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I could have gone back to my domain to shower and rid myself of the smell, but I didn’t want to go anywhere Arven could find me. I needed to be alone. Today had been too much. It was all…overwhelming.
Arven
Del vanished.I could have tracked her magical scent to find her, but I figured she needed time. Everything she’d thought she knew had been turned upside down. It would take time for her to come to terms with this new reality.
Myriam stepped up alongside me. I plucked the enchanted cigarette from her fingers and crushed it under the heel of my boot. She said nothing, but the disappointment on her face was sour.
“Prepare yourself to become a widow,” I told Myriam.
Again, she remained quiet. My rage must have poured off me in waves. How she could handle being in the same room as me, I didn’t know. Perhaps she’d become accustomed to it because of her husband, though the thought only made me angrier.
He would become a dead man one way or another. I couldn’t make the first move, as badly as I wanted to. Our two kingdoms weren’t at peace with one another, but if I attempted to kill him, it would signal a new era of war between our kingdoms.
No one wanted that.
Besides, if I stole the kill from Del now, she would never forgive me. I’d been on thin ice up until now. I didn’t expect a whole lot to change overnight. Now that she knew I’d had nothing to do with the siege on her home, her view of me would change, but perhaps not for the better. I’d still failed her by not being there.
I was her betrothed. Protecting her should have been my upmost duty, but I’d been off at a far-flung corner of my own kingdom. That, too, must have been arranged. I didn’t ask Myriam. I simply assumed that Locke had thought his plans through enough to know that I would have come to Del’s aid if I’d been free.
I had news to share. My brother would want to know updates. Calen was a master of information. He would be angry if I withheld this new turn of events from him.
Stepping in-between, the scenery changed from the sickeningly overdone rococo mansion. The smell of home reached me first, though it didn’t pull me in the way it used to. The aroma of bread baking in the kitchens below made my stomach growl greedily, but I felt no sense of comfort like I’d expected. The marble walls and columns of the Golden Court were beautiful and oddly overwhelming all at once.
It made me realize just how little time I’d spent here in recent years. Ever since the fall of Eveningwind, the borders of our kingdom required my presence to keep the other kingdoms from testing their limits. This court was no longer the place my heart called home. Because of the battles, I wasn’t even sure my heart would call the borders of our kingdom home.
A dark figure watched me from the doorway at the end of the bright marble hall. He pushed off the wall and stalked closer. I spread my arms and welcomed the embrace from my younger brother.
Calen had his brown hair pulled back in a knot of intricate elven braids. He looked like a stereotype out of a mortal movie with his leather tunic and boots bearing delicate silver details. His bright eyes winked with knowledge I couldn’t quite glean.
“You’re home early,” Calen said.
“I learned something that I thought you might like to know.”
He chuckled. “That the Balefire court is responsible for the fall of Eveningwind?”
The chill wave of shock almost drowned out the rage that’d been boiling just beneath my skin. It couldn’t quite overtake my beast’s anger as I stared my brother down. He’d never bothered to share this information with me. While I shouldn’t have been shocked that he’d known, I was outraged that he’d never told me.
Nonchalant, he nodded and turned to lead me deeper into the castle as he continued to speak. “It is something I found out shortly after the siege occurred. However, we couldn’t make a move at the time because so many of our resources were needed on other fronts. Had we attacked Balefire Court, they would have broken our offenses and pushed deeper. It was what Locke wanted.”
In the war room, I stopped at the raised map of the elven kingdoms and gripped the edge of the table it sat upon. I stared at the crushed wood where Eveningwind had been. “She deserved better.”
“And we would have fallen to your sense of revenge,” Calen added.
My lip curled. When I spun, he didn’t even flinch.
“I could have taken Locke.” My roar echoed in the dark room, the only one not bathed in white marble.
“One on one? Absolutely.” Calen nodded. “But our troops were tired at the time. They’d been defending other fronts non-stop. Don’t you remember how you were pulled off to the west? The battles had been one after another. Even you’d been exhausted. I know that you could have killed Locke, even in that state, but our court wouldn’t have survived.
“Locke’s heirs would have stepped up and pushed while we were defenseless. Every elven kingdom has an heir ready to take the throne the moment their leader falls. Here, it’s me. At the time, Locke had several cousins just like him waiting to be the one to take down the Golden Beast of the D’Or Court.”
As much as I hated it, Calen was right. There was a reason we worked so well together. Even as the heir who could inherit the throne next, he made sure to put the court first. He could have made moves that would have sacrificed me on the front line. Instead, he made sure that we stayed strong together.
My brother had my best interests in mind, but I couldn’t help the bubbling resentment rising up from my feet. He’d known this whole time. I had been living with so much guilt.
“Besides, your fiancée grew into quite the woman while you were away. She’d admirable, isn’t she?”
Once more, my features twisted. “I wish I could have been at her side while she grew. I could have offered her security, help, training…I could have kept her from becoming so bitter and guarded.”
