Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
T hey make it a mile before Lora threatens Ayc with bodily harm, which he supposes is good progress.
“I swear to the divine, Ayc, if you don’t stop dancing to whatever music only you can hear, I’m going to tie you to a fence post and leave you for the crows.”
Ayc leaps and claps his heels together defiantly, careful not to trip in the ruts left in the dirt road by wagon wheels. He grins as Lora grumbles a string of curses beneath her breath. He doesn’t really think she’ll tie him to the wooden fence that stretches beside them, separating the road from a field with a flock of grazing sheep. In a small wooden tower built in the pasture, a guard clutches a bow and watches the sky, the only person besides Lora and her Five in view.
For the last half mile, Ayc has given into his incessant inability to sit still—even apparently when going on a long, but under-stimulating walk. He’s hummed to himself, shimmied his shoulders and occasionally done a few jigs. Nothing that will make his pain worse, but enough to expend his nervous energy. Meanwhile, the irritation that billows off Lora like a storm cloud has merely been a perk.
Peregrin, riding on Tempest, leads the way of the group, followed by Ayc and Lora. Xylie and Tavish walk side by side just behind them, Tavish pulled along by Saga. Bronwen brings up the rear, her staff in her hand.
Ayc turns and walks backward so he can face Lora, giving her a cheeky grin. “You’re just cranky because you didn’t drink the tea I made you this morning. Everyone loves my dancing.”
“I’m sure,” she retorts. “Like people love a pinecone shoved up their ass.”
“Can you two not ?” Peregrin yells from where they ride on Tempest. More to themself, they grumble, “It’s too early for their shit.”
Ayc swallows down his retort, and Lora presses her mouth into a hard line. Lora may be the leader, but Peregrin has been their teacher for so long that defiance feels unnatural. Still, Ayc can’t resist one last comeback. So he crosses his eyes and sticks out his tongue.
She lunges for him, and he leaps away from her. Her fingers merely brush the protesting muscles of his back. If she really wanted, she would have thrown him to the ground with no effort, but she only wanted him silent. They’ve been doing this dance for a long time now, and after the tension and vulnerability of this morning, it’s strangely comforting to be back to normal again.
From behind them, Bronwen laughs.
Ayc doesn’t dance again, but he still needs a distraction. “Well, if no one else is going to ask, why Laud?”
“As I said,” Lora says, “to forge a new path.”
“There must be easier ways. Everadyn is in better terms with the dwarves, right? Surely their tunnels in the Stella Rune Mountains have a few unexplored pathways they might let us wander down. Might meet a few more wraiths; they were just lovely creatures.” The Stella Rune Mountains, which take up much of central Everadyn, south of the Elodie forest, is divided in ownership between the dwarves and the fae. Everything on top of the mountains, like the Lycendi villages built upon them, belong to the fae. But everything beneath belongs to the dwarves.
Xylie makes a sound deep in her throat, and Ayc glances behind to see her sign, “I’m not going into those caves.”
“Not enough dragons for you?” Ayc asks. He adjusts the pack on his shoulders, the one now holding both his own and Xylie’s blankets, keeping the dragon egg warm. His hands are still bandaged and covered with gloves. They left camp too quickly for Xylie to re-wrap them. But his hands don't hurt as he grasps the straps.
“Yes, we’re on good terms with the dwarves,” Lora says. Ayc slows a little, so he walks alongside her, but stays far enough away that he’s out of her reach. “And Everadyn fae and giants have not had contact since the war at the beginning of my grandfather’s reign. We’re not enemies, but we’re not friends. We simply… pretend the other doesn’t exist.”
“I’d like to keep pretending,” Tavish mutters under his breath. Lora and Ayc glance behind them, and he shrugs. “It’s mainly just the stepping on me thing. Giants are terrifying.”
“How would you know?” Lora says, her tone flat. “How would any of us know? We just go off stories we are told as children. Giants are terrifying. Drakr are evil. Dwarves are greedy. Humans are weak. ”
Ayc hides his wince behind a crooked smile. “And from what I heard as a child, the Everadyn fae are vicious creatures who could kill me with a single look of their silver eyes.”
“Exactly. It’s all gryphon shit.”
Not missing a step, Tempest twists her head to the side to glare at Lora.
“She didn’t mean it, Tempest,” Ayc assures.
Tempest snaps her beak.
Peregrin mutters, “Now, friend, you know you hate the way fae taste. Too much sinew.”
Unfazed, Lora sweeps her hand through the tall grass that grows alongside the fence, running the tail between her fingers. This far south, the weather is more temperate, and the grass has already grown thick. Ayc studies the fine movements of her long fingertips.
