by Jaymin Eve
The water begins to settle around us. The storm we created slowly calms and loses its force. Baelen catches my armor as it floats past us, helping me pull it back on before the water pulls it away again. I catch his clothing but toy with the idea of refusing to give it back.
He grins at me as if he reads my mind. When we were connected by the storm, we could talk to each other without speaking. I have no idea what he’d say to me right now but he distracts me with a kiss and the faintest brush of his hands across my ribcage. He steals his clothing right out of my fingertips.
Once dressed, he pulls me against him, adjusts my legs around his waist, and strides from the water, taking the steps at the side. Water streams from our bodies as we emerge into the cool air.
“Baelen, you have all the storm power now.”
“It’s not mine to keep. Part of it belongs to you. I can feel it trying to pull away from me and get back to you. I’m not sure how, but you will get it back.”
He doesn’t let me go, kissing me again, his big hands supporting my back and head. As he draws back, he runs his fingertip across the frown forming on my forehead. “What is it?”
“Fear has dictated my actions for so long. Fear and rules. Now you’re here and I can finally be with you. But I’m terrified that when we go back out there…”
This night is not over. Not by a long shot. There’s a whole world of trouble waiting for me as soon as we leave the deep springs. I still have to convince the clan leaders to accept me as their Queen. That’s if I even want to be their Queen…
He strokes my back. “Marbella, you have the weight of this world on your shoulders. My shoulders are pretty broad. Let me share the burden.”
I break into a smile. Broad shoulders is an understatement. I gesture at the stones with bewilderment. “I have to figure out how this happened.”
“We’ll figure it out together.”
I blush. The last time he said that to me we were in a very similar position to the one we’re in now. He lowers me to the ground, helping me find my feet. After he returns to the edge of the water to retrieve the rest of his armor, he holds his hand out to me. I take it willingly. But very soon I remember there’s one more thing we need to talk about before we leave the springs.
Baelen was present in the room when Howl forced me to dine with the Elven Command. He must have heard all of their plans, including the truth about his father’s death.
I tug him to a stop. “The Elven Command conspired to kill your father.”
The muscle at the edge of his jaw ticks as he turns. His hair has grown over the last month and now wet brown strands frame the sides of his face. “They will pay for what they did.”
“They’ve imprisoned my Storm Command. I can’t abandon my ladies. Eli Elder said he was doing everything he could to make sure they were being treated fairly but I’m worried about what will happen when word gets out that I’ve killed Howl. I have to go back to Erawind. I have to free them…”
He squeezes my hand. “We will go back, Marbella. I know you’re worried about them. I am too, but the Priestess is right. You have to secure peace here first.”
“To do that, I have to get the clan leaders to support me. Which involves finding out how this happened.”
And… I’m back to the stones again.
As we continue to walk up the side of the mountain, I shiver again—this time because I’m cold. “Do you think it would be unwise to use my power to dry off?”
Baelen responds to my violent shiver by swiftly pulling me into his arms, his skin blazing and warm light glowing around both of us. Within moments, water steams off us and I’m toasty warm and completely dry. I gasp as sensation trickles through every nerve in my body before he releases me with a self-satisfied smile. “Let’s use mine.”
Llion once told me that I smelled like clouds and ice. I discovered how true that was when I lived so close to the Queen’s heart and froze everything around me at nighttime. Llion also told me that Baelen smelled like scorched earth and acid rain. It turns out that scorched earth isn’t all that bad.
4
Baelen whisks me across the air between the deep springs and Crimson Court but this time, he’s right beside me. When we reach the other side, I pause at the Court’s entrance. It’s quiet. A guard is posted at each open side. I don’t know any of them, but they stand to attention when I approach. Inside, the bodies are lined up in neat rows, their wings folded across their chests. I don’t know what sort of funeral rituals gargoyles have. I don’t even know if they bury their dead. There are so many to bury.
