Rebel Spring_A Falling Kingdoms Novel_Book 2

Jonas tackled Magnus and lurched both of them backward. As they fell, Jonas angled
himself so that it was Magnus’s head that slammed against the side of the burning table. It
was hard enough to stun the prince, and he knelt on the ground, gasping for breath, sword
in hand.

Still, Magnus grasped hold of Jonas before he was able to slip away.
“I have a dungeon just for you, rebel,” he promised.

Five guards approached the burning tent, shouting Magnus’s name.
“Here!” he called out to them. “I have a prisoner!”

“Wrong,” Jonas snarled, using every last piece of his strength to wrench away from
Magnus’s grip, yanking the sword away from the prince again. He brought the blade down,
but Magnus rolled out of the way just in time.

Jonas swore, eyeing the approaching guards who loomed at the tent’s burning entry.

“Seize him!” Magnus yelled.
“Perhaps another time, your highness.” He’d come here to take Magnus as a prisoner,
but if he tarried another moment, it would be the other way around.

Without wasting another moment, he cut through the side of the tent and burst out into
the chaos outside, ducking and hiding to avoid being seen by any guards through the
magical wildfire that raged all around them.

To his right, he saw an older, bald man and a young girl huddled close, away from the
carnage, looking around with fear and confusion. The tents were all on fire now. The road
camp was an inferno.

Strewn everywhere on the ground were burning bodies—guard or rebel, their blood
spilled across the road as if it was a violent and fiery canvas. Some had turned to the strange
crystal form after being touched by the fire—broken and scattered across the dusty ground.

Where is Lysandra?

It was his first coherent thought.
He strained his eyes to find her, to find any rebels, but he saw no one apart from those

that lay dead on the ground. He couldn’t count. He wasn’t sure how many had fallen.
The body of a dead girl with long, dark hair lay across his path, an arrow pierced

through her heart. He stopped breathing completely at the sight of her.
“No. Please, no.” He crouched down, pushing her hair off her face.
But it was not Lysandra. It was Onoria.
A loss . . . a horrible loss to them all. Onoria was an incredibly brave and clever rebel.
After closing her eyes, he got up quickly and ducked behind a tent. He couldn’t stay here.

If he did, he would be killed, either by the fire that continued to rage or by a guard.
“Lys,” he whispered. “Where are you? Damn it. Where?”
She had to be alive. Lysandra Barbas was not meant to die tonight.
No, he decided firmly. She was alive.
And if she was, he would find her.

CHAPTER 33

LYSANDRA

AURANOS

Lysandra stumbled as a guard shoved her into a dark and crowded cell, and she fell hard
to the dirt floor. The stone walls were damp and smelled of mildew and death. At the top
of the tall wall, there was a small window no bigger than her hand, just large enough to let
in a ray of sunshine, taunting her with the freedom that had finally been stolen from her.

Only five of them had made it to their destination alive. Phineas had spoken up during
the trip to the Auranian dungeon, mouthed off to a guard, and had his throat cut
immediately, his body tossed off the side of a bridge.

The rest remained silent after this. Lysandra held tightly on to Tarus’s sweaty hand most
of the way. The young boy was terrified, but he tried to be brave. For her. She didn’t know
what had become of Jonas, but she refused to believe he was dead.

Why? So many of them had fallen.
But maybe Jonas was one of those who’d gotten away. Maybe he was, even now,
mounting a rescue attempt.
No. She wouldn’t let herself think of such things that could only lead to disappointment.
If she was going to get out of here, she’d have to do it herself.
Somehow.
She looked up at the tiny window bleakly. It was hopeless and she knew it. A tear slid
down her cheek.
“Little Lys, don’t cry.” The familiar voice reached out from the darkness.

Her head snapped to the boy sitting in the corner.

“Gregor?” She couldn’t believe her own eyes. She ran to her brother’s side, dropping
down next to him. She grabbed his dirty hands in hers to prove this was real. “You’re here.
You’re alive!”

“Barely.” He tried to smile. “It’s so good to see you, sister.”

“I thought you were dead! I searched for you in the road camps, but I couldn’t find you
anywhere!”

“I escaped and made my way to Limeros but was captured a couple weeks ago. They
carted me all the way here on orders from the prince himself. Been in here ever since. Not
much longer, though. I think they’re finally finished asking me questions. They never seem
satisfied with my answers. Only my death will please them now.”

“Don’t talk like that. This is what I needed, Gregor.” Her heart grew lighter than it had in
days. In weeks! “This is the sign I needed that everything’s going to be all right. We’re alive,
we’re together again, and we’re going to get out of this.”

