The council room door opened again, and in walked Larylis and Mareleau. Larylis looked as exhausted as Teryn felt, dark circles shadowing his eyes. Mareleau, on the other hand, walked with her head held high despite the collar piercing both sides of her neck. Her skin was red and inflamed around the punctures, but she wore the object as if it were a necklace. Teryn had been too distracted, too detached from his body, to recall how it had felt to wear the collar. And he hadn’t been burdened by it for long. Whereas Cora had been forced to wear it for hours.
Cora paled as soon as her eyes landed on her friend. She rose from her chair and rushed to her. As she reached Mareleau, she fluttered her hands as if she couldn’t decide whether to give her a consoling touch or not touch her at all lest she cause pain. “Are you all right? Does it hurt?”
Mareleau waved her off, but there was no malice in the gesture. “Don’t baby me, Cora, I’m fine.”
Cora bit her lip before forcing a smile. “I’m glad you’re all right.” She returned to her seat, and Mareleau and Larylis claimed chairs near Teryn’s end of the table. Larylis and Lord Hardingham exchanged warm greetings.
“Where’s Noah?” Teryn asked.
“He’s sleeping,” Larylis said. “Helena is with him.”
“She won’t be attending?”
Mareleau answered with a decisive, “No.”
Teryn figured that meant Helena was still in the dark about most things. He and Cora had organized this less formal meeting to discuss the topics they couldn’t—or weren’t ready to—share with the council.
A dark shape dove from the rafters, eliciting a squeal from Lily. But it was only Berol, so no one else was startled. She hadn’t wanted to let Teryn out of her sight after the appearance of the dragons and had followed him inside the castle afterward. Now she alternated between haunting the rafters and crowding his personal space. He’d had the presence of mind to don his shoulder pad, upon which she landed now. Absently, he extracted a strip of duck from his waistcoat pocket and fed it to his falcon.
“If that’s all of us,” Cora said, “I’ll begin. Lex and Lily, I’ll address what concerns you first so you needn’t feel obligated to remain if you’d rather not linger on the dark topics we’re about to discuss.”
Lex and Lily exchanged a worried glance, then returned their attention to Cora.
Cora took a deep breath. Teryn wished he was sitting beside her so he could hold her hand. Remind her he was here. She wasn’t alone. Her eyes flicked to his as if she’d been of the same mind. With the warmest smile he could muster, he gave her an encouraging nod.
She nodded back and angled herself toward Lex and Lily. “If you’re wondering why we’ve requested that you follow a scouting party home to Tomas, instead of departing at once, it’s because the border north of Khero may be unsafe. Now, humor me while I explain the next part, for I know it will come across as fiction. Something called the Veil surrounds the kingdoms of Khero and Vera, the land once known as Lela. The Veil is like a curtain between our world and…well, the fae realm.”
She paused, waiting for their reaction.
Lex frowned, his mouth curling halfway toward a grin. But as he met Teryn’s gaze and found there was no mirth on his face, he paled. Facing Cora again, he said, “Fae realm. Right. I’ve seen unicorns, a man-and-unicorn-eating monster, and now dragons. A magic curtain to the fae realm shouldn’t be impossible to accept.”
Lily gave an awkward laugh but it was tinged with hysteria. “Right,” she said in her small voice.
Cora continued. “Until recently, only unicorns had been able to cross the Veil, and only to leave the fae realm—El’Ara—which is why they only recently appeared in our world. The appearance of dragons tells us the Veil has been torn. In other words, there’s an opening somewhere in that curtain that separates our worlds. We don’t know where the tear is or what would happen if people accidentally crossed it. Nor do we know what other creatures may emerge from it.”
“It could be anywhere,” Teryn said. “Or everywhere. We don’t yet know if the tear is a single location in the Veil, or if it merely means the entire Veil is weakened.”
Cora stood from her chair and pointed at a map that had been laid out upon the table from the previous meeting. She tapped the stretch of land between northern Khero and southern Vinias—the kingdom that lay between Khero and Tomas. “Since the Veil surrounds Lela, it exists here too. You can’t reach Tomas without crossing it.”
“Even if you go by sea,” Teryn added, “you’d still have to cross the Veil. You are, of course, welcome to do whatever you choose, but as you are our friends and allies, we suggest you let our scouting party test it first.”
“Oh, I very much agree,” Lex said. “I’ll trust your scouts to assess the border. No questions asked.”
Cora turned her attention to Captain Alden. “When will the scouting party be ready to depart?”
“Majesty,” the captain said, “Lieutenant Carlson will be ready to depart for the Khero-Vinias border at first light.”
“Thank you, Captain Alden,” Cora said with a gracious nod. “Any other updates?”
Alden cast a hesitant glance at Lex and Lily before answering. “Yes, Majesty. I have one pressing update that I didn’t bring up during the formal meeting, for it is a private matter of state regarding a subject not all council members are apprised of. Do I have your permission to speak on this subject now, Majesty?”
“You do.”
“We’ve gotten more intel from the Norunian spy in our captivity.”
Teryn straightened. Cora had told him about the man being held in the dungeon, as well as the overall influx of spies from Norun. “What did the spy say?”
“He admitted to Norun’s formal alliance with Syrus and confessed King Darius is in southern Norun at this time, near the Norun-Vinias border. While he wouldn’t outright confess that Syrus and Norun seek to wage war on Khero, he admitted that Darius has recently summoned a fleet of warships from Syrus to make landfall in southwestern Vera.”