“So, we can’t trust the biases we’re taught as children?” Ayc repeats, wondering if she truly means it. Does she really not think him weak because he’s human?
Lora nods.
Huh, Ayc thinks. That’s… unexpected.
“That’s fair,” Tavish says. “But still… why the giants?”
A wagon approaches from the direction of the city, drawn by a team of mules. They step to the side of the road to allow them to pass. The mules bray anxiously at the sight of Tempest, and only the skilled hands of the driver keep them from bolting in terror.
When they are walking up the road once more, Lora answers Tavish’s question, “Like Bronwen said, the magic in the chroniclers is old.” She rolls her wrist with the chronicler. It circles around her arm, the glow casting a faint light against her skin. “I don’t trust that my mother didn’t find a way to manipulate it somehow, but it would have been limited. Old magical items tend to take on a life of their own for whatever purpose they were created. And that is to prove whether the wearer is worthy of being Sovereign. All the quests seem designed to test the character of a person. Even the one that seemed simple—unearth a great treasure—was completed not from something of financial worth, but an intangible one. For friendship and family.”
It may be more words than Lora has ever strung together in Ayc’s presence. From the corner of his eye, Ayc studies the movement of her lips, noticing every tick and curve. He hopes if he says nothing, he won't break whatever spell has made her talk to him so much, without any sign of anger.
“So," she continues, "I think that the best way to solve the quests is to show what type of leader I intend to be and the world I want to create as Sovereign.”
Ayc turns so he can face her more fully. “And what is that world?”
She cocks her head. “Shouldn’t you have asked me that before you said yes to being my Fifth?”
Ayc rolls his eyes at the clear avoidance. “Probably.”
“Then why did you say yes so easily?”
Ayc senses the ones behind them watching, listening. “Probably for the same justifications as you asking me.” He draws a finger through the air like he’s spelling the word out. “Reasons. I had my reasons.”
She presses her lips together in a hard line. Fine, clearly she still means to be as transparent with him as a thick log. Three days ago, he thought he understood everything about Lora. He made himself believe she was Yris’s little copy, but now—he’s seen her defend Xylie and Bronwen and strangely, even Ayc himself. He’s learned that she warned Peregrin when they were children. He’s watched her fight to save the mother dragon and learned how she slaughtered pirates and freed human children. He’s studied the regret in her eyes when she speaks of Creed. And fuck, if all her contradictions are not driving him to distraction. He doesn’t know which is worse: that he realizes he doesn't know her, or how desperately he wants to know her, to finally glimpse beyond the stone she presents to the world.
“Do you delight in avoiding questions?” Ayc asks, unable to stop himself from the verbal jab. “Because nowhere in there was an actual explanation of why we’re going to see the giants.”
Lora has only uttered a syllable when a bird’s shriek rips through the sky. The group freezes as a small, dark shape contrasts against the bright sunlight. Ayc sweeps his unbound hair out of his face as he squints upward. Dark gray wings beat hard as the bird of prey banks toward the ground, not slowing as it dives straight toward them. Ayc stumbles back, but Lora raises her arm. The bird lands upon it in, wrapping its talons around her armor. Talons that Ayc immediately notices are painted a bright pink. A small scroll is bound to one leg with an equally pink ribbon.
Vidar’s falcon.
Lora reaches for the scroll, but the falcon snips at her fingers and she recoils. The falcon flutters its wings and screeches.
“Easy,” Bronwen says as she appears at Lora’s shoulder. She rubs a gentle hand over the bird’s head, and it drops its wings long enough for Lora to untie the scrolls.
The bird hops from Lora’s arm to Bronwen’s shoulder, and Lora unrolls the scroll. Xylie slips between Ayc and Lora and stands on her tiptoes to see the letter, blocking Ayc from getting close enough to read as well. Tempest turns and carries Peregrin back toward them, as though she too can sense the tension rising from Bronwen and Lora.
Lora unleashes a tirade of curses. “The package was intercepted.”
Bronwen pales. “Lux Aester?”
Lora nods, the very edges of her royal blue eyes flashing silver.
“Oh no,” Tavish mutters, as Xylie flutters her hands near her face. Ayc begins to suspect he’s the only one who doesn’t know what’s happening.
“Where?” Bronwen demands, with enough force it startles the falcon into flight. It settles on the ground a few feet away and pecks at the ground.
“The last known location was at the northwest border of the Forest of Elodie,” Lora says. She presses the message into Bronwen’s hand. The sorcerer quickly scans the rest.
“We have to go,” Lora says, before shifting her attention from her First to her Third. “Peregrin?”
