Chapter 17 Rhianelle
The morning sun is barely cresting the mountains when Coral takes her first true flight.
I’ve been awake since before dawn, too restless to sleep.
Arescaine and I have stood at the cliff edge while the sky changed from black to grey and finally to the pale gold of morning.
We checked the braces three times. Tarian watched from behind us with his arms crossed, saying nothing, which from him means he believes they might actually work.
Coral stands at the edge for a long moment, staring into the valley below. Then she looks back at me.
I nod.
She doesn’t leap so much as hurl herself from the cliff, trusting the braces to hold.
For one terrible second, nothing happens.
My heart is in my throat as Arescaine’s wing braces gleam on her back. The mechanism engages with a soft click and then she’s gliding.
Coral is flying.
I clap both hands over my mouth, but a sound escapes anyway. Tears sting my eyes. I don’t care.
Her pale white scales catch the dawn light like scattered diamonds. She banks left, then right, testing the balance. I can hear her delighted chirps echoing across the valley.
She attempts a wider turn and wobbles so sharply that my stomach drops. Then the left brace shifts to compensate.
Coral steadies herself and tilts into the wind instead of fighting against it. She catches the current and rides it in a long, lazy circle above the valley floor. Her chirps rise higher and faster with excitement.
Coral understands.
She’s learning how to fly.
I grab Arescaine’s arm without thinking.
“Look at her,” I say, as though he isn’t already watching. “Look at what she’s doing.”
He doesn’t answer. When I glance up at him, something unguarded has slipped into his expression.
“She’s doing it,” I breathe, unable to stop the smile spreading across my face. “My Coral is flying.”
Arescaine stands beside me, arms crossed. He’s watching his creation work with what I’ve learned is his version of pride. There’s a slight softening around his eyes, a barely-there curve of his lips. He’s been working on those braces for weeks, adjusting, testing, and rebuilding them for Coral.
I think of last night, when I found him at his worktable long after the city had gone dark. Diagrams covered every available surface. He was surrounded by carved models he’d tested and discarded. Not once did he complain that the task was too difficult or suggest that it couldn’t be done.
He simply kept working.
“The balance is still off,” he says, ever critical. “She can’t gain more altitude. I need to reinforce the joint mechanism and—”
“Arescaine.” I touch his arm again without thinking and feel him go very still. “Thank you. This is... You’ve given her hope. You’ve given me hope.”
He looks down at where my hand rests on his forearm and something passes through his dark eyes.
“Rhianelle,” he says quietly.
Our eyes meet, and neither of us looks away. The morning light catches the sharp angles of his face. There is something in his expression that I cannot name. Something ancient and carefully restrained, an ache buried beneath centuries of silence.
“There is something I should have told you a long time ago,” he begins.
My breath catches.
“I am—”
“Your Highness!”
The shout shatters the moment. Arescaine and I step apart quickly like we’ve been caught doing something wrong.
Cedwyn comes running across the training grounds. The young fae squire’s face is flushed, his breathing ragged, and there’s something in his eyes that makes my heart stumble.
Something is wrong.
“Cedwyn?” I move toward him. “What’s happened?”
“Your Highness, I—” He bends double with his hands on his knees, gasping. “There’s news. Terrible news.”
Coral lands beside us with a heavy thump, her wing braces folding mechanically. She senses my fear and presses her massive head against my side. I absently stroke her scales while dread coils in my stomach.
Overhead, the sky remains the same pale gold it was when Coral first took flight. Only moments have passed, but that happiness already feels impossibly far away.
“Breathe,” I tell Cedwyn, forcing my voice to stay calm even as panic starts clawing up my throat. “Tell me.”
He straightens and I see sweat streaking his face. “It’s the Herald, my lady. Landon. He’s been captured.”
The world tilts.
“What?” The word leaves me as little more than a whisper.
Arescaine’s hand closes around my elbow, steadying me when my legs threaten to buckle.
“Say that again.”
“Captured,” Cedwyn repeats, and his voice breaks on the word.
“The Fae King,” Cedwyn chokes out. “Landon went to court to demand answers from the king. They say Eirik himself captured him.”
“Where is he?” I interrupt more sharply than I intend. “Where are they holding him?”
