“Vervain!” Sin declared and lurched out of a chair beside the bed. “Are you all right? How are you feeling?” He sat on the bed beside me and took my hand. “Do you want some water or food or anything?”
“Sin?” I frowned at him. “Where am I?”
“I didn't know what to do.” Sin's expression made my chest constrict with worry. “So, I brought you home with me.”
“What do you mean? Where are my husbands and Viper?” I instinctively reached for them metaphysically, down the cords that connected us, but I couldn't feel them. Couldn't even feel those glowing cords. There was nothing there; no Blood-to-Heart vows, no Froekn bond, not even my ties to the Intare. “Where are they?!” I shrieked. “Are they all dead?”
“They left you,” Ninkasi said grimly as she stepped into the room.
“Ninka,” Sin growled, “I was going to break it to her a little more gently.”
“What do you mean; they left me?” I growled.
“Marduk changed your destiny,” Sin said softly. “Ninka and I weren't affected, most likely because we're Mesopotamians, but your friends and family”—he swallowed roughly—“they were all changed.”
“Changed how?” I whispered as Marduk's words came back to me. “He took them away from me.”
“Yes. I'm so sorry,” Ninkasi said simply.
“How is that possible?” I looked from her to Sin.
“Destiny.” Sin shrugged. “Marduk altered yours to be what he wanted it to be.”
“And he wanted them all to leave me,” I whispered as a horrible ache started to fill the empty places where I'd been connected to them.
“It seems so,” Sin confirmed.
I lurched out of bed and stumbled.
“Whoa now.” Sin jumped up and steadied me. “You don't have your magic anymore and that includes your healing. You're still weak from the war. You need to rest, Vervain.”
“No, that's bullshit,” I snarled. “Marduk can't change who I am. Even without all of the magic I collected, I'm still a dragon-sidhe.”
“Are you?” Ninkasi asked. “Were you always one?”
“Yes, of course.” Then I frowned as I thought about it. “But most of my life, my magic was suppressed. It wasn't until I went to Faerie and touched the magic there that my Fey essence was released.”
“I think Marduk suppressed it again,” Sin said with a sympathetic look. “I don't sense any magic in you.”
“That's not possible. He can't just bring back a spell that's been broken.” I shook my head and searched myself for my Fey essence; for that fiery, elemental part of me. There was nothing; I couldn't even remember how to look for it. “No.”
“Vervain—” Sin started.
“I need to get to Pride Palace,” I interrupted him. “Thank you for helping me, Sin. You've been a good friend, and I owe you big. But I have to get to my family.”
I tried to trace but nothing happened. No magic. No Aether. No power.
Sin's expression went even more sympathetic.
“Alaric!” I shouted. “Al, I need you!”
Nothing.
“Holy hand-grenades, I can't even hear Al,” I whispered in horror.
“I'll take you there,” Sin offered. “But you need to be prepared. There's a good chance that Pride Palace doesn't belong to the Pride anymore.”
“What?” I leveled my stare on him.
“The Mesopotamians don't have a territory, Vervain,” Ninkasi explained. “Sin and I have been talking while you slept, and we believe that this may have begun as vengeance but turned into something else. When Marduk was able to take Love from you, he must have realized that he could take even more. By changing your destiny, he could steal everything you have. He could finally provide a home for his people; your home.”
“So, he took my magic,” I whispered. “He took my lions merely so he could take our territory.”
“We think so,” Sin said sadly. “You see, to gain control of a territory, Marduk needed one of two things to happen; a god had to willingly give Marduk their territory, or Marduk had to take a god's magic that was already attached to a territory. Well, the former was highly unlikely and we believe that the latter could only be done with you.”
“Why only me?”
“Because you're a witch-turned-goddess.” Sin shrugged. “You took your magic from other gods. That magic was protected by your star but once Marduk broke that, your magic became vulnerable. Marduk was able to steal Love from you so he knew he could then take Lions, and your lion magic is attached to a territory.”
“That's how I got the territory,” I admitted. “I took it with Niyarvirezi's magic.”
“But we don't know anything for sure,” Sin hurried to add. “I'll take you to Pride Palace so we can see for ourselves. But if Marduk is there, you must promise me that you'll let me trace you back here immediately.”
“Okay,” my voice had gone soft and lost. “I have to go, Sin. I have to be sure. My children are there. My men. And my cat. I can't leave Nick behind; he'll be so scared.”
“Okay, honey.” Ninkasi wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “We'll find them. All of them.”
“Sin,” I paused. “The water didn't work. Why didn't it work?”
“I don't know, V,” he said softly. “I don't understand. It should have drained him.”
“Oh.”
“What water?” Ninkasi asked.
“Nothing,” I murmured when I saw Sin's widened eyes. “Just a tactic we had discussed.”
If Sin didn't want Ninkasi to know, I wouldn't betray him. Especially not now, after he had done so much for me. He gave me a grateful look.
“Take my hand.” Sin stretched his hand out to me, and I took it. “We'll find your family, Vervain, and we'll figure this out, I promise.”
Then the Aether pulled us in, and my body became pure magic even though there was no magic inside it anymore.
Chapter Thirty
Sin and I stepped out of the tracing
