by Jack Whitney
Draven met Duarb’s eyes. “She does.”
“Then there’s something you should know.”
Draven eyed his giver a moment, and he leaned his head back onto the stone. “I’m listening.”
Duarb avoided Draven’s gaze and stared at the ground, rubbing his neck in a manner that made Draven curious. “Arbina is not who you think she is.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean… the child… it was not a gift to Haerland.”
“You’re telling me a child of mine is not—”
Duarb held a quiet hand up and shook his head. “Listen to me, my son,” he said, finally meeting Draven’s eyes. “You heard her say it yourself. Today. In the Throne Room. Remember?”
Draven felt his gaze narrow, and he tried to remember everything Arbina had said, if anything stuck out to him.
And then the sentence hit him.
I wondered how long it would take for you to find him.
His heart dropped, and he felt his fist tighten on itself. “She planned this?”
Duarb stayed silent for a moment, his heel tapping nervously against the stone. “She’s planned it since I was forced into my tree,” he said softly. “Since our last fight. She’s had it out for me. Always telling me she had something that would one day bring me to my knees. And she was right.”
Draven could see the water glistening in his eyes.
“She’s known what would happen if a child was conceived. She knew the people would think it sorcery, an abomination. Unnatural. And she allowed it to happen anyway. But only if her daughter mated with one of mine.”
Draven stared at the bars in front of him, feeling the anger swelling in his core.
“Arbina has always been the master manipulator. The Infi children I was cursed with… even they cannot touch her level of betrayal to this land. Everything she does is a lie. She dared them to freeze her roots because she wanted to show she could not be frozen. The pool around her roots would simply not allow it—”
“Then how do I burn her?” came the words from Draven’s lips.
Duarb stared at Draven for a long moment, and Draven could see the contemplation in his eyes, the knowing sadness bubbling through his being. Duarb stood then and went to the window where only one tiny sliver of the remaining moon shown above the water. He looked back at Draven’s sitting figure.
“I think you know.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
AYDRA WAS BARELY conscious. She felt arms underneath her as she was carried up more and more stairs. She wasn’t sure where she was being taken. She could hear the beach in her ears, and every time she glimpsed light it was from the fire torch.
“Aydra—”
The noise of Draven’s voice made her ears perk. She struggled to open her eyes, desperate to see where he was. She heard iron doors, shouting, and then the sound of something being thrown against the wall.
Which she realized was actually her own body.
“—for this. ALL OF YOU!” she heard Draven bellow.
The room spun around her, and it was barely a second before she felt his arms picking her up and then his body behind hers. She groaned as she tried to bring herself out of whatever poisoned tonic they had given her.
“Draven…”
His arms squeezed around her from behind, and he kissed her cheek. “I’m here,” he whispered.
Her subconscious slipped, for how long she wasn’t sure. The next she woke, she was still cradled in his arms, and she could hear his soft snores behind her. She forced herself to turn around so that she could see his face.
The sight of it brought tears to her eyes.
His beautiful face, marred with a purple bruise and long scratch on his cheek from where he’d been hit with the pommel of the sword. His lip cut open, dried blood in his beard. She reached up to his cheek and pressed her lips softly against his.
He stirred, his hands gently pressing against her waist, and he kissed her back. When she opened her eyes, she was met with the glistening sage eyes she swore into memory. A slow tear trickled down his cheek, and she wiped it away.
She didn’t know the words to say. Sitting in his arms on their final night together… Condemned for the only true love she’d ever felt. Her death she did not care about. She knew this day would come. She had known since the night she kissed him at banquet in front of everyone.
She laid her head in the crook of his neck, and she felt the next tear hit her hair as he kissed her forehead.
“I watched them write the scroll,” she whispered. “He made me watch as he signed the order. The new law.”
“What law?” Draven asked.
“That love between the Venari and Promised daughter is now forbidden,” she answered solemnly. “Punishment for the discovery of such a bond would be punishable by death on both parties, for if allowed to flower, an abominated creature would grow in her womb, and the safety of Haerland would be in danger. By order of the King and Bedrani Council.”
His hand tightened around her. “Abominated creature,” he muttered distractedly under his breath. “Our child is not—”
“You’ll be tortured in the morning,” she cut him off. “And then the people…” Her words stuck in her throat, and he squeezed her arms. “The people will be allowed stone’s throws. At sunset… what’s left of me will burn. They plan to hang you with the rising sun the next morning.” She looked up at him through her strangles of hair.
“Do you still want to run?” he asked.
She swallowed hard, a tear running down her cheek. “We can’t,” she managed. “To run now would bring war and terror to all of our lands. We would have to go to the caves, and my brother and the Council would send an army, burning and killing everything in his path to kill us. They would take the mountains, the forest, the reef… All our friends would perish beneath Rhaif’s thumb before the true war is upon us. I do not wish to live in fear my entire life, nor do I wish to bring such a war to Haerland when Man is already knocking on our beaches.” She paused and looked up at him. “You could run. After you are brought back here to the tower at nightfall. You could escape.”
He brought her hand to his lips and shook his head. “There is something I must do tomorrow night. After it is complete, I will meet you at the Edge on my own accord, in my way. I will not allow them the chance to see the light leave my eyes.”
