Galfrid sighed deeply. “First, we deal with Balthor’s imminent threat. Once I can be assured our people are safe.” He looked me straight in the eyes. A kind king, aye. But not a weak one, as evidenced by Galfrid’s expression now. “We open the Gate. With Terran’s permission to use the Stone.” He sighed heavily. Regretfully. “Or without it.”
24
TERRAN
How I could feel trapped in a bedchamber with so many windows it felt as if I was perched outside, on the top of this damn mountain, I wasn’t sure. The door was unlocked. Kael insisted I could come and go as I pleased. Yet every time I’d peered out, the guard was still at the end of the hall. When I asked my brother, who’d come to fetch me for a meal I had no wish to eat, he said it was “standard practice” for “guests such as you.”
For enemies of Aetheria.
I listened as the meal Kael sent, without asking, was cleared away behind me. I’d eaten, not because I was hungry, but because I needed sustenance and wasn’t stupid enough to think otherwise. But every bite had tasted bitter, Kael’s words from our argument still fresh.
“You didn’t trust me.”
“Do you intend to push everyone away, including me?”
“Your stubbornness aids no one, including Gyoria.”
Kael’s accusations stung, not because they were leveled relentlessly against me or because they were untrue, but because they came from the only person who had stood beside me when our father had begun to turn his back on the ideals he’d taught us. If Kael could doubt me…
Would I truly rather burn every bridge than bend, as he’d accused?
And if every bridge was ash, what harm was there in letting one person cross the wreckage? Even if she was the last woman I should trust. Even if Lyra had already proven she could wound me in ways no enemy blade ever had.
Tomorrow, we prepared for battle. Even now, as I sat in this damned chamber, Aetheria was arming itself against Gyorian forces that were more than likely to have followed me here.
Would Father be with them?
How could our clan survive this?
“Lady Lyra,” the attendant exclaimed.
Turning, I watched as she floated into the chamber, smiling at the young woman as she wheeled away the cart. “Leave the wine,” Lyra said. “And bring another glass, if you would.”
“I don’t want it.”
If my tone was gruff, there was a good reason for it. I’d come for answers, and Kael gave me none. I’d stopped short of asking him why Lyra had truly been sent to retrieve the Stone, already knowing the answer, and waited for Kael to admit it on his own.
He hadn’t.
Talk of battle, of Gyoria lost, of The Unbalance… everything except the real reason I was here. The real reason was that the guard was watching my movements. I had no doubt if I asked, Kael would admit it. My brother had betrayed me, though Kael saw it differently, but he’d never lied to me.
And he never would.
Lyra, on the other hand…
“You’re angry.”
She moved to the narrow table that stood between two of the windows which framed the darkening sky, a sheer drop visible from every angle. Lifting the decanter the attendant left behind, she filled the goblet with my untouched wine. A moment later, that same attendant returned, skirted the massive bed, its frame carved of dark Aetherian oak, its headboard worked with a relief of mountains and storm clouds. She handed Lyra the second goblet and left the chamber as I scanned it, watching firelight from the hearth catch glints of silver on the coverlet. Each stitch was precise, too fine for a warrior’s chamber.
It was a bed meant for display as much as rest, a reminder of power and wealth, not comfort. Just as the hearth was less for warmth, Aetheria’s climate cooler than the south but never uncomfortably so, as it was for ambience.
Lyra belonged here, in the chamber.
I did not.
“Take it,” she said, handing me the second goblet. “It will remove the edge that you’ve had since we stepped foot on Aetherian land.”
I didn’t disagree and took it begrudgingly as Lyra joined me at the window.
