CoS11

## Chapter 11

**Chapter 11** of **City of Spells** follows **Zekia**.

## **Full Version**

*THIS IS WHAT BECOMES of us.*

Zekia could still hear Ashwood’s voice and the words that had haunted her like a promise all those years ago. Even when she squeezed her eyes shut so very tightly and said her prayers to the Many Gods and drank a specially brewed elixir to calm her heart.

Those words were like scripture carved into her bones.

“Creije will be mine,” Ashwood said, back straight, hand resting atop his cane like it was both a weapon and a treasure. “We have over half of the districts. It’s only a matter of time before the rest of the city is under my control, and my magic is already circulating in the other eight cities of my realm.”

On the opposite side of the train, the other Kingpins of the realms stared at Ashwood like they could not quite believe their ears.

The train itself moved in broad circles somewhere in the middle of the Onnela Sea, which Ashwood had told Zekia was neutral ground between them. Or neutral waters. Though Zekia didn’t think the other two Kingpins looked very neutral.

Simran of Wrenyal was sitting, arms crossed at his chest, as though he wasn’t sure what else to do with them. His outfit was a wonderfully bright mix of color that Zekia thought would look very pretty on her, and a cloth the same blue as the waters outside kept his hair tucked neatly away.

Beside him, Aurelia of Volo leaned against the cabin door, a bright orange braid running down her shoulders. Zekia was still trying to decide whether standing was an act of defiance, to show Ashwood that she would not be seen as lower than him, or if she was just too scared to sit and be caught off guard by an attack.

It was not a very neutral way of thinking.

If Wesley were here, he and Zekia could laugh about their hesitance.

Wesley would whisper something mean about the way Simran’s voice shook, or how Aurelia tried her hardest not to blink so she could look fierce. He’d say it in a low and smiling voice and Zekia would have to put her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. Then maybe Ashwood would look back at them, half-scolding and half-amused himself.

Zekia wished Wesley had come.

She wished he didn’t have to sleep so often or heal so slowly.

She wished he understood the terrible world she had seen and how she was just trying to make it better.

“This is insanity,” Simran said. “We are shadows and we have become very rich and powerful that way.”

“This is about more than riches and power,” Ashwood said. “This is about salvation. A new world of magic, roaming free throughout the four realms.”

“We’re not innocents,” Aurelia said. “We’ve done horrible things in the name of magic and self-interest, but what you’re talking about is treason. Usurping a Doyen? An official world leader? Seizing control of governments and armies? Even if you could manage to topple Fenna Schulze, the citizens would never accept you.”

Dante Ashwood did not falter.

He had never faltered.

“That is why I have the Loj,” he said.

Aurelia sneered and Zekia had to swallow and squint at the floor to keep from doing something bad.

“Your mind-control elixir is flawed and so is your plan,” Aurelia said, pushing herself from the cabin door in frustration. “We will not be a part of this. If you want to destroy your realm for a blood dream, then you can do it without dragging our realms and reputations into it.”

Zekia took her eyes off the floor and let them burn into Aurelia.

She did not like her.

Not one bit.

All Aurelia cared about was herself and her ambition. She didn’t understand what would happen if they didn’t do this.

Zekia stepped forward, biting her bottom lip with a frown.

“You’re really mean,” she said. Her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides. “I don’t like mean people.”

She took another step forward and Aurelia’s face drained, her mouth parting slightly as she took in an uncertain breath. Maybe all of her stolen magic could sense the power that Zekia had and maybe it was running scared, leaving its heartless leader to fight alone.

“Now, now,” Ashwood said.

Zekia felt his hand on her shoulder, warm and cold at the same time, his shadows squirming loudly by her ears.

Zekia tried not to wince at them. She held her breath so as not to smell the burnt magic they were soaked in. She didn’t want Ashwood to know that she was thinking bad things about him.

“My little warrior,” Ashwood said. He squeezed her shoulder tightly. “Destined for so much greatness. How proud you make me.”

Zekia smiled at that, though she couldn’t help but feel it wasn’t earned.

That destiny he spoke about was never hers. It was given to her, like a consolation, or a gift meant to soothe her broken heart as Zekia tried her best to live without a mother or a big brother to guide her. Other people got tearful sympathies and tender words. They inherited traits or fancy jewels from their dead parents.

Zekia had inherited an entire people.

She had inherited a fate and suddenly there were grown-ups so much wiser than she was, looking to her for wisdom, pressing the weight of her brother’s destiny against her tiny heart.