Her heart shattered at the thought. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I do,” he insisted. “I wish to die with the noise of the Noctuans in my ears, the warmth of the darkness around me. Not in the sun with the people who have betrayed Haerland staring at me. They do not deserve the satisfaction.”
Aydra swallowed hard, unable to move her eyes from his. “I love you so much,” she managed.
A long sigh exhaled from his lungs, and he leaned his forehead against hers. “I love you.”
Her stomach lurched just moments later, and Aydra grimaced at the feeling of her insides evacuating onto the floor outside the bars. Draven rubbed her back and held her once more when she made her way back to the ground. Every now and then, he would rub her stomach, causing a chill to run down her spine, a swell of raw emotion to fill her core. And when he leaned down to kiss her belly, she couldn’t stop the silent tears rushing over her reddened cheeks.
“You know, we would have gotten to name it,” he whispered.
Aydra swallowed hard, biting back the sobs threatening her core. She’d hardly allowed herself to think about the child as he had, as what it would have actually been rather than a punishment from her own giver to end her life. But as her life seemed to be ending anyway, she laid her head against his chest, and she allowed herself to live inside the fantasy Draven spoke of.
“What would you have suggested?” she managed.
He kissed the inside of her palm, and then rested them together back on her stomach. “There is a name for the Venari in the old language… one that means ‘Hunter of the Sun’… Theron.”
“Theron… sounds too formal,” she told him.
He huffed amusedly under his breath. “What do you suggest?”
“The name would have to be grand, but not audacious or conceited. A child born of us would know no fear, it would live in shadows and become one with our darkness. Shrouded in the blanket of it. It would ride the dragons. Swim with the serpents. A child formidable and gentle all in one. A child that would have saved us from the division our races have so held on to during these last Ages.”
“Fallon,” Draven suggested abruptly.
Aydra paused. “Fallon…” she repeated, allowing the name to live on her tongue. She gave his hand a squeeze. “I like it,” she said, gazing up at him. “What does it mean in the old language?”
“Leader in darkness,” he informed her.
Her gaze narrowed, and she felt a frown slip on her lips. “Is that actually true?”
His facade broke, and he chuckled under his breath. “I’ve no idea.”
She allowed the laughter to radiate through her core, and she sighed into his shoulder as his lips pressed hard to the top of her head. His lips lingered there a moment, and she felt the wetness of his tear streak her cheek.
“He could have ridden in the sun with the phoenix,” he whispered. “Crawled in the grasses with the Rhamocour.”
“And if it was a girl?” she asked him.
He pulled back, and his eyes widened down at her. “That is a petrifying thought.”
She almost laughed. “Why?”
“Because a daughter would have killed me slowly, and deliberately, with the anxiety of what she would do next.”
She laid her head against his chest again, and she sighed heavily as he began to caress her stomach once more. “You would have loved her nonetheless.”
“I already do,” came the crack of his voice.
The declaration of his words broke her. The sudden reality of what they were being forced to give up poured from her mind and shattered her insides. Images of a reality she would not have flashed before her eyes. Draven introducing their child to the dragons, the laughter of it ringing in her ears. She could see the smile on his face as he held it and kissed its cheek. And then he would look at her with a happiness she wanted to feel so desperately in her swollen core.
She nearly hurled at the overwhelming angst of such a fantasy flooding her mind and drowning her beneath it. But he held her tightly against him and stroked her hair, his own strangled tears coming down his cheeks as he attempted to hold himself together for her.
“I wonder what the Chronicles will say about us,” Aydra whispered after a while. “Whether they’ll speak of us as villains, as though we fell in love to spite our kind. If they’ll say our child was as it should have been —a greatness— or if they’ll say it was an abomination.”
Draven’s hand squeezed hers. “Maybe we should write it for them.”
Her eyes narrowed up at him, and she was met with a serious gaze on his face, jaw taut with determination. “How could we do that?”
The noise of footsteps on the stairs leading to the tower disturbed their moment. Aydra’s heart jumped in her chest, and she clenched onto his shirt. She heard keys jangling, and thought perhaps it was guards coming up. Draven’s arms squeezed around her.
But then—
“Dorian.”
Dorian appeared in the doorway, followed quickly by Nyssa. Aydra moved from Draven’s arms and crawled to the iron doors.
“You know you cannot be seen here,” she insisted.
Dorian held up a set of keys as he crossed the space. “Thought we would spring you free.” He put the key in the lock, but the sudden grasp of Aydra’s hands on his made him stop.
“No,” Aydra said softly.
“Do not worry for us any longer, youngers,” Draven said from the corner. “Our lives end here. But you two must remain.”
Nyssa’s eyes were tearing up. “Please. Let us free you—”
Aydra shook her head and reached out to her sister. “You must be strong,” she whispered to her. “The boats will not stop. I do not know how long it will be before Lovi’s beaches are swarmed with men not of our own.”
Nyssa’s hand rested on her cheek. “I will avenge you, my sister. The Council will pay for what they have ordered.”
“No,” Aydra said shortly. “No. You must focus your energy on the ships.”
