Borrowed Magic (30 page)

She felt her own body hit the floor and
vaguely registered the eerie glow of magic floating up and away
from Kern’s remains. Then Philip’s arms were around her, cradling
her against his chest.

“Maren!” he yelled. “Maren! Stay with me.
I’m going to get help. I’m not going to lose you.”

She tried to open her eyes, to see his face
one last time, but she couldn’t even do that. Death was claiming
her. But it was all right. They’d won.

Kern was dead.

Thirty-two

There was too much yelling. She wanted to tell them
all to be quiet so she could die in peace, but for some reason she
couldn’t move. Even her eyelids refused to open. She tried to speak
instead, only to find her throat was dry and parched. A hand
brushed against her forehead, smoothing her hair.

“Stop it!” someone very close by shouted.
“Can’t you see this is bothering her? We all need to calm down and
decide what to do. I refuse to let her die.”

“None of
us
can do
anything.
You
can.”

A hand clamped around her own hard enough
that she might have winced if she could have.

“No. What if we’re wrong? What if it kills
her?”

“If you don’t, then she’ll die for sure.
It’s her only chance.”

Were they talking about her? She tried to
open her eyes again with no success. Everything felt hazy, and not
just because she couldn’t seem to fully wake up. As if something
were missing.

She heard a long sigh. “Do you think it will
hurt?”

It took a long time before someone else
answered. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

Pain. She picked through the impressions
floating around her mind and knew pain was something she was
familiar with. She did a quick inventory of her body. Nothing. She
didn’t hurt anywhere. That struck her as being strange.

If nothing was physically wrong with her,
why couldn’t she move, or see, or fully grasp her own thoughts?

“You have to do this if you want to save
her. We can’t do anything more for her.”

“I know.”

Someone pressed their lips against her
forehead, and then she felt hands against either side of her face
followed by words she couldn’t make out. Then a strange sensation,
that wasn’t entirely physical, began pushing against her temples,
and she realized it was trying to get inside her.

She struggled to fight whatever it was, not
even knowing exactly why. It was uncomfortable but it didn’t hurt.
She fought it more because of something that had happened before,
something she couldn’t remember but that tugged at her
subconscious.

The hands against her face tightened.
“Please, Maren. I’m not Kern.”

Something deep inside her responded to the
desperate plea in a way she didn’t understand, and all her defenses
dropped. An indescribable force wove its way through her mind
before spreading throughout the rest of her body. It wasn’t harsh,
or abrasive, or overpowering. Instead it flowed through her,
filling in gaps she hadn’t even realized were there.

The hands at her face reached to grab her
own, but the calmness that had engulfed her remained. Something had
shifted. She let out a sigh of pure contentment.

She was whole.

Her room wasn’t
any different. At least not any different than it had been – before
Kern cast his horrible spell. And yet as she looked around at the
familiar surroundings, she felt disconnected, as if she were
looking through someone else’s eyes.

She’d woken a few minutes before to find
herself alone and managed to push herself up against the pillows,
which took more effort than she would have imagined. At least she
wasn’t in pain. It was a start.

Someone whispered in the hallway outside her
door, but she couldn’t pick out the words. She was glad they were
outside. At least for now, while she tried to make sense of what
had happened, why she was still alive, or if the dreams she’d had,
the sensation that she was whole, was actually real.

Kern was dead. She did know that. So was
Daric.

She sucked in a deep breath, surprised at
how good it felt, as if she hadn’t truly breathed for a long time,
and then scooted to the edge of the bed and sat up. After the
initial light-headedness passed, she pushed herself to her feet and
clutched at the bedpost until she felt confident she could move.
Her knees didn’t actually shake, but they were weak, and she had to
keep one hand on the bed as she walked.

She wanted a mirror, to see if something
there would give her answers to why she felt like a shadow of her
physical self. Because that’s the only thing she could find that
was wrong. Inside, she felt wonderful and alive.

Her dressing table was a few steps from the
end of her bed, but she managed without assistance and fell into
the chair. Then she looked in the mirror and gasped. Her cheeks
were sunken, her red eyes rimmed with shadow, and her hair lay in
snarled clumps around her shoulders. She looked as if she’d been
ill for months and had a brief moment of alarm.

The door clicked open behind her but she
didn’t turn, too horrified by the image in front of her.

“What happened to me?” she whispered to
whoever had come.

She didn’t get an answer. Instead strong
arms lifted her from the chair and held her tight, conveying in
more than words his fear and relief. Then he whispered against her
hair in a voice rough with emotion.

Philip. She recognized the
feel of his arms and the sound of his voice, but it was more than
that. She recognized
him.
She didn’t know how else to explain it. Even if
he hadn’t held her or opened his mouth, she would have known it was
him as soon as he came near her.

She pulled back and wiped away his tears. He
did the same for her. And then she just stared at him, absorbing
the shadows under his eyes and noticing that his hair was
disheveled and he wasn’t shaved.

“How long was I asleep?”

He bent his forehead to hers. “Eleven
days.”

It wasn’t as long as she’d feared, but it
was still too long. “What happened? Why do I look like…”

“Like you almost died?” he finished for her
and pulled her back into his arms. “Because you almost did.”

But she should have. “Why didn’t I,
though?”

He ran a hand over his face as if he didn’t
want to remember but knew he owed her some kind of explanation.

“As soon as Kern was dead, everything went
crazy. People were screaming and running as they saw Kern for who
he truly was and as the magical façade he’d created crumbled. But
all I could think about was you. You were barely breathing, and I
could feel you slipping away.”

A shudder rippled through him.

