“Someone important to your people?” Soria added. “Who was he?”
“She,” the man mumbled, his eyes snapping back to Kerym. “She was a queen from another realm. One who fell in love with our king and moved to Jordeina—our realm—to lead our people. She was very loved until…”
The air flickered with sorrow for a moment, and Kerym shut down his magic when it pressed for the strong emotions, always wanting to get closer to any heightened senses.
He carried enough of his own sadness.
“What happened to her?” Lessia asked, something passing between her and the witch sisters as they waited for the man to respond. Something that made Merrick step closer to her, keeping himself between Lessia and the man. Something that made Kalia, who’d stood almost frozen, quietly observing, also shuffle to get behind Lessia.
“The Oakgards—our royals—angered the gods somehow. No one really remembers what they did, but… they were cursed.” The man’s lips twitched as he watched Merrick step closer yet to Lessia.
Even though Kerym could feel the ship slowing, it felt as if the world began moving faster when the half-witchspoke again. “Our people killed them. Or… everyone in the Oakgards family but one who still eludes us. That’s why we’re here. They were cursed to kill our lands unless we got rid of them, and their daughter—the princess—still hasn’t been found. We didn’t have a choice but to flee.”
The man shot another look at Kerym, his gray brows pulling. “From what I’ve seen in paintings, the queen looked so much like you—the hair and the eyes—but I also heard that everyone found her strange when she first arrived. Apparently, she was completely fine with wearing every emotion on her sleeve. Was a bit wild until the king tamed her.” His eyes drew to Pellie again. “No wonder you want to be with him, he’s delicious. But… you should remember. I am what comes of witches and Fae’s union. My mother, who is a witch, will by far outlive me, and I don’t think her heart has ever recovered from knowing that.”
Pellie’s hand dropped from Kerym’s back as if she’d burned herself, and Kerym nearly went for the man himself as she fucking stepped away.
But just as he started to follow her, the ship sailed into stark sunlight, and it wasn’t the man’s words that had Kerym throw himself at Pellie, catching her sister on the way and pulling them down onto the deck, himself on top.
It was the arrows raining through the air.
Chapter 14
Merrick
Merrick and Lessia reached for each other at the same time, diving onto the deck, and while Lessia fought him, he managed to wrangle her beneath him, shielding her from the hail of arrows falling on them.
When he felt something lodge in his shoulder, he refused to jerk—and thankfully the arrow didn’t seem to have burrowed too deep—but the sharp glare Lessia shot at him told him she caught the whiff of iron that followed.
“Under the railing. Now,” Lessia hissed, her voice breathy from the pressure of his body atop hers, and as Merrick risked a glance to the side, he realized Rioner’s Fae guards who always watched the white cliffs surrounding the capital were nocking their gilded bows for another round.
“Fine,” he snapped back, rolling off her, breaking the top of the arrow’s shaft in the process. Together, they crawled until the shade of the wooden railing coveredthem, the top shielding most of their bodies as they sat with their backs against it, their legs pulled in.
Kerym must have gotten to the sisters with the same idea. His blue eyes flew to Merrick’s from the other side of the ship, before they bounced back to the middle, where that Faeling Kalia had been struck by an arrow through her leg, her pale face pinched with pain.
The half-witch had fared worse, an arrow protruding from his stomach in a way that told Merrick he didn’t have much time left if he didn’t get help soon, and from the heavy thud that sounded from the quarterdeck, Merrick guessed their captain had already passed.
The way their ship drifted, sidling up sideways with the cliffs, also clued him in. They were now at the mercy of the currents, and those would ensure they remained stuck by the towering white cliffs.
While the water wielder appeared to have been caught by an arrow in the shoulder as well, he was crawling toward Kerym, and Soria managed to get hold of his jacket, dragging him to safety just as the air quieted.
“Get out of there, Faeling,” Merrick growled at Kalia when a whistle echoed across the sea. “There is another wave coming.”
What he didn’t understand was why. Iviry had already sent several other water wielders—some of Rioner’s closest men, who fully supported her interim rule—to Vastala and had borrowed Raine’s eagle to spread the word quickly across smaller towns.
The only thing he could think?—
“Kalia! No!” Lessia screamed as arrows sang through the air, but when she lunged forward, Merrick slammeda hand across her chest, wincing when the force drove the head of the arrow further into his flesh.
“Kerym,” Merrick forced out as he held back a thrashing, panicked Lessia, ignoring her nails digging into the arm they’d have to pluck from his dead fucking body for him to allow her into harm’s way again. “Get her?—”
But it was too late. A terrified cry split the air when the people in safety realized what was about to happen. If it hadn’t come from Pellie, who was huddled closest to a trapdoor leading into the ship’s hold, Merrick would have missed the blond male forcing the door open and sprinting onto deck with hands turned toward the sky.
No one could miss the storm of fire he unleashed, though, the orange-and-red flames shooting up toward the clouds, turning every arrow into cinders.
Then Cedar Reinsdor—because it was the Reinsdor boy—pushed his magic out further, and Merrick guessed he’d been holding back under the blood oath that he’d sworn to Rioner, because what happened before his eyes was entirely magnificent.
A crimson wave, working as a shield for their ship, spurted from Cedar’s hands as he moved across the deck, and Merrick finally let Lessia go when she pressed again, unfolding his own legs to follow. As he shot a look to the side, he realized Cedar even had Ydren protected, a loose armor of fire glittering ahead of her, rendering the wyvern more ethereal than her purple scales already made her.
