“So you lied to me—manipulated me—for my own benefit?”
“You and I are kings, Dorian. You know as well as I do that in politics, truth is often the first casualty. I doubt you can claim with any shred of honesty that you’ve never manipulated facts or obfuscated in order to avoid a conflict or do what you believed was right.” When Dorian did not immediately reply, Rain knew the thrust had struck home. “Fey do not lie. That puts us at a severe disadvantage when dealing with mortals who have no such scruples. So, we have learned to dance the blade’s edge of truth, to veil truths we do not wish to share. It is a survival tactic we have found necessary when dealing with your kind.”
“I am your kind—or so I always believed myself.” Dorian was the descendant of Marikah vol Serranis of the Fey, Gaelen vel Serranis’s twin. “But apparently my blood is not Fey enough for you to feel the same—or to trust me as I have always trusted you.”
“Setah,” Rain rumbled. “Enough.” His hands slashed through the air with curt command. “What is done cannot be undone. Will you allow hubris to keep us at each other’s throats, or can we agree mistakes were made on both sides and move on? “
“Hubris?” Dorian’s brows rose. “Is it hubris to want to know how far I can trust an ally? “
“You can trust us to defend Celieria from the Eld!” Rain snapped. “You can trust us to stand against our common enemy and give no quarter. To die by your side. You can trust that the Fey will not leave this battlefield so long as a single Eld soldier stands with weapon in hand. Can that not be enough? “
“I suppose it will have to be.”
Ill-humored and grudging though it was, that was the sound of capitulation. Rain closed his eyes for a brief moment and drew another long, deep breath of the icy northern air. His nerves felt as if he’d just spent a full day being scoured and pummeled by the Spirit masters of the Warrior’s Academy. His head hurt, and every muscle in his body was clenched tight with the effort he’d expended to keep his dangerous temper and wayward thoughts in check.
“Beylah vo, King Dorian.”
Dorian put his hands on the cold stone and leaned over one of the deep crenels as he gazed northward into Eld. “So you do truly believe they’re coming?”
“There’s not a doubt in my mind. The Mage we Truth-spoke said the attack would come this week. If the Eld have been watching our buildup here at Kreppes, it’s possible they may choose a different place to cross the river, but let us wait at least this week before we assume our information is wrong.”
Dorian considered the request, then gave a curt nod. “Very well. We wait. But if there is no sign of attack within the week, I will have no choice but to redeploy my armies. There are other locations of greater strategic importance than Kreppes.”
“Agreed,” Rain said. “And I will send my warriors wherever you need us most. Until then, I think it best to continue our preparations for battle. As we learned in Teleon and Orest, just because we can’t see the armies of Eld doesn’t mean they aren’t there.”
“I will inform the generals to give you whatever assistance you require.”
Rain started to leave, then paused. “And Dorian? For what it’s worth, if I had to do it over, I would tell you about Adrial. You are right. I did you a disservice by keeping that truth from you.”
Celieria’s king—the mortal descendant of an ancient Fey line—nodded without turning. Rain left him there, standing on the ramparts, solemn and solitary, morning sunlight glinting on his crown, the bright Celierian blue of his cape snapping in the wind.
In a small tent in the heart of the allied encampment, Ellysetta sat beside Rowan vel Arquinas, holding his hand and sharing his grief over Adrial’s death. Tears spilled, unchecked, down her face. Adrial and Rowan both had served on her first quintet, back in Celieria City, before she’d known she was Fey, in a time when all their lives had been happier and more carefree.
Since the day she just met them, the brothers, Rowan and Adrial, had done everything together. And though to mortals, the seventy-year difference between Rowan’s age and his brother’s might have seemed insurmountable, by Fey standards they were practically twins. They’d even looked alike, both black-haired, brown-eyed, full of mischief and laughter. Rowan, especially, had an almost tairen-fondness for playing pranks.
The Fey who sat beside Ellysetta now was a shadow of his former self. All the happiness, the laughter, the mischievous glint in his dark eyes was gone. In its place lay a cloud of such overwhelming grief she didn’t know how he could even move.
“I failed him,” he whispered, his voice cracked and broken by all the helpless tears he’d shed.
“Oh, nei.” Her chin trembled on a sudden swell of emotion. She wrapped her arms around him as if comforting a child. ‘Nei, Rowan, nei, kem’ajian. You didn’t. He would never want you to say that—not even to think it.”
“But I did. My mela told me to look over him. To keep him safe. And I didn’t.”
Ellysetta didn’t mean to pry, but with her arms around Rowan and her empathic senses so enmeshed with his, she couldn’t block out the vivid, memory of the day Rowan’s mother had placed the precious, squirming little Adrial in his arms for the first time.
“Rowan, my son, meet your brother, Adrial,” she’d said.
And Rowan had oh-so-carefully held his brother and gazed down at him in awestruck wonder. Baby Adrial’s bright, inquisitive brown eyes had been wide open and sparkling with hints of what would become great magic. A tiny, waving hand had caught the tip of Rowan’s finger and curled around it in a tight fist. In that touch flowed a warm, bright haze of wordless emotion: security, trust, and most of all, perfect innocent joy. Rowan had been little more than a Fey youth himself—the blood of his first battle had yet to wet his steel—but with that first touch of radiant, untarnished innocence, he had known he would suffer any fate, pay any price, sell his soul to the Dark Lord himself, if it meant he could keep his brother safe.
Yet here he stood, still alive, and Adrial was gone. Rowan had failed him. Failed the promise he’d made to their mother to always keep his brother safe.
Tears gathered in Rowan’s eyes and spilled over in a flood. Harsh sobs racked his warrior’s body. He could have taken a sword to the chest with naught but a brief gasp, but this loss ripped his vulnerable Fey heart to shreds.
Holding him, sharing his pain, Ellysetta wept, too. He needed to grieve, so she grieved with him. Sharing his memories, sharing his torment, taking it into her soul and giving him back what small measure of peace he would accept. She stayed with him, soothing him, singing to him, weeping with him, until together they had drained enough of his sorrow that he could sink into the much-needed peace of the sleep she wove on him.
When she finally emerged from Rowan’s tent, Rain was there, waiting. Wordlessly, he opened his arms, and with a fresh spill of tears, she fell into them.
“Oh, Rain.” She closed her eyes and clung tight to him as if she could absorb some measure of his strength. And perhaps she did. He was her rock, her haven in the storm, and it was to his soul, his love, that she’d anchored all the happiness left in her life.