I sigh, my breath frosting in the air. The nearest guard suddenly shivers. Baelen rubs his hand across my shoulders, catching my hand in his and pressing my palm between his own. It’s not until he uses his power to warm the air around me that I realize I was the one making it cold. Grief seems to do that to me. And all of a sudden, it’s crashing down on me again.
“They died because of Howl,” the guard says, taking me by surprise. “Not because of you, Lady Storm. It’s important that you know that.”
I’m surprised by the complete lack of malice in his expression. “You were one of Howl’s guards.”
He quickly averts his eyes, tucking his wings tight against his sides, but holding them slightly forward in a gesture of remorse. “I am from the Grievous Clan, Lady Storm. I was bound to follow my leader.”
“In other words: you were bound to follow Howl.”
The guard nods. “He was our clan leader as well as our king. Now he is neither.” He meets my eyes. “I do not follow him any more.”
All of the clan leaders are waiting for me at the Royal Residence. But the Grievous Clan is without a leader. “What is your name?”
“I am Grievous Gallon, Lady Storm. I am Grievous Erit’s cousin.”
“How will you decide who is your new leader, Grievous Gallon?”
“That is up to you, Lady Storm. You killed Howl, so you get to choose whether you will become our leader.”
Well, this night is full of surprises. I study the guard more closely. He looks young, wears ill-fitting armor, and hasn’t had a proper haircut in a while. Not that he’s alone in that.
I ask, “What if I choose not to take Howl’s place?”
“Then you must choose a replacement.”
Good. Because I already know exactly who I want to lead their clan. “Thank you, Grievous Gallon. Please return to your post.”
But as I turn away, he calls out, “I’m not guarding them, Lady Storm. I’m here to help gargoyles find their loved ones.” He lowers his eyes. “We’ve sent word to the families of the ones who have fallen. When they get here, they won’t have to search the faces of the dead to find the one they’ve lost. I will help them.”
“That’s…” More compassionate than I expected.
“Orders from Denrock Welsian,” Gallon explains. “He told us it’s what you would want.”
“It is.”
All three guards bow as I turn away. I walk in silence beside Baelen. Off to our far right, bright lights flicker in the direction of Harem Hall. I fight the urge to go there and make sure my friends are safe, but I have to trust that Roar will take care of them. I need to settle things with the clan leaders now.
The last time I visited the Royal Residence, Howl was practically dragging me along. Now, Baelen and I follow the wide pathway that ascends through the trees toward the palace. In the moonlight, it’s even more unnervingly camouflaged against the cliff face that it’s built into. The Residence contains a myriad of hallways and rooms with upper and lower levels. I have no idea where I’m supposed to go. Like before, multiple rows of guards stand watch outside it but I’m relieved to find the old Priestess fluttering around giving them orders.
“Supreme Incorruptible,” she says, more like an announcement than a greeting. In response the guards stand to attention. I try not to eye them warily.
“This way please,” the old Priestess continues. “To the meeting hall.”
She lowers her voice as we pass through the wide front doors. “Which, unfortunately, you are already familiar with.”
My heart sinks. There are some rooms that I’d rather not visit ever again. This is the one where I was forced to eat with the Elven Commanders: Elwyn Elder and Pedr Bounty. When we reach the large wooden door decorated with the silhouette of a golden panther, I press my palms against it, wishing I could destroy this room and everything that happened in it.
Inside, I count twenty-six clan leaders. They sit in what at first looks like a scattered pattern but as I study them I realize that they are gathered more on one side of the room than the other.
On the other side, a fire burns in the fireplace. It wasn’t lit last time I was here and it gives off long shadows across the floor. A large, hunched form rises from beside the flames: a male gargoyle I’ve never seen before. He wears furs across his shoulders that entirely cover his wings, and a chain made out of bird talons and panther claws across his broad chest. He blows out a taper as he rises, indicating that he was the one who lit the fire.
