Chapter 27
It felt strange, training without Eldric today. The lack of his shouts surely made the early morning seem peaceful and quiet. Aegir still made me work, though.
By the end of a full-on physical session, followed by a self-defence lesson in an outdoor furnace, my legs turned weak and wobbly. I forced them to make it to the stable.
He was not cutting me any slack—no cooling relief, which I was sure I had become addicted to.
I collapsed in the middle of the floor, panting heavily.
Aegir lay next to me, shirtless, also panting.
After catching our breath, Aegir propped himself up on his elbows, then sat down and made to reach for his crumpled shirt.
He must not have realised that I, too, now sat behind him.
And he must not have noticed that I was about to touch the inked skin of his back.
His muscles stiffened beneath my fingertips as I slowly traced his marked spinal column.
I had never seen anything quite like that.
He did not look my way when I asked, “Did it hurt?”
“Not as much as it should have.” His reply was quiet and I wasn’t sure what he meant by that.
“How many dots do you think it has?” I asked.
“One hundred twenty-six thousand, five hundred ten.”
“That’s oddly specific. What does it mean?”
“I cannot tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Because I swore to the secrecy of its meaning, and I don’t want to lie to you.”
“Will you…tell me about them instead?” I asked quietly.
He met my gaze from over his shoulder. I chickened out and lay myself on the floor, looking at the beamed ceiling. But he soon lay next to me, then turned onto his side, his face and chest towards me. “Tell you about who?”
I shifted onto my side, my face resting on my fist. “Your parents,” I whispered.
His eyes softened. He fell silent for a while.
But then he began. “My mother, Akaterina, passed away six years ago, as did my father.
My mother, she became the Queen of Silch long after she settled into her immortality.
She settled at age twenty-six, just like I did.
I swear she was the palest person in the whole of Lyrantheia.
Her hair was as white as milk, and her skin was so fair, you could see the blue of her veins beneath it.
And her eyes, green, just like mine. She was a good mother, a kind and brave woman, and most of all, a visionary—at least she was all that when she was young and strong.
“She and her sister, Aunt Martia, wanted to barter with Sijar, to form reciprocal exchanges.
They had visited Sijar a few years before Ryvar was born, and they were blown away by the views of towering trees, uncommon plants, and herbs.
They wanted to import whatever they desired and in return, give what Silch offered best: ice, loads of it.
So my mother offered them Ice and Storm Wielders for their dry season.
For some reason, the Queen of Sijar, Forest Queen Tamer Leigh, was a bit hesitant at first, so my mother and my aunt invited her to Silch, to show her our means and offers.
She accepted the invitation and travelled north.
“Alongside Queen Tamer Leigh came two men—twin brothers; same blood, different bodies. Different souls, too—Rynn and Arlon Myrchorn, her two personal guards. Strongmen from Myrkvein. My mother once told me that when she met my father, Rynn, it didn’t take her long to realise that he was her soulbound.
” Faern had told me about this god-chosen lifelong bond—one soul shared between two.
The mere mention of it had me listening with even more intent.
“But she hid it at first, because it is forbidden for Fae royalty to bind themselves to someone outside their Land—especially to someone without royal blood, and worse still, a mortal.”
“Your father was a guard? We were taught he was a Southern heir.”
Aegir smirked. “My mother lied to everyone—to her people. She made it seem that their marriage was the only way for the alliance between Silch and Sijar to be possible. And so the Queen of Silch finally asked the Strongman of Sijar to stay. To pretend. My father was surprised to find that his brother, Arlon, grinned from ear to ear when he told him that he didn’t want to leave.
And that was because Arlon, too, had found the one, Emika, who happened to be my mother’s childhood friend.
Can you believe that? A bond so rare found by two brothers at the same time.
And as much as both my father and my uncle preferred Sylva’s green Land, they chose to stay with their soulbounds, on Boreas’s Land.
But that was nothing compared to what my mother and my aunt had to sacrifice.
“That night, Queen Tamer Leigh left Silch accompanied by two of my mother’s guards, a replacement for her Strongmen.
Soon after, my mother and my father married and offered their souls to each other.
A year later, my brother Ryvar was born.
My mother said she didn’t want to waste any time now that she was no longer immortal. ”
My lips parted. I didn’t know the true strength of the Fae bond until now.
“That is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard,” I said softly. To willingly and gladly give up your immortality to share your life with a mortal soul. It could not be any more unconditional. It sounded like a story from one of my books. Better. Then I asked, “How long after were you born?”
