Chapter 33 #2
The voyage to the continent passed with little else to note. My men shifted and paced, nerves running thin. The Draconis crew did what they could to ease their anxiety. Nereus offered reassurances, claiming no monsters lurked the forests. Any deaths came only from natural causes.
By the next morning, land rose on the horizon. Hills thick with trees stretched toward the sky, but along the shoreline, the forest had been pared back. Stumps dotted the sand, and felled trunks lay in neat rows. Several ships waited at makeshift docks carved into the shore.
As we disembarked, a man approached—leathery skin browned by sun, face wrinkled like dried fruit. A wide-brimmed hat flopped over his brow, matched by his baggy clothes that hung loose on a wiry frame.
“King Nereus!” he shouted, voice booming across the waves. “Good to have you!” He pulled the man into a back-slapping hug. His clouded gaze caught on Nienna and me, and he paused.
Nereus gestured between us with a flick of his hand. “Barchalk—my daughter, Nienna. And her husband, King Kallias Sunspear of Radaan.”
He recoiled, eyes wide, jaw slack. “She married the king? I heard about the–” He clamped his mouth shut as I lifted my chin, stiffening. “There were whispers of news… but not that she married. Beg your pardon, Your Majesty.” He bowed deep, snatching his hat from his head.
“Well met, Master Barchalk,” Nienna said, gaze drifting to the busy shore.
“We’ve come to offer aid,” I added, drawing the man’s confused stare back to me.
Nereus slung an arm over his shoulder, guiding him toward the sand. “They’ll be with us a few weeks yet. Might as well put the foresters to work.”
They weren’t forest men. Plainsmen. Sailors. Used to wind-bent trees and open fields—not the dense thickets of western Radaan. Still, I let the Dragon King’s words pass without correction.
Nienna slipped her hand through my arm as we stepped from the gangplank. Greaves followed close, face pallid, desperate for solid earth under his boots. The thud of our steps vanished beneath the clamor of saws and shouted orders.
Men hauled timber, stripped bark, sawed lengths into beams. Lumber flowed in a steady rhythm from the forest to the ships. I frowned at the camp. No buildings, only canvas tents. No roots in the land. As though they could vanish by dawn.
Nienna’s fingers squeezed my arm. Her expression stayed calm, but I felt the tension beneath her skin. The sand crunched underfoot, bleached so white it forced me to squint toward the distant treeline. They logged with precision, neat and orderly, but no signs of regrowth marked the cleared ground.
If they meant to settle, they’d need space. But if they only wanted wood, they should treat the land as a farm—harvest, then replant.
Simple thoughts. A farmer-king’s thoughts. Likely not ones that ever crossed a Dragon King’s mind.
We followed him and Barchalk to a canopy shading a table.
“Any developments?” he asked.
“Nothing new, though the blasted snakes remain a nuisance. Bite at the workers, but that spirit trick still works. Splash it on their faces, and the slithering things pull back quick.”
My brow knit as I glanced at Nienna, who only smiled. Snakes, then. Harmless enough, apparently.
“I notice your dragon stayed behind,” Barchalk added.
A flicker passed over Nereus’ face. He brushed a leaf from the map on the table. “Argos is… reluctant to linger.”
I made a quiet sound. “They sense danger—but are content to leave their riders here?”
The king’s gaze turned sharp, and his tone lost its warmth. “If I believed there was true risk, I wouldn’t have brought my daughter.”
Nienna’s grip tightened—a silent plea to let it go. Perhaps Draconis trusted their dragons the way we trusted our gods. But I questioned it. Where they saw guardians, I found creatures with instincts sharper than words.
I held my tongue and leaned closer to study the map.
The northernmost shore, where we docked, sprawled out in precise detail—but to the south, the ink faded into emptiness. Eastern and western coasts had lines and names, but the interior remained untouched. The blank space hinted at a single truth—they never strayed far from this point.
“One day, we’ll send cartographers deeper,” Nereus said, noting my study.
“We’re still mapping northern Radaan,” I replied, understanding all too well.
Barchalk let out a wheezy chuckle. “We’ve lived on this planet for countless years and have yet to see it all. Strange, isn’t it?”
I sank into a sun-bleached chair beside Nienna. “Why haven’t the other islands pushed to settle here?”
“Dragons,” she answered. “The wildlings fly south. The islanders know what they become without a rider.”
“End up like Prince Adoni.” Barchalk spat at the ground, then winced and darted a look at Nienna. “Begging your pardon, Your Majesty.”
