Chapter 5
Briar
Fuck!
That was all he had time to think as he rolled to the side, but not before he conjured a wave of water to meet the wall of flames coming at him. And not before he sent an ice dagger flying.
The Fire General lifted her sword with a second to spare, the dagger shattering into tiny crystals when it collided with her blade.
Briar rolled onto his knees before pushing to his feet.
Eliza’s skills never failed to impress him, but it wasn’t a surprise.
She and Nakoa trained together and trained their forces together, and he’d lain awake all night with an idea rolling around in his mind.
The problem was, he didn’t know how to approach his Inner Court or the Fire Court with the idea because relations with the Eastern Courts were strained enough as it was.
“Step behind your foot instead of in front,” Nakoa said, and Briar turned to find him approaching Thia, one of Eliza’s soldiers. “That will allow you to pivot easier.”
Thia nodded, taking in every word and testing out the maneuver while the rest of them looked on.
“Where’s Cyrus?” Sawyer asked, coming up beside them.
Eliza clicked her tongue in annoyance. “Cyrus is never up this early.”
Sawyer huffed a laugh. “He sleeps in while his mate reports for training?”
“Every fucking day,” Eliza grumbled, sheathing her sword down her back and flicking her red-gold braid over her shoulder. “Anyway, is there a particular reason you joined us this morning?”
Sawyer looked at Briar expectantly, because he too had been confused when Briar had suggested a trip to the Fire Court as the sun rose.
He hadn’t been planning on bringing Sawyer with, but his brother was getting nosy.
Briar knew the moment he suggested joining forces with the Eastern Courts for training, Sawyer would inundate him with questions.
Maybe he should have approached Ashtine with this idea first, but he wasn’t sure when he’d be seeing the Wind Princess again after the way he’d left her earlier that morning.
“Is Sorin doing any better?”
Eliza crossed her arms, looking past him and watching the rest of her soldiers going through their morning training routines. Her shoulders tensed. “That is not what you came here to ask me because you already know the answer.”
Fair point.
Briar pushed out a harsh breath, tugging on the band that kept his hair tied back.
Nakoa had joined them now, his turquoise eyes narrowing as he studied his prince.
“I came to get your thoughts. Both of you actually. We train our Courts together, teaching our armies to work together and use their magic as one. Perhaps, now that we are all under one queen, we should be doing so with the other Courts as well.”
Eliza slowly slid her gaze back to him, and Nakoa blinked, a scowl pulling on his mouth. “Talwyn is only ruling in Eliné’s stead right now,” Sawyer cut in. “Technically, that’s not even her role. It would be Eliné’s Second—”
“Who is too lost to his own inner turmoil to properly do so,” Nakoa interrupted, rubbing at his jaw.
“Which would then fall to her Third, which is you,” Eliza continued, jerking her chin at Briar. “So I suppose the decision is yours.”
“That’s not how this works, and you know it,” Briar retorted. “I came to ask your opinions on the matter.”
“Why now? Eliné has only been gone a little over a year. Even when she was here, the West and East didn’t mingle much,” Sawyer said.
“That was due more to the feud between the Fire and Earth Courts than anything,” Briar argued.
“Question still stands. Why now?”
Definitely should have done this when Sawyer wasn’t around.
“It was merely an idea. It would give our forces new training activities rather than the same old, same old, and it could build relations,” Briar said. “Seems like a grand idea all around.”
Eliza flicked her grey eyes up to Nakoa, who had folded his arms across his chest once more. “It’s not a terrible idea, but with so much animosity between the Earth and Fire Courts, I don’t know that it would work.”
“So we start with the Wind Court,” Briar said with a shrug.
Eliza scoffed. “Luan would see it as a slight against him if we went to the Wind Princess and not him. And the Earth Prince isn’t the only issue here. There is also Talwyn.”
They all fell silent. No one needed to ask what she meant. The growing rift between the Fire Prince and the Fae Queen of the Eastern Courts wasn’t a secret by any means.
“Something to think on then,” Briar finally said.
“Sure,” Eliza replied, her eyes narrowing as Cyrus came sauntering down the path from the Fiera Palace. “Do not distract my soldier,” she yelled at him.
