53. Vaelar
Chapter 53
“What in the seven hells did you do, brother?” Ryndle was snarling, that was clear, even without my Fae sight. Although he was moving fast enough and yelling loud enough that I didn’t need to see him regardless.
He was furious, and I didn’t blame him.
Inside, I was panicking, not that I let that show. I simply stood against the backside of the temple where I had told him I would meet him after the light came. After the moment that we had all been working through lifetimes to achieve. Although, this wasn’t the after that any of us had planned.
“I have done nothing, Ryndle. You know as well as I do that I do not control the lines of fate.”
“Bullshit!” He snapped as he reached me. I was actually surprised he didn’t hit me with how he was fuming. “You have tugged on those strings enough that we all know who truly is playing the game. No more, Vaelar. Nothing is as we were told. They didn’t fight. They didn’t die. They were supposed to die and go to the sister to return when promised. They are not dead.”
The panic I was attempting to restrain rose again, bile rising right with it. So many centuries, so many years hoping for this moment, playing for it, sacrificing for it, knowing what was coming… and it had all fallen apart.
“I know.” I tried to keep my voice level, still ignoring that panic that was everywhere.
“You know? What kind of answer is that, Vaelar?” He waited for an answer. I could only stare, I always had an answer. But now, in this horror, I had none. “Useless! You're useless!”
“That is no way to speak to your King,” I gave him the same warning I had given him hundreds of times before, and the same one he ignored. As he usually did, he gave me a look before throwing up his hands and turning with a growl, only then did I see the long wicked blades he had strapped to his back.
The same one that had given me the scar that now ran the length of my face.
“Are those…?” I thought I had felt dread before. My head was suddenly pounding with it.
“Yes. He didn’t take them, and now they are blood bound–”
“Blood bound?” I pushed myself off the wall.
A blood binding was usually reserved only for Fae, part of the sacred rituals for mates. But, left in the hands of the Lynar for centuries, that tradition had become twisted, used more to fuse souls and power now.
I had foolishly thought that this could not get any worse. Truly.
Well, that was until I saw Lyani beelining right for us, her ears out as she stormed her way over, the clouds already brewing far overhead as her magic sparked.
“Hello, sister,” I tried to sound pleasant, but the words were knocked from my mouth as her fist made contact with my jaw. Well, at least one of my siblings had the wherewithal to strike me.
Pain lashed through my jaw as she sent me back into the wall, the tang of blood filling my mouth. No wonder her ears were out, she wanted to hit me with her full strength.
Great, three Fae out in the open. The priestesses had worked for years to keep us hidden, and to protect the entrance of our home, but having three of us out in the open like this was dangerous. Even if Dalyah had left in her line of wagons and carriages hours before, there would still be traces, she could still send her Syphers to track us down.
Which would be even more dangerous now that we had sent the most powerful of that kind right into her clutches.
“What have you done, Vaelar!” she shouted, already pulling her fist back before Ryndle grabbed her arm. “You promised me he would be safe! Safe with the sister! Not bound and locked away in the Runturin! How did this happen?”
I had asked myself the same question as I had watched the events unfold. I only had one answer.
“I might have told him the altar was not the end, and to not be afraid to fail,” I admitted quietly, my insides still reeling at the truth of what I had done. “I had meant it to speak to his conquest to kill the queen and to not be afraid to meet his end. It appears that message may not have been interpreted as planned. I simply wanted him to keep his head.”
“You shouldn’t keep yours!” Lyani shouted, punching me again and sending me back into the wall. Ryndle didn’t even try to pull her back that time.
“It’s so nice to know how I am respected in my role, especially amongst my siblings,” I grumbled rubbing my jaw where she had hit me. Lyani had always had a temper, and she had clearly been pushed to the edge of her control judging by the clouds that had now turned to the color of soot.
“Don’t give me that shit. Ryndle should be King you are–”
“Can we not drag me into it,” Ryndle grumbled, cutting her off as he pulled her back again. “Who should wear the crown is not our problem at the moment. Our problem is that Vaelar wasn’t able to complete his task, and two of the three are heading into the Runturin, not to the sister where they were supposed to complete their training before the light is unleashed.”
Lyani’s jaw worked as she glared, the storm clouds thankfully receding enough that I didn’t have to worry for my jaw as much.
“Will they be able to reach their goal on this new path?” she asked through the clench in her jaw and all my stress and worry from before came rushing back.
“I do not know,” I admitted. I was genuinely worried for what would come next. We had worked for centuries to place the pieces exactly where they needed to be, and now everything seemed to be crumbling. There was no path to follow.
“How can you not know? Walk forward and find out, set us on a new path.” Ryndle waved his hand to the side, motioning me into the future as though it was that easy.
It had been, but it wasn’t anymore. I had always had a broader Vynari power than Ryndle, my walking skill the strongest in an age. But not anymore.
“I cannot access my magic. That power is locked from me.” My nerves broke free of my restraint, boiling their way to the surface, but I locked them back down, shoving them down deep as I glanced from Ryndle to Lyani, presenting myself as their Eldest brother and the King I was supposed to be.
