It’s a probability, not a possibility, because my uncle isn’t going to give up the throne willingly. Better they all know it now than regret their choices later, but there's no reaction amongst them. No questions, no hesitance, nothing. They all stand motionless and ready.
Turning to Kytan and Reed, I gesture at them to move to the barracks. “Training starts now. I don't care how long you've ridden, the witches won't wait until you've rested to attack our people and take whatever spoils they deem their own.”
The soldiers clasp their hands over their hearts and bow to me as one, folding in half in respect, and the first seeds of hope begin to take hold within me.
Fifty extra soldiers.
This could certainly prove to be a blessing from the Fates. I move towards the barracks behind the castle to watch as the assessments begin under Kytan's critical eye.
Roan joins me, looking on for the first few soldiers before he steps forward to assist, giving his own opinions and assessing alongside Kytan. The commander accepts the help and opinions easily, the two of them splitting up the males between them. I reserve my own judgments for now.
A flash of dark hair catches my eye, and I turn to see Rooke in her garden, the noise of the barracks having caught her attention. She stands and studies the newcomers. When she notices my attention, she pauses as though she is struck by my gaze. It’s a stupid thought; she’s never struck by me no matter how sharp my barbs are, but the stillness within her at my presence shifts something in me.
I motion for her to join me.
Eyes narrowing slightly before she covers it, she nods slowly and then lifts a single finger to indicate that she needs a moment. She ducks back into the healer’s quarters, presumably to reassure Thea that she's not disappearing altogether, and when she steps back out, her cloak is wrapped around her shoulders. None of my soldiers take any notice of her. None of them dare.
Tauron’s bloodied face took two days to heal without Rooke’s assistance.
She comes to stand at my side with a slight bow, her eyes critical on the group as Roan begins the next assessment. Her stance is different here, wider and more centered, as though she’s the one facing an opponent in the rings, and it’s almost impossible to keep my focus away from her. I’m too aware of her, the sound of her heartbeat in my ear and the scent of her skin wrapping around me until my blood burns in my veins.
One by one, the men tap out even as Roan goes easy on them, but it’s the torture of standing at my Fates-blessed mate’s side that fixes a scowl on my face, not the state of the males before me. The respectful distance she’s always maintained between us is quickly becoming an insurmountable chasm, my temper and her deeply unaffected nature working steadfast against our shared fate.
"Roan's footwork is exceptional. He's far better than most," Rooke comments in the old language, and I give her a curt nod back.
"His father was an excellent teacher. Prince Roan suffers no fools or spoiled sons, and he never would’ve allowed Roan to leave the Outlands if he wasn't confident in his abilities."
She nods but her gaze remains on the soldiers in front of us, tracing Kytan and Alwyn as the two of them murmur together quietly. She can't hear what they're saying, but when they start directing the beaten soldiers, it’s clear they're ranking each of the newcomers, deciding who needs to go to basic training and who is suitable already for sentry work.
Reed and a handful of the other experienced soldiers begin setting up the training targets for the assessment of their shooting ability, a necessary skill for anyone who takes the wall. We watch as Tauron joins them, taking up a bow while he calls out demands to the soldiers. Roan splits the males into smaller groups and directs them to Tauron as he finishes with them in the sparring rings. No one has picked up a sword yet, and thatwill be the true test of their training, how adept they were in the first place and whether they've kept those skills sharp. Relief floods me as the first batch of males let loose their arrows and all land true in their targets.
Rooke hums happily under her breath, nodding as though relieved, and I turn away from the assessment for a moment to watch her instead. “Are you as good with a bow as you are with your sword?”
Her eyebrow quirks at me, a smirk in her voice. “You’re terrible at conversations, Prince Soren. Are you ever going to speak to me without demanding something?”
I shoot her a hard look, furious that she can find humor so easily while I’m holding on to my sanity by a thread. “I was unaware you wanted to speak to me at all. I thought it was my command alone that forced you to suffer my presence.”
Her scoff is barely audible, but the shake of her head is there for all to see. “I’m not sure where you got that idea. I’ve already told you that I alone decide my actions, and I’ve offered you many chances to speak civilly with me. You’re the one obsessed with power—what use is that to a Favored Child?”
My jaw clenches in frustration at her riddles and I turn to her. “No one even knows what that is.”
She stares at me, her eyes sharp and ancient. “You’ll learn.”
Something stirs within me—something I once would’ve called suspicion or my temper, but now I see it for what it is. My magic reacts to her words, her presence, the power she holds. The ways of old might be lost to my people, but our magic remembers, and it wants her as desperately as the Fates-cursed haze within me does.
She feels this response in me, her eyes widening a fraction before she looks away, fixing her gaze back on the display before us as though it’s the easiest task she’s ever undertaken. It’simpossible for me to look away from her, and I want to curse the Fates all over again.
"I wouldn’t fare so well in these trials. Your bows are far shorter than the Seelie design, and there's every chance I’d fail miserably until I adjusted. I've never held a bow so short—it takes far more strength to pull those strings back."
My gaze finally follows hers back to the assessment, as though by her command, and both of us watch as the high fae males use the bows with ease. "Are all Seelie bows larger, or just those given to part-bloods and lower fae?"
I've never seen the larger bows myself, but I know their design. The messengers who traveled between the kingdoms painted a terrifying picture of the Sol Army, a vast ocean of fae folk clothed in blood-red with sunbursts over their chest and helmets of finely crafted Seelie steel inlaid with the same gold that dripped over the entire kingdom, their armor etched with designs of ancient ferocities.
The tales we heard of their mastery were as fierce as they were glorious, the battalions as destructive as the Fates themselves when commanded by their king. Even at the lowest point of the Fates War, when the Sol King was pushed to his most desperate acts, the messengers were in awe of the weapon he’d mercilessly honed to protect his kingdom.
To think that my mate was a part of such a golden expanse of strength has my Unseelie nature writhing in fury in my gut. Iloathethe idea of her having served another king, every inch of her mine alone to covet, and there isn’t a drop of shame in me for such a feeling. The Fates gave me this female, and I to her, and it’s probably for the best that she didn’t arrive in the Southern Lands in the uniform of the Sol Army, because it’s hard enough keeping my temper without that image in my mind.
It may take a century or two before I accept that fact.