Cyrus merely threw her the middle finger before wrapping his arm around Thia’s waist and bringing his mouth to hers.
“One of these days I am going to set him on fire,” Eliza grumbled.
“Wouldn’t do much seeing as he’s also a Fire Fae,” Sawyer replied.
“Eyebrows take a while to grow back,” she returned with a shrug.
Briar huffed a laugh turning to Nakoa. “Are you staying for a while?”
Nakoa nodded. “I’ll send word when I need a portal home.”
“Actually, I was planning to spend some time in the libraries here. If that’s all right with you?” he asked, his gaze shifting to Eliza.
But before she could answer, Cyrus was there, Thia tucked into his side. “Of course, Drayce. Whatever you need.”
“Thank you,” Briar answered, turning and beginning the walk up the path Cyrus had just come from.
Sawyer fell into step beside him, and he didn’t miss that his brother had gone quiet. He knew the interrogation was coming, and within minutes of stepping into the libraries, he started.
“What is really going on, Briar?” Sawyer asked, his voice low as they began wandering among the various rows of books. When Briar didn’t answer, he pushed, “Does this have anything to do with why you’ve been going to the Wind Court lately?”
Briar threw a glare at his brother. “Maybe let’s not discuss this in another Court’s palace.”
“Apparently, this is the place to discuss a multitude of things, including new training regimens you haven’t even proposed to your own Inner Court yet,” Sawyer went on, his tone hard. “What the fuck, Briar?”
Briar sighed as they climbed the stairs to the next floor. “I know, Sawyer. This last year has been hard on all of us.”
“Shutting the rest of us out is not the answer. You can see what it’s doing to the Fire Court.”
“I know.”
“Do you even know what we’re looking for here?” Sawyer asked as they made their way through the stacks of books on the third floor.
They had a library in the Water Court, of course, but the Fire Court library was second to only the Wind Court catacombs.
And, again, Briar wasn’t sure when he’d be going back there again.
The truth was, he’d been a dick to Ashtine.
He’d likely spoken to her in a way no one ever had, and while he stood by what he said, he’d said that to create distance between them.
He’d been far too close to crossing a forbidden line.
Or maybe not crossing it completely, but definitely pushing invisible boundaries.
“Yes. No. Sort of,” Briar answered absent-mindedly.
“That is not helpful in the slightest,” Sawyer replied in annoyance. “If you had an idea, we could at least ask Eliza where to look. There are seven levels in this library, Briar.”
“I know how many floors there are,” Briar retorted. He always simply looked through the books Ashtine had already collected when he was looking for answers with her. “Texts about the Great War and Avonleya,” he finally added.
“Avonleya?” Sawyer said, coming to a standstill. “What could we possibly need to know about Avonleya?”
“I don’t know,” Briar answered. “That’s why I’m looking for books about the kingdom.”
Avonleya.
The kingdom locked away to keep the rest of the realm safe.
Or that was what King Deimas and Queen Esmeray had tried to rewrite into history.
The truth was they had brought war to Avonleya when their monarchy had denied them something they wanted.
The Fae Courts had fought alongside Avonleya, and that was why the then Court Royals had eventually been executed.
While everyone had been at the public slaughter, the Court capitals had been ransacked and precious texts destroyed.
It had been expected. It was why the hidden heirs had been dispersed among the crowd.
No one would have suspected they’d be there to watch their parents be sacrificed in the name of setting an example.
He rounded the corner, taking the stairs to the next floor. Honestly, he had no idea where to look for anything in here. He’d simply been hoping that a change of scenery might help him sort everything out.
There was no warning when a figure stepped from the lingering smoke of the lit brazier along the wall, but Briar was used to the Ash Rider suddenly appearing.
Whereas Ashtine could walk among the winds anywhere, Rayner needed smoke or ashes to move among.
It hindered his movements, but only slightly.
“I asked Eliza. She said the main floor houses books about Avonleya, but there aren’t many,” Rayner said in his low voice, black hair falling across his brow and into his grey eyes that swirled like smoke.
“You spoke to Sawyer, then,” Briar said, only now realizing his brother hadn’t followed him up the stairs.