“The deep cells beneath the Palace of Bones. No one escapes those cells. They’re meant to hold—”
The sound of hoofbeats cuts him off. Multiple horses race across the training grounds.
I turn to see Lord Nemarion thundering toward us on a lathered destrier.
His armor is askew, his face haggard, and there’s blood on his surcoat.
The war general doesn’t slow down or dismount properly.
He practically falls from his horse and staggers toward me.
“Your Highness.” He drops to one knee, breathing hard. “I bring word from our scouts at the border. The Fae King has declared war. His armies are mobilizing as we speak.”
No. It can’t be.
The ground shifts beneath my feet.
I’ve known this was coming. Every council meeting, every border report, and every sleepless night spent staring at maps has pointed toward this moment.
“How certain are your scouts?” I ask, because a foolish part of me is still hoping it’s not true.
“Certain enough that three of them did not return to deliver the warning,” Nemarion says.
That small, desperate hope dies.
“When?” Arescaine’s voice cuts through my spiraling thoughts. “How long do we have?”
“A day or less,” Nemarion rasps. “Prince Finnbheara leads the main force, legions upon legions, Your Highness. They’re marching toward the Great Plateau.”
The massive expanse of open ground between Aelfheim and the fae territories offers no advantage to either side. There’s nowhere to hide there, nothing but open space.
“How many?” I ask, my voice steady even though nothing else is.
“All of them.” Nemarion’s hands are shaking. “Avalon, Myrkheim, Darvan and Hel. All of them answer to the fae king. They’re bringing war beasts we’ve never seen before. Woolly mammoths from the southern lands. Shadow drakes, Hellspawns, and even things from deep in the Winterwood of Avalon.”
I’ve read about mammoths in the old histories. Creatures nearly as tall as towers, protected by thick hide and almost impossible to stop once they begin charging. They can scatter cavalry and crush a defensive line beneath their feet.
“And the skies?” Arescaine asks.
Nemarion’s jaw tightens. “Wyverns. Enough to burn this kingdom to the ground twice over.”
Coral releases a low, uneasy sound beside me. I press my palm against her neck without taking my eyes from Nemarion.
I feel the mate bond then. It’s pulled taut as a bowstring, thrumming with pain and fear. I press my hand to my chest, feeling the ache of it. I know Landon is suffering. He’s trapped somewhere cold and dark and he’s terrified.
Not for himself. For me.
“They’re using Landon as bait,” I whisper. “They captured him to draw me out.”
Silence answers me.
No one tries to deny it.
That is how I know I’m right.
“Which is why you cannot go,” Arescaine says carefully. “Rhianelle, whatever they intend to do with you—”
“He’s my mate. The bond—”
“I know what he is to you.” Something flashes across Arescaine’s face, painful and resigned. He turns his face away before I can understand it. “I know what it means to love someone you cannot bear to lose.”
Before I can ask what he means, horns sound from the walls. The warning bells begin to toll. The sound that means one thing and one thing only.
War.
Coral shrieks, spreading her reinforced wings.
“We need to get to the war room,” I say, forcing myself to think.
My people need their queen. I feel the weight of the crown upon my head. I’ve always known that responsibility as surely as I know my own heartbeat.
But everything inside me is screaming to run to Landon, to tear through anything that stands between us and drag him out of that darkness.
“Your Highness!” Another voice, this time from the direction of the castle. It’s Aelfric, running full tilt, his face pale. “The council is assembling! Lord Rainer requests your immediate presence!”
My mate is captured. An army is coming to destroy my kingdom. I feel the weight of it all crash down on me.
“Go,” Arescaine says quietly. “I’ll stable Coral and gather what she needs.”
I want to ask him what he was going to say before Cedwyn interrupted. I want to ask why looking at him sometimes feels like trying to remember a dream. I want to ask why the bond pulls toward Landon, yet something else keeps pulling toward him. But there’s no time.
I follow Aelfric. Cedwyn and Lord Nemarion fall in behind me.
Beyond our borders, an army is coming for Aelfheim. Somewhere in the darkness beneath the Palace of Bones, Landon is suffering.
I do not know how to save both my kingdom and Landon.
I do not know if I can save either.