CHAPTER 31
THE A’KORI PALACE
Present Day
“It wasn’t until the sundering that the Vatruke turned against the fea.” Faidra braids a few small strands of hair absentmindedly as she spins the tale.
“You mean the feyn,” I correct.
Her brow pinches quizzically, as if I’ve just said something ridiculous. “I mean the fea,” she says, “That is what started the first war.”
“But,” I say hesitantly, “the fea never fought in the wars. The first war was fought between mortals and feyn.”
Faidra only scoffs at the declaration, and I do my best not to glare at the girl. I am done expecting their histories to line up with those I was taught as a child, but what she says doesn’t make any sense.
“Many mortals died in the first war, as they did in the second,” Media says, “But did you never stop to ask yourself, why? After breaking the world in the sundering, after diminishing their own power to prevent more bloodshed, why would the feyn turn on the very humans they left to protect?”
I had not. Not once had I considered it. And though the stories of our history differ widely between the continents, a deep part of me knows that what she says is true.
The gifts of the feyn, despite the fact that I have seen very little in my time in A’kori, are powerful beyond what I imagined.
I can’t make myself believe that a veil exits in Terr in which a gifted could not easily snuff out the life of a mortal.
The abundant power that the feyn possessed before the sundering is something I cannot begin to fathom.
I am still trying to puzzle it out when Faidra rolls her eyes, clearly doubtful my mind can accomplish such a feat.
“When the feyn came to the aid of the fea,” she begins, “the Vatruke stood behind mortal men. They offered up your race as fodder, knowing that the feyn who had already gone through such great lengths to protect your people would rather yield than slaughter them.”
My head spins as she weaves the tale.
“It was so easy for the Vatruke to convince the mortals that the feyn had at last come to destroy them. The war hardly began before it was over. The Vatruke having won the moment they retreated to Brax.”
“Why would their retreat change anything? Why wouldn’t the feyn follow after them?” I ask.
Faidra shakes her head, “Brax is all but inaccessible by sea. The feyn had two choices. Flee, or end the life of every mortal that stood between the northern shore and the Braxian forests.”
“And the second war?” I ask, curious how she can possibly excuse the war I was born into. Even mortal memories, short as they are, recall the feyn as they burned the coastal villages.
It is Media that answers. “It took generations for the feyn to repair the rift made by the first war. Slowly, trade resumed between the continents, tenuous alliances were made, even some friendships. But the Vatruke would only allow it to continue for so long. When they saw the hearts of mortal men softening toward the feyn, they knew they had to intervene or risk our armies making their way past the southern borders and into Brax. With the support of the Drakai, they raided villages, burned homes, and took orphaned children to raise in service of your king.”
Impossible. With every question I ask and every answer I receive I only become more lost in the web of lies.
Shaking my head to clear it, I tell her, “I’ve been to those villages, talked to the ones who survived. It was the feyn that took everything from them.”
She shakes her head solemnly. “It was the Vatruke, but the race of man saw no difference between the two and the war was reborn.”
I’m startled when I hear the general’s voice come from the doorway.
“All that we built with the La’tari, generations of careful planning, gone in a matter of hours,” he says, “as was our hope of reaching the fea that remained in the south.”
“What do they do with them?” I ask.
“We still don’t know,” Faidra says.
I shake my head, unwilling to accept what they tell me.
“Awri told me that you were in the second war together. Tell me how that is possible if the feyn were not involved,” I argue, grasping, searching for something to stop the fraying that has begun to unravel the story of my life.
The look he gives me is not the face I expect to see on a male who’s been caught in a lie.
“Many of us were on the southern continent the night they started the war,” he says, “Riah, Toren, Awri, and myself, among others. All for the same purpose. We sought Valtoura.” He expels a heavy sigh.
“We were there when the fires started. When the wailing of young mothers could be heard all along the tidelands. So yes, we fought in the war, against the Vatruke, against the Drakai, but never against the people.”
“The villagers would have seen. They would have come to aid you,” I insist.
I know they would have. Even now the hearts of the La’tari people are strong. Even after everything they have been through.
The general shrugs. “What are two monsters fighting each other amidst a world on fire as you try to flee and save your family?”
