“You are not a hireling,” she said finally. “You are a child of royal blood. His blood. My blood. It is your right to know these things. It is his duty as your parent to pass them on to you.”

I spread my arms.

She squeezed her eyes shut and put her hands over her face. “You, our mother . . . It’s like I don’t know him anymore. There’s nothing left of the golden child he was. Is it because I slept while he stayed awake for another thousand years, or was I just that blind during my life?”

“He isn’t wrong,” I said. “I do make a better killer than a ruler.”

Magic exploded on my chest. I landed on my ass.

“Never put yourself down,” Erra snarled. “You are my niece. If he won’t teach you, I will! I may have never claimed a kingdom, but not because I don’t know how to do it or what to do once the claim is made. Get up. You have to practice.”

I rolled to my feet. “It wants to change me.”

“What does?”

“The land. The Shar. When I use the magic, I feel urges.”

Erra’s eyes narrowed. “Desire for more power?”

“No, desire to not be accountable for anything. I stop caring about things that are important, like family, friends . . .”

“Listen to me carefully. The Shar pushes you to acquire land and defend it. It fuels your feud with your father. It does not do anything else. What you’re experiencing is a different thing entirely. When you sense the land, what does it feel like to you?”

“An ocean.”

“Right now, you are a barren rock within this ocean. A part of you feels the great power that lies there and wants to become one with it. There is so much magic there and you are only human. But because you are human, you impose limitations on yourself, things you won’t do no matter what. These limitations are good. They keep your ego intact. Without them you would melt into the waters.”

“What would happen then?”

“You would become everything you fear. A tyrant, a demon, eventually a god. Hang whatever label you wish upon it. You must find a way to draw the ocean into yourself without losing who you are. You absorb it, not the other way around. That is fundamentally harder than letting yourself become one with it.”

I stared at her.