“Two years later, and another two after that, came my sister Amani.”
I remembered Sand Priestess Constance telling us that Ryvar appeared twenty-five but was truly sixty-three when he was appointed as the new King of Silch.
That was six years ago. Which means that Ryvar is sixty-nine years old…
which means that Aegir is…sixty-seven. Old but not that old, at least not for Fae standards.
“Did your uncle also marry that lady, Emika?” I asked. I caught him smiling at the mention of her name.
“They did. She, too, sacrificed her immortality when she bound her soul to Arlon’s. Aunt Emika became pregnant at the same time my mother carried me, and soon after I was born, Emika gave birth to my cousin—my brother—Galen.”
Aegir repeated his name with such pride, I imagined him to be a hero veteran.
“Galen Myrchorn,” he said. “He was literally a blend of his mother and his father. His eyes—his right one was brown, just like Arlon’s, and his left was blue, like Emika’s.
He was one of the most powerful males I’ve ever known.
His Fae form, a white wolf.” A Demi-Fae shifter. He must have been powerful indeed.
I swore his eyes gleamed with sorrow at the memory of his cousin.
Then he said, “Eldric was also born that same year. Us three, we were inseparable.”
“Is Galen? I…I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”
“It’s all right,” Aegir said, his voice low. “Galen was assigned by my mother to act as the personal guard to the Queen of Ilma, becoming the Captain of the Vanguard of Water. He was made to leave because of a pleading letter sent personally by the Water Queen herself.
“Queen Mirana made it clear that she needed protection, that she and her daughter were in grave danger. It must have been serious, considering that a powerful Water Nymph like herself was asking for protection. But in danger they were indeed, as two years later, she and her daughter were beheaded. The Ilmans were left powerless.”
My face softened. “I’ve heard about the beheading, more than once.” Then my lips pursed and I said, “I always wondered how word got out…I mean, if the Naaris either killed or took everyone as hostages, how is it that the story is always told the same?”
“Well, there’s the peace treaty which specifies in detail what King Arden had done to them and what he would do to the rest of the Lands if it wasn’t respected.
Word also travelled by mouth from the handful that managed to escape.
They spread the word, then hid in the shadows, nowhere to be found.
” His brow furrowed when he said, “Galen’s body… he was never found.”
My eyes welled with tender sorrow. “Maybe he’s imprisoned as a hostage somewhere in Naar and you’ll—”
“Cordelia,” he whispered. “I knew him. We knew him. Galen would have never left Queen Mirana’s side.
Her death meant he fought to his own. We buried him.
It was an empty casket, but we buried and mourned him.
Aunt Emika and Uncle Arlon decided to remain in Sijar, close to an empty wooden rectangle that symbolised their son.
Uncle Arlon very recently passed on, and my aunt will soon reach the afterlife.
I was in Myrkvein, with her, before I came here. Eldric stayed for a few more weeks.”
A burning lump rose in my throat. I had to swallow it along with my tears.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered brokenheartedly.
I never knew how close to home the attack on Ilma hit him.
I had once thought that it didn’t affect him in the slightest, that he didn’t care, and here I was, pained by his own suffering.
His eyes, too, prickled. A lone tear followed the slope of his nose. He closed his eyes when I reached for it. I wiped it away, turning my thumb salty.
We looked at each other for a while, then I finally asked, “Do you think the Ilmans will ever be free? The Water Priestesses? And their powers, will they ever be restored?”
“I don’t only worry about that. I also worry about what else could happen if we’re not prepared.
If Naar schemes another unpredictable attack like the one they very well pulled off, we would be—” He shook his head.
“They entered Ilma from Crystal Bay, undetected, for Boreas’s sake. Unseen and unheard. How?”
I realised then why the alliance between Silch and Ramel was necessary.
In not-so-icy regions, Sand Wielders were the best match against Naar.
On Ice, the Naaris wouldn’t stand a chance.
He must have seen the look on my face as he softened his features and said, “Hey, don’t worry about it, all right, I’m just saying that we need to be cautious. ”
I nodded, giving him a tight smile. I was about to ask him about the peace treaty—about why his parents had signed it—but my tongue caught when he murmured my name.
“Cordelia, if you ever want to talk about your par—”
“Are we here to chit-chat or are we here to train?” Eldric asked, startling us both.
Should I curse him or should I thank him? I wasn’t entirely sure.
Would I have told him? I wasn’t entirely sure either.
We stood to our feet. Aegir gripped his shirt—I realised then that he never got to wear it.