AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I huffed a joyless laugh. “I’m thinking that if I let them go, they'll start an uprising of their own, and it's merely a matter of time before another war starts.”
Weighted silence.
“… If you truly want people’s loyalty, you will help them. Those soldiers of hers aren’t loyal to her out of love or respect. It’s purely out of desperation and necessity. Nearly all of whom have families who are living in squalor or are barely struggling to stay out of it. Zurie’s coffers are bursting from all the profit she has made over the years onaetra.Why don’t you give some of that money to them, not tobuytheir loyalty but as a gesture of goodwill that you will take better care of them than Zurie has. It would be a negligible sum against what she possesses. Promise them what you will promise the Kahlohani. I know that the people of Atratus weren’t always your people, but they certainly are now. Or at least will be after tomorrow. And killing those who refuse to join you will only justify anyone’s distrust and reticence to join you.”
This is why she is destined to be your Queen,My Knowingness whispered.
She was right. I was still thinking with an old anger and vengeance against people I had fought against since I was old enough to wield a sword.
An unwelcome weight settled on my chest. Lying on my back, I turned my head to find her green eyes glittering in the dark, already fixed on me.
“You’re right… Let’s try that then.”
She said nothing more, and I had nothing more to say. I rolled over again, facing away from her, though I could still feel her eyes on me. Water sloshed as she quickly finished bathing and then rose to get dressed.
When her weight settled on the other side of the bed, the words left me before I’d even given them thought. As if someone or something else had pulled them out of me.
“I’m sorry, Mareina.”
Chapter
Fifty-Five
MAREINA
Outside of my body humming with magic after drinking from both of my parents, our trip to the cave, hiding the tunnelled entrance into Zurie’s palace, was uneventful. Our morning had been quiet, as if everyone were silently replaying all the possibilities of how today could unfold. Or at least that’s what I was doing. Though my mind specifically replayed the best-case scenario. I refused to spiral down the numerous death traps of failure. Before any battle, I always focused my mind on visualizing victory. It had always served me well.
Hidden beneath a wall of vines that grew out from the stone, sucking at the moisture that trickled through from the surrounding snowcapped mountains, the door to the tunnel appeared as nothing more than the stone wall of the cave. I murmured the ancient fae words that Miroslav had taught me after I’d been promoted to Zurie’s Irae. I imagined he had already seen this exact moment when I would need it.
A certain calm came over me as the door appeared. As if after all these years, completely untouched, if the dense cobwebs in the tunnel were anything to go by, had been placed here just for us. For this very purpose…
A flame burst into life in Nakoa’s palm as he stepped forward.
That was new.
At my piqued brow, he gave me a shrug.
The cobwebs in the tunnel were so dense they’d hardly cut through them with their swords.
A shudder worked through me, imagining all the spiders and other many-legged creatures that would have sought refuge here.
Nakoa’s gaze remained fixed on me until something in him shifted all at once, and he stumbled back ever so slightly. I'm not sure anyone else noticed. His eyes grew distant, and his neck craned towards the ceiling, lips parting as if in awe.
To anyone else, it might look like he’s just gaping at the cavernous ceiling, but to me… I can tell that he’s having some kind of vision. I can feel it in my guts, and it’s deeply unsettling.
In only a few short seconds, he seems to return to himself, and his eyes snap back to mine. His throat worked on a swallow, and it's almost as if he looked… vulnerable. As if I’d just caught him in a moment of helplessness. Thesevisionshave been plaguing him more and more - visions of things that are anything but pleasant if the sudden ashen looks when they overcome him are anything to go by. Occasionally, I’d even caught him speaking to whoever it is that appears in them before he returns.
Part of me wants to reach out and tell him it’s OK… But it’s not. I’m about to kill hismother;I might die trying, and if I tell him - it could apparently destroy everything fate has set in place so that we can finally bring justice and peace to this realm.
I could physicallyfeelthe window of opportunity I had to confess the truth about his mother to him, slowly shutting right in front of me.
That window seemed to shut as his eyes left mine, and Roderick, Val, Lokus, Famei, Pomona, and Rayne all sidled up beside him. Malekai remained by my side, and Vesper beside him.
Something pulled tight between us.
Right beside the weight of my guilt.
If things go wrong, this might very well be the last time I get to look any of them in the face.
