Murmuring broke out behind the queen, who glanced to the seer.
Torin dipped her head—a single nod of affirmation that had Anaria blanching.
“Gravelock only wanted to claim the Triune in order to conquer this kingdom. That was his goal. Kaden protected Valarian. He has earned my respect, and the Triune deemed him worthy of the magic. I cannot fathom how we could judge him any differently than the ancient power that birthed our kind.”
The words hit me harder than the queen’s harsh scrutiny ever could have.
Earned.
Worthy.
No one had ever stood in a room surrounded by power and defended me, daring anyone—especially a queen—to contradict them. Nobody had ever used those words to describe me.
Words I’d heard to describe my father…but never me.
My throat tightened.
I tried to swallow down the emotion clogging it. Tried to remember that the Triune was my inheritance, my burden, the reason I was here in the first place.
But my gaze kept returning to Lyrae.
To the line of her jaw when she refused to yield. To the temper flashing in her eyes. To the way her hair—dark andthick—fell in a braid over one shoulder like she’d stepped straight off one battlefield and onto another, willing to fight—and to die—for what she believed in.
I didn’t care about the Triune anymore.
Not the way I’d thought I would, like the center of my entire universe, the way those relics had been for my father, and his father before him.
Not compared to her.
Ryland stepped forward, thumbs hooked into his belt, fire burning in his eyes. “Your Majesty, if I may?—”
Anaria lifted a hand, silencing him. Her attention remained on Lyrae and me, as if everyone else was irrelevant.
“Tempeste has bled for a millennium,” she said, tone sharpening as her regard fell on me like a blade. “A war fought over power, over a legacy two brothers thought they deserved. What makes you so different?”
Silence.
I climbed to my feet, hands at my sides, spooling the power back into me as I studied this young queen—barely a child in our world, though her shadowed eyes told a different story.
“I am not here to claim your throne,” I said. “Nor any throne of any kingdom. But Lyrae speaks true. The Triune does not accept just anyone from my bloodline—there have been those it rejected. I was not one of them. In my case, the magic chose me, and I was strong enough to withstand its judgment.”
I paused, choosing my words carefully. “I am the last of my line, my queen. I have no family, no kin, no subjects. All I have is myself and a half-dead realm, destroyed by a corrupt male who sought to ruin me, but ruined my family’s only legacy instead.”
“Go on,” she leaned forward on her throne, and behind her, the white-eyed seer drifted closer as well, her sightless gaze fixated on me.
“Once, my realm was beautiful, like yours is now. A paradise, my mother used to say, but now it is a barren wasteland, full of sand and hungry beasts. But Lyrae showed me…the Shadowlands could be different. They could bloom again. Live again, with the right…push.”
“What is your proposal?”
“I will give you the Triune forsafekeeping,” I stressed that last word, “if I may use them one final time, to return my family magic back to the earth where it came from. To restore the Shadowlands to what they used to be. Like you did, Your Majesty.” I dipped my head.
“But I must ask for something in return. Lyrae Antares is to bear no responsibility for what played out in my own realm. The events that happened there were a result of a longstanding feud between my family and Lord Gravelock. If anything, she was instrumental in ending that battle swiftly and decisively. I would ask her position in your court not be in jeopardy because of my own…personal entanglements.”
Anaria’s eyes narrowed. “You’re asking if Lyrae can remain in Tempeste? As my commander?”
“Yes,” I said, the word grinding up my closed-off throat. “I would ask she remain part of your court, and nothing about her status changes.”
No, I didn’t want Lyrae here.
