The Enemy's Triumph

by Kristen Banet

  “Luykas, it’s time,” Alchan said quietly, stepping into his space again. “They need an explanation.”

  He looked up from the text, his fingers slowly gliding over it still, feeling the power his sister claimed. She was a well-versed sorcerer. He could tell by her blood, the power she channeled staying in her blood long after she spilled it.

  “Why would she do this?” he asked his brother. “There’s no way she knows…”

  “She might,” Alchan countered. “And right now, we need to explain to the Company why this has you worked up.”

  Luykas turned to Nevyn, Varon, and Kian. Mat and Bryn already knew. Rain already knew. Zayden didn’t, seeming just as confused as their older generation of warriors.

  “Crowned Princess Nyria is my half-sister. My mother is Shadra before her rise to power in the Empire,” he explained in an emotionless tone, hoping it went over them like it wasn’t that big of a deal.

  Nevyn stumbled back and sank into his chair. Kian paled. Zayden cursed, stumbling as he tried to stand up and pace. Rain caught him, rubbing his back. Mat and Bryn gave no reaction, clearly showing they knew already, but it was Varon who surprised Luykas.

  Varon wasn’t surprised at all.

  Meeting Varon’s gaze, Luykas saw the mute’s hands begin to move and looked down to focus on them.

  “You always seemed noble and angry, carrying too much on your shoulders in silence when it wasn’t you who carried the burden of the crown and throne. The secrecy around who your birth mother was gave it away in the end. I figured this would always be your answer, but you have never once made me question your loyalty to mention it or dig deeper. I see your bond to the Andinna and your brother is deeper than your bond to the Elvasi and your mother.”

  “Sometimes, I think you see too much,” Luykas said softly, looking back up at Varon’s face. The mute shrugged, a small smile forming. Enigmatic, Luykas wondered if the priest was communing with the gods, and he just didn’t realize it.

  “Does Mave know?” Kian asked. “If we’re learning this, and she doesn’t know yet, I’m telling her right fucking now. She’s your female and if you’ve kept this from her—”

  “She knows,” Mat growled. “She knew before Bryn and me, and she accepted it. She helped us accept it. Don’t ever threaten to get involved in our relationships again, Kian. I respect you, but none of us threaten to go to Senri when you’re an asshole. She’s not your daughter yet, so don’t start playing overprotective father when it’s not your place.”

  Kian’s answering snarl was impressive. Luykas knew Senri intended to adopt Mave, and it seemed Kian was trying his hardest to jump into the role of being her father before it even became official. Yeah, that was what the Company needed—more overprotective and outraged fathers.

  Between Kian and Zayden, the rest of us are going to need to watch out. I don’t have time to deal with him, so thank the Skies for Mat.

  How could it be her? Why is it her?

  “She knew before all of you,” Alchan said evenly, nodding to Matesh. Luykas’ heart swelled as he saw those who knew immediately come to his defense.

  “I couldn’t be with her if she didn’t,” Luykas added. “So, she learned on Al Moro Nat. When we called her inside.”

  “Then she proceeded to have what seemed like a mental break,” Nevyn muttered. “It all makes fucking sense now. Her brother, Shadra, you. No wonder she lost it that night.”

  “This secret stays in the Company for now,” Alchan ordered, looking back at Dave, who nodded. “And now…” Alchan turned back to him. “She’s as much your sister as you are my brother. What would you like to do?”

  “I don’t know her.” But I have a lot of fucking questions for her. I need answers.

  “Do you want to honor her in some way? Have a ceremony for her work in Elliar?” Alchan crossed his arms.

  “Oh, no, Leshaun was right. Her identity can’t get out. If it makes it back down to Shadra, Nyria is going to be a head on a spike, or she’ll be tortured until she breaks. We can’t tell anyone.” Luykas sighed. “Well, none of this was what I was expecting. I’m going to go for a walk, fly, or something. I can’t stay…inside.” He needed air. He didn’t wait for his brother to give him leave. All he could think about was a sister he didn’t know and tried to wrap his mind around what he knew about her.

