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“Well, this is unexpected,” Keres said. “Here I thought to introduce you to family, and somehow, you’ve beaten me to it.”
Vera laughed and squeezed Kerrigan tighter. “You’ve already had a long journey together. Why don’t we all go inside and catch up? I would be delighted to hear what sort of mischief you’re getting into, dear cousin.”
Keres grinned. “Of course.”
“Are you staying?” Vera asked Basille Selby.
He bowed deeply. “This is all the adventure I need for the time being. Send a summons if you need me again.”
“We will,” Keres said gratefully. “Thank you, old friend.”
“Always at your service,” Master Selby said before returning to his horses.
“And who is this?” Vera tilted her head as she looked up at Fordham. “I believe you met Cyrene once upon a time.”
“I did,” he said evenly. Back when he’d been a prince of nightmares within the House of Shadows. Back before his world had shattered.
“You’re not the same Fae you were then,” she mused.
“I’m not.”
“And Daijan?” She turned to Keres in shock. “I thought you weren’t taking on any more of them.”
“It was extenuating circumstances,” Keres said. “I did it to save their lives.”
“Fine. But it’s a disgusting habit. As with all your slavery in these parts.” She looked ready to spit from the fury. “Pay your workers! Imagine that. Payment, Keres.”
“I know, Cousin Vera. Change comes more slowly to the Domaran Empire than to your Emporia.”
Vera sniffed. “You just need the right person to lead the charge.” She shot Kerrigan a shrewd look. “Like this one here.”
Kerrigan raised her hands. “I have enough on my plate. Alandria needs me. Traitors took my magic. I need to find a way to get it back and a way home before my world is just as bad as this one.”
Vera looked between the people who had been dumped on her doorstep and sighed. “I thought I was done with revolutions, but it seems another one has come to find me. Let’s get inside. Tell me all about it.”
41
The Aftermath
Over a hot meal, Kerrigan filled Vera in on their travels and adventures. All the problems with the Red Masks that had started with Cyrene and her entourage leaving with their dragons all those years ago and ended with Kerrigan losing her magic and fleeing. Vera looked drained by the end of the discussion. They had defeated the darkness in their world, only to leave so much behind in Kerrigan’s.
“Well, that is … terrible.”
“It’s been pretty terrible,” Kerrigan agreed.
“Does Cyrene know about this?” Vera asked.
“I don’t have a way to contact her. They closed the portal after we brought the dragons through to help.”
Vera pursed her lips. “Likely the same people who took over were worried that she’d come to help you.”
“Yeah. That … would make a lot of sense,” Kerrigan admitted.
“But surely, you should have been able to take them on, on your own,” Keres said. She’d been oddly silent through the ordeal. Just listening to all that had happened in a world that wasn’t her own, but where she had left her daughter, hoping for a better life for her.
“Me?” Kerrigan asked. “I did the best I could, but I was one person against the government and a world of dragons.”
“Not to mention that they think half-Fae are lesser,” Fordham added.
He, too, had been quiet through the story. Even though he had been there for much of what happened. His eyes were haunted, and he retreated into his shadows.
“Right. That’s the whole problem. Unlike here, where there are very few Fae, our world is primarily Fae. They blame people like me.” Kerrigan touched her slightly pointed ears that gave away her heritage. Not human at all in fact. Doma was her other half. Not that it mattered what she was in her world with ears like hers. “And I didn’t have enough magic or influence to do more than tip the scales.”
Keres came to her feet and paced in front of the big bay windows that looked over the valley below. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“What part?”
“Your magic,” Vera filled in. “Right, cousin?”
Keres nodded. “She’s a demi-Doma. The blood is diluted, but not that diluted. There have been Fae-touched demi-Doma in the past, and they had tremendous ability.”
“In this world,” Vera said.
“Yes, but …”
“With training from other Doma.”
“I suppose,” Keres acknowledged.
“It sounds like she was doing her own training. No one can train her in Doma abilities if they have no recollection of what they are. Even I didn’t recognize her as a demi when we met years ago.”
“Well, she wouldn’t have fully come into her abilities then,” Keres said. “And I suppose it makes a difference, but I hadn’t considered it would make that big of a difference.”
“Are you saying that one person would have been able to take on hundreds of magically aligned people?” Kerrigan asked. “Just me?”