“It’s the truth,” Nereus said. “We hold the Wild Shores because we have the airpower to force our way here. No other island nation can claim that. If it came to war, they’d sit on the water like kindling.”
“But we wouldn’t strike without cause,” Nienna added.
Her father and Barchalk exchanged a glance. The land was rich, tempting—a valuable resource worth fighting for, if Draconia hadn’t already laid claim. I rested a hand on her thigh, subtle but firm. She didn’t want to go down that road.
The rest of the afternoon passed in talk of trees—measured clearing, careful strategy, rotations and cuts. Nienna answered questions when they came, always polite, but her gaze kept drifting past the tents, toward the untouched forest, thick and shadowed.
We dined on the beach. The workers erupted in cheers when they discovered we’d brought Radaanian grain. My men chuckled. Simple bread, nothing to us—yet it raised spirits like fire on a cold night.
As the sun dipped below the water, I left Greaves with our mantles and slipped away with Nienna. The breeze nudged her skirts, tugged at my sleeves. We rounded a bend in the dark shoreline, out of sight, where she dropped onto a smooth stone and yanked at her boots.
“They won’t eat you?” I asked, lowering myself beside her and peeling mine off. “No tiny monsters waiting in the water to poison your feet?”
She laughed, already standing, wriggling out of her trousers. “Oh, you’ll be plagued for sure.”
“There are worse ways to go.” My voice deepened, body heating, as she bent over to step free of them, knowing there was nothing beneath that dress. But this moment wasn’t about me. She had waited her whole life for this—freedom, wild waves, and sky.
“You’ll meet your end as an old, old man,” she said. “In your sleep, next to me.”
“You want me to die in your arms?” I rolled my trousers to my knees, smirking. “Sometimes I swear my heart will burst with you.”
She glanced back, smile curving. Mischief lit her face. “Your heart is that full?”
I moved close, brushed my mouth against her neck, catching the faint salt on her skin. “I’ll show you tonight.”
She shivered, then bent to knot her skirts at the knees. The hem hiked above her calves as she walked into the surf.
We stayed out until blackness swallowed the horizon. Then the water came to life.
Nienna stepped forward. Her bare feet dipped into the waves, a slight glow along the crests.
Each step caused a flare in the luminescence.
She laughed, breathless and soft, and ran through the shallows.
Pale strands of hair flew behind her, catching moonlight as she moved.
Blue light burst from her movements, reminding me of her father’s magic.
I reached down, dragging my fingers through the tide. A radiant glow clung to my skin, gleaming like stardust.
The world shrank. No kingdom. No throne. Just her, and the crash of luminous waves.
We wandered for hours—knee-deep in glowing surf, toes sinking into warm sand. Shells crunched beneath us as I laid her down on the beach, stars wheeling in slow arcs overhead.
My tunic became a pillow. Her head nestled close beside me. Everything stilled.
And she was right.
My heart brimmed.
Whatever waited back home—war, duty, pressure—I could face it. For once, I wasn’t drowning or crumbling under the pressure.
She curled into my side, leg draped across mine. “Kallias?”
I answered with a low hum, my fingers threading through her tangled hair. Above us, the stars blinked in silence, the only witnesses to our stolen moment.
“What are you going to do with Tallon?” Her voice carried hesitation, as if the question pained her to ask.
“I’ll banish him to the Valley Beneath.” No other answer existed. Elohios would guide me when we returned to Radaan, and Fallione would stand at my side. The valley where I cast the lost and irredeemable—Tallon belonged there now.
“I doubt your people will accept that.”
“Then I’ll name him a bastard.”
Her breath warmed my chest. “After a lifetime of calling him your son?”
The thought soured my stomach. She was right—Radaan had built its future on the assumption he would inherit the mantle. That certainty would be torn away, and without an heir to take his place, the kingdom would be left staring into a void, an uncertain future.
“Do you see him as your son?” She lifted onto her elbows, eyes searching my face, storm-dark and sharp with feeling.
“Maybe—at one point.” My throat closed around the words. “There were moments, as he grew beside Eldeiade, where I saw it—brief flashes of what might’ve been. He kept his distance, but I caught it in his eyes. That hunger. He wanted a father.”
I clenched my jaw, unable to meet her gaze. The stars above held no judgment, only cold light. My mistakes meant nothing to them.
“I don’t know when it changed. The want twisted into something darker. He’s my greatest failure—not for what he became, but because I let it happen. I stood back while a monster raised him, and for some reason, I expected him to be different, that he’d rise above it.”
She held still. Quiet.
“He attacked me.”
My chest locked up. I turned to her, sharp and fast. “When?”