27
VEYKA
“The Ancestors know, I’m a good sport. But I am sick of ending up on my ass,” Lyrena griped. She took my proffered hand, pulling herself up from the muddy ground of the island’s small courtyard.
It was either there or walk out to the mainland and spar on the lakeshore. Here, at least, I could keep my eyes on the terrestrials. And they could all get a sense of me, their new queen. They could learn exactly how sharp my blades were.
Lyrena sheathed her sword and hobbled over to the water trough. No elemental magic needed to cool it. When we’d come down earlier this morning, it had taken a blast of her fire to melt down enough for drinking.
“You won the last bout,” I said, lifting my arms overhead and returning the two curved rapiers to their sheathes across my back.
The look she shot me was hotter than the fire that had singed my hair. Fair recompense for when I’d accidentally chopped off several inches of hers in the jungle above the faerie caves.
“You let me win.” Disdain dripped from every syllable. Even my affable golden knight didn’t like to lose.
“I would never,” I protested.
I pressed a hand to my chest, my pale skin heated and flushed. I was back in my traveling leathers. By tomorrow, Cyara would have an assortment of gowns for me to wear. She was up in the tower chambers now, glaring at Percival, pitying Diana, and sewing rapidly.
Lyrena rolled her neck in time with her eyes. “Try stabbing Cyara and see if you can get the harpy to come out. I am done for today.”
We’d dueled with magic, knives, and swords. My entire body was coated in sweat. But it was either this, or politicking, or wallowing in my own misery. At least for now. Until Yule, when the priestess and her acolyte would appear for whatever obnoxious ceremony. Until after Yule, when I would get to those amorite mines and start distributing the best weapon my kingdom had against the succubus.
The succubus I still had not told Elayne and Pant about. Because I still was not sure where I stood with them.
Fuck all of it. I hated being queen. I hated it ten times more without Arran at my side.
Maybe I would go back to my room and lock myself in. Summon that ember of power, step into the void. Return to Avalon—see Arran. Even for a few moments, just to see him…
And risk his life, again.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
The sweat and exertion were supposed to take the edge off, not melt the icy interior.
“I’ll spar with you, Majesty.”
Lyrena’s head snapped to attention, her hand already on the blade she’d sheathed moments before. The courtyard was a strange trapezoidal shape, following the shore of the island, the lake itself waiting just on the other side of the mossy stone walls. Along one side there were alcoves. Doors that led up to thetowers, down to the kitchens. Who knew where else. The voice had come from one of those alcoves, where a male loitered in the shadows, leaning against the door.
I rolled my shoulders, not bothering to draw a weapon yet. “You won’t be the first terrestrial I’ve beaten.”
The male stepped fully into the gray early-evening light. I got the sense he was grinning, though it was hard to tell beneath the bushy brown beard. For a moment, my heart stopped. The resemblance to Arran…
The thick locks were the same, the tight bun at the back of his head… but this male’s features were lighter. Brown hair, not black. Green eyes. Shorter, too, though not by much.
He looked at me with equal alacrity, his unnaturally green gaze sweeping over my face and body. A lip quirked at the dirty boots. The other side joined it when he arrived at my normally white hair, which I knew was closer to gray now, caked with dirt and sweat until it hung limp around my shoulders.
The male lowered a hand to the weapon hanging from his belt. A mace. A fucking mace. “Arran certainly chose well.”
“Arran did not choose at all.”False. He’d chosen me. We’d chosen each other. Despite the Offering and the Joining and all the other bullshit.
But this male who dared to look me over like I was something to eat, a mated female, a queen—he did not get to know any of that.
He smiled through the gross, bushy beard. “The male I knew never acted against his instincts. Even for Annwyn. Even for duty.”
My throat closed.
I will tear apart this world, realm after realm, until I find you.
