“Are you sure?”
“She can fight alongside your uncle and help heal.”
My uncle, Ridley, was a healer. One I had once thought belonged to the Obscurité. Instead, I’d found out he was a spy for the Lumière and was actually a Water Wielder. However, no one had the time to go through the exact ramifications of that. He had married my Uncle Justise, our blacksmith and the son of the old king. The line of succession went to me after my mother died while saving Lyric’s life. Now, I was the king of the Obscurité Kingdom—or what remained of it.
Looking down at the burned remains of the battlefield, I wondered what type of kingdom I had left to rule. I pulled myself from my thoughts, knowing I needed to focus. Only I couldn’t when Lyric was gone. She had been taken from me. From all of us.
“And you’re okay? Rosamond?” I asked him, speaking of Rhodes’ sister, a Seer.
“We’re both well enough. She’s with Emory, helping Ridley and Justise with the wounded.”
I held back a flinch at the mention of Emory. Not because she was Lyric’s ex-girlfriend, but because I still didn’t trust her. She was a siphon, one the late king of the Lumière had created. She could siphon Wielding from others, and it was only because of the bracelets she wore that Justise had made for her that she could stand amongst the Wielders now and not pull their magic and their life right from them.
She had changed since the king’s attack, at least from what I had seen. She wasn’t so angry all the time now. However, with so much uncertainty amongst us, it was hard to trust anyone.
“It seems like we’re running out of lords and ladies,” Wyn said, her voice soft. Both Rhodes and Teagan winced, but Wyn held her chin high. Her father was dead, the former Lord of Earth, and her mother had been outed as a traitor. If she needed to get angry, we’d let her. The others would understand.
“We’ll rebuild,” I said. “But I don’t know if we can truly have lords, ladies, or even kings and queens anymore. The wards are down, and there are no more separate kingdoms. There can’t be, not when there are no crystals.” A fact that still shocked me. The wards had come down between the two courts, and now, nothing separated the two kingdoms but land and armies. Armies that were now mixed between the four territories. “There are only people who need to survive, and an enemy we have to face.”
“Well, my mother’s going to be on the enemy lines,” Wyn said, her voice revealing that she clearly fought back tears...or perhaps anger. “She wasn’t my father’s soulmate, after all. She used him as a shield and let him burn to a crisp in front of us all. And yet, she survived.” Tears slid down her cheeks now, but she didn’t brush them away. There was no need. We all felt what she did.
“What’s the next step?” Rhodes asked, looking directly at me.
“We need to recruit, train, and take the wounded back to a place where they are safe. And keep everybody under guard. We don’t know when The Gray will come for us, or what forces he’ll have. But we know it’s not Obscurité or Lumière anymore.”
“No. Therefore, don’t you dare start calling me the king of the Lumière,” Rhodes rasped out.
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. So much pain, anger, and anxiety whirled through me, yet I smiled. “You never did want to be king, did you?” I asked.
“Neither did you. But it doesn’t seem like we have a choice.” He swallowed hard and looked around with this piercing silver eyes. “We’re going after Lyric, right?” he asked, his voice hollow. I understood the feeling well.
“Of course, we are,” I snapped.
“Our people need a king,” Justise barked, his tone unyielding as he walked towards us. It seemed as if we were having a full court meeting right in the open. Good.
Let the others know who was in charge.
Show them who would fix this.
And I will know that I am not alone.
I turned on my uncle. “And they need their Priestess.”
Justise didn’t back down. The man was big, battle-weary, a machine. “They do, and the others can find her. You need to be here. We need to strategize, come up with plans. Because when The Gray comes again, he’s going to know we are weakened.”
“We have some of their forces, those that Lanya already helped us determine are directly on our side.” Lanya and her granddaughter, Rosamond, had used some type of Wielding to figure out if they were telling the truth. It was good magic, not borne of darkness like bone magic, which was created out of death and unwilling sacrifice.
I still didn’t know the power behind what these two were doing. It wasn’t something I held or fully understood, but I trusted Lanya and Rosamond with my life. What I did know was that the magic tasted of ancient hope and power. But of peace, as well.
“I’m not going to let others find her, Uncle. I need to go.”
Justise shook his head, and it felt like a thousand knives sliding into my skin. “She will be found. We will defeat The Gray, but you are needed here, with your people.”
“She needs me.” I let out a breath, knowing that my uncle was right. And I hated the fact that he was. I fisted my hands at my sides, and flame danced along my knuckles while the earth rumbled under my feet.
My two elements warred inside me, each wanting control. But I was the dominant one. I always had been.
While Lyric still needed to focus on the elements inside her and learn how to rein in that control, I had always known the truth of who I was deep in my bones. I’d held these powers my entire life. I’d been forced to learn dominance with the amount of Fire in my veins—the hardest element to Wield. I’d found that power deep within myself and nurtured it. I’d taught Lyric what I could about it and had trained her to control hers, as well. At least I had been trying. Between the curse that had kept me from her initially, The Gray attempting to control me, and the war that threatened all of us, I hadn’t been able to help her as much as I should have.
Now, I didn’t know if she had enough training to protect herself. She had enough power, but it was unwieldy.
I shoved those thoughts from my mind. No, she would be fine. We would find her, and she would be able to protect herself until we did. She was so much stronger than she gave herself credit for, so much stronger than anyone else I knew.
There was no way The Gray would defeat her.
There couldn’t be.
“You’re right,” I said into the silence. Wyn and Teagan blinked at me. I didn’t blame them for their surprise.
Rhodes spoke first. “I’ll go. I can help find her. You need to be here for your people, to show them their leader. I might confuse others with my presence since they’ll likely be looking for another king to name.”
At any other time, or if I were still the person I was even a month ago, I would’ve shouted and made some snarky reply. I’d have been jealous. However, I couldn’t afford that reaction anymore. Not when so many more important things were before us.
“Go. Take Alura with you.” I spoke of the secretive Wielder who had lived in the human realm for as long as I could remember. She had watched over Lyric but kept her secrets, hid her Wielding. However, I thought that perhaps she was a Seer like Rosamond. She had trained Lyric during her year away from the realm, but she had so many secrets that I sometimes thought she knew more than she was letting on. I wanted someone that could find Lyric, and Rhodes and Alura had found her before. They could find her again.