Joran’s smirk turns into a smug smile. “You once loved my breathing. Heavy and in your ear all fucking night.”
Nephele whips her head around. Everyone’s eyes go wide, including mine, as repulsion and disbelief tighten my sister’s face. Gods. We’ve all felt the tension between her and Joran, taut and ready to snap. But until now, not even I knew why that tension existed. A reminder that there is much I still need to learn about my sister.
Alexus’s voice is as deep as the low-rolling thunder to the west. “Stop talking, Joran. If you want to keep talking at all.”
The Icelander just grins that insufferable grin, gets up, snatches a lantern, and turns to go.
Just when I think we’re free of him, he swings back around. “You know. When I was a boy, there was a Seer in our village. A woman who lived near the edge of the Iceland Plains for a few years before leaving Tiressia altogether. Villagers claimed she descended from Loria’s children, the first Witch Walkers. Those who were said to realm walk between Tiressia and Eridan. The first practitioners of vast magick. Born from Loria’s will rather than her womb. Spawned from a god yet still mortal. A rare creature between a godling and a witch. People risked all to cross the Plains to see her.”
Alexus turns a sharp look at the Icelander, as though something Joran said shook loose a recollection.
“My father swore the woman could break through any mental wards meant to keep her out, no matter the distance. That she saw far more than the present moment at hand. In fact, she learned to see into a person’s past and could even glimpse their future.” He narrows his eyes. “Did you hear that? Their motherfucking future.”
I feel like I know where he’s going with this, and though a part of me wants to tell him to fuck off, another part is too intrigued not to pay attention.
Joran casts a glance across every face. “We all agree that the prince is striking now for a reason. We also agree that he’s too godsdamn clever to place all faith in the hopes that Fia Drumera will surrender upon sight of her old lover held captive on the Jade River. Using Colden Moeshka as a ransom may indeed start a larger war, that’s always been the fear. But the king is only a distraction. The Prince of the East has been at this game with the Summerlands for three decades. He needed a new tactic. The perfect weapons for his arsenal. He has two.”
Two. Because of me. Colden and the God Knife.
“But that isn’t a trifecta for the resurrection he hopes to perform,” Joran says. “He still needs that third element that will ensure his ability to break past the Fire Queen’s wards and reach the Grove of the Gods.” Joran shines his lantern in my direction. The warm light shadows the hard lines of his heavy brow. “Unfortunately for us, just like in the vale, you are the only one who can see what that weapon is, Bloodgood. If the prince is ‘up to something,’ figure it out. You can’t change the past, but you do hold the power to change the future. Don’t fuck things up this time unless you want to live with even more death on your hands.”
Joran’s words should spark my temper. The me from a month ago would get in his face for those last remarks. But instead, my spirit sinks, even as my rune warms with bright heat.
Power rumbles through the camp, followed by an electric wind that rustles the branches above, filling the leafy canopy with blue, crackling energy that tingles over my skin.
Alexus’s magick.
He’s on his feet and facing the Icelander faster than I can blink, clenching two daggers of cobalt light in his fists.
Alexus’s power revives more each day. Like the rest of us, he inherently sees certain threads and has learned to manipulate others. But he can also summon energy, absorb it, and concentrate it in various ways. He even taught me, with the sword of light I used to enter Frostwater Wood, the very magick that saved my life against an Eastlander on Winter Road. That was a smaller form of the same type of power Alexus harnessed to kill those men near the ravine. I can’t imagine what he will be able to do once he’s fully renewed.
In response to Alexus’s daggers, Joran lifts his arms at his sides, and a dozen silvery arrows materialize around him, formed from the water saturating the forest, every tip aimed at Alexus.
The rest of us stand—except for my sister—ready to spring, though it’s doubtful there’s anything we can do if this sorcerer and witch finally clash.
Suddenly, hundreds of glistening vines slither from the wet wood, weaving together, quickly forming a wall between Alexus and Joran. I look at my sister, sensing her magick, vibrant in the air. She doesn’t turn around to see her handiwork. She just smiles and continues sharpening her blade.
Joran huffs an arrogant laugh and flicks his hands at the wrists. His water arrows spear forward, stabbing into the living blockade before raining to the ground.
All he says as he wisely walks away is, “Interfering bitch. You’ll regret that.”
Nephele smirks. “I wouldn’t bet on it.”
In retaliation, Joran’s shield vanishes, and an icy, spitting drizzle starts to fall. Nephele curses as her vines recoil, and everyone heads toward their shelters.
I go to Alexus. Still bristling, he watches the Icelander slip into his tent at the edge of our camp. When I touch his shoulder, he turns. His daggers fade into blue sparks, and then nothing.
We’re alone, so he takes my hand and kisses me, the taste of rain and magick sweet on his lips.
“Ignore Joran,” he says, as though he sees the yoke of responsibility I already feel around my neck. “He wanted to get under your skin. Don’t let him succeed.” He exhales a deep breath and wipes the rain from his face. “I let him succeed enough for the both of us.”
But I can’t ignore it. Because Joran was right. I failed my people before.
I will not fail them again.
3
THE PRINCE WITH NO NAME
