“It still doesn’t explain why I never knew I had Oakgards’ blood… or why I’ve never wielded the earth before.” Kerym stared at the grass still parting for the group, the scent of sea and oiled wood reaching his nostrils, telling him they probably had only a few hours until they reached the port.
Fingers brushed against his, and Kerym feared turning his head to the side would make it stop, so instead he kept his eyes ahead as Pellie folded her hand into his own.
There was something Kerym didn’t quite understand in the man’s voice as he responded, “There must always be a balance. Life for death. Fight for surrender. Light for dark. Gods for creatures they never intended to be created.”
A whisper of awareness—of understanding—wove its way across Kerym’s shoulders.
“You call them halflings here,” the man continued. “Like your friend, half human and half Fae, gifted two strong magics and a mate to match. Like the regent, half human, half shifter, with a hidden strength that allows him to survive what no other human could. Like me, half witch and half Fae, with the strength and power that comes with that. And… like yourself. Half Vastala Fae and half Oakgards’, you draw magic from both the soul and the earth. The magic you met just unlocked that side of you, like death unlocked the half-Fae’s. I’m guessing you won’t be able to use your soul magic again, not unless your earth magic goes back to dormant. Your balance is accessing only one at a time.”
Kerym wasn’t proud of it, but he quickly let his mind feel for the magic in those around him.
There was no mind—no feelings, no strong emotions pulling him in. Even if he could feel Pellie’s tension, her hand gripping his so hard it would have hurt if he weren’t Fae, he couldn’t draw on it.
He felt only the grass. The earth under the horses’ hooves. The roots winding all the way from here to the trees standing to their left.
“Fuck,” Kerym swore as the harbor came into view—the ships floating there already ready with their sails up and bows pointed north. “That’s perhaps not the best news as we go to war at sea.”
Chapter 34
Loche
The wedding was short. No frills. Just Loche and Iviry with Dedrick Reinsdor leading a small ceremony where the two leaders didn’t swear fealty just to each other but to each nation, for the first time in Havlands’ history, making Ellow, Vastala, and Korina one.
They’d stood on the deck of the ship they now shared with others, with humans and Fae and shifters on the vessels around them watching silently, and when it was over, there were no claps or cheers.
There was no feast. No celebration. No dresses or formal clothing.
A heavy cloud of duty clung to Loche, Iviry, and everyone around them as their council announced the new rules:
No more borders would separate the three nations—all people would be able to settle wherever they wanted, and all people were obligated to protect each other,regardless of whether they were Fae, human, shifter, or a mixture of any of them.
There would be no discrimination tolerated, something all soldiers had been informed of, and when such cases arose—which Loche knew they would—he and Iviry would personally oversee the inquiry and the punishment.
In the makeshift study Loche and Iviry had created, they’d also discussed setting up programs for integration—the hard gray eyes of a young Faeling who’d scolded him seemed to have taken a permanent position within Loche’s mind—but those would have to wait until after the war.
The council had made clear, though, there was one enemy, and that was the threat of the Oakgards’ Fae.
After making sure there were no objections, and once they’d confirmed with their soldiers everyone had accepted their roles for the coming days—whether that was preparing food, keeping people in check, guarding, or steering the ships—and no fights had broken out, Iviry had slipped away. Loche hadn’t missed the tears filling her eyes, though, as soon as she turned her back on what was now their people.
He’d had the urge to follow her immediately, but when the memory of his first night as regent came into his mind—the loneliness that had settled into his every bone as he finally got away from the disapproving eyes of the nobles, and how he hadn’t been able to stop his back hunching from the responsibility he now carried—he decided to take a quick lap around the ship.
Zaddock had been the one to save Loche from crumbling like a child that night. His friend had taken him to the apartment Loche had once shown Lessia, and they’dsat on the glass balcony there, drinking and laughing about the nobles’ clothing and the snotty things they cared about, and somehow the cold dread lathering across Loche’s skin had eased.
Loche had thought that if he had only one person—one friend—that would be enough.
For years, that had been true. Until…
Until Lessia stormed into his life and showed him that there were others out there like him—different but burning for the same things he did.
A sad smile spread across Loche’s face as he nodded to a few soldiers. While they were occupied with saluting him as the new regent of Havlands, he swept up the bottle of golden liquor one of them must have tried to stuff under the railing and hid it behind his back as he started to make his way down to the small room he and Iviry would now share.
His smile widened as he remembered Lessia’s suspicion when he’d offered her a similar drink in that horrid cabin. He’d been impressed that she was the only one who thought there might be a possibility that he’d poison them all…
It was something he might have considered, after all.
Especially that fucking Craven…
Sending her a toast, hoping that wherever she and Merrick were, it was far from Havlands by now, Loche took a swig directly from the bottle as he readied himself to knock on the door in the dark corridor.
