Chapter 25 #2
“He was bluffing?” Did Phoenix know that, or was he just guessing? Nik had no idea how much of the Giver’s will a seraph was privy to.
“He is not the monster you think him.” Phoenix’s lips turned up into a strange smile.
“He is worse. And better. One of Elyon’s more complicated creations.
But he is intrigued by your offer, Majesty.
Elyon assures me you have guaranteed your people’s safety—and also that the king will seek you on the throne and not your father. ”
Raf turned toward them. “What offer?”
Nik looked down at Kyrja. Her brows were knit.
“I don’t know, actually. I left him a note saying I had something he wanted more than he wanted a bride.
It was a bluff. I was hoping to intrigue him enough to stay his hand and give us time to come up with a real offer while I secured the government and established the rest of the High Council. ”
Chuckling, Phoenix pushed to his feet. “Perhaps you don’t yet know what you have, Majesty.
But Stefanos does. There is indeed something he wants far more than one Fjordic bride whose blood may or may not be compatible with Ellesian blood for making magic.
Something he asked your father for first—something your father refused. ”
Nik sucked in a breath. The words compatible and blood and magic equaled one thing.
“The Machine for the Test?” Kyrja pushed to her feet too. Which of course meant Nik rose with her, rather than let his side be empty. “I can’t hand over the one piece of technology Fjordlandi has that the other kingdoms don’t.”
Phoenix spread his hands. “I didn’t say you must. I said it was the thing Stefanos wants more than he wants you.
It is the thing currently guaranteeing he will not fire on your domes even if the other kingdoms give him permission, and that he will side with you above your father.
You may not have intended your note to read like that is what you were offering—but it is how he read it. ”
Kyrja leaned into Nik again, but this time it felt to him more like she actually needed support, rather than that she wanted the comfort of his touch. “The cost is too high. I cannot—I cannot choose my own life, my own happiness above the thing that sets our people apart, gives us an edge.”
“Can’t you?” Phoenix moved his gaze from Kyrja to Nik.
What was that, shining in his eyes? Something more than the reflection of the flames.
“Your Test is a guillotine hovering over the throats of your people, Majesty. One word from the Councils, that a Fjorder has been chosen to receive a Blessed Union, and every heart under the domes freezes. Your Test doesn’t care if the thanes tested are already wed, have families.
It does not care who they may be in love with, or what responsibilities they have at home that they’ll be taken from. ”
When she stiffened at his side, Nik rubbed a hand over her back. “Things we can fix, Kyrja. You can remove the demand that all thanes of a given age be tested, can make it voluntary—”
“Or we could make the whole thing unnecessary.” The firelight caressed the furrow in her brow, the angle of her nose as she dipped her head.
“We only need the Test because Fjorders are so convinced that all thanes are beneath them that they don’t want to ‘sully’ themselves with them unless they’re instructed to, for a purpose. ”
Phoenix lifted his brows, offering no more.
Raf pushed to standing as well. “So, you think if you integrate Fjorders and thanes, we’ll just overcome the barriers that have been between us for a millennium? That we’ll create our own Blessed Unions by choice and won’t need the Test to tell us what to do?”
Kyrja looked up, over, and Nik’s gaze tangled with hers.
“I think, if we show them that love knows no such bounds, the truth will speak for itself. It will take a while, yes. It will require new teaching, and the systems that have been so long in place will not tumble easily. But perhaps halting the Test is exactly what we need to do. Fjorders want nothing more than to have a Blessed in the family. If suddenly we make that promise available to all of them, if only they overcome their prejudices and seek a genuine union—a covenant, not just a contract…that could be the incentive they need.”
“But not as long as the Test is still there, providing an easy, guaranteed answer.” Nik gave her shoulder a light squeeze. “Getting rid of it altogether, not just dismantling it but sending the Machine to Ellas. That would send a powerful message. If that’s the message you want to send.”
She drew her lip between her teeth, gaze distant.
Raf grunted. “I’m not saying that it couldn’t work for Fjordlandi, but giving the Machine to Ellas? You’d be handing them what they most want, and what every other kingdom in the world has been determined to keep from them—the knowledge they need to find magic of their own.”
