Page 30 of Born of Starlight
My heart pounded as the boy continued talking.
“The teaching of magic is outlawed entirely. Anyone who wieldsanymagic ends up in the Wastelands. So the understanding of magic is waning in all Corridors. And immortals are not allowed to conceive.” The Commander sighed. The charm would be fading any minute now.
The bitch had really done it. Remembering when magic had flourished through the Kingdoms of Brennax and Phynx sent a pang to my chest.Gone.All of it banished to the Wastelands. A land no one knew much about other than its notoriety for being a harsh and unlivable climate and its volcanic shores, sealing those exiled there to a miserable fate.
No one thought it possible to survive there—yet I knew people lived there. I’d seen those Lynx leading some of them away.
“The decree against immortals reproducing in Phynx happened long before these orders.” My jaw tightened. “It’s one of the many disagreements that drove Brennax and Phynx to war.”
“Which side of that war did you fight on?” Emmerick asked.
I curled my lips into a smirk. I knew I couldn’t say much more truthfully. “That’s an interesting story,” I answered.
I needed to change the topic quickly as the charm wore off.
“So, you have a lady back home. But have you ever imagined what’s under the tunic while you…” I threw a thumb toward the bedchamber door and made a crass pumping gesture with my hand, unable to help but provoke him.
He met my eyes with a glare and no response. My time was up.
“Just testing you, of course.”
Emmerick’s attention turned as the door creaked and Asterie stepped out—freshly clothed and no longer looking like a butcher. She wore a black tunic and long black skirts. Disappointing. I liked the view of her curves in those breeches.
“Feeling better?” I asked, and she nodded.
“Yes, thank you.” A grateful expression crossed her face, only momentarily. Then, I remembered the boy’s words—her first time out of that tower.
“Careful. Fenris the Warlock here gave me funny tea that made me only able to speak the truth,” Emmerick revealed.
“Fenris.” My name on her lips and the tempting rasp to her voice made my senses flare. “Is that so? A truth charm? That’s clever.”
Asterie crossed the floor to the hearth. Her woolen socks caught some of the upraised wood splinters on her way to smell each kettle. She set out two mugs and lifted the charmed tea.
“That’s the wrong one,” Emmerick warned.
She gave us both an impassive look as though unamused. Still, the corners of her lips tilted up, betraying her show of indifference. A trace of dimples indented her cheeks—an unrepressed smile would reveal them.
“Is it?”
Emmerick rubbed his hand down his face again. “You are completely insane.”
A flash of her front teeth in response to the boy’s worry caught my breath. A slight gap between them—a wildly interesting imperfection.Why did I find so much about her wildly interesting?She crossed the room with two mugs of charmed tea and handed one to me, meeting my gaze.
Her hair was wetting her tunic, causing it to stick to her shape.Distracting. So very distracting.
Strange beauty—dark and ebbing with power. Yes, she was pretty, but there was a certain dangerous allure about her that both excited and frightened me.
“We’ll travel a long way together if the warlock sleeps on it and agrees to help us. So we may as well speak openly.” Asterie’s expression returned to its impartial mask, but her gaze never left mine. She seemed so self-assured for someone with so little knowledge of life beyond tower walls.
She looked confused when I outstretched my cup to hers.
“You touch your cup to mine—it’s a gesture of celebration.”
She tapped her mug to mine. “But what do we have to celebrate?”
We both sipped. “We can cheers to the truth, to new friends. There is always something to celebrate.”
It was something my father used to say.
