The Way of Ancient Power

by Ben Wolf

  Calum couldn’t believe it. In less than two weeks, he’d learned that two of his traveling companions weren’t just a Windgale and a Saurian, but the princess of the entire Sky Realm and the long-lost heir of Reptilius.

  What next? That Axel was a distant relative of the King?

  “Suffice it to say that Vandorian gave up his right to the throne when he helped Kahn rise to power. That makes you, the sole surviving child of Praetorius, his sole heir as far as the Sky Realm is concerned.” Avian smiled and patted Magnus’s forearm. “You have our support.”

  Magnus nodded. “Thank you.”

  “Frankly, dealing with you would be much more pleasant than dealing with either Vandorian or your uncle.”

  “I had hoped to remain anonymous for longer, but when I recognized Vandorian, I knew I would never get him alone with only five guards ever again. I beg your forgiveness, but I had to take the chance.” Magnus sighed. “Now Vandorian will tell my uncle that I yet live, and they will both be on their guard. I have squandered whatever element of surprise I would have had.”

  “I understand what you mean. However,” Avian stared at Magnus, “for the time being, I am beholden to Vandorian’s demands concerning your attack.”

  Magnus’s reptilian brow arched down. “What do you mean?”

  Avian frowned. “I mean that since you’re a citizen of our realm now, I still have to punish you for attacking him.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “What kind of glass-backward place is this?” Axel stepped forward with his arms extended out to his sides. “He was totally justified in attacking. You can’t punish him for that!”

  Calum shook his head. Leave it to Axel to side with Magnus after all this time, after everything that had happened, just because he found out Magnus was royalty.

  Magnus eyed him. “You do not even like me. I punched you in the head, humiliated you, and took your sword away. Why defend me now?”

  “You’re the same as I am, Scales. I didn’t see it before, but I do now. You got handed a foul deal in life, just like Calum and me.” Axel pointed at the throne room doors. “Plus, Vandorian and his friend Oren were a couple of arrogant harpies.”

  “That doesn’t negate the fact that you broke our laws when you attacked Vandorian and his men. Typically, a crime of this caliber would be addressed through a hearing like those we held for Condor—” Avian shot a long glare at Axel. “—and your friend, here, but in this case, I believe I can make an exception since the other council members are indisposed.”

  Lilly hovered toward him. “Father, take into account Magnus’s—”

  Avian held up his hand. “I’ll hear no testaments to his character, nor to his innocence or his guilt, Lilliana. He will be punished according to our laws, and my decision will be binding. Otherwise, I can summon Vandorian and his men back, if you prefer their brand of ‘justice?’”

  “No.” Lilly bowed her head.

  “Very well, then.” Avian floated up to Magnus’s eye level. “Magnus, I hereby banish you from the Sky Realm until you find and free Lumen, the General of Light. Not a moment longer, nor a moment shorter. You are banished for exactly as long as the journey is meant to last.”

  Calum grinned, and so did Axel, Magnus, and Lilly.

  “Should you return for any reason before your quest is complete, you will be given three full days to vacate the realm once again, or you will face the penalty of death.” Avian pulled Lilly close and positioned her between Magnus and himself. “And while you are banished, I implore you—I command you to safeguard that which is most important to me. Do you understand your punishment?”

  Magnus smirked and gave a modest bow. “I do.”

  “Good. Then get out of my sight, and watch out for those Sobeks. I imagine there is an entire encampment of Saurians somewhere nearby, and they’re headed in the same direction as you. Best to go now before they realize what I’ve done for you.”

  Calum performed the Windgale salute again. “Thank you again, Premier.”

  A yelp turned their heads.

  From behind one of the pillars, a Windgale soldier in purple armor pulled a mass of brown-gray fur out of the shadows by the scruff of its neck. “I found this dog hiding. Don’t know how it got in here, Premier. What should I do with it?”

  “I’m not a dog, you moron.” Riley snapped at the Windgale’s hand and he let go, but then he leveled his spear. Riley hobble-darted back around the pillar into its shadow again, and the soldier followed.