I hate every word. Hate the truth I feel in all of it. Hate that I let myself be so deceived, so blind. What a mess we have made of our world. And how quickly this would all end if the La’tari people could be made to see the truth.
Though some know. Recalling the contingent of Drakai that rode with the Vatruke male, I can’t help but wonder how many more are aware of the truth of this world. Leanna? Bront? …Vakesh?
Had anyone who had part in forming me known the extent of the lies they fed me my entire life? Had they all? No. Not all of them. There is one, and even after everything, I can’t bring myself to believe that he would deceive me.
“As a child,” I say to no one in particular, grasping at the last thread binding the delicate facade that is my life, “I witnessed a group of feyn attacking humans in the forest.” A small lie, and I suspect I know the answer before I even hear Faidra’s voice.
“Those that sided with the Vatruke.”
“Or,” the general adds, “made bargains with the La’tari king, not understanding what it would cost them.”
My company seems content to let me sit in silence for some time. My eyes on the fire before me, lost in the flickering heat emanating from the dark stone around it.
By the time I rise to excuse myself for the evening, Media has fallen asleep in her chair. The old woman breathes deeply, her colorful blanket slipping off the knobs of her knees. Adjusting the quilt in her lap, I thank Faidra before following the general back to our room.
“If your ancestors were trying to save the feyn, why would they leave the Vatruke behind? Knowing that they were opposed to the sundering, they had to expect something like this could happen,” I ask the general as I run my fingers through the tangle of locks draped over my shoulder.
He paces in front of the fire, unable to fully relax after the news Riah and I delivered this afternoon.
“The ancients knew that the Vatruke might grow vengeful, but they would not interfere with the choice those of us made to remain behind. So, they left us with a seed of Shivay, a soul to guard us if ever there was need. We call it, Valtoura.”
I tip my head quizzically. “Why didn’t this Valtoura show itself during the first war? Or the second? If it was meant to protect the feyn, surely that would have been the time.”
“I’ve asked myself the same thing many times,” he says, spearing his fingers through his hair.
A knock sounds at the door and the glare it puts on the general’s face is comically frightening. Though I likely wouldn’t feel the same if it were directed at me. He swoops in and drops a kiss on top of my head as he walks past to answer it.
“It’s been a long day, mi’ajna. Get some sleep. I’m not sure how long this will take.”
I glimpse Riah in the hall as I make my way toward the washroom. She will be briefing the general on her trip to see Toren at the barracks. Unless she came across trouble, the debrief shouldn’t take long, and by the sound of her voice she isn’t relaying anything terribly pressing.
I pin my hair into a pile on top of my head and twist the lever that makes water rain down from the spigot overhead.
My thoughts linger on the Vatruke, on Vos and her mate.
I brace myself with my arms outstretched on either side, my head tipped down between them, walls of cool, slick marble beneath my palms. Water cascades in streams between my shoulder blades and down my back.
My mind spins like the endless flow of water swirling down the drain.
I am going to die. I wonder how many Drakai witness the moment the fates clip the thread of their life.
I always thought death would come faster.
That I would be on a battlefield and lock eyes with my fate before the end.
Never did I imagine something like this.
To be hated and hunted for taking what was hers.
Will she make it quick? I wouldn’t.
I hardly know the male I share a bed with and have already killed for him. How much greater would that rage have been if we had shared many mortal lifetimes beside one another? How much more precious would that life have become to me?
I startle when the general’s lips find the crook of my neck. “What is troubling you, mi’ajna?”
“Nothing that can’t wait until morning,” I say.
His lips linger, his hands falling to my hips, and his thumbs knead the dimples in my lower back.
“Tell me.” It isn’t a demand, rather a simple request for a glimpse inside my mind.
“Vos,” I admit, aware that she occupies his thoughts as much as my own.
He tenses, even as his hands move to soothe my own muscles.
“She will never reach you inside the palace,” he assures me.
I huff a disbelieving laugh. Tonight, I have learned enough to know that the Vatruke are nothing if not incredibly powerful.
“Even if you believe that, do you really think you’ll be able to keep me here? Locked up like a prisoner?”
His hands still. “It’s hardly a prison, Shivaria.”