Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
LYVIA
We’ll need something to placate them. Give me an alternative to the men on my ship, or the deal’s off.
– Correspondence from Lord Haro of Marisarma, Captain of the Siren, to undisclosed recipient in Lotrennia.
Lyvia – Nivis
The Albyrn Mountains hunched behind the Crystal Castle, the snow-covered rocks glowing a soft pink and violet as the sun’s sleepy eye peeked over the horizon.
I tugged my fur-lined gloves over my hands as my eyes swept over the vast mountain range.
My thoughts drifted from the parents I’d never known…
to Eira and Ursa and the clan they’d lost to Dark King Daimos.
They’d kept the Transcindiel Bone hidden from him for hundreds of years in those mountains. I was born here.
I’d discovered who I was, but Xenelpha’s words often rang in my head…
That we all change. And though I knew I’d been born a Nivisian elf, that my blood ran through these very mountains, I couldn’t help but feel lost. I was an elf again, and my mind reeled from the transformational whiplash—elf, human, elf…
How much transformation could one’s body and mind endure?
I hadn’t looked at myself in the mirror. I didn’t need to. I felt the difference. My body was harder, faster… My senses were sharper. I had finally come to love myself for who I was, and then I changed again. And while I accepted the change, my identity lacked an anchor.
Where did I belong?
It wasn’t here. This didn’t feel like coming home. The Crystal Castle glowed from the corner of my eye as the slim peel of the sun began its trek.
Returning to this land felt more like being thrown into an emotional storm. I certainly wouldn’t set foot inside that palace. Where was my anchor? I’d laid siege to Aedrialis, to the city I’d been raised in. The Evecta no longer felt like home…
I stood in a small clearing outside the little village surrounding the castle.
A forest of bare trees stretched between me and the rocky face of a cliff.
I blew a sigh through my nose and cracked my neck before closing my eyes and dropping my hands to my side.
I didn’t try to empty my mind… That never worked.
I let the thoughts and questions come and go, let them flit by with soft acknowledgment before taking a deep breath and moving into my morning centering exercises.
Minutes later, the muffled crunch of a boot hit the melting snow, and I snapped my eyes open. I whirled around, my powers racing to my palms. My fresh eyes spotted him a hundred yards out, and my shoulders eased.
The soft scent of cinnamon wafted through the trees as Vulcan prowled to where I stood. He held two large mugs of steaming tea and jerked his chin to a dry rock.
“Did it help?” he asked as he handed me a mug and sat down. His hazel eyes surveyed me before he took a sip. My gaze slid over the nasty scar that cut across the fern tattoo on the side of his face.
“A little,” I admitted, taking a slow sip and sitting down. “Sorry I didn’t invite you.”
Vulcan gruffed in response.
“I don’t really want to talk about it.” I pinned my gaze on the mountains.
“I’m not really the talking type,” he murmured.
My lips kicked up a notch. We sat in silence for several minutes, sipping our tea and watching the thin branches make rickety movements as the breeze pushed through the clearing.
“We’re leaving soon,” he finally said. He took another swig of his tea, downing its contents.
My chest constricted, and I looked up to find Vulcan’s brows narrowed at me.
I nodded, understanding his need to get back, but still sad at being separated so soon after my return.
Vulcan had become another brother to me.
“Why do you look like that?” he asked, his face tightening in an awkward crinkle.
“I’m just going to miss you,” I murmured, nudging his shoulder with my elbow.
He rolled his eyes and shook his head once in a jerky motion, his blonde hair catching against the morning sun.
“I’m coming with you to Votruvia,” he corrected, his voice edged with annoyance.
I blinked. “You are?” I asked. “I thought you’d be heading back to Lotrennia with Bayne and Lida?”
Vulcan ran a hand over his clean-shaven face before shaking his head. “No.”
I opened my mouth to probe when he cut me off with a jerk of his chin. My gaze slid to the cooling mug in my hands.
“How is Lida doing?” I asked after a moment.
My mind replayed Lida’s reunion with Bayne after Kellan and I had used our powers to transform the ashen.
She’d been taken and turned, living out the last year of her life as a mindless killer.
I hadn’t approached Lida… And why would I?
Why would my ex’s ex want anything to do with me?
She’d watched me carefully in the hours after Kellan and I had returned, and I found I had a hard time meeting her gaze.
There was a knot in my chest that tightened when I looked at her, a small stab of guilt when I remembered how I had been the one saved from Kayj while she suffered there for many more months.
Vulcan’s brows narrowed, and his gaze turned to the sea in the distance.
“She’s angry,” he murmured after a moment.
I nodded, understanding. She and Bayne were in love when she was taken and turned. She awoke to find out he’d fallen in love with someone else, had rescued a different woman from Kayj, all before he soulbound himself and married the treacherous queen of Lotrennia.