“I did what I could, but healing was
something I never focused on. I didn’t know exactly what to do.
Kira gathered every healer she could find. She even braved the
magical section of the city, begging for anyone who might be able
to help. And they came. It took days, but eventually all your
physical ailments were cured.”

She reached her arms around his neck and
hugged him tight. “But I still don’t understand how you could heal
me at all?”

“I think once Kern’s magic was gone, once he
was dead, his hold over you went away.”

He skimmed a hand along her hair.

“I thought that would be enough, that all
your injuries were physical, but after a few days you still weren’t
waking up.” He took a deep breath. “I didn’t know what to do. I
didn’t even know what was wrong. I went over everything that had
happened the day Kern died with the healers. I told them every
detail I could remember, but I didn’t know everything. I didn’t
know how you managed to get Kern’s magic out of you. I didn’t know
what damage that might have done. So I went back further. I told
them everything you had told me, about him using his magic to hurt
and control you, and your description of how you felt it working
its way into your body.

“One of them wondered if Kern’s magic was
embedded more deeply than we realized, if it had somehow become a
part of you. When you pushed the magic out, it took a force so
powerful it actually ripped it from your body, but it also left a
hole. That’s why you were still dying, because a huge part of you
was missing.”

She felt him shiver.

“I knew he was right,”
Philip went on. “I knew it like I’d never known anything before,
but I didn’t know what to do.” He paused for a long time. “The
healers only thought was that someone needed to fill the gap left
by Kern’s magic, to
share
a part of their magic with you. Someone with
enough power to do it. Someone who would be willing to do
it.”

She felt her heart burn inside her.

“I was the only one with enough power, but I
was scared. Not because I wasn’t willing. I would have done
anything, given up anything, to keep you alive. I was scared it
wouldn’t work, that it would kill you, that it would hurt you more
than you’d already been hurt. I knew what Kern’s magic had done to
you. I didn’t know if my magic would do the same. If I’d only be
prolonging your life. That I’d have to watch you die all over
again.”

He pulled her closer and buried his face in
her hair.

“I did it anyway. I was
selfish. I wanted more time with you…however I could get it. I
poured my magic into you and merged it with the shredded parts
Kern’s had destroyed, and I felt…” He struggled for the right word.
“I felt
you.
Alive. Whole.”

Exactly as she’d felt herself. It hadn’t
been a dream.

A few hours
later, Maren stood in what was left of the Great Hall. Philip had
wanted her to stay in her room, but she couldn’t. She needed to see
where it had all happened. Where it had all ended. And despite her
physical weakness, she didn’t want to sit in bed. She wanted to go
and make herself feel better – to live.

So she’d sent for Kira, who immediately
threw her arms around her neck and cried. Then she bathed, ate, and
dressed, picking a gown of dusty blue. She hoped the color would
make her look less on the verge of death. When she peeked in the
mirror, she was mildly satisfied. The rest would just take
time.

As her eyes scanned the room before her, she
realized it would also take time to heal. Almost every window was
shattered, and glass littered the marble floor. Light streamed
through a giant hole in the ceiling, hitting the jagged shards and
sending rainbows across the walls. It would have been beautiful –
if not for the cause.

That wasn’t the only evidence of what had
happened. Scorch marks now decorated various spots on the walls and
floor. Chairs were overturned. Torn draperies hung limply on their
rings. Even the giant metal doors had somehow been blown off their
hinges. It looked like a battleground, which she realized it was.
Not with huge armies battling with swords and cannons, but with two
mages, father and son, and the help of a girl who wasn’t magical at
all.

She closed her eyes. It was over. She no
longer felt Kern’s dark magic inside her. She was free. From
everything except the memories.

She forced her eyes back open and faced the
one place she’d been avoiding. The throne was split in two, as if
someone had taken an axe to it, but the chair where she’d sat was
somehow still upright. With the chaos everywhere else, it seemed
out of place. Wrong. She ran her hands along the now-silvery lines
that crossed her skin. Even if they no longer glowed eerie blue,
they were there, a reminder of what had happened, what she’d
endured. There were some things that couldn’t be fixed or rebuilt
or forgotten.

“We tried to take away the scars,” Philip
said as he threaded his fingers through hers. “Even the strength of
my magic wouldn’t touch them.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder.
“It’s all right. When all of this is repaired, when everyone
forgets about Kern, it will help us remember.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to forget?”

“No. We can’t ever forget. If we do, we
allow it to happen again.”

She forced herself to face the front of the
room. “How were you able to kill Kern?”

He slipped his arms around her waist. “I
didn’t. At least not completely. I think it was his own power, the
magic you managed to tear from your body, that ultimately killed
him. He could protect himself against my magic. I don’t think he
could protect himself from his own.”

A throat cleared behind them. “Excuse me,
Your Majesty.”

Maren’s eyes widened. It seemed more had
transpired in the time she was asleep than Philip had told her.

Philip let out a frustrated breath.
“Yes?”

“Um, Lord Berk wants to meet with you in the
Council chambers.” The servant shifted uncomfortably. “He said as
soon as possible.”

Philip scowled, which only made the man take
a step back. “And does Lord Berk know that I’m with Lady Maren,
that she’s awake for the first time in almost two weeks, and that I
don’t care what he wants?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Philip clenched his fists at his side and
walked towards the man with the obvious intention of throwing him
out and slamming what was left of the doors in his face. “You can
tell Lord Berk—”

“That Lord Philip will be there shortly,”
Maren finished.

The servant bowed and threw her a grateful
look before retreating.

“He’s just doing his job,” she said to
Philip’s back.

He ran a hand through his hair. “I know. I’m
just sick of answering to Berk. Of having him tell me what we
should do next, when we should start the repairs, which people need
help first, or how important it is that I take charge.”