  “Oh, no you don’t. Not getting away that easily, pup.”

  “He’s with us, soldier,” Falcroné said. “Leave him be.”

  Calum made it over to Riley first, then Lilly. She crouched next to him and asked, “Are you alright, Riley?”

  “Fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  Axel came up behind them. “Were you hiding that whole time?”

  Riley didn’t answer him. He just growled from within the shadows.

  “What happened to those razor sharp fangs of yours?” Axel scoffed and folded his arms. “Condor didn’t stab you in the mouth, did he?”

  “Cut it out, Axel,” Calum warned.

  “Yeah, leave him alone.” Lilly scratched behind Riley’s ears—she was still the only one he allowed to do that. “Come on. We need to get our supplies from Ganosh, and I need to say goodbye to my mother.”

  Night fell within a matter of hours after Axel and the team left the Sky Fortress. When he’d first left his farm behind to accompany Calum and Magnus, he’d never expected anyone else would travel with them, but now their number had grown to seven in total.

  Axel didn’t know whether to be impressed that they’d become so popular or annoyed because of all the extra people around to bother him. He supposed it would be better to have greater numbers when it came to fighting, especially since battles kept finding them wherever they went.

  Speaking of battles, they located a large encampment near the base of the northernmost support pillar, just as Avian had suggested. Falcroné took to the sky to scout for patrols, then Magnus led them around the encampment where he supposed the Saurians would not be. Sure enough, they didn’t encounter anyone.

  Hardly anyone said much of anything for the first hour after they passed the Saurians’ encampment, but that suited Axel just fine. It gave him time to think through everything that had happened at the Sky Fortress.

  He still hadn’t talked to Lilly about why she’d lied about the attack. She’d told him she loved Falcroné—another obvious lie. Her actions before the Council of Wisps suggested otherwise. They strongly suggested otherwise.

  Yet even that didn’t hold Axel’s attention as much Magnus’s revelation of his royal heritage. Despite their previous contentions, Magnus’s plight had placed him securely in Axel’s “He’s alright” category. Still, Axel couldn’t help but wonder who else might be hiding something from him.

  He and Riley walked near the back of the group. The thought reoccurred to Axel that he should probably apologize to Riley for how everything that had transpired when Condor had stabbed him, but Riley hadn’t brought it up, so Axel decided to keep ignoring the impulse.

  Axel nudged Riley’s left shoulder—the one on his uninjured side. “Hey, Riley.”

  “What?”

  “Shhh,” Axel hissed. “For someone who’s supposed to be stealthy, you sure talk loud sometimes.”

  Riley sighed and rolled his eyes, but he lowered his voice. “What do you want, Axel?”

  “You’re not secret royalty too, are you?”

  Riley barked a laugh. “Me? You gotta be kidding.”

  Calum turned his head back from the middle of the group about ten paces ahead of them. “Hey, don’t lag behind, guys. Magnus and Falcroné said we’ve got another hour of walking before we camp for the night.”

  Axel gave him a slight wave, then he refocused on Riley once Calum faced forward again. “What’s so funny about it?”

  “Wolves don’t operate like humans, W
indgales, or even Saurians. Your hierarchies are all based on lineage and bloodlines, but we don’t do things that way.”

  “How do Wolves do it, then?”

  “Our structure is based on strength, not family lines. The strongest of us rules the tribe, the pack. If you think you can lead the tribe better, you challenge the Alpha. If you beat him, you become the new leader.” Riley’s ears lowered. “But if you lose, he kills you.”

  “Where’s your tribe?” Axel asked.

  Riley stifled another pitiful laugh. “Don’t have one. Why else do you think you found me wandering the woods alone?”

  “Why not?”

  “Seriously? Look at me, Axel. For a Wolf, I’m tiny. Weak. Not a good fighter, and apparently not a very good thief either since you, Calum and Magnus managed to catch me in the act.” Riley shook his head. “No one wants me in their tribe.”

  “Yeah, I can see that.”

  Riley shot him a glare.