His gaze grew distant. “That’s what she told me, too. She always told me to have hope. I
wish I could see her again, but she hasn’t visited me for weeks.”

Lysandra glanced around the small, stinking cell, her gaze moving over the other
prisoners, some of whom were sleeping. “See who?”

“The girl made of gold and silver.”

“What?”

“She told me her name is Phaedra. She’s visited me in my dreams, told me to be patient.
That I will find new hope. I figure she must have been talking about you. They put you in my
cell, Lys. Mine. In a place as big as this—that has to mean something, right?”

“Who is she? What do you mean she visited you in your dreams?”

He looked past her, his expression wistful. “She’s a Watcher, little Lys. She told me not to
despair. That I could still make a difference . . . and that there were others like me who
could help. I thought she was mad.”

“A Watcher visited you in your dreams,” Lysandra said with disbelief. “Perhaps she’s not
the one who’s mad.”

He laughed, the sound dry and brittle. “You could be right.”

“What else did this Watcher tell you?”

Gregor’s brows drew together and he squeezed Lysandra’s hands. “She said when the
sorceress’s blood is spilled and the sacrifice is made, they will finally be free.” Her brother’s
haunted eyes met hers. “And the world will burn. That’s what she said, little Lys. The world
will burn.”

CHAPTER 34

CLEO

AURANOS

“My son has returned to the palace.” The king’s words wrapped around Cleo’s throat like
an icy glove, stopping her in her tracks as she moved through the halls. “I’m sure
you’ve greatly anticipated his return.”

She turned slowly to see King Gaius standing in the shadows, accompanied by Cronus
and his dreadful hunting dogs.

“With bated breath, your majesty.”
“He captured a group of rebels who attacked one of my road camps. Those that did not
fall under his blade have accompanied him back here for public execution.”
Jonas. Her heart skipped a beat with both dread and anticipation.
“I feel safer already.” She forced a smile to her lips.
“I’m sure you do.” The king studied her with those cold, serpentine eyes. “I’m watching
you, princess.”
“As I am watching you,” she replied sweetly.
“Remember one very important thing. You have no power here and you never will again.
You continue to live at my whim, but I can take that courtesy away at any time without
warning—just as I did with your little friend. What was her name again? Mira?”
Her blood turned to ice. “Good day, your majesty.”
She continued down the hall smoothly until she turned the next corner. There she

pressed up against the wall and commanded herself to stop trembling.

“He will not defeat me,” she whispered, angrily wiping her tears away. “He thinks he has
power, but it’s sand falling through his fingers. He will lose it all and have nothing left.”

But she knew her days were numbered. The wedding tour was over. The shine of the false
“romance” between Magnus and herself had begun to fade. Her allies had dwindled to two
boys—one who couldn’t bear to look her in the eye after her rejection of him, and another
who might be dead or bound for execution.

Cleo rubbed her ring, staring down at it and praying—though not to the Goddess
Cleiona, not after what she’d learned of the thieving, power-hungry Watcher—for a way
through the darkness that stretched out before her. “Please. Father, please help me. I don’t
know what to do. Am I a fool to believe that I have any chance against someone like King
Gaius?”

The book Song of the Sorceress had told her more about Eva—that she could work magic
with all four elements as easy as breathing. And at the end of the book there were two lines
that had stayed with Cleo.

A thousand years after her death, the sorceress shall be reborn as a mortal beyond the
Sanctuary’s veil. Once awakened, her magic will reveal the hidden treasure sought by
both mortals and immortals alike.

Eva had been killed by her greedy sisters, Cleiona and Valoria, who’d stolen the Kindred
and used its power to become goddesses.

That was a thousand years ago.

A sorceress reborn—one who could harness all four parts of elementia with ease.

“There’s something strange about that girl.” Her attendant Helena had been speaking
with her sister only two days after Cleo’s return from the wedding tour, not realizing Cleo
could hear them. “The princess was tutored by a witch.”

“A witch?”

“The king chose the witch himself for the task, but now I think she’s dead. I saw her
before they took her away. Her face was filled with fear. She whispered about fire and ice.

