"He's not done," Sassafras spit, fur standing on end as I re-entered my quarters, Sequoia closing the door behind us. "There's only one reason he would create a second core of magic. He's after First Seat."
Of course he was. We knew that all along. But I never really believed he would succeed before. Now? The real fear he might actually depose me burned like bile in the back of my throat. I stood there in the middle of the room, hands tightly clasped to my chest, heart pounding so fast and so hard I was certain it would leap out of me and crash to the floor. It took everything in my power to hold still, to keep myself from flying apart into a million pieces, to force my chest to expand and contract, breathe in, breathe out. A tunnel of darkness closed in around the edges of my vision.
I
