Shattered Kingdom

by Angelina J. Steffort

  And now that she knew what his gift truly was, what it meant to him, it was time to give it back.

  He looked up at the same moment she stepped out of the shadows, making herself walk as ladylike as she had learned with Mckenzie. And even though her clothes were dirty and sweaty and smelled like the miles they’d covered over the past days, she held her head high as he closed the book and jumped to his feet, a hand smoothing over his hair.

  “What are you reading?” she called at him, and he tucked the book under his arm with a grin.

  “You came back,” he said, not answering her question, already sauntering toward her, the slight arrogance he usually wore returning as if he was falling into a pattern.

  Gandrett nodded, her own strides slowing as he approached her with sleek grace.

  “Is he—” He stopped himself as if he was anxious to ask and even more afraid of the possible response.

  “Joshua is back.” Gandrett nodded, and before she could brace herself, Brax’s arms were around her in a bone-crushing hug.

  “You really did it,” he said into her hair. “You brought him back.”

  Gandrett nodded again, unsure if Brax would even notice she was moving, so tightly was he holding her against his chest.

  “Vala knows why she sent you here,” he murmured before he let go. “Thank you.”

  His eyes were on the gate she had come from, probably searching for a sign of his brother—his half-brother as he would soon learn if he didn’t already know. But that wasn’t Gandrett’s story to tell.

  “He’s with Mckenzie in the yard,” she said, expecting Brax to bolt that direction the moment she finished speaking.

  But he remained where he was, his gaze returning to her face, eyes full of a different emotion. “You came back,” he repeated in awe as if that had been something impossible to consider. A miracle.

  “I thought you believed I could do it,” she teased just to ease the tension.

  Brax nodded. “I believed you could do it,” he said, his voice turning deliberate. “I just never thought you’d come back—long enough to say hello.”

  Gandrett played with the silver chain in her palm, pondering whether it was the right thing to do, return it to him. She held his emerald gaze, new depth to his humorous eyes making her pause a moment longer than she cared to admit.

  But as she lifted her hand between them, exposing what she had been clutching between her fingers, his shoulders slumped an inch.

  “Had I known what this is, I would have never accepted it.” It had to be explanation enough.

  But Brax shrugged and took her hand in his, tilting it from side to side, the sunlight igniting specks of emerald reflections on her fingers. Gandrett marveled, wordless, not just at the dancing green light but at the warmth of Brax’s palm under hers.

  “It is mine to give to whoever I choose,” he said, no arrogance in his words but a tenderness that didn’t match the teasing young man she had gotten to know during her time in Ackwood. There was no trace of the shameless flirt who had made her cheeks flush or the chivalrous noble son who had escorted her through the halls of the palace day after day. It was Brax as she had spotted him reading, imperfect and vulnerable, and at peace.

  His hand closed hers around the necklace and lingered until Gandrett tore her gaze away from his long, pale fingers, how they contrasted with her sun-kissed skin.

  “Keep it.” His lips parted into a smile that was like the sun itself.

  And he stepped past her, falling into a jog as he headed for the yard.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Gandrett’s old rooms looked exactly like they did when she had left them—including the bathing chamber, which was already prepared with steaming water as she made it there, her muscles exhausted from the days on horseback and the nights on the ground.

  She closed the door behind her, slid out of her dirty, sweaty dress, and dropped the fabric where she stood, leaving a collapsing heap of midnight-blue streaked with dirt and half-washed-out stains of blood. Who knew when the next time would be that she would get hold of a tub like that? Most certainly not in her parents’ house, and even less than that at the priory in Everrun.

  The water hugged her sore body like the touch of the goddess of water herself. A groan escaped Gandrett’s mouth as she dipped her hair in the water and started scrubbing at her head, watching the dirt float and slowly dissolve in the heat.

  When she was done, she wrapped herself in a thick towel and studied the plain, functional dress that had been laid out for her on the bed next to her clean acolyte uniform.

  “Take the dress. It suits you better,” Mckenzie said from the door, an apologetic look on her face. “They told me to come get you—and that you’re up here.”

  Gandrett fixed the towel with her hands just in time as Mckenzie ran toward her, arms wide and face beaming. Words of gratitude rained down on Gandrett’s shoulder as Mckenzie squeezed her tightly. Gandrett waited in silence, so many thoughts filling her own mind that she didn’t have one single word to say in response.

  But she mustered a smile.

  Mckenzie waited in the hallway while Gandrett got dressed, and as they walked back to the great hall, Gandrett thought back on those first steps she had set into Ackwood Palace. The uncertainty, the fear of Nehelon, the hope of freedom, the pressure to prove herself.

  Now she could walk up to the table where Lord Tyrem was lounging in the same chair as he had been in that first day, Lady Crystal to his right, and Joshua to his left, next to Brax, already deep in conversation with his parents. As she approached, they looked up, Lord Tyrem’s eyes rimmed with the red of recently-fallen tears, his features appearing younger as he glowed with joy.

  “Nehelon didn’t lie when he told me you could do it,” he said by way of greeting, “And what a rescue—Nehelon and my son here have told me all about it.” One of his hands rested on Joshua’s forearm, the other one clutching Lady Crystal’s, who eyed her son who wasn’t her son with what appeared to be mixed feelings. Gandrett wondered how hard it must have been for her to bring up someone else’s child. The lovechild, potentially, of her husband and her enemy.

