The minute we were informed of a crowd gathering outside, the Vulmin leader went out to the street to meet everyone. He’s on the ground with them, standing on the stoop. More fae have gathered upon the rooftops and the branched walkways of the twisting trees, and every building within sight is also filled to the brim with fae watching and listening out of open windows. I even notice Hare and Fang down there in the throng.
“The anti-Turley and Vulmin propaganda has instilled some deep-seated mistrust. I’m surprised the Lydians are even standing here listening to him. What if someone attacks?”
My lips twitch. “They won’t.”
“How do you know?”
I look at her pointedly.
“Oh, right. No one woulddareattack with you standing here since they’re worried you’ll manifest a dragon,” she says with a smirk.
But I shake my head. “I wasn’t talking about me.”
“Me?” she says in surprise.
“Yes, you. Look at them,” I say, stepping behind her slightly. “See how the Vulmin keep stealing looks your way? They fucking worship you. None of them would stand for you to be hurt. Every Vulmin guard down there is watching the crowd with a very keen eye, and every new Vulmin that’s arrived can’t stop staring. And Goldfinch, they heard what you did. You chased away theking. They know how powerful you are. They wouldn’t dare attack.”
The most endearing flush darkens her cheeks while Wick’s voice drags on in the background as he answers question after question from people in the crowd.
“Oh,” she says, turning back around.
I reach down to squeeze her hand. “Yes.Oh.”
“The most important thing is that Lydia is safe!” Wick calls out. “The Vulmin aren’t enemies to Annwyn. We aren’tyourenemies. We are against the very violence that the crown has been doling out.”
“The king said you’re all traitors!” an older fae male shouts from an open window across the street, his face wrung out with wrinkles.
Wick shakes his head. “The Carricks are the ones who betrayed our world. Since wearing the crown, they have donenothing but reach for more power, more control. They have raised our taxes, taken our homes, demanded our fealty, spread hate toward our fellow fae and Oreans who have done nothing but exist. And the Stone King has drafted every available fae for a war to invade, without even telling his own people that’s what he was doing!”
The Lydians glance around with frowns and confusion that Wick latches onto.
“Yes. The Stone King has drafted our people into an invasion ofOrea.”
Voices blot out the silence in patches strewn around the street. People denying his words, arguing, asking questions, reacting with anger or shock or challenge.
“It’s true!” Wick declares. “Carrick is more than willing to sacrifice our lives for his greed for more power, with a war we did not agree to. He has to be stopped!”
“Lyäri!” one of the Vulmin suddenly yells. “I want to hear from the Lyäri Ulvêre!”
The crowd goes quiet, every eye swinging up to her, and Auren stiffens beside me. Though they can’t see it, I watch the way her aura flits about anxiously, the golden light and thin tendrils of black darting around her with the flare of her quickened pulse.
“You can do this,” I murmur at her side.
Behind the railing, her ribbons twist along the floor of the balcony, but the people don’t see that or hear the way she takes a steadying breath. She keeps her expression perfectly calm, and pride fills me as I watch her step forward with her head held high.
“Lyäri Ulvêre,” she repeats, eyes casting over the crowd. “Golden one gone, you called me. But I think you can see that I’m not gone anymore,” she says with a warm smile. “And while I haven’t been back for very long, during my time here,I’ve been hunted, hated, threatened, attacked, imprisoned, and impersonated. I have donenothingwrong. King Carrick had my parents killed. Wantedmekilled, even when I was only a girl, which is how I ended up in Orea for most of my life.”
Whispers scatter like rolled dice.
Auren’s voice grows stronger. Her demeanor more sure and confident. My pride swells at watching her.
“Oreans are not our enemy, and we aren’t enemies to each other either,” she tells the crowd. “Those are just lies that have been crafted carefully for centuries so that the crown could justify cruelty toward Oreans and, eventually, invade their world. The fighting and hate is needless, and it has to stop before more people are killed.”
Nerves no longer twist through her ribbons or make her aura flicker as she speaks. Everyone watches her with rapt attention, and she seems to gleam in the sunlight.
“I stand before you not just as a Turley, but as a faeandan Orean,” she says, and I swear everyone on the street looks at her blunt Turley ears. “Wick was right. We can do better.Annwyncan be better. But we have to unite, to come together as people, and it has to start right here and now,” she announces. “A new dawn must rise.”
The Vulmin below grip their pins or buttons or stitchings with their sigil and hold them up. “Dawn’s bird!” they chant. More voices join in, repeating the meaning for their symbol—that even a broken-winged bird will rise like the sun.
