Heading to Mev’s chamber with Terran following, I knew immediately she was still there due to the presence of her guards outside the door.
“Good day, Lady Lyra,” one said, hand over his fist to Terran. “Your majesty.”
“Good day,” he replied back as the guard opened the door, escorting us to her antechamber and calling her name.
Kael rushed toward us, though there was no sign of Mev.
“Brother,” he said, embracing Terran as the guard retreated.
“I came as quickly as I could.”
“The lower quarter?”
“Taken care of. We can discuss later.”
Embarrassed I’d forgotten to ask in my rush to see him, I said as much silently to Terran, who winked at me, seemingly understanding.
Winked.
Actually winked.
“Why don’t you persuade her?” Terran asked Kael without preamble.
“It isn’t my place to?—”
“By the Stones, Kael. Then whose place is it?”
“She is a grown woman, her mind, her own. If Mev doesn’t wish to participate?—”
Without waiting for him to finish, Terran brushed past him and headed deeper inside the chamber. Mev stood on the balcony, her long white hair flying behind her like a banner. Dressed in pale blue with silver lining, she certainly looked like a queen, even if she didn’t feel like one.
“Terran, she’s not from here. Do not?—”
He wasn’t listening. Bracing for what he might say, I followed him out as Mev turned to greet us. At least, she’d been prepared when Terran spoke.
“There is no one in Elydor less deserving of ruling their clan than me,” he began. “I allowed hate to guide me, despite being taught to love. I was nearly too late to change course, and did so only after killing my own father. But here, Princess Mevlida, we do not decide. This land”—he waved a hand to indicate the snow-capped mountains beyond the balcony on which we stood—“is not somewhere we simply occupy. Elydor lives alongside us, its will as important—if not more so—than any one of our own opinions.”
Without warning, he reached his hand out to those very same mountains Terran had pointed out to us, and incredibly at such a distance, sent a boulder the size of Mev’s chamber rolling downward. If allowed to continue unfettered, it would likely cause an avalanche.
It took Mev a moment to realize none of us were stopping it. The distance was so great, I would have had difficulty doing so anyway.
With a scowl at Terran, she lifted a hand and harnessed a gust of wind so strong it not only rushed upward toward the boulder, stopping its descent, but it also tore leafless trees from their roots, the wind’s path left barren.
Terran twisted his fingers again, this time melding the boulder, somehow, into the mountain as if it had always been there. Then, with a sweep upward, he regrew everything in the wind’s path, leaving it as if no such disturbance took place.
“She could not have done that,” Terran said, speaking of me.
I didn’t refute his words.
Mev stared at him and then turned to Kael. “Your brother is mad.”
Kael grinned. “Aye, he can be.”
“What if I hadn’t stopped it?”
“Not the right question, princess,” Terran said. I recalled the last time he used a similar phrase toward me.
I withheld my smile, unsure Mev would appreciate it at the moment.
