Einar
“Well?” Mrs. Aeolan asked as we entered the breakfast room the next morning. She put down the paper she was reading, adjusted the spectacles on her pert nose, and gave us an expectant look. “How did it go?”
I glanced over at Adara, who shook her head wearily. The shadows under her eyes told me she’d gotten about as much sleep as I had after we’d crawled into bed in the early hours of the morning. She’d pulled her lavender hair into a messy bun on top of her head, and there were still traces of makeup smudged around the corners of her mouth and eyes. She probably hadn’t even looked in the mirror before she’d thrown on that dressing gown.
And yet, despite her disheveled appearance, my heart tugged every time I looked into those cornflower blue eyes of hers. It defied all logic, all rational explanation.
Your heart already knows where you belong. It’s up to your mind to accept it.
“Nothing like we expected,” Adara said as Quye’s words echoed back at me from last night. She pulled out a chair and sat down at the breakfast table, and I followed suit. Platters of cold meats, cheeses, and breads sat on the table, and she reached past them for the pot of tea to pour herself a cup. “Almost nothing went according to plan.”
“We did get to meet the Oracle, though,” Mavlyn said, yawning as she entered the room. She’d left her auburn hair hanging in rumpled waves around her shoulders, her dressing gown haphazardly tied around her waist. “Also, we found out Leap is Lord Oren’s nephew?”
“Are you going to telleveryone?” Leap hissed as he followed in behind her. Of the four of us, he was the only one dressed, though he looked just as bedraggled and tired as everyone else. “Why don’t you just climb up to the rooftops and shout my name for all of Wynth to hear!”
“I suspected as much,” Mrs. Aeolan said, surprising us all. At Leap’s bewildered look, she added, “You look a great deal like your mother, Lady Orla. I knew her and your father, back when they still served in the Lightning Rider Force. They were fierce, courageous warriors.”
A barb sprang to my tongue—I had nothing good to say about air fae warriors—but I swallowed it at the stricken look on Leap’s face. “I didn’t know you were friends with my parents,” he said in a quiet voice.
“I would have called them acquaintances more than friends,” Mrs. Aeolan corrected him gently. “But they were greatly admired at court, and you were their pride and joy. I can’t blame you for wanting to go back to Wynth, since this is where they lived and cared for you. I can imagine that living under Lord Oren’s roof wasn’t easy.”
Leap swallowed. “I don’t really want to talk about it,” he said. He took a seat and snatched up two rolls, but despite his words, I noticed that he’d chosen to sit directly next to Mrs. Aeolan.
The air fae nodded once, as if she understood his recalcitrance, then turned to Adara. “What did the Oracle tell you?”
As Adara recited the prophecy Quye had given us, the Oracle’s words to me echoed in my head again.What would Daryan say if he could see you now,she’d accused, a knowing look in her eyes,holding so tightly onto the hatred in your heart?
Those words had haunted me all night, leaving me to toss and turn as I replayed them over and over. Because I knew exactly what Daryan would have said. I touched the cuff at my wrist, and one of our final conversations began to replay in my mind, fresh as though it had happened yesterday.
“I don’t understand,” I’d told him as we’d stood on the balcony outside his rooms, overlooking the Dragon Vale. “How can you marry a fae, Daryan? To share a bed with a female whose hands are stained with the blood of our people?”
Daryan sighed, placing a hand on the banister as he gazed at our lands. From our vantage point, we had a crystal clear view of Mount Furian, unmarred by even a single cloud in the clear blue sky. Standing there, dressed in a simple leather jerkin and trousers, his crown conspicuously absent from his mop of curly russet hair, he didn’t look like the commanding dragon prince who had fearlessly led us into battle dozens upon dozens of times.
Today, he was just a dragon. My best friend, my confidant, my brother in all but name only. And it was here, in these quiet moments unsoiled by duty and obligation, that we could be frank with each other.
“I could tell you it’s because of the mating bond,” he said after a long moment, finally turning to face me. His golden eyes, flecked with bits of ruby, glowed, and it was not just the sunlight that lit them from within like that. He always looked this way when he spoke of the fae princess, as if he were overflowing with joy. “I could tell you it’s because Olette’s unconditional love has transformed me, healing the bitterness in my heart and making me see hope for the first time since my father put a sword in my hands and told me I would have to fight for my very right to exist.”
I stared at him, unsure of where he was going with this. I thought that was exactly what he would say—that the mating bond was compelling him, that he couldn’t live without Olette, that their love would be enough to heal the great divide between our people.
“But truthfully,” he said, turning back to face the vale again, “I’m not doing this because of the mating bond. Or at least, not only because of the mating bond. I’m doing it because I’m tired of holding onto this hatred in my heart. It’s a slow, insidious poison, driving us all to an early death swifter and surer than any fae blade could.”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” I said. My fingers dug into the stone railing, trying to find purchase as stormy waves of confusion pitched my brain back and forth. “The fae have been murdering us for eons. They’ve earned our hatred!”
“Maybe they have,” Daryan agreed. “But in their eyes, we have earned their hatred as well.”
“Why, because of that bullcock story about us killing off the fire fae?” I spat. Anger vibrated through my body, forcing me into motion, and I paced restlessly outside the double doors leading into Daryan’s rooms. “We never touched the fire fae—they were gone before we got here!” The remains of fire fae civilization were buried beneath thousands of years of ash and stone, the truth of their demise lost to death and time.
“Yes, yes,” Daryan said, waving an impatient hand. The cuff on his wrist glinted, the deep red primal stone set into the center flashing in the bright daylight as it moved. “And dragons and fae can continue going in circles, fingering the blame at one another and killing each other in retaliation for crimes both real and imagined. We can continue to let the hatred in our hearts fester until both of our races are mere bone dust floating on the winds, memories whisked away so that nothing remains of our once great legacies.”
I scowled. “What makes you so sure that will happen? That dragonkind won’t eventually prevail?”
“Because in three-thousand years, we have never come close!” Daryan whirled to face me, his golden eyes flashing in a rare show of temper. I took a shocked step back as he stalked toward me and fisted a hand in my tunic—of the two of us, he was always the calm, collected one, and rarely lost control of his emotions. “All we have succeeded in doing is maintaining our borders, and harrying the fae by stealing their resources. Rarely have we ever kept any territory we’ve managed to take, and the fae continue to outnumber us. If our iron hide didn’t protect us from their magic, they would have eradicated us long ago.”
He released a long, slow breath, his fingers uncurling from my tunic as he looked away from me again. “We cannot go on like this,” he said quietly, taking a step back. “We cannot allow hatred to blind us, for pride to hold us back. My marriage to Olette may not solve things overnight, but it is a first step. An invitation for more dragons and fae to join hands, to put aside old hurts and grudges, and start anew. Only by doing so can we purge the poison from our hearts, and end this cycle of destruction.”
I shook my head, running a hand through my hair. “I don’t know, Daryan. It seems to me that there is a lot of trust involved here. You’re expecting the fae to honor this marriage, honor this treaty. How do you know they won’t backstab us at the first opportunity?”
“There are no guarantees,” Daryan agreed. “But while the fae might try to betray me, I know Olette never will. And someone has to extend a hand first before trust can be formed. If I don’t take this chance to do it now, we may never get another one. How can you expect me to do anything less?”
