by Mary Weber
They stall midconversation and Sedric raises a brow. “It’s what? How did you hear of this? How did you—?”
Eogan doesn’t seem surprised.
“I believe it to be the case as well,” Rasha adds, and behind her Mia and Mel nod.
“I was also able to discover that while we were still in Bron, Draewulf had his wife killed.” Kenan’s voice is quiet. “Presumably in an attempt to take her Mortisfaire power. Although I was told he was unsuccessful. Something about her having made too many alterations over the years . . .”
I freeze. And let the air build up in my throat before exhaling.
“Then Draewulf will need Isobel,” I whisper.
The two kings and both their right-hand men swerve their attention my way. “And you know this how?” Rolf asks, not unpolitely.
I don’t know how to explain it, but I’ve rarely been so certain of anything in my life. In my blood. In my head.
“In that case, it’d be wise to keep her as far from the battlefield as possible,” Sedric says.
“Can we spare the men needed to watch her?” Rolf interjects.
“We’ll have to.” I look at Sedric. “Your Majesty, if you’ll excuse me, I believe you can do without me now. I would like to pack and prepare for the coastal trip you spoke of. I’ll be ready to leave when you send a unit to my room.”
“Of course, yes. And thank you.” The king tips his head, but it’s clear he’s still distracted by the conversation regarding Lady Isobel. He promptly resumes asking Eogan questions as well as inviting the Luminescents to fill in details from what they’ve learned.
I give Rasha’s hand a squeeze and leave them to head for my room to pack two sets of blue leathers, extra boots, and a hair comb.
Once finished, I braid my long white tresses and settle in to sit by the window—to search the sky and landscape for more airships as Sedric requested.
After a half hour nothing new has appeared and I’m just eyeing the four airships being worked on when a knock on the door startles me.
“Come in.” I stand to grab my bag for the soldiers.
Eogan walks in looking a bit unsure whether he’s allowed to or not. The next moment he’s shut the door and strides toward me with hands tucked into his pockets. “I thought you’d like to know I peeked in on Lord Myles a few minutes ago. Princess Rasha has been able to ease his visions enough to give him sleep.”
I stare at Eogan. At this man who knows me so well that he’s aware of how much I’d care about something so simple—about a man I loathe. More than that, Eogan’s aware I’d want to know.
I swallow. “Thanks.”
“From the sound of his visions, I take it your time travelling the villages didn’t go quite as planned.”
I look away.
“You saw an old owner.”
I wave a hand toward the far-off forest that’s melting into fog banks. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
The tension, the fury in his tone, is simultaneously scary and severely romantic. I blink and force the heat in my neck down.
“That whole thing with rallying the people . . .” I look at the glimpses of empty roads stretching in multiple directions. “Apparently it’s not what I’m cut out for.”
He shakes his head, but before he can argue, I lift a hand.
“The thing is”—I swerve my gaze down to my boots—“I’m not sure whether I’m worried or relieved they’re not coming.” I run a finger over the itching vein in my wrist. The one that’s still got the poison in it.
He steps closer until he’s standing beside me, staring out the window too. “So you wouldn’t be responsible for their deaths. Except . . .”
I nod and he waits until I glance up at him to continue. “Either way they’re most likely going to die. Allowing them to participate in fighting for what they value is you honoring them, not leading them to their demise.”
“I know.”
“Would it make a difference to you? To be given the choice?”
“Of course, but I have abilities that—”
“No, you have honor. And free choice. Which is what everyone deserves.” The way he says it—the way he looks at me—makes me wonder if we’re still talking about war or . . .
He glances away before I can read more from his gaze. He runs a hand through his black hair, pushing his bangs back so they look gorgeous and his eyes greener. I inhale and curse him under my breath for whatever his hang-up is that is keeping us separated by so little distance and yet so much space.
“Why’d you really go back for Rasha?” I ask.
“I told you. Because we need her.”
“Why else?”
He purses his mouth and stares at me a moment before uttering a swear. “Why are you asking?”
Because I want to know you. I want to know what’s going on inside of you.
I want to know what you’re still so afraid of.
I shrug. “Does it matter? Just tell me.”
“I didn’t want to expose myself to anyone else—my people in Bron, or you—without some assurance that Draewulf’s . . . residual effects in me wouldn’t result in harming others.”
I bite my lip. That makes sense. “And?”
“As far as Rasha can tell, I’m fine. For now.”
Meaning he’s still nervous.
He drops his gaze to mine, then tips his head. “What?”
“Nothing, I just—”
“It’s not nothing. You’ve got that expression on your face.”
Lovely. I don’t trust my voice so I shake my head.
“What’s going on up there?” He reaches a hand out to tap the side of my head, making me smile, which then brings him to smile too.
Rather than pulling his hand away, he presses it against my hair and the side of my face as his smile slides away into something deeper, something I haven’t seen in over a week, and it awakens every ache and thirst in me to fall completely into him.