There would be no more children in the Rishiyat Kin until she fulfilled the role of Liege.

There would be a curse upon them all until she accepted the spirit of her dead brother’s magic.

But they didn’t understand how hard it was and how loud the voices in her head were when Ashwood wasn’t there to quell them. They didn’t know what it was like to live in the shadow of a brother born with staves, prophesied to lead them to greatness.

Zekia tried so hard to perfect her magic and quiet its screams, but all it did was lead her straight into the head of a boy just as desperate to prove himself as she was.

Stumbling into Wesley’s mind was like a sign, flashing a thousand possibilities across her vision. It sent her Intuitcrafter magic into even more of a tailspin and in every maddening prediction Zekia saw, she also felt with absolute certainty that everything would be okay if Wesley was there.

It was why she’d traveled to Creije to meet him.

And then Dante Ashwood found her.

He opened her eyes to a new way.

He made Zekia realize that there was so much evil ready to swallow the world.

*This is what becomes of us.*

“You will live to regret waging a war against your Doyen,” Aurelia said. “It will be the end of you and perhaps even the end of us.”

Zekia shook her head.

Aurelia had it backward. Without this war the realms would burn, but with Ashwood to lead them, they would create a world of light. Zekia and Wesley could help unite people under a time of magic.

Just a little blood, to keep the streets clean of death.

Zekia could *save* everyone else.

And so wasn’t it worth it?

Wasn’t she good?

Wasn’t she deserving of her brother’s destiny?

“Is that your final word?” Ashwood asked.

Aurelia looked at him, her chin high enough to hide her uncertain eyes and draw attention from the shaking hands she kept tucked away in the pockets of her dress.

“The underrealm of Volo will never support your claim as Doyen of Uskhanya,” Aurelia said. “And I will never gather my buskers and underbosses to help prop up your armies.”

Dante Ashwood nodded solemnly. “Then so be it,” he said.

Zekia’s heart pounded.

He turned to her.

“Little warrior.”

She felt him smile.

“Time to fight.”

Zekia bowed her head, like the good soldier that she was now.

*This is what becomes of us.*

Ashwood had whispered it in her ear when they first met, and then in her mind as an ugly, bloody future churned inside of her like a sickness. A vision of how the realms could turn out if they didn’t do something to stop it.

It was all she could see and taste and smell, even now, years on. The burnt bodies and slickness of Crafter blood on the ground, the skies raining red and the mad, mad humans— the magic-haters who were so scared of them—smiling as everything crumbled to ash and darkness.

It was all Zekia saw when she closed her eyes, or when she looked into the shadows that surrounded Dante Ashwood.

Dark and ash.

Dark and ash.

Zekia wasn’t mad. It was the rest of the realms who had lost their minds. They were mad for not being scared and for not dropping to their knees and begging her and Ashwood to stop it.

Mad, mad, all of them.

“What are you doing?” Aurelia asked, eyeing her.

Zekia swallowed and raised her hand in the air.

*Just a little blood.*It was what needed to be done.

She looked at Aurelia and when the woman met her gaze, her eyes widened.

“Don’t—”

Zekia brought her hand down and the air cut across Aurelia’s neck as though it were a knife.

The Kingpin of Volo grabbed at her wound, gargling as the blood spouted from her neck. She stumbled forward and Zekia almost shook her head to scream at her not to come near.

She didn’t want to get the blood on her dress. It would stain, like a memory, and she wanted to forget this moment as quickly as possible.

She couldn’t step back, though, because Ashwood was there and he was watching and she was his little warrior.

Zekia counted the seconds until Aurelia finally fell to the floor with a horrible thud and stopped making that stomach-churning gurgle sound.

She counted the seconds until Aurelia’s eyes went blank and her hands fell from her neck.

The blood was dark and quick.

Simran gulped and it was loud enough to draw Zekia’s attention away from the lifeless woman.

“And what of you?” Ashwood asked. “Stand by me, Simran, or I will replace you just like I will be replacing Aurelia. There is not a person in the realms who can stop this war.”

Simran kept his eyes on Aurelia’s body, and though he opened his mouth to speak, no words came. It took him a few moments to realize this and so he simply nodded, unblinking and unspeaking, watching Aurelia’s blood coat the train floor like spilled paint.

“Wonderful,” Ashwood said. “Then together we will go down in history as the makers of a new world.”

Simran blinked and turned slowly to face Ashwood. To face Zekia. His eyes held a look of fear that turned her heart to lead.

*This is what becomes of us.*