Falling Kingdoms (Falling Kingdoms 1)

“More than anything.”

“We’re at a standstill. We’ve breached the palace walls, but we can’t get any farther. King Corvin and everyone who stands in the way of this war ending quickly and easily are barricaded inside the castle and they refuse to surrender.”

“So break down the door,” Magnus said, pushing himself up from the bloody ground. His face was pale and there were dark circles under his eyes. While she’d healed his wounds, it would still take him a while to recover completely.

“We would if we could. But the door is infused with a protection spell. It can’t be broken...not by normal means.”

“A protection spell,” Lucia said with surprise. “From a witch?”

“Yes.”

Anger toward the king’s mounting deceptions sparked within her. “So this is why you brought me here. Because you already knew about this. Why didn’t you tell me until now?”

“Because I wasn’t sure if what I’d been told was true until we had access to the door itself. The witch said to have cast the spell was brought before me to answer questions. She wasn’t very much help.”

“Where is she now?” Magnus asked.

“Gone.”

“You let her go?” Magnus said, disbelief coating his words. “Or did you kill her?”

The king gave him a thin smile. “She was one who conspired with my enemy. She could help him now. She would not switch allegiances. Her death was swifter than she deserved.”

A shiver went down Lucia’s arms. The king returned his attention to Lucia, his harsh expression shifting to one of caring and concern. He took her hands gently in his. “I need your magic to break through that spell.”

She glanced toward her brother for some sort of guidance. It was an old habit.

Magnus caught her worried look. “It sounds dangerous.”

“Not for my daughter,” the king said. “She isn’t just a witch; she’s a sorceress with an endless supply of powerful magic at her fingertips.”

“Are you absolutely certain of that?” Magnus said, his words clipped. “If you’re wrong—”

“I’m not wrong,” the king said firmly.

“Of course I’ll help you, Father,” Lucia said. “For Limeros.”

Seeing Magnus nearly killed in this battle made her want it to be over, no matter what it took to make that happen. All she wanted was to go home again as soon as possible. The king squeezed her hands and smiled at her. “Thank you. Thank you, my beautiful daughter.”

Without delay, and with the protection of twenty Limerian guards, they guided her across the battlefield, scattered with bodies. She tried not to see the faces of the dead. All of this senseless pain and destruction could have been prevented if Auranos had surrendered. She had grown to hate them as much as her father did for letting this escalate.

“You must stop if it becomes too much for you,” Magnus said when they arrived at the castle’s entrance, only loud enough for her to hear. “Promise me.”

“I promise.” She nodded, then turned her attention to the tall wooden doors before her. There was no mistaking that there most definitely was a spell on these doors. A very powerful one. “Can you see it?”

“What?”

“The spell. It shimmers on the door. I—I think it’s created from all four elements combined.”

Magnus shook his head. “I see nothing but a door. A big one.”

The door wasn’t the problem. The spell was. And it was cast by a very powerful witch—one who had delved deeply into magic to create something like this.

Blood magic helped with this spell, Lucia thought suddenly. Someone—or many someones—had been sacrificed to create such protection.

That the Auranians were willing to allow such a thing only strengthened her resolve. There was blood on their hands as much—or more so—than anyone else’s.

It would take a great deal of Lucia’s magic to break through this wall of protection. She couldn’t doubt herself. Her power was strongest when it came from a deep, emotional place inside. She remembered how she’d felt when she saw Magnus at the edge of death and summoned her newfound magic.