s all so incredibly fascinating. I want to stay, if you’ll let me.”

Lucia didn’t speak for a moment, her attention sharp and unwavering in its assessment of her. “Yes, you can stay,” she finally said. “After all, it’s your ring that seems to be the important piece here.” She held out her hand. “May I have it?”

“Of course.” Cleo didn’t hesitate to pull it off her finger and give it to Lucia, who looked down at it with awe.

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

It was. And it wrenched Cleo’s heart out of her chest to see it in someone else’s possession.

Breathe, she told herself. Just breathe. This could still work.

Alexius pulled the shutters over the windows and closed the balcony doors, casting the room into shadow. He lit several candles and placed them in a cluster in the middle of the floor.

“Melenia went over this spell with me in detail, which will channel all four parts of your elementia,” he said. “Please, sit, both of you.”

Cleo sat on the floor, about five feet away from Lucia. Alexius sat down in front of them, creating a triangle with the candles at the center.

“I will warn you, princess,” Alexius said to Lucia, “that this will drain both your magic and your energy. I don’t yet know how much. But if I find it’s harming you, I will put a stop to it.”

Lucia nodded. “Understood. I’m not afraid. How do we begin?”

“Melenia has been working with your father to construct the Imperial Road,” he said. Cleo gasped as Alexius motioned with his hand, sending light spreading out across the floor between them. Finally, the light morphed into a shimmering map, which Cleo recognized immediately as Mytica. Mountain ranges, forestland, beaches, cities, towns, villages, lakes, and rivers—all rendered in exquisite detail on this magical landscape. It was like something from a dream.

Alexius studied the map. Then a new line of light appeared, etching itself into the landscape.

“It’s the road,” Lucia said, her eyes wide. “I recognize it from the maps my father studies every day.”

“The road is important,” Alexius explained. “It was engineered by an exiled Watcher, like myself. The road is infused with his magic, specifically as Melenia has instructed.

“There are four points along this road, four locations that Melenia determined to be powerful places that hold a more concentrated level of elemental magic than anywhere else in Mytica. She has used the road to join these places of power, threading them together like pearls on a necklace. Three of these locations have been the setting of fateful moments of blood magic. Blood that was spilled on or near the road then triggered elemental disasters, which confirmed them as ideal locations.”

Cleo stared at Alexius now, barely breathing. Elemental disasters—she’d experienced one herself. A massive earthquake on the day of her wedding right after the slaughter of Jonas’s group of rebels.

Blood magic. Could it be true?

“Sounds complicated,” Cleo said.

He nodded. “The recovery of the Kindred is a complicated, layered process. Nothing this important is ever easy.”