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Authors: Lucy Leiderman

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I nodded.

The two gods lived in the otherworld and were forbidden to be together, so they took the shapes of animals and travelled to our world to be free from the constraints of theirs. When Eila's father learned of this, he struck Goram down and he broke apart to become our land.

“Why?” I asked.

Kian searched for the right words for so long that I became thankful for the wall behind me, holding me up.

“There is more than one version,” he told me finally. “Revolving around a truth we know — magic, whether it is real, like yours, or stolen, like the Godel's, cannot die. It doesn't disappear. It lives on.”

His eyes were bright.

“What's the other version?”

“The story goes that Eila was one of the gods, but Goram was just a man — the first man. She would escape the Otherworld to be with him, and they were very much in love. But when her father found out, he challenged Goram to a dual to show just how weak a man was against the gods.”

Kian took my hands in his. He was burning up and I fought the urge to feel if he had a fever.

“Eila's father wounded Goram, but in the end Goram succeeded in defeating her father and killed him,” Kian continued. “But before they could start their lives in the new land, Goram died.”

“How?” I asked.

“Magic doesn't die,” Kian repeated. “In killing a god through battle, the magic passed into the human — but he could not sustain it. Men are not built to hold such power. It killed him.”

I was starting to put the pieces together in my head. Still, I had to hear it.

“What are you saying?”

“I'm saying,” Kian said slowly, as if he couldn't believe it himself, “I think Donald's magic came to me when you killed him. You used my blood, so technically it was me who ended his life. Now it's like a constant presence in my body. I feel the magic changing me, and I don't know how to control it. I was never meant for this.”

“Well, hasn't this ever happened before?” I blurted out.

“No,” Kian said, looking past me as if trying to remember. “Warriors like you or magic thieves like the Godelan are rare enough. I can't remember one ever being killed.”

“But the Godelan gave you magic before,” I protested.

“Not like this. It was a loan. Something small enough for me to work with.”

I reached out to feel his forehead. He was hot to the touch.

“What can we do?” I asked. “Can't we just train you to use magic like you trained me?”

I was trying to keep the situation from getting worse, but the tears that sprang into my eyes weren't helping. He took my hand from his forehead, shaking his head.

“Maybe, but I don't know if my body can fight it long enough for me to learn how to use it.”

I opened my mouth again to ask what we could do, but he silenced me with a look.

“For now, we do nothing. Please don't say anything to the others. They have enough to worry about. I only know of one person who can possibly know more about magic than anyone we've encountered so far.”

“Who?”

“Your seventh. He kept our history,” Kian said. “If he gets his memory back and if we can find him, maybe he can tell me how to control the magic.”

There were too many “ifs” in there for my liking.

“Don't worry,” Kian said. “There's always something stronger. Something bigger. Your seventh may know what it is.”

“What if we don't find him? Who else can help?” I asked.

“Stone.”

“But we don't know where he is either.”

Kian nodded.

This didn't sound promising.

“We need to find him soon. I don't know how long I have.”

I couldn't bring myself to comprehend the words. It was as if they stopped just short of where my mind could make sense of any of this.

Kian took a deep breath and I heard, not for the first time, the struggle it truly was. It had worsened over time, and suddenly a great pressure urged me forward into action, though I didn't know where to start.

“What are you saying?” I asked. “What happens if we don't find our seventh or Stone soon?”

“I'm going to die.”

Copyright

Copyright © Lucy Leiderman, 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Editor: Allister Thompson

Design: Courtney Horner

Cover design by Courtney Horner

Cover images © Ocean Photography

Epub Design: Carmen Giraudy

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Leiderman, Lucy, author

Lives of kings / Lucy Leiderman.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-4597-2355-9

I. Title.

PS8623.E473L59 2014 jC813'.6 C2014-902952-7

C2014-902953-5

We acknowledge the support of the
Canada Council for the Arts
and the
Ontario Arts Council
for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the
Government of Canada
through the
Canada Book Fund
and
Livres Canada Books
, and the
Government of Ontario
through the
Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit
and the
Ontario Media Development Corporation
.

Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

J. Kirk Howard, President

The publisher is not responsible for websites or their content unless they are owned by the publisher.

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BOOK: Lives of Kings
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