“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 listen 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.