  “What? Would you rather I lie to you?”

  “Forget it.” Riley rolled his eyes again and trotted forward until he walked between Calum and Lilly.

  Axel squinted at the two of them and rotated his sore shoulders. They weren’t nearly as bad as they had been, and in only a few more days, he should be pain-free.

  As far as Lilly was concerned, Axel had Falcroné to worry about, of course, but did Calum still think he had a chance with her, too?

  She’d told Calum the same lie about loving Falcroné. If he also didn’t believe her, then would he keep pursuing her as well? Or would he stand aside?

  Time would tell, but no matter what happened, Axel had no intention of losing the contest. After all, he could beat Calum in pretty much every other category already. Adding one more to the list wouldn’t be hard.

  Lilly sat on a stone, admiring the starry sky above while Calum and Magnus stacked wood next to the fledgling campfire Axel had just ignited.

  Something nudged her shoulder, and she found Falcroné at her side. She scooted over to make room for him, grateful for his company on a cool night.

  As he sat down next her, he asked, “So you didn’t want to marry me?”

  Lilly tensed. She’d known this conversation had to happen eventually, but she hadn’t wanted to have it with him tonight. “Do you really want to talk about this here and now?”

  “You said it aloud to your father in front of them. I assume you don’t mind further discussing it in their midst.”

  Annoyed and frustrated, Lilly stood and pulled Falcroné to his feet. “Come with me.”

  They took to the sky together, and she led him deeper into the woods until several trees separated them from the group. She glanced around to make sure no one had followed them—Axel in particular.

  She’d given a lot of thought to how this conversation needed to go, and it always circled back to one essential statement, so she led with that. “Fal, I’m sorry.”

  He shrugged—not the reaction she’d been expecting. “What for? You spoke your mind.”

  Nor were those the words she’d expected. She shook her head. “That doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt you.”

  “Lilly, I’m not worried. I know now why you left. I don’t want to make a big issue of it. I just want to make sure this… us… is actually what you want.”

  At least he was making it easy on her. For that, she was very grateful.

  She wrapped her arms around Falcroné’s midsection, pressed her cheek against the cool armor covering his chest, and smiled. “It is.”

  I think.

  He hugged her back. “Good. Me too.”

  She released him. “Come on. Let’s get back to camp.”

  Riley crouched in the darkness beyond the perimeter of the camp they had set up, watching. Even from so far away, he could still hear every word they said, every piece of wood snapping, every footfall of every creature skittering through the trees around them.

  Benefits of being a Wolf—even if he couldn’t run and couldn’t fight, he could still hide and hear and see better in the dark than any of the rest of them.

  “If Vandorian and his Sobeks find us, we run.” Magnus stoked the modest campfire with a long stick and ashes billowed into the air. “There is no way we could overcome even three of them, much less six. Taking on an entire encampment would be suicide. At best we could handle two of them, and that assumes one of them is not Vandorian.”

  “You took down four of them on your own,” Axel said. “And you almost got Vandorian, too.”

  Magnus shook his head and reclined against a boulder he’d dragged into place near his spot. “I got lucky. Had those warriors been expecting trouble, I would not have made it past the first two before they surrounded me and struck me down.”

  Axel shrugged. “Looked like you were doing fine—up until the end, at least.”

  “My point is, if they come for us, we are in for a world of trouble,” Magnus said. “If we can get away, fine, but if not, I will try to fend them off so the rest of you can escape. Vandorian likely wants me alive, anyway.”

  “We’re not gonna leave you, Magnus.” Calum extended his legs while seated and stretched out his hamstrings. “After all we’ve been through, we can’t let them get you. We won’t. We’ll stay and fight.”

  “That cannot happen,” Magnus said. “I wish it were that simple, but I cannot allow it. Falcroné, Lilly, and Kanton could all escape if things escalated too quickly, but the rest of us would be stuck on the ground, outnumbered and overmatched. It is an impossible situation.”

  “I don’t know.” Axel eyed Falcroné and Lilly, who sat shoulder-to-shoulder near the flames. “I think we could take ’em. Especially with Sunshine over there on our side.”

