A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab Read Free Book Online Page A

the shallow marks would be gone, the skin smooth. He was about to pull down his sleeve when the small shiny scar captured his attention. It always did. Just below the crook of his elbow, the lines were so blurred that the symbol was almost unreadable.
    Almost.
    Kell had lived in the palace since he was five. He first noticed the mark when he was twelve. He had spent weeks searching for the rune in the palace libraries.
Memory.
    He ran his thumb over the scar. Contrary to its name, the symbol wasn’t meant to help one remember. It was meant to make one forget.
    Forget a moment. A day. A life. But magic that bound a person’s body or mind was not only forbidden—it was a capital offense. Those accused and convicted were stripped of their power, a fate some found worse than death in a world ruled by magic. And yet, Kell bore the mark of such a spell. Worse, he suspected that the king and queen themselves had sanctioned it.
    K.L
.
    The initials on his knife. There were so many things he didn’t understand—would never understand—about the weapon, its monogram, and the life that went with it. (Were the letters English? Or Arnesian? The letters could be found in both alphabets. What did the
L
stand for? Or even the
K
, for that matter? He knew nothing of the letters that had formed his name—
K.L.
had become
Kay-Ell
and
Kay-Ell
had become
Kell
.) He was only a child when he was brought to the palace. Had the knife always been his? Or had it been his father’s? A token, something to take with him, something to help him remember who he’d been? Who
had
he been? The absence of memory ate at him. He often caught himself staring at the center map on the wall, wondering where he’d come from.
Who
he’d come from.
    Whoever they were, they hadn’t been
Antari
. Magic might live in the blood, but not in the bloodline. It wasn’t passed from parent to child. It chose its own way. Chose its shape. The strong sometimes gave birth to the weak, or the other way around. Fire wielders were often born from water mages, earth movers from healers. Power could not be cultivated like a crop, distilled through generations. If it could,
Antari
would be sewn and reaped. They were ideal vessels, capable of controlling any element, of drawing any spell, of using their own blood to command the world around them. They were tools, and in the wrong hands, weapons. Perhaps the lack of inheritance was nature’s way of balancing the scales, of maintaining order.
    In truth, none knew what led to the birth of an
Antari
. Some believed that it was random, a lucky throw of dice. Others claimed that
Antari
were divine, destined for greatness. Some scholars, like Tieren, believed that
Antari
were the result of transference between the worlds, magic of different kinds intertwining, and that that was why they were dying out. But no matter the theory on how they came to be, most believed that
Antari
were sacred. Chosen by magic or blessed by it, perhaps. But certainly
marked
by it.
    Kell brought his fingers absently to his right eye.
    Whatever one chose to believe, the fact remained that
Antari
had grown even more rare, and therefore more precious. Their talent had always made them something to be coveted, but now their scarcity made them something to be gathered and guarded and kept. Possessed. And whether or not Rhy wanted to admit it, Kell belonged to the royal collection.
    He took up the silver music box, winding the tiny metal crank.
    A valuable trinket
, he thought,
but a trinket all the same.
The song started, tickling his palm like a bird, but he didn’t set down the box. Instead, he held it tight, the notes whispering out as he fell back onto the stiff cot and considered the small beautiful contraption.
    How had he ended up on this shelf? What had happened when his eye turned black? Was he born that way and hidden, or did the mark of magic manifest? Five years. Five years he’d been someone else’s son. Had they been sad to let him go? Or had they