A show of trust, I supposed.
“Yeah, explain why you know about a Djinn in this world, and why you’re glowing,” Darius growled.
“Not one step closer,” Aerolus said to his brother, and a sudden, impenetrable shield surrounded me.
“What the hell?” Marcus narrowed his eyes.
“Your telekinesis won’t work, Marcus. And you won’t breach my mental shields either.” Aerolus sounded too calm. “You either, Uncle. If you give Alandra a moment, she’ll tell us what we wish to know.”
I watched him protect me from his family, men he loved, men he would die for. My heart raced, a strange feeling making me flush. I stared at the flow of magic between us, consumed by tenderness for him, and had to blink at the moisture welling in my eyes.
“Alandra?” Aerolus sounded worried.
“Sorry, something in my eye.” I looked down to compose myself and cleared my throat, knowing now was as good a time as any to unburden myself. Maybe if I played it right, I’d get the help I needed to save not only the Storm Lords and Tanselm, but Aelle as well.
I glanced up, staring each Storm Lord in the eye. Fascinated by the differences in the identical brothers, I couldn’t help seeing all their auras as quite separate. Aerolus’, I noted clearly and with no small amount of satisfaction, had mixed with mine.
“Okay, let’s get this over with.” I allowed myself to be overcome with latent magic and stopped my glamor. Now I glowed, my hair and skin shinier, more alluring, my features beyond pretty to an unearthly beauty. If I did say so myself.
“I’m Alandra le Aelle, an Aellei currently out of favor with the royal court and the queen, my aunt,” I said with apology to Aerolus. He nodded, not surprised. How very like him, all-knowing and unflustered. So irritating.
I felt nervous. Why couldn’t he for a change?
I continued, “I openly disagreed with my aunt over the matter of conquering Tanselm, an act that resulted in my being here.”
“She banished you to the same place the Storm Lords had gone?” Aerolus stared thoughtfully.
“Ah, no. Actually, the queen had planned on torturing me in Aelle in a manner I really don’t want to think about, let alone describe.” I shuddered at the thought. “I overheard her conversation about you four, and that Sin Garu meant to follow you here.”
“Wait, wait,” Marcus interrupted. “Explain the part about the Aellei wanting Tanselm. Until today, I thought the Aellei had all but vanished.”
“We had. Vanished from Tanselm, that is.” I leaned back against the kitchen counter. “Over a thousand years ago, when the Dark Tribes split, the Aellei, the Djinn, and the Dark Lords still occupied portions of Tanselm. Though Dark Lord control was steadily waning as the Light Bringers fought to regain the land, there was enough darkness in Tanselm’s soil to sustain us all. There still is.” A statement that would not go over well.
I glanced at Aerolus to see if he caught what I implied. His gaze sharpened, and he nodded for me to continue.
“You know the history. The tribes split. The Light Bringers, Storm Lords in particular, routed the Dark Lords and every other Dark or Shadowy race from Tanselm. Since then, the Djinn found refuge in Foreia, the Aellei in Aelle, and the Dark Lords in Malern and the Isle of Frigia, where they met our best buddies, the ice wraiths.”
Arim frowned. “The Dark Lords created the ice wraiths.”
“No, they didn’t.” The intellectual discourse lessened my anxiety. I could talk history all day and night long. “Despite what the Dark Lords would have you believe, the wraiths existed prior to Dark Lord intervention. Now, I agree the Dark Lords have shaped the wraiths into their own powerful tool. But make no mistake, the wraiths were once something quite different from what they are today.”
“How can you know this?” Arim asked suspiciously. “I sense you are little more than a century old, if that.”
“They have a Great Hall full of altee scrolls,” Aerolus answered, pride in his voice, as if the scrolls belonged to him.
Darius and Marcus stared, open-mouthed.
Even Arim looked stunned. “Really?”
I nodded. “Open for all to see in the Gray Keep. I’ve seen every battle and scrape related to the Tribe Division. The magic that encapsulated those records is completely impartial to anything but truth. No Aellein, Dark Lord, or Light Bringer magic corrupts those accounts.”
“I would greatly like to see those records.” Arim was no longer hostile but still not completely friendly.
“If I can arrange it, I will. Like I said, I’m not exactly welcome in Aelle right now.”
“Tell them about Sin Garu and Lidra,” Aerolus said.
“I’m getting there.” I frowned at him to be patient and turned back to his brothers and Arim. “I spied a Dark Lord and my aunt plotting and planning together. It’s a funny thing though. Sin Garu is the Dark Lord I saw a year ago. But yesterday, I had a vision of sorts. I saw another Dark Lord. One very like Sin Garu, but not him.”
