32. Regent #2
“She mastered water through calling upon sirens. Do you think a greer who can now control an army of sirens will be forgotten? She will be hunted until the day she dies. That girl contains a flood of curses, blessings, and enchantments because of the ancestral line pumping through her veins.”
Sheila tells me all of this as if I don’t already know. As if I’m unaware of the calamity that will befall Esther if she is caught. My knuckles turn white from how tightly my fists bundle, frustrated, not at her, but my own lacking ability to protect her from so many enemies at once.
Sheila continues, “Imagine if King Saldom or another ruler gets their hands on her and turns her into a randor blade. With one strike of the sword they’d be able to command an army of sirens at sea.
Men would be stuck to their land, unable to go further out and fish or deport.
Other kingdoms will fall while the lands slowly rot, including ours, until Kahali is reinstated to his former glory.
She is a liability. She will be your downfall. ”
A heavy foreboding sits in the tent. All of these things I know.
She is both my liberation and my reckoning.
Yet it is no longer a question whether I will or will not be by her side.
“I will not let anyone take her.”
“And if you die in the process, you’re cursing all of us,” Imogine reminds me.
“You both should know more than most what it’s like when the Fates push you into a corner. I have no choice but to abide.”
“But you’ve always chosen to ignore them, so don’t use them as an excuse now for what your heart has already decided,” Sheila quips, seeing right through me.
“Very little is known about the omnis because they kept to themselves. I only ever met one in passing, but Esther feels different.” I lick my lips, uncomfortable divulging further information, but the more I can gather about her kind, the better chance I have to free her and help her from this curse.
“When I found her, she was dying, her binding had come undone, and I took her to Lake Mahoori.”
Imogine’s face pales into a sickly yellow.
“Fool,” Sheila berates. “The temperament of Lake Mahoori is questionable, and the bargains struck are often more than what the individual is able or willing to give.”
“She’s contracted to a beast that she says has always been with her,” I continue, ignoring all of their objections, because I already know them to be true.
Sheila’s eyebrows dip. “I did not see any markings on the greer for a beast contract.”
“It’s small, at her throat, and glamoured. The beast itself, I can’t communicate with. I don’t understand the language. It’s old magic, and it’s somewhat aesthetically unpleasing to look upon as well.”
“I don’t know about the omni children being contracted to beasts. Only that they keep to themselves, and the young are bound by powerful leaders in their group at birth, so they’re not eaten alive by the Felia-blessed magic.”
I bite at the edge of my thumb, unsure if I should continue, but if anyone knows more than what I might on the matter, it’s Sheila. Her people favor knowledge and old passages as a way of life, not binding themselves to a place, but a calling.
“There’s more. It’s not only her contracted beast that can fall under her command. Felia-blessed beasts are drawn to her, as well, but she… can control them.”
“Control them?” Imogine’s eyes narrow. “Are our beasts safe around her?”
“Yes.” I firmly believe it. “She’s only ever done it when threatened.”
Sheila’s wry smile kicks up. “And you think our beasts will play nice with her?”
I give her a direct look, the edges of my own smile daring to play. “As best as anyone can in this camp, right?”
Imogine clicks her tongue and crosses her arms over her chest. “And the magicless boy? The assassin you had me lose sleep over for three days to extract the enchantment, what of him? What part does he have to play in all of this?”
A shot of hot-blooded anger pumps through my veins at the mere mention of her childhood friend, who definitely is not only a fucking friend. “For now, he stays. If only as another shield to protect her.”
Imogine seems unimpressed. “You ask much of us this time.”
“I know.”
“I worry how you’ll fare in all of this,” Imogine adds. “When you stormed our camp in the dead of night, holding her tightly to your chest, I’ve never seen you so frantic, and I’ve seen you at your worst.”
“No one has seen me at my worst, trust me.” I grab my renewed leather coat, strapping my two swords across my back. “Tomorrow night, I’ll leave this camp. I am in your debt if you can protect them until I return.” I walk toward the tent door, but Sheila’s cane whips out in front of my legs.
“Not quite. We serve you. What happens to you affects all of us. Not just my people but every living thing on this continent. You wish to go elsewhere on the full moon, so be it, but we will have warriors stand guard. None of you will leave this camp until you are fully healed. Do we understand one another?”
I glance down at the old hag, her eyes looking at me directly, although I’ve suspected for some time now that she’s completely blind. “Soldiers are already looking for her. I also stole her after the Volmere auctions, which only adds another contender who might be after her.”
“You doubt our enchantment over the camp. And even if that is the case, the Fates brought you to us more than once. Your fight is our fight. If we can only offer a warm bed and food for a few weeks, then so be it.”
I look to Imogine then, who evidently doesn’t agree. I can tell with the burning expression in her gaze that if she were the matriarch, she would protect her people at all costs and try to dissuade me from the path I have chosen. Truthfully, it might make her the smartest person in the room for it.
I lean in toward Sheila. “You know the Fates have gone crazy.”
She charms another smile, her voice cracking. “Who hasn’t these days?”
I nod to her and then to Imogine, respectfully.
She glares at me, watching as I leave before quickly tending to her mother.
I much prefer Imogine’s tent, away from the distant chattering and music that plays.
Fire blazes and smoke rises gently, caressing the barrier that conceals their whereabouts from smell, sound, and presence.
I grow uneasy and tired as I tilt my head toward the moon, only one day off from when it’ll be at its peak. I grow uncomfortable with the way it always makes me feel.
Weak.
Vulnerable.
A ghost of my former glory.
My attention immediately snaps to Sheila’s tent, my knuckles flexing back and forth, knowing that the assassin sits across from Esther now, or even worse.
Maybe I should’ve killed him when I had the chance.
But I know, without her saying, what he means to her.
That she has love for the boy even when he tried to kill her more than once.
I hate him for it, but how was I any different, in the way I used her, and had every intention of using her again?
My hand skims over the pouch of the Ariagem I’d stolen from Volmere’s collection. All of it for this, and yet I hate every part of it, thinking I’ve only played into the hands of the game the Fates play.
I certainly have no right to walk back into Esther’s tent while being ruled by these immature and unfamiliar emotions.
I become dependent on the talisman I blessed, knowing it will defend her in my absence, even if my magic slowly depletes.
I walk toward the trees, choosing solitude, the one true friend I’ve known to serve me.
The omni greer and I share a similar path that will undeniably bring calamity, enemies, and potentially our demise. It’s better to go our separate ways.
But instinctually, I know my beast will never be able to walk away from her again.
That terrifies me more than any full moon.