She scowled. “Sowmya, I thought I made myself clear the last time we spoke.”
The Valkyrie knelt on one knee and bowed her head. “Forgive me, my lady. I bring word that the High King will arrive within the hour. I came to plead with you once more.” She looked up at her. “Save him.”
Dyna frowned, a sense of worry and wariness coming over her at the beseeching in Sowmya’s voice. “What do you mean? What is happening?”
“More than I have told you. A storm is coming to the Realms. They are revolting against him, my lady. Lord Gadriel awaits the High King at Nazar’s Citadel with an armed force ready for battle.”
Her stomach sank, and Dyna looked up at the shroud of clouds. The Realms would battle Cassiel merely because they refuse to accept him as their king?
“Nazar…” Raiden repeated. “A Celestial territory is hidden there.”
“There is.” Dyna looked back at Sowmya. “I don’t understand. Do the Realms reject him so much they would rather wage war than have him take the throne?”
“Who?” Raiden said. “Who does she speak of?”
Dyna closed her eyes. “The first Guardian.”
“The one who is absent?Heis the High King of Hilos?”
“Yes.” She pressed on her chest, feeling the brittle bond ache. “I cannot be a part of this, Sowmya. I have nothing to do with his legitimacy to the crown or claim to the throne.”
“This was never about his legitimacy, my lady.” Sowmya stood and looked up at the skies. “He does not come for the sake of his crown, but to eliminate a threat. Why do you think he left?”
The question made Dyna’s heart start to pound, and she took a step back on instinct because she didn’t want to hear this.
Sowmya looked at her again. “You have seen that instinct when it surfaces, the uncontrollable flames that erupt when his only focus is toprotect.”
The memory of Hermon came swiftly. It was vivid in Dyna’s mind. A sea of blue Seraph fire and the screams of Celestials fleeing, Cassiel standing at the center of it all. A scatter of cold currents swept down her spine.
I care not who it is. Whoever comes after you will burn, even if that means I turn on them all.
“He is not well, my lady. Without the other half of his soul, Cassiel is lost.”
Dyna held her breath, sensing something dire had happened from the look on Sowmya’s face before she said the words.
“Skath has fallen.”
Dyna gasped. “What?”
The lieutenant lowered her gaze, and Dyna felt she would be sick. “He has nearly been overtaken by the flame. With such power unchecked, the Realms fear another genocide, and they are banding together. He comes now to Nazar to eliminate those who conspire against his True Bonded. That instinct is seeded in the very root of what made him. What do you think the High King will do when he arrives in Nazar, and they defy him?”
She remembered Cassiel’s reactions when any threat came near her. The visceral beast that rose behind the flame.
The words fell like smoke from her lips. “He will destroy it.”
“How do you know that?” Raiden asked her.
“Because he was once my husband,” Dyna whispered. Once her love. Once her soul. Once her heart. “I know him better than anyone.”
Raiden stared at her mutely.
“Nazar has prepared weapons to fight him,” Sowmya continued. “They will either kill him, or history will repeat itself, and he will annihilate us all.”
History…
Dyna stumbled back, and Raiden caught her arm. “What are you saying?” she demanded. “Are the rumors about him true?”
The lieutenant’s grim gaze was answer enough.
