DARKHAVEN | "Three Sisters" Book One

Chapter Fourteen

Roslin

"Can I ask a question?"

"Is it relevant?"

"...Yes."

"Then you can ask a question."

Roslin straightened, steadied her breathing, and smoothed her hair. The library was cool despite the early-summer warmth outside the castle's thick walls, and the quiet patter patter of rain against the window was pleasant. The comfortable mood had emboldened her enough to ask what she'd been wondering since the attack in the woods.

"It's less of a question and more of a conversation," she admitted.

Novak shut the book he'd been copying something—a spell, it looked like—from and slid it away. "Let's have it, then."

"Your power..." She chose her words carefully, knowing to tread lightly where the golden Lord was concerned. "Your power is unlike anything I've ever seen. Truly, it is. And the other Lords aren't far behind."

"I thank you for that," he told her as he stood, circled to the front of the desk he'd been working at, and leaned back against it.

"Of course," she said, then continued, "though, it's no secret. You've godlike power—anyone who can sense magic can feel it."

Novak raised a smug eyebrow. Roslin made a point of ignoring it.

"The power you demonstrated in the forest was a clear example of this and all but confirmed my suspicions regarding the extent of said power. The attacks were widespread, fiercely intense, and born of magic that most will never hope to witness in their lifetime much less wield."

"Where are you going with this?"

"I..." Now came the tricky part. "I mean no disrespect at all, but—"

"Words of someone about to say something disrespectful, usually."

"No, no," Roslin waved her hands. "I understand there must be a reason behind this, and that is precisely why I'm asking. But...it seems to me that, given your power—any of your power—any of the three of you should have been able to level the battlefield in that forest. Yet you didn't."

"Yet we didn't," agreed Novak. He was being unusually tight-lipped, where normally Roslin could scarce get a word in edgewise when opening any sort of conversation regarding magic in any capacity.

"Why? My theory is that—"

"That there's something stopping us."

"...Well, yes."

He looked away, then, removing his green-eyed gaze from her to the rain outside the open window. The Lord sighed, and to Roslin's surprise, he admitted, "You'd be correct." He pushed off from the desk. "The First Evil is stifling our magic. You saw this happening similarly with the wraiths that were in the forest that day. It's a similar effect, though we don't assume it comes from the wraiths—or any lesser being at all, truthfully. It's more like an immunity, a resistance, than an active effect. Where their magic is, ours...isn't. At least, not in the capacity it should be."

Roslin stilled. "And that is why you need us."

Novak snorted. "No, don't flatter yourself," he told her in an overly haughty voice. "But having you there to aid us certainly did help, even I must admit."

He looked back at her and their eyes met for the first time not as Lord and subject, but just...just as two people standing in a library the way two friends might. Novak rolled his shoulders. "Tell me: how many types of magic do you think there are?"