“We killed him,” I whispered, pulling Kael to his feet. “We killed our father.”
I stared at the crack that had swallowed him in disbelief.
“We killed him.”
“We didn’t kill our father,” Kael said. “He died many years ago.”
I didn’t see her coming, but I felt Lyra at my side. Pulling her into me, I wiped a tear from her cheek. Words escaped me, but thankfully, they weren’t necessary. King Galfrid’s voice boomed through the courtyard.
“I know the pain of your loss well,” he said, addressing our clan.
Addressing me.
“May Balthor rest in peace as a new dawn for our clans, for Elydor, arises. I recognize his son Terran as the most powerful among you, and the new King of Gyoria, as does the Stone he holds in his hand.”
“As do I,” Queen Nerys added. “May we unite in the coming days. Forge a new path forward. End an unwarranted hate among those who wish only to live peacefully among us.”
She looked first at Kael and I, and then her partner, Sir Rowan.
Lyra tugged on my tunic, which is when I realized I was expected to speak. Gazing at my brother, who nodded, I said the only thing there was left to say.
The silence was suffocating, and I was expected to break it.
Raising the Stone high into the air, I took a deep breath, buffeted by Lyra on my left and Kael on my right, and called out, “I am Terran of Gyoria.” Lyra was amplifying my voice. How many hidden skills did she have?
I would enjoy finding out.
“The Stone has chosen. I vow to lead not with hate, but with the courage and strength to end it. Rise and do the same. Your king commands it.”
And they did.
One by one, they rose.
I was King of Gyoria. The price for such a title, heavy. But it was mine, now, and I would not see it wasted as our father had.
Terranor take him.
Reunite him with Mother and let him find peace in the afterlife that he was unable to find among us here gathered.
33
LYRA
As we picked up the pieces of yesterday’s battle, its aftermath had only begun to reveal itself. Terran led his father’s warriors from Aethralis to the forest outside our capital where towering trees with silvery bark began to give way to small, rocky outcrops, hinting at a sturdier terrain across the border in Gyoria. From there, they would return under the command of a Gyorian I’d never met. A thaloranTerran trusted to send word to Dren, now the second most important in all of Gyoria—aside from Kael. He, along with Terran’s other most trusted warriors, had been sent to Hawthorne Manor along Estmere’s western border to supposedly deal with Adren, now Lord of Hawthorne, in a cleverly executed diversion.
From ironclad transports which blocked Aetherian whispers, to a traitor within the palace’s ranks, a lesser noble Balthor had been apparently blackmailing for years, the now deceased king had planned his attack well. And according to one of Lord Valdric’s men whom Terran summarily exiled, along with his master, it had been long in the making.
But for now, Terran had Aethralis. The moment he stepped into the Council chamber, a silence descended among those gathered. Those who had fought at what was being called, “The First Breach.”
“Leave us,” King Galfrid said to Eirion and the two generals who sat on either side of him. “Summon Galindre, if you would,” he added. “Have him anoint the courtyard with a calming draft, cleansing it of the breach’s violence.”
“Will that work?” Mev asked.
“In as much as it is believed to? Aye.”
A symbolic cleansing more than a practical one. Tensions had run high in Aetheria, higher among those who lived and worked in the palace, since the attack.
I wish to remember this moment for what it is.
