by Jack Whitney
Rhaif was pacing in front of his great fireplace when she was announced. She stepped inside his study without a word and stood but a few steps from the door as they were shut behind her. Only when he paused and came around the front of his desk did she say anything.
“You needed something?” she asked.
Rhaif fumbled with the ring on his finger and stared downwards in silence a few moments. She didn’t know whether to be weary of his silence or if perhaps he was figuring out the words to speak.
“This week…” he finally began. “This week, you are not to bring up the ships. You are not to bring up becoming allies. You are not to bring up your silly notion of this… this Echelon you’ve so spewed about.”
The darkened tone in which he spoke made her ears ring. She crossed her arms over her chest. “You expect me to sit back and speak nothing while you and the Council talk about trading routes and qualities of goods in front of the rest of the races of our land instead of discussing an enemy coming on our shores? Instead of discussing the unity across all our races that we will need to posses to truly strike these people down?”
His eyes traveled over her, and he pushed his shoulders back. “Yes.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am,” he affirmed.
Her weight shifted on her feet. “And if I refuse?”
His eyes flashed fire, and she watched his fingertips blacken.
Her jaw tightened at his warning. “If you think you can subdue me in front of people I have gone into battle with, you’re wrong. These people are my friends—”
Rhaif’s low laughter filled her ears. “Friends…” he mocked, shaking his head. “You’re the Sun Queen. You have no friends.”
“Your inability to make people love you is not my problem.”
He grasped her arms in his hands and pushed her against the mantle, her head banging backwards into the bookcase.
“Do not make me subdue you,” he warned.
“You cannot silence me.”
Aydra’s forehead met his nose, and Rhaif dropped her, doubling over and holding his bleeding nose in his hands. Aydra ran for the door.
The floor turned to fire beneath her.
It paralyzed her feet, and she fell to her knees as the pain seized her entire body. Breath stopped in her throat. She pulled in every direction for the crows, the ravens, anything to help her.
A swarm of crows poured in through the window, and she heard him cry out as they attacked.
But fire engulfed the room, and she felt as some of their cores evacuated their bodies at an instant. Her heart stung, and she opened her eyes.
Black feathers filled the air like snow.
“NO!”
He grasped her neck in his hands and pulled her to her feet. His lip was broken. Scratches covered his forehead and cheeks. His nose continued to bleed.
But the rage in his eyes did not fade.
“Perhaps this will remind you your place,” he hissed.
“—Put her down.”
Rhaif looked twice towards the door. Aydra seized the lapse in his grip and kicked. Her foot struck his side, and he doubled-over, clenching his rib. Her burned knees hit the floor again. She winced in the agony of her painful flesh, barely able to keep her eyes open as Dorian emerged from the shadows of the now open door.
“Stay out of this,” Rhaif warned.
Dorian’s eyes flashed black, and Aydra could just see the tips of his fingers turning charcoal. Dorian stood his ground over her. “Get out.”
Rhaif straightened and cracked his neck as his eyes blazed at Dorian’s defiant figure. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“I said get out,” Dorian repeated. “Or should you like me to tell the kingdom how you truly earned the high crown at eighteen?”
Rhaif’s nostrils flared, but he didn’t argue. He grabbed a handkerchief from atop his desk and held it to his bleeding nose. “Council meeting in an hour,” he uttered. “I expect you to be there, prince.”
The servants’ entry door closed behind him at the back of the room. Aydra pushed herself up to her elbows just as Dorian knelt beside her.
She swatted his hand away when he went to grab her. “Don’t you ever interfere again,” she hissed at him.
Dorian’s face furrowed. “What?”
“I said—” She forced herself up to a seated position, and she grasped onto the chaise lounge to try and pull herself to her feet. “—Do not ever interfere with our fighting again. It is not your place—”
“He was hurting you,” Dorian argued.
“And if you ever see it again, you are to walk the other way. Let him finish and then you can come in after he is gone with our mother’s waters for healing. You are never to walk in on it, never to put yourself in his line of fire.”
“You are my sister--”
Her knees gave out from under her as she pleaded, “I cannot lose you, Dorian!” in such a broken shout that a lump rose in her throat.
Dorian put his hands under her arms, and he helped her into the chair. She sucked in the tears threatening her core as he sat beside her, and then she reached out to cup his cheek in her hand.
“I cannot lose you too.”
Draven was late arriving in Magnice.
He and Balandria had slept in longer than they should have on the journey up, so he’d barely any time to do more than change his clothes upon their arrival. He was nervous. He’d not spoken with Aydra since the last he’d been at Magnice, and he had meant to get there early enough to talk with her before showing up at the meeting.
But he didn’t have time.
Dorian met him just outside the Chamber doors as he too rounded the corner in haste.
“Prince,” Draven called to him.
“Forest King,” Dorian acknowledged, taking Draven’s hand and then hugging him.
Dorian’s face was pale. Draven’s eyes narrowed down at the young prince upon parting from him.
“What’s wrong?” Draven asked.
Dorian did a double-take just as he saw someone over Draven’s shoulder, and Draven turned to find Rhaif coming towards them, his purple cloak billowing out behind him.