I stare and feel the air deflate from the room. As if we’ve drawn it all in and left nothing but raw energy and emotion and— Oh hulls, why is he confusing me again?
He blinks and his lips open slightly. Then he’s leaning in, my gaze wrapped in his, and I swear it’s infused with static.
Thick inhale. Soft exhale.
His eyes flit past me to the window. And the next second he’s clearing his throat and blinks before lifting his head. “Nymia,” he whispers.
I could sink into his voice, at the sound of my name on his lips with that rich accent with which he’s always murmured it. I shut my eyes because something tells me that’s not why he’s saying it now, blast him.
“Look.”
Stupid oaf. I turn to look and the first thing I see is rain. Beautiful sunlit mist making rainbows against the green earth of the land I love almost more than anything.
I inhale again and relish the feel of his warm hand still on my arm. Thus it’s one, two, three seconds longer before I notice what he wanted me to see.
People.
Loads of them. Thousands of them. Emerging through the fog along the winding roads as far as I can see, with nothing on their backs but clothes, tools fashioned into weapons, and a few pots and pans. Mothers holding the hands of their young; boys and even girls, not yet in puberty, walking with heads held high; old men, too feeble to walk without a cane, yet still strong enough to wield a scythe.
I blink away the heat, but the daft unbidden tears fall anyway. Why, I
don’t know—perhaps because I’ve never been so moved, so humbled at others’ belief. At these individuals who’re bringing their hope rather than expectation—I feel it like an offering they’ve just infused into me. These lives that will be lost along with mine too soon, too easily, too unfairly, and yet they come anyway.
I turn away to wipe my eyes before Eogan can see, except he’s already seen. He slides a hand down my arm and grips my hand, pulling me to stand with my back against his chest as he leans over and drapes warm breath over my cheek, my neck, my hair. And points at the peasants and slaves and the entire Faelen population getting closer by the moment.
“That is your true ability. To inspire people.”
I try to laugh it off. “Well, my words were pretty incredible,” but the thickness catches in my throat.
“I’m sure they were,” he says dryly. “But everyone in that War Council is also good with words, and they haven’t inspired anyone to more than contempt in years. Your true ability is what I’ve always said it was. Your compassion and desire to protect. That is what you’ve extended to these people. It’s what you’ve given them. And that is why they’ll follow you.”
“Even to their deaths,” I whisper, watching the women, men, and children filing up the white High Court stone road.
Before he can answer, a pounding on the door makes me jump and pull away as his hand drops mine.
Then the door’s opening and Tannin’s head is appearing. “Pardon, m’lady and Your Highness. I was told to inform you there’s been a change in plans.”
CHAPTER 32
YOU’RE AWFULLY QUIET.”
I glance over to find King Sedric watching me. And refrain from mentioning we’ve been on the road for an hour without any breakfast and a host of our Faelen people scrambling to keep up. “I suppose I am.”
“Care to speak your thoughts?”
Do I care to speak my thoughts? Um, no, not exactly.
But after a moment, “Maybe I’m just feeling the weight of what we’re heading toward—and that it’s no small thing we’re leading them to.”
“Nor could we do so without you.”
“So I keep hearing.” Litch. I bite my tongue, but the words have already fallen out. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be uncharitable.”
“Not uncharitable. Merely honest.” He grins.
If he were Eogan, I’d hurl a blast of icy wind in his face. Bolcrane.
“Your sentiment’s a fair one, Nym. I imagine what’s intended as gratitude has placed a measure of pressure on your shoulders.” He tips his head back at the mass following on foot and horseback and wagon.
A measure? I look away because I’m beginning to think this man has no idea.
And if I admit it, I’m fine with it being that way. I don’t want him in tune with me—or sensing my thoughts and moods the way Eogan can.
I just want to get this over with.
“How long will Eogan be?”
He looks at the guards riding with Mia, Mel, and Lord Myles near us. Then at Rolf, who answers, “I believe he’s merely a half hour behind, sire.”
Sedric veers his gaze back to me. “I’ll admit I’m quite curious what it was he went to retrieve from Lady Adora’s old house. Most interesting.”
“From the cottage,” I correct.
“The what?”
“The cottage. Eogan lived in a cottage behind Adora’s house.”
“Ah, yes.” He looks at Princess Rasha, who’s riding beside a caged coach that contains Lord Myles, and I catch his glance, ensuring Myles’s hands are still tied and the bar locks still in place. “You’re looking better this morning, cousin.”
“Thank you.”
“No more visions?”
“Oh, plenty, but Her Highness has seen fit to asssist me from time to time.”
Sedric nods in approval, but from the sheen of sweat covering Myles’s forehead and the eyes that are blackening by the hour, I’d say he’s struggling to keep up on those times. His pupils keep dilating and his hands are twitching to itch at the dark, spindled veins trailing up his wrists and arms and now around his throat. It makes the blood in my own veins itch.