  Riley smirked. Axel despised Falcroné. Riley could smell it in his sweat whenever Axel and Falcroné stood too near each other—and even more so when Falcroné got close to Lilly like he was now.

  Of course, Riley didn’t like Axel, either. How anyone did, he couldn’t fathom. He was a top-tier idiot, rude, and cruel.

  Riley had suspected as much when they first met, but when Axel tried to kill Condor instead of getting Riley help for his near-fatal wound, it sealed Riley’s opinion of him forever.

  “I’d appreciate if you didn’t refer to me by any monikers other than my name. Or ‘Captain.’” Falcroné’s gaze hardened.

  Axel squinted at him, but gave him a slight nod. “Whatever you say, ’Croné.”

  “It’s Falcroné.”

  “Don’t encourage him, Fal.” Lilly patted Falcroné’s knee with her hand. “He’s just trying to jab you to get a reaction.”

  “If he jabs me again, I might have to jab him back.” Falcroné tapped the pommel of his sword, which hung from his belt in its sheath.

  The pheromones in Axel’s sweat had intensified when Lilly patted Falcroné’s knee, but the next swell hit Riley’s nose like a flood.

  Axel stood up. “You go right ahead, Fal. Skin that steel and find out what happens.”

  “Enough.” Calum hopped up to his feet and stepped between Axel and Falcroné. His eyes locked on Axel. “You’re not gonna do this again. Falcroné is on our side, and you won’t alienate him from us.”

  “He’s a pompous—”

  “I said enough,” Calum snapped. “If you keep causing division in our group, we’ll leave you behind. I’m serious. There is no longer any place for that kind of talk here, so either fall in line, or we’re done with you.”

  Axel scowled. Now both their pheromones wafted in Riley’s direction—similar, but unique. Both very potent.

  “I know how you feel, Axel,” Calum said, his voice low so only he and Axel—and Riley—could hear. “Believe me, I do. But you’re not gonna solve anything by fighting him.”

  “Is Axel always like this?” Falcroné leaned close to Lilly and asked, his whispered words overlapping the end of Calum’s sentence.

  “Somewhat, yes,” she whispered back. “It takes some getting used to.”

  “I
still don’t understand why you covered for him at the council,” Falcroné muttered. “We both know what really happened and what punishment he deserved.”

  Riley glanced at Axel.

  “You don’t know anything about what’s going on between Lilly and me. We have a future together, and you don’t, and it bothers you.” Axel tapped his index finger on Calum’s crimson breastplate. “You’d do anything to keep us apart so you can have her for yourself. She kissed me, not you.”

  Riley raised an eyebrow. Did Falcroné know about that? He turned back to their conversation.

  Lilly shook her head. “After all we went through, I couldn’t let the council jail him for something so trivial.”

  “Trivial?” Falcroné clamped his hand on Lilly’s arm. “Lilly, he attacked you. That’s not trivial.”

  Hmmm. Riley must have missed a few things while he was recovering.

  “I’m done with this conversation, Axel.” Calum turned away and sat down, his eyes fixed on the fire.

  “Yeah, we’re done alright.” Axel sat down in his spot and folded his arms. He glared at Falcroné, but Falcroné didn’t look at him.

  “Just leave it alone, Falcroné,” Lilly whispered and lay her head against his shoulder. “It’s not worth getting worked up about.”

  Falcroné frowned at her. “Regardless, I don’t trust him. I’m not letting you out of my sight if I can help it.”

  Lilly smiled and looked up at him. “I’ll have to go to the bathroom at some point, you know.”

  “Then I’ll watch him while you’re gone.”

  Kanton floated over between Calum and Axel, and he glanced between them both. “So, who’s taking the first watch shift tonight?”

  Riley smirked. He preferred the night, the shadows. If he had things his way, he’d stay up all night and take the whole watch, but then someone would have to carry him during the daytime since he couldn’t just sleep in the same spot, and that wasn’t going to happen.