Phoenix planted his hands on his hips. “Does Elyon love Ellesians any less than he loves the Fjordic people? Any less than those of Daryatla or Soltierra? He has given his gifts so that mankind may prosper—do you think he doesn’t will prosperity for them as well as for you?”
They all turned fully toward him at that. Nik’s heart pounded. “If the Giver wants Ellas to have magic, why hasn’t he made a way for them?”
Phoenix’s golden brows lifted. “Who says he hasn’t?” He motioned to the two of them. “But sometimes humanity needs to see before they can believe. To be shown that it is their own hard hearts standing in their way. Fjordlandi needed the Test to show them that. Perhaps Ellas needs the same.”
He shrugged, turned away. “The choice is yours, Majesty, Elyon is content to leave it in your hands. Your decision will not circumvent his will, simply determine which course your nations will take to arrive at it. Either way, Ellas will have its magic soon. The time is ripe, the seeds already sown. Your choice, then, is whether you want to be their closest ally when they unite or the one Stefanos calls enemy.”
Stefanos, then, would be the king still when magic was Awakened in Ellas? Nik’s pounding heart certainly didn’t regulate at that, and he could feel the heat mounting in his veins. “How is it wise to give that man magic?”
He didn’t mean to question the will of the Giver. But…
Phoenix’s lips twitched. “‘That man’ does not and hence will not have the blood necessary for magic. But he is nevertheless a key part of Elyon’s plan.
As was your father, Majesty, and his before him.
They brought you into being, after all.” Phoenix pressed his fist to his heart.
“Seek him. That is all he requires of you. And you, grandson.” Grinning now, Phoenix covered the two steps between them and drew Nik into an embrace.
Into his ear, he whispered, “Fjordlandi has waited long enough for its Aflame king. Take your place at her side without reservation.”
The heat shifted, turned to something entirely different. Something with claws.
How had he managed to fall in love with Kyrja without really pondering what it meant? That she was queen? It wasn’t that he hadn’t known it, obviously. It wasn’t that he hadn’t begun to realize what he wanted—to be at her side every day, every night. His arms around her, hers around him.
But when a thane was a ruler’s consort, that meant very little. A presence at state affairs. A companion. Not a co-ruler. Never that.
What he hadn’t paused to realize was that he was no longer just an ordinary thane.
Phoenix laughed outright and stepped away, cuffing Nik playfully on the side of the head. “I said without reservation. Trust in Elyon, Nik. He is all you need.” With that, Phoenix strode directly into the fire.
Even knowing he himself could do that very thing now, it still made Nik’s eyes go wide, his breath catch. And he had to snake out an arm to block Raf’s instinctual lunge toward the man—no, the seraph.
Without pause, Phoenix put out his arms. The flames roared up his legs, his torso, fissures forming and light shining out like it had from the slice he’d given his palm.
Then he was shooting up like the fire, wings of light erupting from his back.
He darted into the night like a giant spark, vanishing into the sky until he was but one more twinkling star.
“I’m gonna need a minute.” Raf staggered back a step, hand to his forehead.
Kyrja laughed and laced her fingers through Nik’s.
Had she heard what Phoenix had said to him?
Maybe she hadn’t. Maybe that was why she still smiled so brightly, so warmly up at him.
“In the morning,” she said softly, “we need to get moving. Get back to Reykstoll—I’ll lead Stefanos there with the currents.
With any luck, my father will be lying low and will stay away from us. ”
When it came to Isidor, Nik wasn’t much inclined toward trusting in luck. But if her father found them, they’d deal with it then. “If all the outcasts are like these, then the best route will be along the coastline—it’ll let us avoid the mountains and shave days off the trip.”
“Even if it didn’t, and even if they’re not, it’s the way I’d want to go.” She looked over her shoulder, toward the sleeping village. “These are people of Fjordlandi too. No less than those under the domes or in the cities. If I’m to be queen, I also need to be their queen.”
Raf had apparently regained himself. Enough, anyway, to horn in between them with that grin of his and sling an arm around each of their shoulders.
“See? I always knew she was my favorite royal for a reason. Come on. I’ll show you both to your beds.
Majesty, the women have prepared an igloo for you, thinking you’d be most comfortable there.
Nik, we’ve laid out an extra bedroll in my tent. ”
“Thank you, Raf. It’s very kind of everyone,” Kyrja said.