I waved off her concern. “He’s harmless, Bondsmith. Came easily to heel last time he stepped out of line and will again if needed. He’s replaceable, at the end of the day, and I no longer fear the repercussions from Lord d’Leocopus. With the death of Lord d’Refan, there is nothing he can hold over my head or that of my generals any longer.”
The Bondsmith’s mouth flattened into an unimpressed stare. “Careful, Prince Who Was Promised, your hubris will be the death of you. Sometimes it’s what you least expect that topples the king.”
Those ominous words, uttered so purposefully and laced with a chord of danger, should have iced the blood in my veins. But the door to my suite swung open, distracting me completely from our conversation.
I jumped to my feet, calling forth my Fire Magic so it pooled aggressively in my hands, the heat licking at my arms, up to my neck.
“Sir!” A guard burst into the room, chest heaving with exertion. “They’ve returned. General d’Aelius and General Folami are back. They have two Academy soldiers with them.”
Just as quickly as I pulled my magic to the surface, I banished it back beneath my skin.
“Who?” I asked, readying myself to go to them.
“Lex d’Talionis and his Vessel, sir.”
Lex? Lex and Ilyas were here?
My eyes flicked to Ellowyn again as I cracked my neck, torn between staying with my beloved and going to fulfill my duties as the leader of the rebellion.
“Go,” the Bondsmith said firmly. “I will watch over her.”
I nodded my thanks before following the guard from my rooms.
“Heed my warning, godling,” she called, and I paused, fingers flexing against the doorknob. “There are much more dangerous beings in Elyria than the Warlord. His actions? They look like child’s play in comparison to the potential the others hold.”
With that, I swept from the room, my mind pulled into a thousand directions, no clear answers in sight.
Chapter Seven
Ellowyn
“Do all mortals sleep this long? Or is this just her?” A vaguely familiar voice floated into my consciousness, muddied and unclear, like I was trying to hear underwater.
A second person scoffed, the sound decidedly feminine.
“She used more magic than should have been possible. If she were a true mortal, her soul would have joined the ether by now.”
“She can’t do that. She’s one of my Strings,” the first voice said, and I could practically hear the shrug through the petulance.
Fate.
In my last visits to the Dreamscape, I’d somehow been able to avoid his presence entirely. Unfortunately, it seemed as if that good fortune had expired. I desperately tried to maintain the vestiges of unconsciousness, hopeful that Fate and whomever he was conversing with would reveal something that could help us win the war against Kaos and Solace.
I lay still, kept my breathing even, and listened.
“Just because she’s one of your Strings doesn’t mean she’s immortal.”
“If she’d died, she would have appeared in my halls. Just as your daughter did after she foolishly sacrificed herself for?—”
“She’s waking up,” the feminine voice interrupted Fate, obviously detecting the twitch of my eyebrows.
I sighed deeply, abandoning all previous attempts to appear asleep. My eyelids fluttered open with effort, cracking through a thin film that bonded my eyelashes to theskin beneath. An uninhibited and unintentional groan left my lips as I stretched my tired and abused body.
“Don’t try to move just yet,” the female voice warned, and I flicked my gaze to the previously unidentified woman standing over me, just at the right edge of my vision. She was tall and muscular with curly blonde hair piled haphazardly on top of her head. That, coupled with the runes that adorned almost every available inch of skin, reminded me instantly of Faylinn.
Gods, I missed my friend. Was she okay? What happened during the battle? Did she survive?
I rubbed absently at my sternum, hoping that I would feelsomethingif she died.
