The Crown of Stones: Magic-Price Read Online Free PDF Page A

doesn’t mar the skin or inflict lingering pain. It simply left me with a bit of color where there should be none. A splash of inky darkness set against the light. It was a stain that, on anyone else, would likely go unnoticed. Yet, on one like me, a full-blooded Shinree (whose heredity demanded their hair lack all color) aband of pitch-black streaking through the white was stark and undeniable. It was blatant proof of the darkness in me. It was my punishment for taking in more power than I had a right to. And it was there forever, for all to see.
    “If you keep that piece of the crown out of some twisted homage to the lives you took—to her life,” Taren added loudly, “I think you can give it up now. Your precious Queen Aylagar has been warming Death’s bed for a long time. She doesn’t give a damn how many ways you bleed for her.”
    Rage roared out of my throat. “I could end you right now, Taren. One spell and I could end you!”
    “Then do it. Cast on me.” At the horror on my face, she smiled. “You know how good it would feel. The heat. The swell. The release. It’s been so long since you pulled it inside. One time won’t hurt. And I promise I won’t tell.”
    “You won’t tell because you’ll be dead. That’s how it works. I cast. People die.”
    Taren leaned forward. “Show me the violence in you. The power.”
    “You’re crazy.”
    “I can hear your heart beating faster. See the heat building on your skin.”
    “Stop it.”
    “Need,” she gasped, her breath quickening, “it burns in your eyes, Shinree. It pounds in your head.” Taren’s mad gaze tightened. Her voice dropped an octave. “It twists in your stomach.”
    “Stop!” I shouted, because the more Taren spoke, the more my head began to hurt. Knots were forming deep in my gut and my nerves were pulsing, crawling like a mass moving under my skin.
    On nothing more than Taren’s words, the abrupt urge to channel magic was on me, stronger and faster, than it had been in a very long time.
    I took a breath, trying to rein myself in.
    “Just look at you. Afraid to move, to think. Like the slightest thing might drop you over the edge.” A corner of Taren’s mouth lifted in amusement. “I know what kind of Shinree you are. Battle skills, soldiery, and all that comes with it, is the sole line of magic in your blood. You were born to do harm. So go on.
Do it
.”
    “I told you. I don’t use magic anymore.” But even saying it, I could feel something shift inside me. The ever-present thought of letting go, ofreleasing what I kept locked inside, was moving from the back of my mind, right up to the front.
    Temptation was stirring.
    One spell,
I thought.
Just one and she’d be dead. The months of chasing would be over. I could return to the city of Kael, collect my pay, and move on.
    Except…
    I’d be moving on as a magic user.
    The thought left me cold.
    I can’t. I’ve worked too hard to give in now.
    Swamp trailed off my legs as I stepped away from her. I wanted a moment to clear my head, yet as I put distance between us, my thirst for magic waned.
    A few more steps and it disappeared completely.
    Seeing my confusion, Taren let out a grunt. “There’s a reason your people are enslaved, Troy. A reason the Shinree have been kept drugged and stupid for the last five hundred years. Do you know what it is?”
    “We’re dangerous.”
    “You’re pathetic.”
    “You’re not looking so great yourself.”
    “Is that how you cope, with quips and jokes? By acting like channeling magic doesn’t get you hard?” Bits of the ground flew off the ends of her hair as Taren shook her head. “You can’t deceive me. I know what desire looks like. I’ve seen the faces of the Shinree healers when they cast, the pleasure that runs through them…the helpless need that brings the poor bastards to their knees.” Her eyes raked over me. “I want to see you that way, witch.”
    “Why? So you can kill me when I pass out after?”
    “There