CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Abandon Stynguard and sail your fleet south. Rising forces knock at the gates of Aedrialis, and the shores are littered with Marisarma trash.
—Correspondence from General Calvus to Lord Pavel.
Blood leached from Vienah’s face. Tremors raced through my hands as power rose from the depths.
“Lower your weapon,” I breathed.
Astraeus slid his dark eyes to mine. “No.”
A countdown began in my mind, and when it reached zero, there would be nothing holding the blade pressed to Vienah’s exposed neck, air oath be damned. A trickle of blood slid down her ivory skin.
“Please,” she begged, and my heart squeezed. “Kellan,please.”
“Tell them,my dear, about those little lightning tricks you’ve kept hidden all these months,” Astraeus crooned as silence cleaved the room.
My heart began a slow gallop in my chest.
“I cannot control the fire in the skies,” Vienah pleaded, a small whimper escaping her lips.
“Is that so, water witch? You’re more powerful than you’ve been letting on. Tell them about yourmessages.”
Vienah’s throat bobbed as she tried to swallow against Astraeus’s curved blade.
“What are you talking about?” I breathed. I couldn’t pull my gaze away from the small pool of tears balancing in Vienah’s brown eyes.
“Odessa… Demon’s Door… And now here, on Saros’s doorstep.” Astraeus’s tone turned deadly as he inched his face closer to Vienah, his blade perfectly still.
“I suspected something was off when that storm arrived at Demon’s Door,” he murmured, his face a breath from hers. “A bit unseasonal, for a lightning storm in the southern part of the kingdom, I should think. Certainly, unseasonal in the Thandal Sea.”
Vienah blinked, a tear trickling down her cheek as she slid her watery gaze to me.
“Lyvia, please,” she whispered, her throat dipping along the blade. “I didn’t have a choice. King Saros has my family…”
My throat went dry.
I blinked once, twice, attempting to process what had happened amidst the thundering of my blood as I came face-to-face with another betrayal…Spy, my powers whispered beneath my skin.
Vienah had spied on the Rising, on us, on me…for months.
“Please, Lyvia,” Vienah pleaded. “Father Marcus is still alive. I can help you…”
Rage squashed the growing nausea as my veins darkened, a shimmering golden glow lining them.
Odessa.
That evening, amidst my anger toward Bayne—when Ronan had shared his secret and Bayne’s deception—I had barely registered the strange heat lightning that sparked in the night before the attack.
A message. A signal, giving away our location to Saros’s forces that attacked in the night.
Thousandsof lives were lost that day.
The pressure rising deep below began to quicken, and my fingers buzzed. Astraeus snapped his head toward me.
“Get out of the tent, Lyvia,” he ordered.
I opened my mouth to respond as Ezrich hurtled into the war tent and skidded to a stop.
