I interceded before I needed to rip out Barkke’s throat for the way he was looking at my mate. “Barkke and Lyrena will accompany me and Veyka to Cayltay. We will prepare the troops camped in Wolf Bay and begin our search for the Ethereal Queen.”
Veyka planted her hands on her hips as she continued. “Isolde will travel with us. If the succubus are drawn to me, then the fighting will follow me as well. We will need her healingmagic.” The faerie was back in Eilean Gayl, assisting the healers, but she’d already given her assent.
I looked to my father next. “The Lord of Eilean Gayl will rally and ready troops north of the Spine.”
My father was not a warrior. In the centuries since his marriage to my mother, what little prowess he’d honed in his youth had dulled farther still. But he was as effective a leader as any I’d ever met. Males and females alike took to him instantly. Not inspired by fear, like my own troops, but by true affection. If anyone could rouse the grumpy, taciturn lords and ladies entrenched in the frigid north of Annwyn, it was him.
But we had not expected arguments from any of those we’d doled out quests too thus far. And the next one was not mine to give.
Veyka stepped toward her handmaiden, palms up, entreaty on her face. It took a different kind of strength than what I’d used to command, to ask. It was a different female who stood before me than even a few months ago.
“Cyara, you will accompany Osheen and Maisri to the Faeries of the Fen,” Veyka said. Although it was phrased as a command, the question was evident in every tensed muscle of her body.
The only emotion Cyara showed was the drawing of her wings together behind her back. “I would not be parted from you, Majesty.”
Veyka reached her, hands out. Cyara did not spurn the offer. She placed her smaller ones into Veyka’s, gripping them tightly until there was not a single one among us assembled who could not see the shining white of her knuckles.
“Nor I, you,” Veyka admitted, her voice as even as Cyara’s had been. “But the Faeries possess unique and ancient magic. We cannot afford to ignore them, and there is no one I trust more than you.”
Their gazes collided. One stormy blue, tumultuous as the soul beneath. The other clear and constant turquoise. I had to look away from the force of what passed between them.
I knew no one shared the soul-bond that Veyka and I did; but in that moment, I could have sworn that a silent conversation passed between them.
“As you wish,” Cyara said softly.
Veyka returned to my side, and this time it was my hand that went to her back.
“What of my sister?” Percival cut in on the emotionally fraught moment. Typical.
“You shall remain in the custody of the Lady of Eilean Gayl,” Veyka said sharply, all softness drained from her eyes. Replaced by barely contained distaste.
Percival lifted his chin. “Until?”
“Until I give an order otherwise.” Veyka turned away from him—not even assessing him as sufficient to deserve her regard. Whatever her feelings towards the humans in general, Percival had more than earned her ire. She’d given him one of her precious daggers, and he’d driven it into her Goldstone’s back while delivering us to Gorlois.
The fact that she no longer required him shackled to the wall was still a surprise to me.
“What about Avalon?” Lyrena asked before the group could begin to disperse.
“Avalon is neutral,” Veyka countered, hands back on her wide hips.
“They saved Arran,” Lyrena argued back.
“Debatable.”
It was not a moot point; I’d brought it up to Veyka as well. But we could not be sure of the Lady of the Lake’s allegiance. She may be Veyka’s half-sister, but she’d kept secrets. “An ally that could not be depended upon was no ally at all,” I said, imbuingmy voice with a finality that Lyrena must have recognized. She did not argue further.
Veyka rolled her shoulders and reached unconsciously for her belt. The scabbards were there, but the daggers were not. One of the conditions to get the humans to the discussion—no weapons. As if every one of us was not dangerous enough, merely existing. Veyka hooked her thumbs around the empty scabbards, scraping her thumbnail over the jewels. Now that it was done, the parting came. That would be the hardest.
She opened her mouth—to say something sassy or profound, I could not have guessed—but drew up short.
“What about the Sacred Trinity?” Cyara asked.
Veyka froze.
But she was not the one who drew everyone’s attention. Nor was Cyara. It was Gwen—on her knees, golden eyes blown wide, warm brown skin turned completely ashen. “What do you know of the Sacred Trinity?”
16