  From the shadows by the columns, Nehelon’s diamond-blue gaze was resting on her, thoughtful.

  Gandrett didn’t let her own look hover but took another step closer to the reunited family where Mckenzie had taken up the spot beside her mother and was beaming at Joshua with the same admiration her brother Andrew had beamed at Gandrett.

  Brax pulled out a chair for her, beckoning her to sit.

  But Gandrett didn’t take the offer. She had completed her mission, had retrieved Joshua from a situation even worse than what any of them could have imagined, and brought him home.

  “You have held up your end of the bargain,” Lord Tyrem said and got to his feet, walking up to her with the steps of a proud lord, a warrior, a father who had gotten back his son. All those facets of him were there in his straight posture, his gleeful expression, the jeweled sword and knife at his belt. “So I will hold up mine.”

  Gandrett’s heart beat like a prayer drum. Home. She would go home. See her mother, her father, and Andrew.

  Lord Tyrem reached into his jacket and extracted a small leather pouch, which he unceremoniously held out for her.

  Gandrett waited, unsure of whether it was right to take it.

  As Lord Tyrem shook it, metal clanked inside. “You don’t want to go to your family empty-handed,” he said and let it hover between them until Gandrett reached for it with hesitant fingers.

  Not a payment. Not a gift for her but for her family. Vala couldn’t begrudge her if she took it. “I don’t know what to say, my Lord.” The pouch weighed heavily enough to tell her the contents could feed half of Alencourt for a winter.

  “Take it as the gratitude of an old man who got back his son.” He smiled more widely, reaching out with one arm toward Joshua. “Now, I don’t want to keep you,” he said and dismissed her with a gracious gesture of his hand.r />
  Gandrett inclined her head at Lord Tyrem as she thanked him, and when Joshua joined his father, the latter wrapping an arm around his shoulders, she dipped her chin again. “Goodbye, Future of Sives,” she said and returned Joshua’s grin.

  “There will always be a place for you here at Ackwood,” he said and inclined his head in return, “after everything you’ve done for this family.”

  Gandrett took his words and tucked them away in her heart right next to the knowledge that eventually she would return to Everrun where her journey had begun. With a curtsey for the Brenheran family, she took her leave, a weight lifting from her shoulders.

  The stained glass windows of Ackwood Palace tinted the hallway in familiar patterns of crimson and gold as Gandrett walked down the stairs, away from Lord Tyrem’s great hall.

  Handing over Joshua had been quick and, thank Vala, Nehelon and Joshua had already told the tale of Joshua’s rescue. They graciously had left out details about how exactly Gandrett had defeated Linniue as they’d promised on their journey back from Eedwood. Her magic, Nehelon and Joshua had agreed, was something to be kept a secret—for now.

  She knew Nehelon wouldn’t tell a soul, for she had knowledge of his little Fae-secret. As for Joshua, Gandrett could only rely on all the stories of his pristine heart she had heard of from his family—the Brenheran part of his family.

  Now that Lord Tyrem had dismissed her with a verbal pat on the shoulder and a small bag of gold for her family, there was nothing holding her back. She was going home.

  Had someone told her a year ago that she was going to see her family again, she would not have believed them. And now, she had bargained for a whole year and would not return empty-handed.

  “Lim and Alvi are eager for a ride.” Nehelon appeared beside her, a pack slung over his shoulder and a smirk on his face.

  “I thought I was free to go.” Gandrett didn’t stop. Too close were the gates, too close was her temporary freedom.

  Nehelon fell into step beside her. “You didn’t think I’d let you go alone.” He watched her with raised eyebrows. “Not after what happened last time.”

  Gandrett suppressed a whimper when, as if in response to his words, her magic stirred.

  They walked in silence, passing by the guards who saluted Nehelon and eyed Gandrett with cautious glances. The girl who had rescued Joshua Brenheran.

  Gandrett gave them a smug grin before she stepped out into the yard.

  The gold in her pocket clinked as she patted her skirt. Her sword yet again was a comforting weight at her hip, her dress fresh and hair clean. Gandrett Brayton was going home.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Under a blanket of ferns, in the shadow of trees so ancient they could tell the history of the world, something stirred. An old and dangerous magic that had been sleeping for centuries, dreaming of the day that the forests of Ulfray would awaken. It had felt a surge of power in the north where an echo of the past lingered like a memory. It growled and flexed and opened an eye, winding and writhing from its sleep.

  The north had awoken, and it was ready to answer its call.

  Thank you for reading Shattered Kingdom!

  I hope Gandrett’s journey through Neredyn gave you some exciting hours of reading.

  If you enjoyed the book, it would mean the world to me if you left a kind review on Amazon and/or Goodreads.

  You weren’t happy with the read? Drop me an email to connect@ajsteffort.com.

  Your feedback is important to me!

  Thank you!

  Angelina

  About the Author

  “Chocolate fanatic, milk-foam enthusiast and huge friend of the southern sting-ray. Writing is an unexpected career-path for me.”

  Angelina J. Steffort is an Austrian novelist, best known for The Wings Trilogy, a young adult paranormal romance series about the impossible love between a girl and an angel. The bestselling Wings Trilogy has been ranked among calibers such as the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer, The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare, and Lauren Kate’s Fallen, and has been top listed among angel books for teens by bloggers and readers. Angelina has multiple educational backgrounds including engineering, business, music, and acting. Currently, Angelina lives in Vienna, Austria, with her husband and her son.

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