Returning to this land felt more like being thrown into an emotional storm. I certainly wouldn’t set foot inside that palace. Where was my anchor? I’d laid siege to Aedrialis, to the city I’d been raised in. TheEvectano longer felt like home…
I stood in a small clearing outside the little village surrounding the castle. A forest of bare trees stretched between me and the rocky face of a cliff. I blew a sigh through my nose and cracked my neck before closing my eyes and dropping my hands to my side. I didn’t try to empty my mind… That never worked. I let the thoughts and questions come and go, let them flit by with soft acknowledgment before taking a deep breath and moving into my morning centering exercises.
Minutes later, the muffled crunch of a boot hit the melting snow, and I snapped my eyes open. I whirled around, my powers racing to my palms. My fresh eyes spotted him a hundred yards out, and my shoulders eased.
The soft scent of cinnamon wafted through the trees as Vulcan prowled to where I stood. He held two large mugs of steaming tea and jerked his chin to a dry rock.
“Did it help?” he asked as he handed me a mug and sat down. His hazel eyes surveyed me before he took a sip. My gaze slidover the nasty scar that cut across the fern tattoo on the side of his face.
“A little,” I admitted, taking a slow sip and sitting down. “Sorry I didn’t invite you.”
Vulcan gruffed in response.
“I don’t really want to talk about it.” I pinned my gaze on the mountains.
“I’m not really the talking type,” he murmured.
My lips kicked up a notch. We sat in silence for several minutes, sipping our tea and watching the thin branches make rickety movements as the breeze pushed through the clearing.
“We’re leaving soon,” he finally said. He took another swig of his tea, downing its contents. My chest constricted, and I looked up to find Vulcan’s brows narrowed at me. I nodded, understanding his need to get back, but still sad at being separated so soon after my return. Vulcan had become another brother to me.
“Why do you look like that?” he asked, his face tightening in an awkward crinkle.
“I’m just going to miss you,” I murmured, nudging his shoulder with my elbow.
He rolled his eyes and shook his head once in a jerky motion, his blonde hair catching against the morning sun.
“I’m coming with you to Votruvia,” he corrected, his voice edged with annoyance.
I blinked. “You are?” I asked. “I thought you’d be heading back to Lotrennia with Bayne and Lida?”
Vulcan ran a hand over his clean-shaven face before shaking his head. “No.”
I opened my mouth to probe when he cut me off with a jerk of his chin. My gaze slid to the cooling mug in my hands.
“How is Lida doing?” I asked after a moment. My mind replayed Lida’s reunion with Bayne after Kellan and I hadused our powers to transform the ashen. She’d been taken and turned, living out the last year of her life as a mindless killer. I hadn’t approached Lida… And why would I? Why would my ex’s ex want anything to do with me? She’d watched me carefully in the hours after Kellan and I had returned, and I found I had a hard time meeting her gaze. There was a knot in my chest that tightened when I looked at her, a small stab of guilt when I remembered how I had been the one saved from Kayj while she suffered there for many more months.
Vulcan’s brows narrowed, and his gaze turned to the sea in the distance.
“She’s angry,” he murmured after a moment.
I nodded, understanding. She and Bayne were in love when she was taken and turned. She awoke to find out he’d fallen in love with someone else, had rescued a different woman from Kayj, all before he soulbound himself and married the treacherous queen of Lotrennia.
Vulcan took the empty mug from my hand and turned toward the castle.
“I’ll see you in an hour.”
The sharp windbit at my face as I stood on the cliff. The Crystal Castle loomed behind me like a giant glass warrior. TheEvectabobbed in the distance, its white sails lost against the light sky and snow falling over the distant gray sea.
Bayne sailed south to Lotrennia, to his queen and wife. Aquila’s form had disappeared in the distance, but he’d return as soon as Bayne had made it safely to Lotrennian shores.
I made my way down the steep stone steps leading to the docks, where the massiveHydrarocked. A wave of lovewashed over me as Tiberius’s dark form sank through the clouds overhead, and he hammered down the center deck of the ship, flapping the wet snow off his wings as he finally came to a stop.
Carina adjusted her glasses as she stretched a gloved hand to mine when I reached the docks. A strand of brown hair blew loose from her fur-lined hood as she fell into step with me.
“I assume you know this already…” she began, her Ravindra green eyes pinning me with that piercing gaze the royal elves had. “But your little trip to hell severed our air oath connection.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but she placed a hand on my shoulder to halt me before reaching the gangplank of theHydra. “Our air oath may be gone,” she continued, “but my promise still stands, whether it be magically bound or not. We protect the people of this realm.”