I turn away. “You’re certain you’d not have me ride ahead, Your Highness? To ensure more ships don’t reach our shore?”
“According to last night’s report, it’s too late for that. Most had already landed by the time the runner reached us. And with that many already here and half our units having not returned . . . I fear we’d lose you too.” He smiles. “Better to keep you within eyesight.”
Like Lady Isobel and Myles.
I take a quick peek back at the woman being trundled along in a separate caged cart, surrounded by more guards than we can spare. Why Sedric felt safer having her beneath his watchful eye is up for debate in the wisdom arena.
I keep my lips pursed and scan the dark, clouded horizon ahead of us, then the road and the green, sheep-dotted hills we’re trekking across.
Still no sign of Draewulf’s airships. Nor of the sea.
I can feel it, though. The salty foam spitting and hissing and spraying, much like the wraiths crossing it even now. We should get a view of both any moment if the pricking in my blood and the growing, snakelike whispering in my head is any indication.
Although mercifully, the wraiths’ hissing is quickly drowned out by a murmuring sound drifting forward from the ranks behind us. I yank Haven’s wandering mouth away from Sedric’s leg and look back again for Eogan, then at the people travelling behind the lines upon lines of Faelen soldiers.
My people.
Walking with a stride in their step that suggests pride and hope. I beg it to shore up the wavering in me that senses Draewulf’s presence growing bigger, grander, more suffocating. Until it occurs to me they’re not murmuring—they’re singing, a melody as familiar as my own skin. It’s “The Song of the Dreamer.” Good hulls, I’ve not heard it in years, but I used to hum it every night before bed in the wee hours that were my own. It’s the song of every warrior, homemaker, slave, blacksmith, and baker. My father taught it to me on his knee.
It’s the song of freedom.
Something twinges in my arm. A fluttering, as if the bird carved into my skin is raising her head to chirp along with them. I grin and promptly join in humming. Until I’m singing it, and soon King Sedric and the troops are singing too, and in this moment, in this exhale beneath the Faelen sky surrounded by mountains and valleys and rich Faelen earth, we as a massive horde are the heartpulse of this land. And our voices together are her blood. My own voice grows louder at this thought until I swear it could reach beyond the atmosphere and rain forth victory.
A strangled snarl on my right is the first indication Lord Myles isn’t so appreciative of the song. Then he’s shaking and shuddering and his eyes are rolling back. There’s a pop in the air around him, as if a suds bubble just burst, and suddenly a massive shift in the atmosphere ripples out from him, like a pebble tossed into a pond. As the rings spread, so does a vision of blood and soldiers beheading each other and death so horrific Mia begins to gag.
The next second it’s as if his blood is calling to mine, his poison to my poison, and the bird that was just fluttering is now gasping a warning as the spidery hunger rears its head beneath my skin. It’s hungry for the vision and the death it senses.
“Guards! Luminescents! See to the Lord Protectorate!”
It’s all I can do to refrain from scratching my arm. Instead, I flip Haven around King Sedric while he’s still giving commands regarding his cousin and allow Haven’s teeth to warn the soldiers aside in order to ride up behind Myles.
I yank my blade out and flip it around to use the base of it on the back of his head.
Except before I can, Rasha’s hand slides out to stop me. “Wait.”
She speaks in a low tone to Myles, saying words I can hardly hear and can’t for the life of me understand. As if she’s doing a spell or a chant.
One minute, two minutes, three minutes go by and Myles’s twitching lessens.
“Don’t teach him to resist the effects—teach him to understand their causes inside of him,” I say, recollecting Isobel’s guidance.
Rasha’s brow goes up, but she changes her tone and whatever it is she’s asking, and then Myles’s gaze clears and his hands firm around the cage bars. He’s breathing heavy as if straining, hanging on Rasha’s every word—as if they are all that is keeping him from slipping again.
Farther back, murmurs of confusion pick up, but it doesn’t matter.
In a few minutes none of them will care—or even remember.
Because the hill we’ve been travelling up we’re now cresting, and the Valley and rough stormy sea are splaying out below us.
And the sight nearly knocks me from Haven’s saddle.
CHAPTER 33
MY HEART PLUNGES INTO MY KNEES AS A UNIFIED gasp goes up around me.
“Bleeding litches,” Kel mutters.
The valley below us is covered in a writhing, rippling mass of black, stretching from the northern coastline to Litchfell Forest on the west and the Hythra Mountain range in the east. There must be ten thousand of them, maybe more, all growling and moving and preparing to destroy us.
And above them hangs a heavy mist. Except . . .
It’s not a mist—it’s more vile. Like a film of evil lurking in the air, oozing up from the magic that created it. Same as what I’d thought were dark clouds hovering over the water and the boats littering the coastline—only these clouds aren’t gray. They’re black. Like the wisps Draewulf draws in to protect himself. Stretching far back beyond the normally visible mountain ranges inside Tulla and Cashlin.