She believed Princess Lucia to be evil.”
Servants did gossip about the most fantastical things. Yet Lucia had set the library

alight. . . .
“Magic,” Cleo whispered. “Is that what you were doing that day, Lucia?”
Was the gossip of servants true this time?
Eva’s ring—the sorceress’s ring—had glowed when Cleo touched Lucia. It hadn’t done

that with anyone else. Only with the stone wheel, said to be connected to the Watchers.
There had to be more to this.
Cleo moved through the labyrinthine hallways toward Lucia’s chambers. No one stopped

her. No one even noticed her.
What are you even thinking, you fool? she chastised herself as her steps quickened. You

believe the King of Blood’s daughter—Magnus’s sister—could be the sorceress reborn?
At the door to Lucia’s chamber, Cleo came to a halt. Her heart pounded loud in her ears

as she raised her clenched fist and knocked. Then she waited.
But there was no response. Perhaps Lucia wasn’t here.
Just before Cleo turned away, she heard something from within the room.
Someone was crying.
Summoning her courage, Cleo grabbed the handle of the door and turned it, pushing

forward on the heavy oak barrier to peer inside.
Princess Lucia stood facing the open balcony, her hair a raven-black spill down her back.

Her shoulders shook with her sobs—heart-wrenching, pain-filled sobs.
Cleo’s own heart ached at the sound of it.
Before she realized it, she had entered the room and moved closer to Lucia, reaching out

to grasp the girl’s shoulder.
Lucia spun around, her eyes flashing with surprise.
Cleo gasped and her breath froze in the air before her. It was so cold in the room—like

the gardens of the Limerian palace.

“I killed her.” Lucia’s voice broke on the words.
Cleo’s gaze dropped to what the princess held in her arms. It was a small brown rabbit,
coated in frost and solid as a block of ice.

“What did you do?” she whispered.
“I didn’t mean to. I picked Hana up. Holding her makes me happy, makes me think of
home. And I thought of the ice sculptures during Winter Festival, of mermaids, dragons,
chimeras . . . so cold, so perfect. And—and my thoughts . . . they were enough to do this.
She’s dead and it’s my fault!”

Conjuring ice . . . it was water magic. Powerful water magic.
Tears splashed onto Lucia’s cheeks. “Goddess help me, I can’t control this.”

“You can,” Cleo said. She still grasped Lucia’s shoulder and her ring had begun to glow
just as it had the last time. Her heart raced. “You can control this. Your magic—it’s
incredible.”

“That’s what Father says.” Lucia’s voice trembled. “But now everyone will know about
this.”

“No, they won’t. I swear I won’t tell anyone.” Cleo gently took the frozen animal from
Lucia and placed it down on the ground. Then she grasped the princess’s hands in her own.
“I can help you.”

Lucia swallowed hard, frowning. “I feel calmer now with you here. More in control.”

Of course you do. I have the ring that helps controls your magic.
No wonder it hadn’t worked for Cleo unless she touched something magical. She had no
magic of her own that needed to be tamed.

Not yet.
“We didn’t get off on the right foot before, Lucia. I am sorry for that. But I do want to be
your friend. You need someone you can trust. So do I.” She couldn’t lose her strength or her
bravery now when she needed it most. “I know what you are and what you can do. You’re a

sorceress.”
Lucia’s eyes widened. “You know?”
So it was true. This—this was what Cleo needed. This was the sign she’d been searching

for, praying for. The missing piece of her puzzle. The ring was only half of it.
Princess Lucia was the other half.
“Yes, I know.”
“And you’re not afraid of me?”
Terrified beyond words.
“No, I’m not afraid of you.” Cleo smiled and pulled this dangerous girl into a tight

embrace. “You and me—we’re sisters now. We can help each other . . . if you want to.”
Lucia nodded, pressing her face into Cleo’s shoulder. “I want to.”
This princess was the most powerful creature who currently lived and breathed. And

Lucia’s magic—aided by this ring—was essential to getting Cleo’s throne back.
The key to destroying the King of Blood was his very own daughter.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to my wonderful editors on Rebel Spring, Laura
Arnold and Gillian Levinson, whose insights and encouragement I gobbled up with great
gratitude. Thank you to Ben Schrank, who brilliantly masterminds all that is Razorbill; to
the lovely Erin Dempsey, Elizabeth Zajac, Jessica Shoffel, and Anna Jarzab, for their
incredible support and wicked organizational skills I deeply envy; to my delightful Canadian
publicist, Vimala
Jeevanandam; to everyone on the teams at Penguin US, Penguin UK, and Penguin Canada,
who are all about getting YA fiction (including the Falling Kingdoms series) into the hands
of readers. You are all awesome. And, as always, thank you to my agent Jim McCarthy for
being both smart and hilarious—very often at the same time.

Last, but not least, endless thanks to every reader who’s enjoyed the characters, the magic,
and the mayhem so far in Mytica. I promise there’s much more to come!