“Tell you later,” Dorian mumbled as he pushed open the door.
Draven fell in behind him and took his seat at the quiet table. Dorian joined Nyssa at the back of the room, where he said something to her and her eyes widened. The air was thick with an energy that made him weary. The Council spoke in hushed tones around him. The doors opened once more. Rhaif came striding in, the rest of the table standing for him, and Draven felt his eyes narrow as he saw Rhaif’s face more clearly.
His nose seemed slightly off center, but there was no bruise. His bottom lip was red as though it had recently been healed of a deep scratch. There were red markings on his cheeks and forehead.
Rhaif snapped his finger and pointed at the chair Aydra usually sat at. A Belwark came forward and took the chair. Draven felt his fists clench.
“Will the Queen not be joining us?” Ash asked.
“Ah—” Rhaif took his seat and clasped his hands together atop the table. “My sister is feeling a bit under the weather today. She sends her regards. Not to worry, though. She’ll be at the meeting with the Nitesh at the end of the week.”
Draven’s eyes flickered to Dorian’s at the back of the room, and Dorian shook his head.
“I do thank you all for coming days earlier for her. We have much to discuss before she arrives. I’d like to make sure we are all on the same page.” Rhaif leaned forward and clasped his hands above the table.
“We have also requested for the Elders of the Blackhand Mountains to join us, and I have received word that the leaders of the Honest army, as well as Lovi Piathos, will also be arriving.” His gaze flickered to Draven, and Draven watched his jaw tighten just slightly as he shifted in his seat. “This meeting… It will be a celebration of our uniting lands. Every race of Haerland in one room. This is what we have planned for.”
For much of the meeting, Draven sat there in a haze, his mind unable to concentrate on anything. He tapped his middle finger on the table the entire time, itching to get away from the fake laughs emitting from Rhaif’s lips.
When Rhaif finally stood from his seat and announced they would retire for dinner, Draven started to leave the room without a glance back at the staring Council.
An arm grabbed him as he reached the door, and he nearly ran into it at the strength in which the person held him back.
Lex’s green eyes tore through him.
He paused and straightened in front of her. “Where is she?”
“She’s okay,” Lex promised. “Do not go bursting in as though you are there to save her.”
Draven’s jaw clenched, and he took a deep breath. His hand ran through his hair and he took the crown off his head. “Right,” he finally breathed. “Why was she not here?” he asked.
Lex’s eyes darted to Rhaif, and her weight shifted as she turned back to him. “That is not my place to say.”
“Hilexi…”
“Using my full name will get you no further to the truth of it,” she assured him. “Evacuate the urgency from your core. She needs her equal. Not her savior.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
AYDRA WATCHED THE sun go down from beneath the poisoned waters of the tub. For a long while, she wondered what lie Rhaif had made up about her not being there. She wondered what Lex had told Draven, and whether he’d cared that she wasn’t there.
It had been Dorian who had helped her raven bring the water up to her tub after the fight that morning. The look on his face made Aydra’s heart weep every time she met his eyes.
“You shouldn’t see me like this,” she told him. “I am fine. Go to the meeting.”
“You shouldn’t be like this,” he argued. “I don’t understand—”
“No, you don’t,” Aydra insisted. She met his stark blue eyes, and she reached out for his hand. “Promise me you’ll always support your sister. No matter if she ever does anything stupid or anything the Council may deem ‘out of turn’. Promise me you’ll always stand at her side.”
He wrapped his hand around hers and reached out to wipe the burn on her cheek with his thumb. “I promise.”
She made Dorian leave her soon after, and she surrendered her body to the pin-needle healing of her mother’s waters.
It was hours after that she found herself staring out of the window at the shining moons, her black silk robe wrapped around her healing body. Her core felt emptier than it had in a long time. As though a part of her had been ripped from her insides.
The door opened and closed just as she wiped the tears from her face. Aydra barely turned from the window, expecting it to be Lex coming back with news from the meeting.
“I didn’t think you’d be here so soon,” she said as she stared out at the ocean. “What happened? Did my brother not go on and on about the sheep this time?”
“Oh, he did,” said the voice not of Lex’s. “Wouldn’t shut up about the quality of the wool not being great enough for the coming winter.”
Her heart skipped at the sound of his voice. She turned, finding Draven holding one of the trinkets on the table by the door, turning it over in his hand with squinted eyes. Her chest began to heave, and she felt an ache for him that made a smile rise on her lips.
“It’s not like you people really need heavy wool around here,” he continued absentmindedly. “Your winters are no more horrid than—” he did a double-take at her, and she realized she was smiling.
“What?” he asked.
A jagged breath left her and she shook her head. “Nothing, it’s just…” she swallowed hard and felt her breath skip, her eyes glisten. “You’re standing there talking about wool as though… “ she bit her lips together, and his brows narrowed just slightly. “As though the last we saw each other, I wasn’t… we weren’t…”
“Fighting?” he finished for her. His weight shifted and he sat the trinket back down. “Aydra, if you think you can scare me away by sharing with me the darkest parts of your core, then you’re going to have to do a lot better than being fearful of a boring life.”