“What did you do, Vaelar?” Lyani hissed again and I stepped back, leaning against the smooth stone Temple in preparation of a hit that never came.
“I have done nothing, as I said. You said that the two were blood bound?” Lyani nodded at my question and my soul tangled further.
“I saw it with my own eyes.”
“Then that must be what has happened. When Caspyn’s magic was bound to hers, so was my own.” Again, my siblings looked between themselves in confusion. I did not blame them. I had kept this small thing to myself since I had figured it out nearly ten years ago. Well, ten years for me, it perhaps had only been weeks since I faced Caspyn in that burnt out hovel.
“Stop playing games, Vaelar–” Ryndle was snarling, but I held up my hand before my peacekeeper brother did something he regretted.
“Caspyn’s power of Vynari is not his own, it was stolen when his Sypher magic first erupted. It was the first power, and the first life, that he took.” I swallowed, refusing to look at Lyani as I spoke what came next. “His power is mine, taken from me when I die. When he kills me while I am bound in Dalyah’s clutches.”
I had expected a bigger reaction from that reveal, but neither of them so much as breathed.
“You can’t be serious. His Vynari power is not that strong.” Lyani said after a moment. It was clear that neither of them believed me. Ryndle even looked as though he was about to burst out laughing.
“It is not, because he does not know how to use it. But it is mine, and now, with his magic tied to hers, so is mine. I cannot walk. I cannot lead us. I am a bird flying without wings.”
I hated to admit it. This alone felt like more of a failure than anything else.
“So what does that mean for us?” Lyani’s voice was soft, those rain clouds moving in again. I knew what she had risked for this. I knew what she had given up. I had always told her she would not be able to keep her mate, but it seems she did not expect the pain that would accompany that loss.
I, however, knew that pain well.
I should have prepared my sister more.
I should have protected her.
Now, there was nothing I could do.
Well, almost nothing.
“We need to find the third.” I was firm. Lyani looked as though she wanted to punch me again.
“The third pillar?” Ryndle choked on the words. “Vaelar, we have searched for the third. You have walked through centuries looking for the third. We thought it was the girl, but we all know how that ended.”
“I don’t need reminded,” I snarled, that heartbreak would never leave me. Which they both knew with how that subtle sorrow mixed with victory in Ryndle’s eyes.
“The third does not exist.”
“It does. It has to.” I tried to be firm, even if I was as disbelieving as my brother. “If we want any hope of stopping Dalyah, of stopping what is coming, the third holder of light is our only choice.”
They looked at each other, both clearly thinking me mad and doing nothing to disguise it. Truth be told, I might be mad, but we had no other choice now. Perhaps we never did.
With the gaze that passed between them, they knew it too.
Before I could get a chance to say more, one of Ryndle’s men came running around the bend, his face frantic as he bolted right to us.
“My Lord, my King,” he said, bowing to Ryndle and then to me.
“At least someone knows how to recognize their King–” I began, but Lyani stepped away from Ryndle, her fists tight little balls as she glared me down. That was enough for me to bite my tongue.
“What is it Midra?” Ryndle asked. Always the peacekeeper, my brother was.
“We have packed up the camp as requested, but we have a problem. We cannot find Ziah anywhere.”
“What?” Lyani’s anger melted into something else as she rounded on the messenger, all of the dread settling right back in my gut. “Did you check the low carriage, or the temple? You know how he loves to wander–”
“We found this.” Midra held out a piece of paper, the crinkled thing clearly torn from the Book of the Goddess that Ryndle required his army to read.
Lyani grabbed the paper, reading it quickly before swearing and passing it over to me.
My gut turned fluid as I read the words, realizing that yes, things could in fact get much worse.
‘I’ve gone to be strong, to be a warrior. You said he was important, and I know he is the one to show me how to fight. How to be what the Goddess wants me to be.’
“He stowed away in the queen's caravan.” The words felt numb. It was Ryndle who swore that time.
“What do we do? We aren’t supposed to go there yet.” Lyani was near panic. I would have tried to comfort her, but the rolling clouds were not promising that I would not get punched.
“True, but we cannot leave him, either.” I said, my eyes already drifting toward that far away spot on the map, the one that was still supposed to be out of our grasp. “Fate is playing her hand now, it seems.”
“You cannot be saying what I think, Vaelar. Going there now will start the clock,” Ryndle said, dismissing Midra before he heard too much. He might have already. “It isn’t time. We aren’t ready, and if you want us to find the third–”
“I don’t think we have much of an option,” I said, looking from the far away fortress to my siblings. “If Dalyah finds Ziah, if she figures out what he can do, then all of this will end in a way far worse than what we are anticipating.”
“So, we go to Turin? To the Runturin.” Lyani’s voice vacant, even though her storm clouds were clearing away.
“Yes,” I said, nodding as all of those nerves loosened, but not for the reason that they should. “After all, you don’t expect me to leave my mate there and allow her to destroy the world, do you?”