He waited a few more beats in the silence, and left with a weary sigh, strong steps drumming through me long after he’d vanished from view.
“Come on, Vegheara,” Dax said gently, nudging my shoulder. “We get this sorted and then you can mope around all you want.”
I curled my lip at him. “I do not mope.”
Not in front of witnesses, anyway.
He rolled his eyes as we settled on either side of the crate and moved it with great effort, bared teeth, curses, and a harsh scrape against the floor that scratched my mind in the worst way.
“Did he use magic to heave it up the stairs?” Dax groaned as he dragged and I pushed the crate into the room.
Never mind carrying it up the stairs, how had it gotten here halfway across the continent without breaking?
“His body is different,” was all I said. Dax had his secrets, Ryker had his, and the same principle stood.
Once we got it closer to the table, Dax righted himself, wiped the sweat off his brow and turned to the open palaver portal, where Dara, his twin sister, looked at us with an honestly dispassionate stare, even by her standards.
“You really didn’t skimp on the stones, did you?” he said.
She shrugged. “This is all I could get on such short notice.”
“There must be a riverbed worth of stones here.” I traced my fingers on the crate, but it remained stubbornly closed. No opening runes burned through the wood.
My chest constricted. The crown symbols had ignored me in the same way.
Was I–was I losing my powers? It would have been the final blow.
“You both need to open it,” Dara said. “Extra safety.”
My small relieved sigh melted with Dax’s reluctant one. I wondered if I’d ever live to see the day when he didn’t avoid his Protectorate powers like he did with so many other facts of his existence.
If we didn’t win this war, I wouldn’t.
Under our gliding fingers, the crate shook as blue symbols burned through the wood. Its top opened with a hiss, filling my room with the smell of sunny days running on the beach, salty waves, and a sweet, tangy scent I couldn’t identify.
Hundreds of perfectly round stones greeted us, all etched with the same precise symbol. Dara had carved and sealed, readying them to be enchanted.
“I’m just saying.” Dax rubbed his right shoulder, staring at the palaver portal. “Between the two of us, you were always the overzealous one.”
“Yes,” Dara said matter-of-factly, as she always did.
While their faces were almost mirrored, both carrying their father’s Vegheara jaw and their mother’s high cheekbones and bronze skin, Dax had always had a liveliness that Dara had refused.
She liked to let him be the center of attention so that people would leave her alone to study her runes–and Dax did not mind one bit.
“Where did you find so many pristine rocks?” I raised one to admire it in the light. Its grey exterior twinkled in the rays, but the rune inscribed in its center remained stubbornly dark and inert.
She shrugged, her grey eyes watching me closely. “Easy when you know where to look for them.”
“It’s easy for you and your delightful brother.” With their amazing abilities that we didn’t speak about.
“He’s getting on your nerves, isn’t he?” she asked.
“Hey!” Dax leaned closer to the palaver. “We shared the same womb, you’re supposed to be on my side.”
“You kicked me one too many times before we were born. Now I have to pay you back.”
I shook my head, smiling at them. Clara had spent most of her childhood in my parents’ care, but nothing could compare with the bond between the two of them–as creaky as it could be at times.