“Like what?”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and gave her a full once over. “Like telling me you feel nothing between us… or perhaps that you rape children for fun in the streets, that might do it.”
She allowed the ludacris smile to rise to her face and she shook her head. “You’re ridiculous.”
The grin that made her knees weak spread over his features, and he started to step towards her. “So you do feel something.”
A warmth filled her at the sight of his beautiful face, and she reminded herself to hold it together as he reached her. His hand pushed a hair back behind her ear, and she felt his smile against her lips before he kissed her. The shiver ran down her spine with the heat of his embrace. She gripped his shirt in her hands to steady herself.
He pulled back after a moment, biting his lip as he stared down at her. “I’m sorry about the last I was here,” he whispered. “I had no right to get angry with you.”
“You did,” she assured him. “I didn’t realize the true pain of the Infi. And I’m sorry I said those things about your giver.”
A darkened shadow flickered in his features, and he swallowed hard. “Aydra, I love you. And I want you to share with me those parts of yourself you think I cannot handle. I—”
She hugged her arms around him to cease his rambling, burying her face in his chest just below his neck, and surrendered to his embrace. For the first time in weeks, her body relaxed, and peace filled her insides.
“I was worried about you,” he whispered. “When I didn’t see you at the meeting… I thought… No one would tell me what had happened… What did happen?”
“I haven’t felt well for a few days,” she lied. “Didn’t much feel like putting on the facade today.”
He eyed her a moment, gaze narrowing. “Liar,” he accused.
She sighed and shook her head. “It’s nothing. Just a fight with my brother.”
His brows raised. “Should I be concerned about these fights? I heard what you said to him the last he was in my realm… Aydra, if he’s—”
“It’s fine,” she affirmed, squeezing his hands. “He just… he’s changed so much over the last few years. Becoming someone I hardly recognize. Angry. Scared. Thinking someone will betray him at any moment. Becoming more like the kings of our past…” She stopped herself and drew a deep breath before she revealed too much. “I love my brother. But it hurts so much to see him morphing into someone he swore not to be.”
He paused to consider her a moment, but he didn’t push it. “He doesn’t deserve your grief.”
“I know,” she whispered.
He pressed his lips to her palm and held her hand against his cheek. “And so the dying moons said to the sun…”
“Set me free,” she breathed. She leaned her forehead against his and sighed again. “I have to tell you something.”
He pulled back, eyes glancing towards the dying sun out the window. “Do you think you can hold that thought for an hour or so?” he asked.
She huffed amusedly under her breath and shook her head. “I can, but why?”
“Because Balandria came with me and I need to go check to make sure she hasn’t murdered any Dreamers.”
It was not the response she expected, and it amused her nonetheless. “Yeah, you’d better check on that.” Her fingers curled in the soft hair on his jaw. A quiet moment between them, rare and unfleeting, a moment she allowed her eyes to memorize every pore on his face, the scar above his cheek, the hazel flecks in his sage eyes… He leaned his forehead against hers. His soft walnut and caramel locks felt of water on her skin as they fell on her shoulder. She inhaled the scent of the forest, and she closed her eyes.
“I thought you were leaving,” she muttered as they stood there.
“You distracted me,” he murmured against he
r lips.
Her knees weakened as he pressed his lips to hers, and she felt air return to her lungs, strength return to her core. His hands fell below her hips, and he squeezed her backside, pressing himself into her, and she couldn’t help the groan that emitted from her throat. Her heart fluttered in her chest, ears warming with the raise in her blood pressure. She pulled him closer to deepen the embrace, desperate to forget about the world.
“My sister— Oh.”
The plate in Nyssa’s hands dropped to the floor in the doorway.
Aydra was barely startled, too entranced by his figure in front of her to care about her sister bursting into the room. She pulled back just as the noise of the rolling bowl echoed on the floor.
“Oh… Oh—what? Wait. Him?!” Nyssa asked, still standing in the door.
Aydra didn’t look away from the smoldering gaze on Draven’s face. “Close your mouth, sister,” she said. “You’ll catch flies.”
Nyssa blinked as though trying to wake herself up. “Him?! This is the secret man Dorian told me about?!”
Aydra turned around towards her sister’s startled figure. She almost laughed at the bewildered gaze written in her features. Draven’s breath tickled her ear when he leaned down and muttered, “I’ll let you two talk,” in her ear.
“Yeah, you should check on Balandria,” she mused.
He huffed amusedly under his breath and squeezed her backside in his hand, making her jump in surprise. “I’ll come back later,” he said before leaving her side. He gave Nyssa a quick wink upon passing her.
“Venari,” she uttered in a paralyzed voice.
“Princess,” he returned. He opened the door to leave, but paused just before exiting. “Oh, you’ll forgive your sister for any screams you may hear later. Don’t worry. She’s in good hands.”
Nyssa’s eyes widened, a startled yip leaving her lips, and she clasped her hand over her mouth. As the click of the door sounded behind him, Nyssa stared at Aydra with disbelief in her eyes.
“What— What was— Him?! He is the one you told me about?”
Aydra almost laughed. She slumped back onto the bed and patted the seat beside her.