Harder to lie to herself about.
Why should I care?she wanted to say. Wanted to believe. But now the idea that he might not be there at all brought a wave of messy emotions to the surface. They threatened to break free from that little box inside herself where Elyria had stuffed them after the Crucible ended. Right alongside the memory of his golden-brown eyes staring into hers, the feel of his hand brushing her wing, his hair tangled between her fingers, his lips upon hers...
Nope. She was most definitely not thinking about any of that. Not even a little bit.
She clamped the lid of that rattling box down tighter, reburying it deep below the knot of shadows in her chest—the power that had been idle ever since they left the Sanctum. Idle, but not dormant. She could still feel it there, coiled and restless. Like it was waiting for something.
For someone.
Kit cleared her throat, pulling Elyria’s attention back. “You said Ellie was being summoned?” she reminded Thraigg.
“Right-o. Her Grace said it’s time to head to the palace. Ye’ve got a final meeting with the king before we take off in the morning.”
Kit rolled her eyes. “And did you remindHer Gracethat she has dozens of servants working on this estate who could have easily delivered this message? You don’t have to do that, you know. You do not work for my mother.”
Thraigg grinned. “And miss the chance to see my two favorite gals in their, er, natural habitat?” He waved his hand at the messy room, then let out a dramatic sigh. “Sometimes I think ye really don’t know me at all.”
“Were only we all so lucky,” drawled Tenebris Nox, their unmistakable voice—both hard and soft, feminine and masculine—seeping into the room from the open doorway. Thraigg scowled at the nocterrian, who leaned a broad shoulder against the doorframe. A shadow passed across their indigo skin as they tucked long strands of pitch-black hair into a bun that sat between the horns curving back from either side of their forehead.
“Well, since the gang’s all here,” Elyria said, a chuckle bubbling up between the words, “far be it from me to keep the king waiting.”
Still, as she followed Thraigg out the door, Nox shadowing his steps and Kit skipping behind, the humor she felt transformed into something sharper. This was it—the start of something new. The next step.
Kit’s voice echoed in her mind:Kingshelm means the beginning of a whole new kind of game.
Elyria hoped she was prepared to play it.
2
TRISTAN HALE, ACADEMIC
CEDRIC
The libraryat Paideus was quiet. The scratch of quills and the creak of leather bindings being opened drifted through the air. Cedric wrinkled his nose at the smell of aged parchment as he turned a page, the book’s ancient words lit by the golden rays filtering in through the arched windows lining the wall behind him.
He wasn’t sure how long he and Tristan had spent buried in the words here today, but the dwindling pile of untouched tomes to his right and the growing ache in his lower back told him it had beena while.
“Anything?” Tristan asked, not looking up from his own book-laden corner of the table. He kept his voice low, unwilling to risk the magister’s wrath for disturbing the library’s reverent stillness.Not again, at least.
Cedric shook his head, running a hand through his chestnut hair, then fiddling with the black sleeve of his tunic. “Nothing useful. Just more of the same.” More accounts of the War of Two Realms, of what happened after the Shattering, when Queen Daephinia and Malakar destroyed each other during the Battle of Luminaria. Tome after tome on how Havensreach rebuilt itself after the Chasms splintered the world. On the various Arcanian settlements still strewn throughout the Midlands. But not a single mention of Princess Selenae. Nothing that theyneeded.
“We have been at this for the better part of two weeks.” Tristan scrubbed a hand down his face, scratching at the scar that cut down his left cheek, his wavy blond hair wild and unkempt. He lowered his voice further. “If the mixedborn princess really did survive Malakar’s betrayal, if she escaped Luminaria when the city fell, it would appear nobody in Havensreach knew about it.”
Cedric released a weary sigh, poking at a stack of books he’d set aside that pertained to the Arcane Crucible. He had thought perhaps they might elucidate what truly became of the Crown of Concord after the Shattering. But there was nothing about the crown being celestial-forged. No mention of only half of it ending up as the prize at the heart of the Crucible. As such, there was certainly nothing to help them figure out what became of theotherhalf.
By all accounts, the only people who knew it existed at all were, well, the ones the star goddess Aurelia had told directly—Cedric and...her.
Of course, there were all those with whom they had since shared the information. The other champions who survived the Crucible, for a start. Tristan. Lord Church. And the king.
Cedric still wasn’t wholly convinced that King Callum had believed his tale, but Lord Church was quick to assure Cedric that the king understood the dangers of Varyth Malchior better than anyone. That they had been granted carte blanche to do whatever was necessary to locate the missing half of the crown, as well as to retrieve the stolen piece.
Still, there had been something odd in the lord’s reception of the news. He had seemed surprised to learn that the crown had been sundered in half, that only one part had been the reward at the end of the Arcane Crucible. But when Cedric went on to tell him that an agent ofMalchior had been working against him the entire time he was in the Sanctum, Lord Church’s reaction faltered. To anyone else, perhaps the gape of his jaw and the lift of his brows might have made it look like the lord was shocked, but something inside Cedric told him it was simply pretense. Like Lord Church did not truly care that Zephyr had stolen the crown piece on the dark sorcerer’s behalf. Did not mind that it was no longer in Cedric’s possession.
Perhaps it wasn’t fair of Cedric to judge the lord’s response. Everyone reacts differently to news. And the fact remained that both King Callum and Lord Churchhadto be invested in retrieving the crown. So much so, they were willing to make deals with the Arcanians, at least.
Cedric rubbed circles into his temples in an attempt to alleviate the mounting frustration building there. And though he tried his very best not to let it in, he couldn’t stop the vision that greeted him when he squeezed his eyes shut.
As if he wanted to stop it.