  Crowned Princess Nyria was how he always heard her referenced. She was the daughter of Shadra and an unnamed lover, but Luykas had a feeling her father was a high bred and wealthy noble. Shadra would have needed a second child to appease worries about the state of the Empire and her succession. She would pick someone others pointed to as a good choice. She had Lothen only for the claim he was the Emperor’s son, and she deserved to rule until her son was ready. Shadra was nothing if not cunning when it came to politics.

  Luykas jumped into the air once he made it outside and flew hard and fast down the coast, leaving Kerit behind. He found a good spot to stop as a storm blew in from the ocean, landing just as the cold winter rain began to fall. Thunder cracked over his head, telling him he’d landed just in time to keep from getting struck by lightning. He stood on the cliff, considering his problem, ignoring the danger.

  Is it a problem or only a surprise I wasn’t ready for?

  He wasn’t sure which was the right answer.

  Can we really trust her, or is she just like our mother?

  Does she know about me?

  Should she know about me?

  He needed answers. Thunder cracked overhead.

  He’d never met either of his Elvasi siblings, never felt any connection to them, thinking they were monsters Shadra had molded. From stories he’d had from Mave, Lothen was exactly that. A twisted combination of spoiled, royal brat and devious man. From Luykas’ intel until he met Mave, he had known Lothen was trained by the very best of the Elvasi military to one day rule with an iron fist and claim his own glories, the one they saw finally taking the Empire over the seas.

  Nyria was an unknown, though. From every rumor he had heard, she was quiet, and if she ever inherited the throne, she would be a good puppet to any husband who could claim her. At just over five hundred, she was surprisingly not talked about. She had always come off to him as a nonissue, and that’s how he looked at that half of his family. Were they going to be an issue or not?

  He stood on the cliff for a long time, letting the separation from the other Andinna settle him for a moment. He had needed nature, a reminder of the wild country that called to him more than the white walls of Elliar when he had been given the choice between the two.

  “I bet I can do it,” he whispered to himself, considering a plan forming. “Actually, I know I can.”

  He stayed out in the storm until he knew the sun was gone, and the red moon hung high overhead.

  He took off, heading back for Kerit. He didn’t go home, nor did he go back to the war room. He went to Alchan’s home and let himself in. He didn’t want to do this where Mave could find him or any of the family, but if Alchan found him, that would be better. Alchan would know not to disturb him.

  Luykas cut his palm and wiped some of his blood on the door, stealing the power from it to make it black. The sign of a Blackblood at work. Alchan would respect his privacy. He locked the door just in case, knowing Rain might get curious, or Skies forbid, Mave came looking for him. He didn’t want her tied up in his magics.

  He didn’t need anything, not pushing his magic to heal the wound on his hand. He began drawing in his own blood, something sorcery generally considered a bad idea. Not even Andinna magic considered it safe, not the way he was doing, blending the two magics. Sorcery channeled power from other places, and power was decided by one’s ability to channel and not overwork one’s self. Being burned by magic was a very real thing. A flux of too much power left some fools dead in the mind, their brains turned to dust. Blood magic was calling power from one’s own life force. Two very different origins and normally used for two very different things
.

  He was becoming a master at blending them together, and he needed all of his expertise in both to make this work.

  Normally, this circle would be drawn in chalk or ash, but his blood would grant it and him much more power to channel through his body even as he pulled power from himself as well. Shadra wasn’t powerful enough to overcome the blood-soaked earth of Anden, but he was powerful enough to reach a similar distance without being blocked. Sorcery didn’t have an equivalent to blood magic’s effects on the earth itself. Sorcery killed while blood magic helped things thrive.

