“Here?” he says in surprise, motioning around the anemic scenery. “This place is cursed. No one comes here. Except the Stone Swords, but that’s a recent development,” he says, kicking at the corpse of one of the soldiers.
I arch a brow. “And who are you?”
The group seems to tense all at once, sharing silent exchanges. The leader steps forward, hand still gripping his sword. I watch him and the rest like a hawk, ready to kill in a single blink.
But instead of attacking, he lifts his hand. “This is who we are,” he says as he knocks a fist at his own chest. “Do you wear the symbol?”
My gaze drops down to the pin fastened against his tunic. It’s no bigger than the pad of my thumb. The circle of metal has a bird in the center, one wing clearly broken.
“We wear the sigil of the Vulmin Dyrunia.”
I frown at the words. They sound familiar. I think I’ve heard them many years ago.
“The—” My mind snaps with long-forgotten knowledge of the ancient fae language. A language I haven’t studied since I was a boy. It creaks in my head like entering a dusty room whose door hasn’t been shoved open in decades. Struggling to break open the rusted locks, I shake my head. “Vul—light?” I question.
“VulminDyrunia,” he repeats, stressing the suffix of the word. “Dawn. It means dawn’s bird.”
Something shifts in my chest. Makes me pause.
“And what exactly is that?”
“We are the resistance to the tyranny of the Carricks.”
Now I remember. I heard my father mention them before, but they were spoken of like vagabonds. Petty criminals.
“So the Vulmin oppose the invasion that’s happening in Orea?”
He looks around his group, some of them whispering tensely, and he rubs a hand down his beard. “So it’s true?” he asks. “Carrick mobilized the army, but we didn’t know… The bridge?”
“Rebuilt.”
He swallows hard. I see another go pale.
“And what are you doing here? You say you’re no Stone Sword, and yet, you seem to know quite a lot.” His hand tightens on his sword. “How do you know this?”
“Because I came from Orea.”
This time, some of them gasp, but his brows fall into a frown, eyes skimming over my spiked arms and pointed ears. “You’re no Orean.”
“I didn’t say I was. Now, either help me find out what I want to know, or move aside. I can promise you, attacking me won’t end well for your group.”
He pauses, as if weighing his options. I see his eyes drift over to the soldier I rotted through. “Who are you looking for?” he asks.
“Her name is Auren.”
The change that overtakes them all is so tangible, so solid, that I wouldn’t be surprised if I could reach out and grab it. They rear back, and instant recognition flares in their expressions. It makes every muscle in my body tense.
They know her.
“The Lyäri Ulvêre?” he asks, his tone sharp, eyes narrowed.
My mind trips over more of that old fae dialect. I try to pick out the roots of their meaning.Lya…was it…shine? Gleaming? No. Wait. It’s—
Gold.
“You know her. How?” I demand, my tension mounting.
“All Vulmin knew of her before, and soon, every fae in Annwyn will,” he tells me. “She was our golden girl gone who was found…only to be lost to us again.”
