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“You’ll read about the countries in there,” she said, gesturing to the book. “But I’m sure you know about the tension between the three countries: Jasfin, Palgia, and Tholand.”
I nodded. I’d seen some maps, although I’d never really been taught anything formally.
“Jasfin and Palgia are on the brink of war.”
“Why?”
“Resources,” Nylah said with an easy shrug. “Falx, the King of Palgia, also known as the King of Darkness, is greedy. He’s ruined his own country and stripped it of all that represents life. Now, he wants what we have. For centuries, Jasfin has been more powerful, but Palgia is catching up.”
“How?”
“King Falx is a Conjurite. He uses dark magic to enforce his evil and reign in terror.”
I shook my head, frowning. “What’s a Conjurite?”
Nylah closed her eyes, and it looked like what she told me pained her.
“We draw our power from the Goddess Terra. Fae get their magic from her, where they walk in the Neutral Realm. But the Conjurites don’t draw their power from Terra. They draw it from darkness. It’s a terrible magic, and it kills what it touches. Maybe not right away, but slowly. It’s why Palgia is slowly dying, and there is nothing left of the beauty that once was.”
Jasfin was incredibly beautiful. Lush forests, rolling fields, cornflower blue skies and thunderstorms that made every living being tremble. Steepholde, where I’d grown up, was a village close to the southern coastline, and the mild climate made it an ideal place to live.
Even here, near the palace and the mountains, the forests were lush, and the Fae lived in cottages between the trees.
I tried to envision what the view from King Rainier’s window must have been like if everything had been dead and the river dried up.
“It sounds awful,” I said. “Where does this dark magic come from?”
“I don’t know,” Nylah admitted. “I’ve asked Terra, but she won’t show me anything. I’ve done all the reading I could, combing through tomes and scrolls and every book I could get my hands on. Fae have to give up the light—the magic we use—to use Conjurite magic. In Jasfin, many do this to survive because so much darkness surrounds them.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “For the sake of being powerful.”
I shook my head. I was learning so much about the world I lived in, things I’d never known before. I’d grown up around Fae and served them, but I’d known nothing other than my need to survive, keeping my nose clean, and steering clear of magic if it would kill me.
“Ren has more power than the kings of the past,” Nylah said. “We look to him to save us. If anyone can lead us through this war, it will be him.”
“That’s a lot of pressure,” I said, thinking about what Dex had said to me about the King.
“It is. And war is devastating. If we stand together, and Ren stands firm on what he believes, there’s hope yet.”
I nodded. Hope was all we really had.
The conversation changed from the war to Nylah’s life growing up. Nylah told me more about how she’d grown up in the palace with Ren, studying here in the cathedral, and playing with him when she took a break.
I smiled sadly.
“What’s wrong?” Nylah asked.
“I know it sounds silly,” I said. “But when you talk about your friendship with the King, and I see how Dex is with him…I wish I had people like that in my life growing up. I had no one. I lived in an orphanage, and I hadn’t seen my adoptive family since I was sixteen. Any kids I met were just as broken as I was. Playing wasn’t something we had time to do between cleaning, cooking, or working to bring in money for the orphanage. After that, it was all about working, so I could survive on my own.”
Nylah shook her head. “I’m horrified at how you grew up.”
I chuckled, not because my story was funny, but because I was uncomfortable being so vulnerable. “It didn’t bother me before. Only now, when I see the stark contrast between this life and the one I used to have.”
“Well, you’re here now,” Nylah said warmly. She put her hand on my arm, and warmth and magic pulsed there. “And you have us to lean on and to turn to. We may not have known each other for centuries, the way Ren and I have—”
“Centuries?”
