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“Well,” she said, raking us with her fiery-gold gaze. “This is a surprise.”
I cleared my throat, trying to work past the ball of nerves attempting to rob me of speech. “I’m not sure how to address you,” I said. “Should I call you ‘Queen Ylena’, or would ‘Auntie’ be more appropriate?”
Ylena raised an eyebrow as she approached. She did a slow circle around me, ignoring Quye and Yaggir. “I have not taken the title of queen, though it is mine by right,” she said. “And yet, I am not sure I am willing to allow you to call me auntie, given that there is no true familial bond between us.”
“Familial bond?” Yaggir asked. “She is your niece, Ylena. What more do you need?”
“Just because my brother’s blood runs in her veins doesn’t mean she is family,” Ylena snapped, whirling on Yaggir. “Family isn’t just about shared lineage, Yaggir. It’s about the people who are truly there for you, who have your back during the good times and the bad, who stick by you when their loyalty is tested. Something you would know nothing about.”
Yaggir flinched. “I had my reasons for doing what I did,” he said. “They may not have been the right reasons, but I cannot undo my decision now.”
“As far as loyalty is concerned,” I said before Ylena could respond, “Yaggir could have kept his mouth shut and allowed the High Priest to defame me in front of the God-King. Instead, he risked his life not once, but twice, by revealing the truth about Myras and then bringing me to you.” I paused for effect. “I think that deserves some credit.”
“Perhaps.” Ylena turned away from Yaggir to face me again. “I was told you have a letter. Hand it to me, please.”
“Actually,” I said, smiling as I reached for my pack. “I have two.”
I pulled out the envelope from the God-King, and a second one that I’d brought from Ediria, and handed them over. Ylena frowned as she looked at the first one, but her eyes widened as she beheld the second, and she tossed the God-King’s missive aside as if it were no more consequential than a piece of packaging.
“This is written in Einar’s hand,” she said, ripping the letter open.
“Yes,” I confirmed. “He could not come with me himself, so he asked me to give you this letter instead.”
Ylena’s eyes scanned the letter, then read it over again, slower this time. My stomach clenched as the seconds ticked by. I had no idea what the contents of the letter were, only that Einar told me he hoped it would convince Ylena to accept me as her kin.
Finally, Ylena gently folded the letter, tucking it into her pocket like it was a priceless treasure. “You’re his mate,” she said, meeting my gaze. “And yet, I can scent that the two of you have not consummated the bond. Why?”
“We decided it was too dangerous to complete it now, when he was about to send me to your realm,” I explained. “If I were to be killed, Einar might die as well, and then the portal to this realm would be torn open. Given that the Shadows are on the verge of taking Ediria, it would only be a matter of time before they tired of our world and found their way into your new one. We couldn’t allow that to happen.”
“I see.” Ylena picked up the God-King’s letter and read that next. A conflicted look passed over her face as she took in the news, and she looked over at Yaggir. “This is your doing?”
He shook his head. “I cannot take credit for the God-King’s mercy.”
“What mercy?” Diyani demanded. “What is this letter?”
“The God-King has lifted our exile.” Ylena held out the letter so Diyani could read it herself. “We are free to leave this island and settle wherever we wish.”
“Hmm.” Isador tapped her chin from her post by the doorway. “Seems to me that the God-King wouldn’t have made that decision if Yaggir and Adara didn’t speak up on our behalf.”
Diyani glared at her sister, but Ylena nodded thoughtfully. She spread her arm wide, waving toward the sitting area. “Einar mentioned the Shadows, but he has a way of being frustratingly brief with his missives. Please, explain to me what has occurred in Ediria since me and my people have left.”
Quye and I did as she said, spending the next several hours debriefing Ylena about everything that had occurred in Ediria since she and her fellow dragons had left. We told her about General Aolis taking the throne, about the shadow magic infection spreading throughout the kingdom, about the prophecy and my role in it, and his efforts to find me before I came into my powers so he could control the outcome. About the Shadow I’d accidentally released when I killed him, and how she was manipulating the other fae into starting a civil war so she could tip the balance of light and dark in our realm and bring other Shadows through.
“So, you have come here to ask me to help you perform the Umnar, so that you might return with this hidden power and defeat the Shadow?” Ylena said when paused to drink some coconut water. I’d never encountered the milky beverage before, but it was served inside the shell of the nut it had come from, and was curiously refreshing.
“That’s the plan,” I said.
“And if I refuse?”
A chill of foreboding rippled down my spine. “Why would you refuse?” Diyani asked, a suspicious note in her voice. “Einar himself has asked us to help her. You don’t think we owe him our loyalty?”
“Absolutely we do,” Ylena said, “but Adara here is not Einar, and I do not know her. That she and Einar did not complete the mating bond before parting ways tells me that on some level, they do not trust each other, which means I do not trust her either.”
“Now wait just a minute—” I started, indignant, but Ylena held up a hand.
“Hush. You may think you have everything figured out, but you are barely out of your childhood years, and you know nothing of dragons and our ways,” Ylena said, her voice as harsh as the winter winds of Bala Oighr. She did not move from her chair, and yet somehow she seemed to tower over me, her presence swelling to fill the entire room. The scents of fire and sweet cedar thickened the air as her eyes glowed with power. “I will not prepare you for the Umnar, at least not until I have had a chance to take your measure. Until then, the three of you may stay on the island as guests.”
20