  He reached deep, finding the power of the earth itself, the blood of thousands of Andinna throughout history spilling their own lives into the soil. This was what made Anden home and what made it hostile to those who didn’t belong. The earth knew the Elvasi had been invaders and had treated them accordingly. It repelled Shadra’s power from astral projecting to him on his side of the mountains, but it would send his soul flying to its destination.

  He opened the book, licked his finger, and touched a bloodletter written in his sister’s hand, and focused on it. Closing his eyes, he only thought of his goal, and when he opened his eyes again, he was somewhere else.

  He looked down and saw his astral form. He’d gotten it right. When he looked up, he saw the back of her head as she sat in front of a mirror, brushing through her golden hair, exactly like their mother’s. Her eyes were closed as she hummed something, a song Luykas thought he knew from when he was a child.

  Her hand stopped first. Her eyes opened as she put the brush down slowly, standing. He was amazed at how small she was compared to him. Dainty and tiny, she was probably barely taller than their mother.

  “You must be…” She breathed out, her hand shaking as she lifted it. He didn’t move, knowing she wouldn’t be able to touch him. “How…Why?” she demanded, her tone going hard as the initial shock wore off. Luykas raised his eyebrows, surprised by the sudden change.

  “What do you mean?” he asked softly. “What do you mean by why? Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that, little sister?” he growled at the end, trying to keep his volume down. By the look of it, they were in a palace bedroom and based on what she had been doing, her personal quarters.

  She stepped back again, her hand dropping.

  “So, they made it to you, and you got the spy book,” she whispered. “I never thought you would ever know or even care.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “Send the book with the human, Elvasi, and mutt, or help free all of them?”

  “Both,” he answered sharply, then changed his mind. “Why did you help free them? I can guess the answer to the other. You’re in the palace, and it could implicate you if anyone had found it.”

  “You have the right of it. I moved out of the palace once I was an adult. To seem like a victim, I burned my own house down. She made me move back here.”

  “Smart,” he complimented. “But that doesn’t explain why the Crowned Princess of the Elvasi Empire would be an active spy for the Andinna.”

  “It’s a long story,” she said, looking away. She played with something on her dresser in front of the mirror. She wore a nightgown and robe, obviously getting ready for bed.

  “I have time,” he growled.

  “I found out about you first,” she answered softly. “And my young mind couldn’t understand why my mother would enslave the people my brother belonged to. Why didn’t I know this brother? My other brother was terrible and mean to me. Maybe this other one would be nice. I somehow knew never to mention this other brother and kept my knowledge of him a secret.”

  Luykas felt as if he was staring at a little girl for a moment, and Nyria looked as if she saw another time. She was five hundred, more than an adult, and by her story, he was already beginning to see how long her deception had lasted—nearly all of those five hundred years.

  “Knowing about me doesn’t explain burning Elliar,” he said softly.

  “No, but as I said, it’s a long story. When I was a young adult, just after my seventy-fifth birthday, a man came into my room and tried to rape me.” Nyria smiled bitterly. “The man was my father, and he was drunk and pissed off about something. That fact didn’t stop me from screaming. He hit me when I didn’t submit, but the guards were coming, and so was she. She walked in, and with a flick of her wrist, he was sent across the room.” Luykas watched her hands and saw magic crackle on them. Yes, she definitely had power or rather, the ability to control vast amounts of it. He wondered if she was more powerful than their mother. Sorcery required practice, building up how much magic could be tolerated when channeling it through the body.

  “Mother wouldn’t have tolerated her virginal daughter being broken,” Luykas murmured, going back to the conversation, setting aside his thoughts on her magical skill. “Makes sense. She fired a maid for almost sleeping with me around that age.”

  “Yes, well, after he was pulled away from me, I was escorted out of the room. I heard what she said next. ‘I gave you Mave for your own enjoyment. I fucked you myself. You’ve had two of the most wanted women in the Empire, yet you tried to take my daughter. Your wealth will only get you so much.’”

  “What’s your father’s name?” he asked.