The Priestess announces. “I give you the Supreme Incorruptible Marbella Mercy.” I watch her carefully as she speaks. She’s making a point of looking right past this new male and not directly at him.
He speaks from beside the fireplace, his voice a deep growl. “Well, that’s what we’re here to determine, isn’t it? Whether or not she really is Supreme Incorruptible.”
He draws up to his full height, his fur coat sliding away from his wings, held securely across his shoulders by the chain. He shakes out his wings, a casual gesture, but the action reveals a startling difference: where other gargoyles have single wing daggers at their two uppermost wing tips, this gargoyle’s wings are topped with multiple waves of sharp silver tips, razor-sharp edges catching the light.
Baelen jolts beside me, the first sign of surprise he’s shown since he appeared at the Court this afternoon. I don’t know what it means when he whispers, “Senturi.”
At the same time, a tiny face peeks out from behind the male’s coat. Gorgeous brown eyes and rosy cheeks appear as a little girl—maybe only six years old—darts out from behind the older male, hands outstretched to Baelen. “Bae-Bae!”
A grin breaks across Baelen’s face. He catches the little female and swings her up, popping her onto his hip as if she’s sat there many times before.
“Little Adalie! You’ve grown!”
I look for my jaw. I’m pretty sure I’ve dropped it somewhere on the floor.
Adalie is covered in a fur coat too. It conceals her wings, but she pulls out a necklace so Baelen can see it, proudly prodding at the single talon attached to it. “Look, Bae-Bae. I killed my first talon crow.” Her little forehead transforms into a cross frown. “I’m not scared of them anymore.”
“They are not worthy of your fear, little Adalie.”
She grins, clawing her fingers and drawing her lips back into a demonstrative hiss. “They are scared of me now.”
“As they should be.”
Adalie turns her gaze to me, her pupils dilating. I was struck silent before, but now her gaze freezes me. I’ve felt this sensation before. The Elven Commander I killed—Gideon Glory—had tried to invade my mind with his sorcery. I’d sensed it like something sliding around inside my head. This tiny female is doing the same. I want to push back against the girl like I did with Gideon, but my power is so strong I could kill her.
Her voice becomes older than her years as she whispers, “You are sad, Storm Lady, and worried about your people.”
Well, she’s right about that.
The older male quickly covers the distance between us. It doesn’t escape me that the other clan leaders lean away from him, avoiding eye contact as he passes. Even the old Priestess suddenly finds something fascinating about the floor as the newcomer reaches for the little girl. “Come now, granddaughter, enough showing off.”
Showing off? It felt more like emotional invasion. But not an ugly invasion. More like an unwilling one. If this little female has some sort of power, she doesn’t know how to control it yet.
Baelen relinquishes the snuggly bundle in his arms to the older male who whispers to the girl, “Remember your manners.”
The little girl drops to a knee in front of me, mimicking her grandfather who also bows to me.
Her little-girl voice rings out innocently into the silence. “Greetings, Storm Lady. Greetings, Bae-Bae.”
I bite my lip, trying to bury a smile at her earnest expression. Baelen solemnly taps his heart. “Greetings, Outlier Adalie.” He also acknowledges the older male with a respectful nod. “Greetings, Outlier Senturi.”
Baelen turns to me next and his expression begs me to go with him on this. I compress my lips. Baelen clearly knows these gargoyles, but to my knowledge, he never set foot in Erador before I brought his sleeping body across the border. He owes me a lot of answers and his expression tells me he knows it.
He says, “Marbella, these gargoyles are from the Outlier Clan. They are the ones who guard the edges of our world.”
The edges of our world are wastelands where the mountains and grass stop and the ground becomes ash. The wastelands lead only to jagged walls that are thousands of feet high where the gargoyle King cleaved a space out of the layers of the Earth for us to live.
“I’ve never heard of the Outlier Clan,” I say, digging into my memory for any mention of it.