Vulcan took the empty mug from my hand and turned toward the castle.
“I’ll see you in an hour.”
The sharp wind bit at my face as I stood on the cliff. The Crystal Castle loomed behind me like a giant glass warrior. The Evecta bobbed in the distance, its white sails lost against the light sky and snow falling over the distant gray sea.
Bayne sailed south to Lotrennia, to his queen and wife. Aquila’s form had disappeared in the distance, but he’d return as soon as Bayne had made it safely to Lotrennian shores.
I made my way down the steep stone steps leading to the docks, where the massive Hydra rocked. A wave of love washed over me as Tiberius’s dark form sank through the clouds overhead, and he hammered down the center deck of the ship, flapping the wet snow off his wings as he finally came to a stop.
Carina adjusted her glasses as she stretched a gloved hand to mine when I reached the docks. A strand of brown hair blew loose from her fur-lined hood as she fell into step with me.
“I assume you know this already…” she began, her Ravindra green eyes pinning me with that piercing gaze the royal elves had. “But your little trip to hell severed our air oath connection.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but she placed a hand on my shoulder to halt me before reaching the gangplank of the Hydra. “Our air oath may be gone,” she continued, “but my promise still stands, whether it be magically bound or not. We protect the people of this realm.”
My chest tightened, but I simply nodded my head.
“And mine to you,” I replied, forcing the surge of emotion to back off as tears burned behind my eyes.
Carina nodded, her face solemn as she looked in disgust at the serpentine creature stretching from the front of the Hydra.
“Be careful here,” I finally said, shifting my gaze to the desolate Island of Kayj floating south of the continent.
Carina’s lips twitched. “We’ll be fine,” she replied. “Between Selvina, Nerissa, Kresida and me, we have it covered. Bayne will be back in a few months.”
My throat bobbed.
“Keep an eye on Nerissa, will you?” I asked, unable to help the concern from slipping into my throat as I gazed at the island. Carina’s cousin had already returned to Kayj with Kresida to keep watch of the arch, determined not to let anything slip through.
“If she’ll let me,” Carina muttered, arching a brow. “Safe travels, my friend.”
Days had passed, and we flew through layers of clouds, nothing but plumes of mist above and below, little streams of sunlight shining through the gaps as if this were a world of its own. Tiberius heaved a sigh. My legs bobbed as his large ribs expanded with the next intake of breath.
You’re tired, I murmured into his mind.
I’m fine.
You can take me back down if you need to rest.
I’ll carry you as long as you need. Always.
Guilt joined hands with the concern in my chest, yet Ti’s warmth surged. We’d been at sea for two weeks now, the Hydra sailing just south of the Death Dunes, but Ti and I had spent most of it in the air.
Partially because I had been avoiding a certain pirate onboard, but also because we’d needed this time together—needed to heal after the Abyss. Because Tiberius had followed me into Hell, and though we didn’t know where his body had gone, whatever remained had stayed with me. His mind. His heart.
And he endured every painful moment I had.
We needed this frigid air, to feel the dip of the dive, the surge of exhaustion from the ascent, the wind on our faces, and the life that came with it.
It’s been a few hours, Ti. Let’s take a break.
If you say so, he murmured, his mind’s words heavy.
My stomach dipped as the flash of a blue coat came into view at the quarterdeck, and we dove through the clouds.
We crossed into Kellan’s shield and my lungs immediately filled with the warm cedar and leather-scented wind that accompanied the pirate’s magic.
I slid off Ti’s silky back as my brother approached, giving my caeluma a pat on the withers.
“Just in time for Raek’s stew,” Aeriden proclaimed, a wide grin stretching across his face.
His eyes scanned the darkness clawing its way up my exposed neck, but the horror I’d seen during the siege of Mount Telum had all but disappeared.
Where disgust and fear once lurked, thoughtful curiosity hung.
I’d asked him about it, about where that horror had gone.
His response was simple. It had disappeared in those moments on Kayj when we’d battled Dark King Daimos together.
When the shock of seeing my powers in action had worn off, and he’d better understood they were a part of me.
He’d had a chance to come to terms with who I’d become. He had just needed time.
I tugged off my gloves and shoved them in my pocket as one of Kellan’s men approached Ti with a bucket of oats and water. Ti blew a soft nicker through his wide lips and clomped to where he stood.
I slung off my fur-lined coat and followed Aeriden. My stomach already groaned in anticipation of Raek’s stew. I reached the stairs when Kellan’s voice rolled over the wind, warming the air above deck.
“Lyvia,” he began.
I paused, my heart stuttering at the way my name slipped off his tongue. I looked across the deck to find him striding toward me, with half of his dark auburn hair tied tightly behind his head in twisting braids. Swirling black ink crept up his skin on the exposed area of his neck.
His dark eyes searched mine for a moment as he paused in front of me. “Can we talk?”