  “Lord Fenoth,” Nyria answered, still bitter, still angry. Luykas couldn’t stop a wince as he recognized the name. He was one of the richest and most powerful nobles in the Empire. He was also one of Mave’s cruelest torturers. “She gave him free access to Mave whenever he wanted it, to do to her what he was going to do to me. Another woman of the same race…as my brother,” she finished. “After that, I saw every injustice, every perversion of our laws, all of it. By the time I was an adult, I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted my mother’s power, the magic she had done, so I trained myself. I was educated and knew what my mother expected of me. So, I continued to play the act of the scared girl from that night—”

  “And secretly amassed power on your own among those who were against slavery in the Empire,” he finished this time for her, understanding better now.

  “Yes. Because one day, when I was very young, I discovered I had a brother,” she whispered. “Does that answer suffice?”

  She had seen the injustice because she knew about me.

  “For now,” he said softly. He almost called himself back to his body but stopped, staring at gold eyes just like his. There was only one difference. Hers were set in white while his were set in black. “Can I come back?”

  “Why would you want to?” she asked, tilting her head to the side. “You don’t know me. I don’t know you. Knowing about you changed my life, but I have no foolish presumptions about our relationship. You belong to him, and I’m not going to assume I can ever match that.”

  “Because by the time this is over, you might be the Empress, and it would be nice to consider you my sister,” he admitted.

  She leaned back again, her chin going up and her eyes going wide.

  “You sued for peace,” she reminded him.

  “Does she plan on letting us have it?”

  “No. Lothen is already moving north with his most trusted ten thousand men. He’ll be on the south side of the Dragon Spine by mid-Spring,” she answered. She glanced at her door, frowning. “You need to go. Someone just triggered my alert barrier.”

  “Thank you for the intel,” he said quickly. “Can I come back?”

  “After dark, very late,” she answered in a hushed voice, almost too quiet for him to hear. “The moment you attach me to astral project, I’ll wake up. I have no lovers and have no intention of taking any, so it should be safe, but I make no promises. Just remember, you can get me killed.”

  “Thank you.”

  She nodded once and turned to the door. He heard the creak of the latch and pulled himself back to his body, closing his eyes as it felt like he was ripped from her room.

  He opened his eyes in his stolen magic room to see his brother standing over him.

  “I have a merce
nary company full of fools,” he said blandly down to Luykas’ prone position. Luykas smiled.

  “I did it. I know…she’s on our side…” His energy was fading fast.

  “Yes, I figured that’s what you were doing. Mave, thank you for coming by and letting me know something was wrong. Help me get him to a bed. You can borrow a room from me for the rest of the night.” There was a moment of silence. “Put the fucking swords away. They’re not needed.”

  Luykas groaned at the name of his wife then felt a sharp jab to the ribs.

  “You’re lucky I love you,” she said, her anger clear.

  He closed his eyes and passed out, not really caring how mad they were.

  14

  Mave

  Mave woke up that day, feeling around. She found two bodies, one on either side of her, and knew them to be Brynec and Matesh. Without bothering to find the third body, she got up and started walking to the bathing room, only to growl as that last husband tried to get up and come with her. He stopped moving, and she listened as he laid back down.

  Once she was done in the bathing room and finished dressing for the day, she marched out of the room, ignoring all of them, even though they had all begun to stir.

  Once she was in the kitchen, she fell into a seat at the table and growled as Zayden sat across from her. He showed her a plate of food and slid it in front of her, then placed a glass next to it.

  “Are you still mad at everyone?” he asked casually.

  “Is there a reason I shouldn’t be?” she snapped.

  “You’ve been outvoted by the Company. Only you and Alchan are mad at him. The rest of us understand.”

  “Alchan and I are the ones who matter,” she growled.

  “Sure.” He shrugged and left her at the table with the coffee and food. She started in on both of them as he came back with plates for her husbands, then sat down with a fourth for himself. “We’re not sparring today.”