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Now it was Lander’s turn to flush. He scratched the back of his head and said, “Three days is my personal record, but I’m getting close to four.”
“Perfect.” Coen grabbed a handful of golden coins from a table behind him, the metal clinking in his hand. “Just enough time for you to change these into normal money with the Good Council’s crest until Emelle’s birds can distribute them across the island. Then when they revert to their original states, every villager will think they’ve discovered some relic of the past on their own: the first step to get them whispering and wondering who Jagaros even is.”
Coen tilted a single coin toward us so that we could see its surface and what the villagers would find when Lander’s shifting magic faded: foreign letters and symbols splattered the metal above an etching of Jagaros’s face—or, more accurately, his replica of Kanuk’s face—poised and regal and just as mysterious as when he was in tiger form.
While Jagaros looked at the coin uncomfortably, my eyes jerked up to Coen himself, a sense of awe leaping in my heart.
He was a genius. A true unfettered genius.
Since the Wild Whispering elites monitored and controlled all packages via birds or other animals, we couldn’t dispense artifacts from the Uninhabitable Zone without them catching and censoring it first. By using Emelle and Lander’s gifts together, the public would get their first introduction to the king of old through these solid but subtle pieces of evidence.
“Of course, this will kickstart a load of rumors that we need to make sure stay on track and stick to the truth, so…” Coen smothered a smirk at Terrin and Dazmine. “I hope you two can manage not to kill each other, because you’re about to be in close proximity for—oh, I’d say the next few months at least.”
As expected, Terrin and Dazmine burst into protests when Coen explained their mission, but it became quite apparent within a few minutes of his answering their questions that there was no other option. Sasha and Sylvie couldn’t do it, because they were needed for something else Coen had up his sleeve.
And so it went. Kanuk’s raised eyebrows went from obviously cynical to begrudgingly impressed, while Jagaros began to pace up and down the treehouse floor in earnest, each of his movements lithe but powerful as he assessed the unfurling plan.
I myself couldn’t stop staring at Coen with an entire new flurry of questions.
Was this what Fate had seen the day she’d named him as the future General of Sorronia? This moment in the treehouse, when he unleashed all his strategies and tactics for the first time? Or were there other moments to come that Fate had foreseen… not just of him scheming, but of him winning? Did his status as the Fated General ensure our victory here, or had we altered the course of his destiny by skirting around Queen Mydusia’s orders?
For so long, I’d wondered what Fate looked like, what she even was. Every rare mention of her seemed to be tinged with fear, but I knew she presided in a temple and granted magical bonds to a select few faerie couples while denying most others the privilege. I knew Queen Mydusia had visited her once upon a long time ago and asked her for help selecting a new leader for her future armies after the last General had died.
And I knew that despite how much I yearned to go to that temple with Coen, to ask the question, to be given the chance, the fear won out. What if Fate said no? What if she took one look at my face, sensed my anger over how she’d put a literal child right into the queen’s hands, and exiled us from the temple?
Or worse—what if she told Queen Mydusia about us?
As Coen made his rounds with each and every person in the treehouse, I held my breath until his eyes landed on me.
Would he trust me with an assignment? Or did he know that I needed to work on controlling my magic first? That I would only hinder everyone here?
“Rayna.” Coen tilted his head when he said my name, no longer just the upperclassman I’d met on my first day at the Esholian Institute or the pirate fugitive hunting me down or the male I’d fallen in love with along the way, but the Fated General who was destined to conquer worlds.
Mine included.
His mouth curved wickedly, the entire Cosmos swirling in his irises.
“You,” he told me finally, “are going to be my spy.”
CHAPTER
25
RAYNA
“Your spy?”
Coen merely winked at me without elaborating. Turning to Jagaros, he asked, “What do you think?”
Jagaros nodded at the floorboards for several seconds before he mused, “Yes. I think this gives us a fighting chance.” He looked up, pupils swishing between Coen and me and then to Kanuk. “In the meantime, we can get our warriors training again.”
“Training?” I blurted out.
Jagaros had once spent his days training me among the bamboo. Although I’d complained about the sessions, I had to admit their absence left me feeling a little hollow. Like maybe the tiger—no, the faerie king—had given up on me.
A feeling that was more or less confirmed when Jagaros nodded at my knife sheath strapped to my thigh. “No point in training you when you’re too scared to use the weapons at your disposal, Rayna Drey. Face what’s holding you back, then come talk to me about training again.”
I sat rooted in my chair, embarrassment creeping up my cheeks. Maybe Coen was right to call him a bastard. As he resumed talking about his own plans—his warriors, their weapons, and their powers—Emelle leaned in close with a comforting hand on my elbow.