“That’s because we are few and far between, scattered throughout the wastelands,” Senturi explains. “We would be even fewer still if it weren’t for Baelen Rath. Adalie would not be alive today without him.”
More answers I’ll need from Baelen, but I won’t be distracted from the more pressing question: why is Senturi here? I highly doubt that any of the other clan leaders invited him judging by the way they won’t even look at him. “Well, you’re here now. You must have a reason for traveling all the way from your home.”
Senturi clears his throat, meeting my eyes. “Members of my clan have Sight. We alone can tell the true nature of things. That is why I have come to you.” He takes a step closer, daring to close the gap between us.
He says, “I’m here to answer the question that everyone is asking: what are you?”
5
I sigh. “I know what I am: tired. I lost dear friends today and I want to bury them. I’m not interested in games.”
He leans forward to whisper, “Then I’m sorry we will need to play one.” He leans back, speaking more loudly this time so everyone can hear. “You will notice that the other gargoyles avoid my attention.”
I glance at the Priestess. She’s unusually quiet and offers me no guidance about what I should say next. Instead, she glues her gaze to the floor like everyone else in this room except Baelen and me.
I nod. “It hasn’t escaped me.”
“Yet you yourself hide nothing.” His statement isn’t a question, but it sounds like one.
“I have nothing to hide.”
His response is quick. Accusing. “You know a secret, Marbella Mercy.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Probably. In fact, it’s likely that I know several.”
He is much more skilled than his granddaughter at hiding the invasion into my mind. I sense it like a gentle breeze, so quiet, so soft that I hardly notice it at all. But I do notice it.
I decide not to push back.
He gives me a slow nod, indicating his quiet gratitude. He says, “You could destroy my mind in a heartbeat. Yet you choose to allow me inside your thoughts. Why?”
“Because anyone who is brave enough to look into my emotions is stronger than he looks.”
A smile breaks across Senturi’s features, transforming him so that he looks much younger. I frown at his face, his eyes, the perceptive way he assesses me. I’ve seen that look before. Why does it seem so familiar to me?
As if he doesn’t want to give me long enough to figure it out, Senturi abruptly adjusts his focus. “Priestess,” he says to her. �
�Would you be so kind as to call Lightsworn Lance and the other clan leaders closer. Please reassure them that I will not cast my Sight upon them. They have my word about that. All I want is what Erador needs: knowledge and peace.”
The Priestess unsticks her gaze from the floor. “I know you are true to your word, Outlier Senturi. I will bring them over.”
As the Priestess gathers the clan leaders, Senturi’s jaw ticks. “She’s right about that. I always do what I promise. And I promise you, Marbella Mercy, I already know what you are. But the trick will be convincing the clan leaders. I’m sorry this is a game you can’t avoid playing.”
Well, if he already knows the answers, then I wish he would just tell me, but it looks like nothing will be simple tonight.
Lightsworn Lance, who is the patriarch of Liliana’s clan, hobbles over to me, mumbling, “I should be too old to be frightened of Sighted Ones.” He appears to have aged even more since the last time I saw him; his skin is fragile and semi-transparent. He stops at a safe distance from me and looks me over. The other clan leaders soon join him. I recognize only some of them: the leader of the Virtuous Clan is dressed in regal robes while the leaders of the Denrock and Sunflight clans wear earthy clothing. All of them appear worse for wear after the battle today.
I return their gazes. The stones spin around me in the silence.
Senturi addresses them in a casual manner. “When you look at Lady Storm, what do you see?”
With a perplexed air, Lance says, “My eyes show me two things that can’t co-exist: An elf controls our ancient Queen’s heart.”
Senturi’s response is sharp and concise. “She is not an elf.”
Even I’m surprised, but maybe I shouldn’t be. The Phoenix once told me that when it looked at me, it didn’t see an elf. It said that I was something else.
Lance’s eyebrows draw down into a stubborn frown. “Well, she is certainly not a gargoyle. She knows nothing of our clans, our history…”
