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“You’ve been putting in long hours training the men at the new base here. I have no idea how you have such energy at the end of the day,” Krew added.
It was the same way he and I had practiced with our magic all those years after our father went to bed. Restlessness. I turned my head to the side to ask over my shoulder. “Is this an intervention?”
Owen plopped down in the sand next to me and handed me a flask. “Nope.”
Some Nerede local teenagers had taught me how to wave ride a month ago, and I’d been addicted to it since. The way it felt to glide over the top of the water on a board. The chaos of knowing you could be knocked down at any moment. And quite unlike the kids in Nerede who went wave riding, I could use my magic to move me faster or slower and avoid the big wipe outs. Or most of them. Compared to how the Nerede kids wave rode, it was cheating to use my magic, but it was still an absolute blast.
Wave riding was the only thing that wore me out enough to shut it all off. The pain and anger of what my father had done. The weight of being a walking disappointment to my people. Even just the sound of the waves helped the restless feelings I often struggled under. And now that summer was nearing its end, I supposed my nightly rides would grow fewer as there would be less daylight hours.
Then again, I could wave ride in the dark using my Enchantment. That sounded dangerous and also like an absolute thrill.
Maybe I wasn’t done after all.
Krew sat on the other side of me. “This view isn’t bad.”
I craved the chaos of the sea. The castle held too many memories. Too many alternate realties I could get lost in. But here? Here I could be just Keir. Not a Valanova. Not a prince wearing far too many masks. Not the king who never was.
“You need to stop taking late night trips through Savaryn, brother,” I snapped slightly more harshly than intended. “If you get attacked again, our queen will purge Savaryn of all father’s loyal.”
“Might be easier to do it with just cause like that than trying to weed them out one by one the way we have been,” Krew commented. “It would save us both time and effort.”
I didn’t envy him or the responsibilities of the crown. They were tasked with healing Wylan from the inside out. And there were just too many Savaryn still loyal to my father. It’d been three months and they were still nowhere close to removing my father’s most loyal supporters from power.
And even when they did, there was always the looming threat that eventually, they could rebel. The disloyal rebellion was now all loyal to the crown. The Enchanted of Savaryn? Not so much.
I took a pull of Owen’s whiskey and let out a sigh. I was not close to being done with my training group. They’d need another month or more before they’d be ready to work the base without my constant supervision. But if I was needed at Kavan Keep, I supposed it was time to quit hiding in Nerede, even if I did selfishly love it here. “Can I help?”
“Glad you asked,” Owen provided, taking his flask from me.
“Why are you here, Raikes? Last I checked, you were plenty busy with training yourself,” I jested, taking the flask back.
He snatched it back just before it reached my lips. “Protection. As always.”
I cocked my head.
“And likely comic relief,” he added.
“And there it is,” I deadpanned.
Krew snorted a laugh before turning to look into my eyes. My twin brother. The best damn king we all could have ever asked for. I regretted many things in my life, many things from the past year, but putting him on the throne would never be one of them.
“What is it you need?” I asked.
He took a deep breath and his eyes flicked to the waves. “You always have been a better diplomat.”
My eyebrows arched upward. “If you are starting with a compliment, this is sure to be quite the request.”
“Dra Skor responded to Jorah’s letter,” Krew blurted out. “We did not include our suspicions about the poison in our first letter for obvious reasons. It was just an introductory of sorts. From one queen to another.”
My head jerked back. They hadn’t responded to any correspondence for years. Nine years to be exact.
The king of Wylan, the man who always knew what to do, shrugged. “I don’t know what the correct move here is. Jorah and I are busy enough with Savaryn, purging father’s men off parliament and dealing with all the frustrations since we permanently opened the walls. We know that father poisoned the other countries. It is in the best interest of the entire realm that we fix our father’s wrongs and work to get them their Enchantments back.” He let out a sigh that showed how truly exhausted he was. “Sitting on this knowledge feels wrong, no matter how busy we may be right now. Sitting on this knowledge and not working to right this ensures a war in Wylan’s future. One we are not even remotely prepared for currently. Father has left the rest of Wylan weakened and lazy in his pursuit to be the strongest Enchanted in the realm.”
I had to state the obvious. “War may be inevitable anyway. Once they find out the dead king was responsible.”
Owen added, “But the entire realm has also heard the story of how the two of you and Jorah took your father off that throne. We took the head off the serpent for them. Their justice and vengeance served on a bloody silver platter.”
That sounded all too easy, but my curiosity couldn’t help but ask, “Dra Skor responded though?” I still couldn’t believe they had. While I had personally written correspondence to the other countries, I’d had no dealings with Dra Skor because they kept entirely to themselves. Even before the disease, which we now knew had likely been a poison compliments of my father.