“He said he’d rather not wander around aimlessly the entire day. He also said to tell you he’d meet you downstairs when you were ready,” the male said, crossing his arms and leaning a shoulder against the wall. “Something we need to be aware of?”
“No. I mean, I’m not sure yet. Is Sorin here?”
Rayner’s features seemed to darken, the smoke in his eyes swirling faster. “He went to his mountain chalet.”
“Fuck,” Briar muttered. Eliza and Cyrus had conveniently left that part out. “Not letting anyone in?
“Has he ever?”
Briar didn’t need to answer. The mountain chalet was where the Fire Prince went to sort himself out.
The problem was, he’d never let another soul into that grand mountain estate.
Wards kept everyone out, but the gods knew they’d tried.
When Eliné had first left, Sorin had spent almost a month there and only came back to the Fiera Palace when Eliza had threatened to burn his mother’s garden to piles of ash.
Drastic measures, sure, but it’d done the trick.
Now he only stayed gone for a day or two. Most of the time.
Normally, Briar would have talked through all his thoughts about Ashtine’s concerns with him, but Sorin had his own turmoil to deal with. He didn’t need Briar’s piled on top of everything else right now.
“Thanks for the help, Rayner,” Briar said, turning to head back down the stairs.
“Drayce,” Rayner called out.
Briar looked back over his shoulder to find him pushing off the wall.
“Was he like this after the Royals were killed? His parents?” Rayner asked.
“No,” Briar answered. “He grieved, of course. We all did. Together. But he’s never been like this.”
The unspoken hung in the air between them. They didn’t know how to help him, and they didn’t know if he’d ever be the same.
Rayner was gone in the next blink, and Briar made his way back down to the main floor.
It took a few minutes, but he found Sawyer at a table situated beneath a window.
There were a few books on the table, and he dropped into the chair across from his brother.
Someone had brought them a pitcher of water and glasses, and he poured himself a cup.
“The staff is locating more,” Sawyer said. “But they warned me that a lot of the information contradicts itself.”
“That’s not surprising,” Briar muttered. He and Ashtine were having the same difficulty with the texts in the Wind Court, and that only seemed to aggravate her for some reason. He was still learning how to read her, so he hadn’t pushed.
No.
That wasn’t it.
He was learning to read her too well, and that was a problem.
He shouldn’t know that she was getting aggravated when she smoothed her hand over the page, as if hoping the text would change.
He shouldn’t know that she preferred wool socks over slippers or boots.
And he shouldn’t know that if he used his water gazing magic on the water in his glass, he’d find her in her cozy nook in the catacombs because, although they brought her food and drink there, she never touched it, giving him the perfect view to observe her.
“I found something that should be of interest to you,” Sawyer said, sliding an open book across the table.
Briar picked it up, skimming the page, then let the book fall to the table. He met his brother’s gaze, icy blue eyes that mirrored his own.
“You’ve been spying,” Briar accused.
“You’ve been sneaking around,” Sawyer replied, not a hint of remorse in his tone.
“This,” Briar said, tapping the pages of the book, “is not something that needs to be worried about.”
“If you say so,” his brother said, reaching for another book. “I just thought it was something you should keep in mind.”
The text Sawyer had shown him spoke about Fae powers not crossing, specifically those of powerful bloodlines.
It was common knowledge that the Courts did not mix bloodlines.
It wasn’t unheard of for the common, less powerful Fae, but strong bloodlines?
It was taboo on many levels, and the only way around it was if you were twin flames.
A fated bond could trump the unspoken laws of old, and even then, the Courts would have issues if Royals formed a union.
There would be worries about heirs and an imbalance of power and—
And none of this mattered because that wasn’t why he was spending increasing amounts of time in the Wind Court.
That wasn’t why he was wondering if she’d remembered to eat today.
That wasn’t why if Sawyer weren’t sitting across from him, he would have already spelled the water in his drinking glass to watch her comb through texts.
This was to keep their Courts safe and prepare for war, not create more division among them all.
He sighed, glancing once more at the warning his brother had offered before flipping the book shut and reaching for another.
Perhaps distance would be the wiser option.