“Your draken son?” I asked the bloodwitch instead, raising an eyebrow.
Her gaze snapped to mine. “Careful, King. You speak as though that were a sin.”
“Look around,” I grit out, frustrated.
Her eyes flicked to the watching crowd, gaze softening as it landed on the half-draken children, clutching their parents’ hands.
“It is a question,” I said evenly. “There were no other drakens left after the war. We would have known if?—”
“If your sight reached beyond your own borders?” she interrupted sharply. “If your precious wards didn’t choke the air so tight that nothing could breathe under them?”
There was a tense silence, filled only by the sound of waves softly crashing over the beach. A gull cried overhead.
My jaw clenched. I unclenched it so I could respond. “The wards keep the island safe. And they weren’t even renewed until just recently. The island was barren and unprotected all that time in-between!”
Ronan tapped his chin with a claw. “Perhaps your son felt the urge. Domik and I studied it. As drakens mature, they feel a need to explore to find a mate. We figured it was the reason most of us went mad in the mountains, unable to leave.”
Nerissa sniffed, kicking up sand. “The wards keep youblind.You don’t think it’s possible to have missed more drakens? How are any of them to even find you?”
Her words cracked through me before I could block them. Wren stiffened beside me. My own guilt bubbled in my veins like a festering wound. I was trying to protect who I had left of my people, but I’d also shut out anyone left. I did that the first time with the mountain men. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson.
Always doomed to make the wrong choices. What would Father think of you?
My hand folded into a fist.
Keep it together.
“Start from the beginning,” Ronan said softly, his scholar’s tone calm enough to coax our attention back to the subject at hand. “You said Anar was your son. Tell us how. You are not a draken, obviously.”
Nerissa’s eyes glistened, but not with weakness. “I found my mate in chains,” she said, “in a slaver’s pit off the coast of the shattered isles. He was barely more than a beast when I found him—crazed, half-starved, knowing only blood and violence. My father was keeping him like achained dog, his attack dog. It’s how he kept control over his pirate company and the seas.”
Wren gasped quietly, grabbing my hand. I already knew what she was thinking.
Descendants of survivors of Lyoness. It had to be!
Nerissa continued, “I didn’t know what he was at first. I just knew he wasn’t meant to live like that. To make a rather long story short, I freed him and took over my father’s company. The soldiers came and burned what was left. Once they were gone, the bloodwitches helped us reclaim the island, and we warded it up.” Her chin lifted, proud and unrepentant. “Not unlike you. Drakens apparently have a thing for wards.”
Ronan blinked. “You used bloodmagick to free him?”
“No,” she said. “I didn’t know I was a witch until I stumbled into my own coven by accident. They reclaimed me and helped us.” She eyed us all warily. “You are not the only ones scattered and doing their best to survive.”
Wren let go of my hand, instead turning to face Nerissa. “How many children do you have?”
The witch gave her a warm smile. “Three.” It turned sad as she gazed on the body, the jewels in her hair catching bits of sunlight as they chimed together. My own bloodmagick sang near her, so I believed her claim of being a bloodwitch. “Now just two, living.”
“Your father was human?” I asked slowly.
She shrugged. “As human as greed allows.”
“And your mother?”
Her expression hardened. “A bloodwitch. A tryst and deal made with a pirate king who didn’t know the difference between a seawitch and bloodwitch. He wanted a daughter to control the waves and boost his power.”
Meruse snorted.
Kieran’s eyes narrowed. “So you took his ship.”
“After I slit his throat. Tried to sell me to a rival pirate to settle a score. I protested.”