Tempest crouches low so Peregrin can slide off easily. “Tempest is willing to carry you.”
“And Bronwen?” Lora asks.
“Yes.”
Lora and Bronwen march toward the gryphon.
“Wait, what exactly is happening?” Ayc asks. “You’re running off to go rescue some opium?”
Whatever it is, it isn’t opium. He definitely knows that, but the words have the desired effect. Lora swings back around to face him.
“The opium ,” Lora snarls, the silver momentarily taking up her eyes, “is a sixteen-year-old boy attempting to flee from Lux Aester to avoid marrying a fae three times his age and being forced to live as a gender other than his true self.”
Ayc blinks. “What?”
“Lora and I started an organization,” Bronwen explains, so rapidly her words tumble over each other. “A group of volunteers throughout Everadyn who help people escape Lux Aester to freedom. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a magical gift and get sent away like I did.”
For years, Ayc has watched other regents and other citizens come to plead with Yris to take actions against the Lux Aester—to stop them from ripping away the rights of the fae within their clan. She has been immovable, maintaining that each clan has the right to make their own laws. She has chosen time and time again to protect the rights of the oppressors, instead of the oppressed. Perhaps, because of the money the Lux Aester temples contribute to the royal treasury.
And meanwhile, Lora has been running an organization that saves the people whom her mother refused to help.
He stares at Lora. “Your mother doesn’t know?”
“No, she would stop us if she did.”
Just like she stopped other rebellions, like the one that helped Aluina.
“And you all knew about this?” Ayc asks, glancing at the others.
Peregrin, Xylie, and Tavish all nod.
Peregrin explains, “I’ve helped ensure that those allowed in Final Testing are placed in a position that will get them far out of Lux Aester reach.”
Tavish says, “I’ve sheltered those who needed it.”
And Xylie signs, “ I help with logistics and planning. ”
Of course she does. She’s probably brilliant at it .
Ayc turns back to Lora, who lifts her jaw, wearing her invisible crown. He sees it clearly then, what he’s only caught glimpses of before, like spying a glint of light off the edge of razor-sharp metal. Beyond the stone of her expression, beyond her ferocity and power, there is kindness.
And fuck, he likes it. It makes his long-buried hope burst like sunlight breaking out from behind storm clouds, until his skin blazes with familiar warmth.
For the first time, he understands why the rest of the Five follow her so willingly. If this is what she meant by the world she means to create as Sovereign—one where all people are free to exist as themselves—then perhaps Ayc is wrong. Perhaps, she's not her mother at all.
Perhaps, she is someone worth serving.
“We need to go,” Lora says, taking another step toward Tempest and resting her hand on the beast’s shoulders to prepare to mount.
Bronwen follows, then hesitates. The look she casts Ayc’s over her shoulder causes his stomach to twist. “Lora, wait. I think you should take Ayc instead.”
“ What? ” Lora barks, as the same time as Ayc mutters, “You’re fucking kidding, right?”
Bronwen positions herself so she can face both Lora and Ayc. “Hear me out. Vidar’s letter says there’s at least a dozen Lux Aester. We can’t slaughter them all.”
Lora bares her teeth. “Watch me.”
Ayc almost laughs. There’s the viciousness he knows. Turned toward injustice, her ferocity looks wicked and beautiful all at once.
“I mean, you can ,” Bronwen amends, “but not without outing the entire organization. We won’t be able to keep it from Yris if we leave a dozen dead bodies behind us.”
Lora’s mouth twists—like she knows Bronwen is right and doesn’t like it.
Bronwen gestures to Ayc with her staff. “But Ayc has a talent that would allow him to go unseen.”
Xylie whips her head toward Ayc so quickly that her braids fly, doubt spelled out on her face. But Lora looks him up and down, her eyes lightening from royal to a sky blue. The warmth beneath his skin creeps up. She’s considering it.
“Bronwen’s right,” Peregrin says. “We can’t afford to expose ourselves and start a war. Not yet. Even if it’s one worth fighting.”
Three more heartbeats pound against his sternum as Lora studies him. Boom, boom, boom.
Then she draws in a long breath and asks, “Ayc, will you help me?”
Ayc’s bracelets feel suddenly too tight upon his wrists. A promise long ago tugs at his throat, as potent as any vow. Nothing good could ever come from his tricks, his mother warned. He has used them only to survive. But Ayc only has to imagine that boy, who has lived his life in a prison. Prison—because what other word is there for an existence where you are hated for who you truly are, and therefore, must hide it at all costs?
And, for once, Ayc has power to make a difference.
Ayc is already walking forward, pulling his hair back from his face and securing it with the ribbon on his wrist. “Let’s fucking do this.”