“You remember what we talked about?” Draven asked Dorian then.
Dorian’s gaze averted from Aydra to Draven’s rising figure in the corner. Dorian pulled something from his bag—Draven’s horn.
Aydra’s eyes widened. “What are you doing with that?”
“Bring it to me tomorrow night. After… “ Draven’s eyes flickered to Aydra, and she squeezed his hand. “After I am brought back here,” Draven managed. “You know the plan, Dorian. You know what is coming. What you must do.”
Dorian’s hand tightened around the horn.
“Bide your time. Be patient. Balandria hasn’t left yet. Find her and have her come to me at once. Then find Nadir. It is only a matter of time before an armada arrives on his shores. These last boats have been scouting boats. When they don’t arrive back at their home across the seas, they will start sending more ships.”
“My brother will not allow to send aid,” Aydra interjected.
“They will not be telling him anything,” Draven said, meeting her eyes.
Aydra paused, and she felt her brows narrow. Draven reached a hand out and cupped her cheek in his palm.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
She blinked back the tears in her eyes and looked between he and her younger brother. The touch of Nyssa’s hands wrapping around hers brought breath back to her lungs. As her gaze darted between the pair standing before her, she saw something change in their eyes. Their playful teenage selves were fading, and just there, in the corner of her eyes, she could see them older, matured.
Haerland’s saviors.
The true King and Queen.
Finally she met Draven’s eyes again, and she nodded. “More than I trust the sun to rise,” she whispered.
“I don’t like leaving you,” Nyssa interjected. “It should be you two on the High thrones. You two to lead the Echelon. Look at what you achieved at the meeting. Peace. We—”
“This is the only way our people survive,” Aydra cut her off. “If we were to run, our entire land would fall into division. Rhaif would not stop until we were found and he would bring war to every corner of Haerland looking for us. We cannot risk that. Not after we just brought our people together. We will not be the cause of the people perishing. We—” she pointed between herself and Draven “—are not the King and Queen to lead you into battle against Man. Nor is Rhaif. You are that King and Queen. You two, and Balandria. You three will unite our kingdoms and finish what we started. Do not let Rhaif take us backwards. Your reigns will bring in a new Age. One that knows no division between our races, only peace and camaraderie across the lands. But you must defeat the strangers on shore to do this.”
“What if we can’t?” Nyssa asked.
Aydra swallowed hard. “Then the people will wait for the First Sign of the awakening darkness.”
“What is the First Sign?”
“An Infinari child.”
Dorian and Nyssa exchanged a long look, and Aydra grasped Nyssa’s hands in hers.
“Can you do something for me?” she asked Nyssa.
Nyssa nodded, and squeezed her hand. “Anything.”
Aydra’s chest tightened as she pulled the tourmaline ring off her finger, and she set it in Nyssa’s hand. “Give this to Lex. Tell her under no circumstance is she to come to this tower. She is to protect you. Follow you. And you will listen to her. Do not treat her as beneath you. She is your equal, the only person you can truly trust to lay their life on the line for you.” She swallowed hard as Nyssa curled the ring in her hand. “She is my greatest friend.”
“You know she will not liste
n if I tell her she is not to come to you,” Nyssa argued.
“It is an order,” Aydra affirmed. “She will respect that.”
Nyssa swallowed hard and nodded. Aydra gave her a tightlipped smile as she squeezed her hand. “Exhale the fire, my sister,” she whispered. “But don’t forget to breathe in the smoke.”
Aydra took hold of Dorian’s hand in hers too then, and she stared between them.
“I am so proud of you both,” she told them. “Be brave for me. For Haerland.”
A sob emitted from Nyssa’s lips, and she broke into tears in Dorian’s arms.
“You have to go,” Draven managed. “Find Balandria for me. Send her here. And Prince—have her bring quill and parchment.”
Dorian’s eyes squinted, but he nodded nonetheless. He nudged his sister in his arms. “We have to go,” he whispered.
Nyssa screamed and lunged at the bars again, her hands grabbing hold of Aydra so tightly that Aydra’s breath caught in her throat.
“Nyssa, we have to go!”
“No!”
It was the tears on Dorian’s face when he last looked at her that did her in.
Draven’s arms wrapped around Aydra as she felt her heart shredding. Dorian grasped Nyssa around her waist and he pulled her backwards. He had to carry her down the steps, her cries cutting through the still night air. Aydra’s core bled as Draven pulled her back against him, and the screams of her sister’s pleas echoed in her ears.
It was all Aydra could do to keep her composure as Balandria fought to keep a stern face for her king when she came by. The wind circled the tower as both of them stood on either side of the bars, and she watched a silent tear stretch down Balandria’s face.
“I wish you would run,” she told him.
Draven gave her a small smile, and pressed his hand to her face. “You know better than to think I would.”
She huffed under her breath, and she shook her heat at him. “I do,” she managed.
Draven reached into his shirt then, and he pulled the stone and chain he always wore over his head. “Take it this time,” he insisted.
Balandria swallowed hard and bowed her head so that he could place it around her neck. Her gaze met his when she lifted her head once more. Draven gave her a proud smile.