Breathless Magic by Rachel Higginson Page A

with fury, so I tightened them into balls in my lap. I
leaned forward and met his dead-eyed stare. He met my steady gaze with a
confidence I knew was misplaced and built on lies.
    “I didn’t keep the Magic,” I told him. My voice trembled
with frustrated conviction. “If he told you that then he lied to you. The Magic
is free. The Magic has been free .”
    He shook his head but fear lit his expression and he
struggled to sit up. “No,” he argued. “You have it.”
    “I’ve never had it,” I spat out. “Never. The Magic has been
free since Lucan died. And as long as I rule it will always be free.” He grimaced at my words; I could see the
indecision war in his head. So I proved my point. “Where’s the death? Where’s
the King’s Curse? It’s all gone. All of it. You took my friend and you tortured
her, you broke her. You did
everything you could to murder her. But why couldn’t Terletov end her? Why is
she here today? Alive ?” His eyes
flickered to Lilly who was still cradled in Talbott’s arms. His sword stayed
ready in his free hand but he would not engage and risk hurting Lilly.
Thankfully, he didn’t need to. We had this. I returned my attention back to the
fallen soldier in front of me. “I released the Magic years ago. And my Kingdom
will reap the benefits of all the power and authority that belongs to them. But
you won’t. You believed the wrong man and now you will pay the price of your
foolishness. You can wander this world mortal and powerless. You can live a
life without the Magic that belongs to you. And you can die a painful but
deserved death. I’ve taken what belongs to you because you tried to take what
belongs to me. But I won’t kill you. Instead, you can have the death you
accused me of bringing to my Kingdom.” I stood up and looked down at his
stricken face with pity. “You can decide the difference for yourself.”
    “Eden,” Kiran called to me. “We need to go.”
    I left the man wallowing in his own tragedy and joined my
husband. I had been called the next Oracle most of my teenage years, but the
entire time I had almost failed to understand what that meant.
    In my adult life there had been little use of the Oracle
talent. The peace we’d enjoyed over the last few years had allowed me to shelve
most of my stronger Immortal skills because they were unnecessary.
    A few times over the years, something had happened or I had
said something with such absolute certainty that I knew, without a doubt, that
the Oracle I was prophesied to be was manifesting itself in that moment.
    This was one of those times.
    I felt the Magic pump through my body as an entity of power
all its own. Indivisible from my blood, but potent, consuming and stronger than
any other thing I’d encountered before.
    The Magic was free.
    And while we’d speculated this over the past couple years, I
could now say without a doubt that it was. My people could enjoy the promise of
our heritage and the hope of a brilliant future.
    But we had to stop killing each other first. Because
Immortality was not a concrete concept. Immortals still died, lives still
ended. We knew that better than anyone with the recent deaths of our dear
friends.
    We needed to end this civil war and find a peace and
strength that could last us forever.
    “Are you alright?” Kiran asked as his eyes took in my
appearance.
    I patted my hair that hung all around my shoulders. I could
only imagine how crazy I looked right now. My black, curly hair was wild and
untamed, my skin felt as though it were glowing from the use of so much Magic;
my clothes were disheveled, my bottom lip swollen from a blast of Magic I
hadn’t prepared for. The Magic popped and cracked inside my veins with a
ferocity that shocked my nerves with each beat of my heart. I could feel it
slide and hover over my skin and in the air around me as if my body was not
enough to contain the vivid power and strength that had manifested with the
Oracle. I was wired. I was more