Chapter 20
HEMMING
A riel’s father is alive…
Before this shocking revelation could fully register, he lunged at me with a war cry, blade lifted high to crash down upon me. I raised mine to block his strike, and the clang of metal as our swords met echoed through the forest. Apparently, he was serious about killing us.
“Listen to me,” I ground out as he pushed his formidable weight into the blade.
“Listening to you is not part of my mission,” he replied with equal strain in his voice.
“Finding you wasn’t part of mine, either.” I shoved him with everything I had, and he stumbled back a couple of paces, just long enough for me to land a blow of a different sort. “But you should listen if you want to know anything about your daughter.”
He froze midstep, sword still raised. “What did you just say?”
“Your daughter, General Kier— Ariel . We know her. We’re trying to find her.”
His sword fell to the lush ground at his feet as the fight left his body. “ Ariel …” he said, his voice low and soft. The pain in his eyes as he spoke her name was hard to witness. “My Ariel still lives?”
Movement sounded behind me as Shayfer stepped forward and gave a small bow. “She does, and she will be most pleased to see you once we locate her.”
Dark eyes narrowed as he looked Shayfer over. His suspicious gaze turned back to me—more specifically, the pointed tips of my ears. “You’re fae.” The disdain in his tone was unmistakable.
“ Half ,” I said, lowering my blade. His eyes tracked the weapon that was nearly identical to his own, and realization dawned in his expression. I opened my mouth to confirm my Nychteride blood, then remembered the story we’d told Eldrien about who we were and how we knew Ariel. Now was not the time for such details.
Once we found her, she could tell him herself.
“How do you know who I am?”
“We are familiar with your brother, having seen him in his dealings with Lord Kaplyn,” Shayfer offered in response. “The similarities are undeniable.”
I nodded in agreement. “You could be twins.”
“If he has dealt with Kaplyn, then he cannot be trusted,” Eldrien said with disgust.
“He can,” I said with enough conviction to deter an immediate rebuttal. “I will vouch for him.”
“As will I,” Shayfer added.
Eldrien opened his mouth to argue, but one narrowed look from the dark-eyed warrior before him cut him short. Kier assessed the winged male for the briefest moment before he turned his attention back to Shayfer and me, dismissing Eldrien entirely.
“Why do you think I’m supposed to be dead?”
Shayfer and I shared a bewildered glance. “Everyone thinks that,” I replied, my confusion seeping into my tone. “Why else would you have been gone all this time?”
Desperation settled upon his expression. “Does Ariel believe this too?” I nodded, and he cursed under his breath. “All this time…all this time she’s been alone, thinking she’d been orphaned?” He turned his back to pace away from us, working through this new reality with every step. “And the Neráides have had her this whole time?”
“The details of her childhood are not ones we are privy to, General Kier?—”
“It’s just Kier now,” he said, cutting Shayfer off.
“Of course. As I said, those details are unknown to us.”
His brows furrowed with frustration. “Then how did you come to know her?”
“Hemming and I became acquainted with her over the past few years while she was at Lord Kaplyn’s estate.”
“As a prisoner?”
“In a fashion, yes. Not all prisons are made of metal bars and chains. Some are more nuanced than that.”
His fingers drifted to a silver metal collar fit tightly around his neck as he stared at us, wariness still creasing the corners of his eyes. “That is a concept I understand all too well.”
“Hemming and Shayfer freed your daughter and brought her to Anemosia,” Eldrien explained somewhat reluctantly. “She has come here to break the curse on our homeland.”
As he spoke, something dawned on me, a detail that had gotten lost in the disbelief and violence minutes earlier. One that sparked hope in my heart.
“Kier,” I said, still thinking through the implications of my realization, “you said listening to me wasn’t part of your mission. What was it?”
His hardened features tightened into an expression Kade had worn many times. “I was sent to recover three male intruders and return with their remains.”
I looked at Shayfer, whose eyes were wide with understanding. “And who gave that order?” he asked.
“Lord Vesstan, by way of his manservant, Thallen.”
I took a step toward Ariel’s father. “How did they know we were here?”
His taut features went slack when he put together the pieces of the puzzle we’d just laid out. “Someone must have told him. Someone who knew you would come.”
“ Ariel .”
Disbelief quickly bled to fear in his eyes. “That means she’s at the castle with him .” He shot forward and grabbed me by my shoulders. “She cannot stay there with him. It isn’t safe.”
“Who is this Lord Vesstan?”
Kier went rigid at the question. “A powerful and dangerous being—one you cannot defeat in a battle of blades. It will take intelligence and cunning to escape with your lives and hers, not brawn.”
“Why?” I asked, an uncomfortable sensation prickling up the back of my neck.
“Because you are not a god—and it takes one to kill one.”