A Trial of Sorcerers: Book One by Kova, Elise (universal ebook reader .txt) 📕

in the first place and skated in stupid circles when she should have insisted they keep pressing onward.

Her mind jumped from one dark thought to the next. Further and further down she spiraled until she was the one who had sunk into a dark abyss. But when Eira opened her eyes, she was the one still breathing.

Eira bowed her head and pressed it into the center of Marcus’s chest. He was freezing over. The water had sapped the warmth from his body before they’d even come ashore.

“We promised… I promised you,” she rasped. “We would go back together. Let’s go, brother. One last time.”

She didn’t have much magic left and what she was about to do risked depleting the last of it. She was risking Ferro getting free to bring her brother back with her. But Eira couldn’t have it any other way.

Eira lifted a hand and her brother rose off the ground, supported by a bed of snow and water. It gurgled and shifted around him. Marcus was carried on the tides of her magic as Eira began the long march back to Solarin.

Ferro sounded like he was laughing behind her. His throaty chortles and snorts echoed into the forest, chasing her with the promise that soon he would be as well. She ignored the noise and focused on her magic. One hand guided Marcus. The other was balled into a fist and held Ferro in place. She would keep that fist all the way back to Solarin. She would keep it until Ferro was captured by someone stronger than her.

It wasn’t even an hour when Eira slipped the first time. Marcus tumbled to the ground and she caught herself on a tree. Tears spilled down her face once more.

“I’m sorry.” Eira hastily lifted her hand, bringing him upward on his bed of snow and water. “I never meant for any of this to happen.”

Eira spoke as she walked. She told her brother of all the things that she should have said when he could hear her. She told him about her fears, about her wants, about her worries.

But her voice soon gave out. It was just as tired as she was.

So tired.

One step.

Then the next.

That was all she could think about. One step after another. A relentless march toward Solarin.

“I’ll get you the Rites of Sunset,” Eira vowed aloud as the sun rose. “I’ll see your soul has a proper send-off to the realms beyond. I promise, Marcus.” The tears were flowing again. “I couldn’t save you, but I can do this.”

Silence was her only reply.

One step.

Then the next.

The fingers of her left hand were sweating. They trembled with the strain of keeping a fist and a hold on her magic. Eira refused to release them. She would die before she let that man free. If she repeated that enough times, it would come true.

The trees blurred around her, eventually relenting to a road that appeared out of nowhere. Eira stumbled down the snowy bank. Tripping, and falling hard. The cobblestones bit into her. Red splattered gray and white.

Marcus tumbled next to her. Eira pressed herself upright, uttering a thousand apologies. Warm, wet tears thawed the chill on the cobblestones as they fell from her cheeks.

They were close.

Just a little more from her, from her magic. And then… She didn’t know what then. She would sleep for a thousand years, maybe. She would sleep until the hurt stopped.

Keeping her left hand in a fist, Eira tried to stand. But her feet slipped on her own blood. She fell once more, clipping her chin. Her whole body was a mess of bruises and exhaustion.

Eira lay on the road next to her brother. She stared at his lifeless face.

“I can’t,” she rasped. “I can’t, Marcus. I can’t do this alone. I can’t make it back without you.” He continued to lie there, lifeless. “Please wake up.”

He didn’t.

Eira lay back and stared at the trees above her. Every second was harder than the last to keep her hand in a fist. Her muscles had long since cramped and locked up.

Blinking slowly, she watched as dawn broke on a silent world. She imagined people waking and going about their business and she hated every last one of them for their ignorance to her suffering. She would freeze it all if she weren’t so tired.

Every time her eyes closed was longer than the last. Yet Eira kept her hand locked. Maybe she was Adela’s offspring after all. Maybe Ferro was right and she had elfin power. How else could she sustain for so long?

Eira hoped he was right. For the first time she hoped she was spawned from the cold and cruel pirate queen. That would make her life, and her blood, cursed. And she would inflict that curse on whatever existence Ferro had beyond her.

Just when Eira’s eyes were closing for what felt like the final time, a rumbling echoed through the earth to her. It drew nearer and nearer until it could no longer be ignored. Eira twisted, barely able to lift her head.

In the distance was a rider, moving faster than the wind itself—as if the horse was flying more than galloping. Only one man could perform such a trick.

Eira opened her mouth, croaking, “Cullen.” She swallowed thickly; it tasted of blood. “Cullen!”

25

Eira felt as though she was being lifted from the grave. Cullen’s arms were sturdy as he hoisted her, supporting her on a bent knee, a hand cradling her head.

“Mother above, Eira, what—”

She knew by his expression what had halted him. His eyes had landed on Marcus, who was unnaturally still. Eira gripped Cullen’s shirt with her free hand.

“Ferro, he…”

“Meru’s ambassador?” Cullen shook his head, his eyes growing red with tears he was struggling to hold back. “What happened to you two?”

“Ferro attacked us.”

Cullen stared in shock. Then, his face twisted with a rage Eira had never thought possible from him. It shattered all of her notions of the prim and proper man