Frozen Tides (Falling Kingdoms 4)

She spoke so calmly, it was as if they’d seen each other only yesterday. As if he hadn’t chased after her all over Mytica, trying to stop her from letting that devious Watcher ruin her life, only to find blood and death at the temple.

All he wanted was to reach forward and take her hand in his, to ensure that she was real. There was a time not so long ago when she was his only friend in the world, the one who knew him better than any other.

Cleo and her devoted minion remained standing by the exit to the ice maze, but they were close enough to overhear this conversation. The last time the two princesses had seen each other, Lucia had allegedly tried to kill Cleo. After overhearing the cold words Cleo had spoken to Nic, Magnus was more certain than ever that Lucia had ample reason to threaten the Auranian princess’s life. He couldn’t stop himself from glancing over his shoulder to see her reaction to his adopted sister’s return. Cleo stood there, her fists clenched at her sides, with not a glimmer of fear in her eyes. No great surprise.

He frowned. “Where else would I be, Lucia? The note you left, your elopement . . .”

“I don’t believe I mentioned I’d be going to Limeros.”

“Remember, I do know you. Perhaps better than you realize. It was immediately clear to me where you’d want to go with your . . . beloved.” And then there was also the fact that, in her fit of rage, Lucia had told Cleo that the water Kindred could be claimed here. Where else would her devious Watcher want to take her?

“I’m sure you were very angry with me,” said Lucia after a moment of consideration.

“I was angry,” he admitted. “But not with you. I blame Alexius for everything.”

“Me too.”

That was a surprising admission, and one that perhaps explained Alexius’s curious absence from Lucia’s side. “You were there at the temple, weren’t you? Before the ice storm?”

She nodded. “We were.”

He’d been doing a good job of ignoring the cold, but now a chill crackled down his spine. “You caused the ice storm, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” she replied simply.

His gaze flicked again to the young man beside her, eyeing him now with intense curiosity. He was very tall, with a strong jaw, amber-colored eyes, and dark blond hair long enough to brush his shoulders. The boy eyed Magnus with interest, an eyebrow raised.

“Who are you?” Magnus asked sharply.

“I am Kyan.”

“What are you doing with my sister, Kyan?”

He cocked his head. “Many things.”

Kyan’s short, disrespectful reply infuriated Magnus, but he held his anger tightly to his chest. “Where’s your new husband, Lucia?”

“Alexius is dead.”

He snapped his gaze back to her. “What?”

“He’s dead. He and Melenia both.”

Melenia. The powerful Watcher who’d visited his father’s dreams, advising him to build a road that would lead him to the Kindred. Up until now, Magnus had assumed that the king was still impatiently waiting for her to contact him again.

It seemed King Gaius’s days of immortal guidance were over.

“Were you the one who killed them?” Cleo asked from several paces away. Magnus tensed at the sound of her voice.

“One of them,” Lucia replied calmly.

Magnus knew how powerful Lucia’s elementia was, but he also knew that it was often uncontrollable, so much that she’d been afraid of it. She’d worried that her magic had made her evil, but he’d always reassured her that nothing about her could ever be evil.

Did he still believe that?

Lucia looked sharply to the other princess. “I’m surprised to see you here, Cleo. I was certain you’d be long dead by now.”

“Alive and well, thank you,” Cleo replied through gritted teeth.