Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
The breakfast room freezes in an instant, as if the air has solidified.
No one moves. My muscles tense, my body instinctively preparing for a fight while my mind races through political protocols I’ve barely mastered.
The maid near me stops pouring, the pitcher suspended at an awkward angle.
Wine trembles at its lip like a drop of blood hesitating before a fall.
Queen Maeve pushes up from her seat, strain evident on the lines of her face. Even from across the table, I don’t miss the pulse jumping at her throat.
King Mihel’s hand lands atop hers, heavy and restraining. His face transforms into something stormy and dangerous, deep lines carving themselves around his mouth.
Instinctively, I reach for my short sword.
Which isn’t here.
I’m dressed in diplomatic finery, not battle leathers. The absence of my weapons sends an uncomfortable prickling sensation down my spine. I sit rigid, vibrating with tension, feeling simultaneously naked and trapped in these formal clothes.
But Sterling…smiles.
One I recognize from a hundred encounters, from council meetings to battlefields. The one that means someone has just committed a grave error.
My own pulse quickens.
Shit is about to get real.
Like he’s got nothing but time, Sterling saunters to his feet, his gaze locked on the Kamorians who’ve just entered uninvited. He straightens to his full height, shoulders square, hands relaxed at his sides. The posture of a man who doesn’t need to reach for a weapon to be dangerous.
King Mihel rises far more quickly, nearly knocking his chair backward. His expression is a thunderous storm of barely contained royal rage. “Prince Torach, you forget yourself. Queen Lark and Prince Knox are honored guests. In my home.”
My spine stiffens, and I stand with the others. Beside me, Sterling subtly shifts his weight.
Prince Torach, a man not much older than I am, who possesses the arrogant bearing of inherited importance, flashes a sardonic smirk.
Then he yanks out a chair at the table as if he’s been asked to the most casual breakfast. “Your Majesty.” He nods to King Mihel, but it’s hardly polite.
The slight incline of his head mocks the gesture it’s meant to represent. Insulting. Presumptive.
I scan the room, cataloguing escape routes, noting which windows would shatter easiest, which of the soldiers look most ready to draw weapons. Three by the door seem particularly twitchy. Trained, but young. Eager.
The most threatening kind.
“Why are you here?” King Mihel’s hospitality has clearly been stretched to its limit.
Torach sprawls out in his stolen seat. “You were meeting with the magic-killers.” He grabs a piece of bread from a nearby basket, ripping into it without ceremony. “We took it upon ourselves to arrive early. Wouldn’t want to miss anything important.”
Sterling regards him with the clinical detachment of a man assessing whether someone is worth killing. “You are the son of Aldrin, the King of Kamor.”
The man nods.
“So as the Kamorian prince, you understand what it means to insult a monarch in their own home.” Sterling’s tone adopts a menacing edge, like a dagger wrapped in velvet.
I suppress a smile. Sterling’s dangerous voice. The one that sounds polite while promising consequences. That’s what I need to learn to mimic. Not Rafe’s formalities.
Torach’s smile falters, the bread suspended halfway to his mouth. He says nothing.
“And I’m sure you know what could happen if word reached your father that you’d endangered Kamor’s trade agreements with both Tirene and Tír Ríoga through,” Sterling pauses, allowing the silence to stretch uncomfortably before finishing, “undiplomatic behavior.”
A muscle twitches in Torach’s jaw. His soldiers start scanning the room, no longer quite so confident. One swallows hard.
I lean close to Sterling, muttering so no one hears but him. “Forget trade. Let’s talk about how fast his soldiers can run.”
The tiniest flicker of humor touches the corner of Sterling’s mouth, though his eyes remain fixed on the offending prince.
“No matter, Prince Torach. I know you came to discuss solutions, not to create problems. I’m sure it was merely the…
excitement of the moment.” His eyebrows lift, offering the young man a graceful exit from his own lack of manners.
Torach sets down the bread and straightens his shoulders as if trying to recapture his dignity. “Indeed…Your Majesty. Peaceful solutions are always preferable.”
But setting the dragon fucker on fire would be so much more fun.
Sterling’s gaze flicks to me for a heartbeat, causing me to question whether I voiced my thought.
Torach’s jaw clenches as he addresses me. “Queen Lark of Tirene. Your…reputation precedes you.”
He says “reputation” like it’s a disease. I offer him my most tactful smile, which probably looks more like I’m baring my teeth.
Sterling turns to King Mihel. “Your Majesty, shall we all talk?”
Awe fills me at how easily Sterling defused what could have been a bloody situation and put the arrogant Kamorian prince in his place.
I sink back into my chair, arranging the damned formal dress so it doesn’t get too wrinkled.
King Mihel nods, the tight lines around his eyes betraying his displeasure even as he offers the gesture of peace. He motions for Sterling to take a seat again, and they sit at the same time. It’s a subtle dance of equal respect that doesn’t escape my notice.
Or Torach’s, judging by the other royal’s not-so-subtle scowl. “Tirene destroyed magic deliberately. You’ve stolen what makes us equal.”
Wow, guess he isn’t interested in diplomacy. He doesn’t even pretend to be.
“Not only is that incorrect, it’s also impossible.
” Sterling’s voice hardens, his polite veneer thinning.
“We only did what the gods asked of us. To destroy the corrupted remains of a dead and forsaken god. It was eyril fertilized with dragon blood that grew the plants used to control human minds. And everyone knows what happened to people who ingested too much eyril even before the drachen rose and started slaughtering or corrupting every living thing.”
“It seems everything is changing.” King Mihel hesitates, as if measuring his words. “Including the gods themselves.”
Torach leans back, something unpleasant flickering across his features. “Maybe the Devoted are onto something. Maybe we should be asking for the gods’ aid in regaining magic.”
Queen Maeve reacts with horror, her regal composure cracking for the first time. I can’t blame her. The Devoted have been causing violent unrest throughout the kingdoms, stirring hatred and division. Their brand of faith demands blood and submission, not healing.
I can’t maintain my tactful silence any longer. The mention of the Devoted churns my stomach. “The gods have nothing to do with magic. Magic was always ours.”
Torach regards me, his gaze cold and contemptuous. “Magic is yours. Not ours. And you stole it from us.”
Darkness envelops the chamber, cut only by the glimmer of starlit moments. Tiny fragments of what was, is, and will be, float like motes in an ancient abyss.
The Gods of Time stand motionless around a small pool. Their reflections shift between youth and age, formation and decay, possibility and certainty.
Chronir, God of the Present, leans over the water. His eyes contain the intensity of the now, the singular focus of the moment being experienced.
His palm hovers just above the pool’s surface, fingers splayed as if conducting a symphony. “Seeing the pattern now.”
Chronoth, God of the Past, stands to his right, his body seemingly carved from memory itself. The edges are soft, blurred like paintings faded by centuries of sunlight. His beard flows down his chest, each hair a timeline of past moments.
His eyes carry the weight of every mistake ever enacted. Every triumph ever celebrated. Every life ever lived. “Seen it before.”
Chronira, Goddess of the Future, shifts between innumerable possibilities with each breath, sometimes tall and formidable, sometimes delicate and precise.
Her eyes never settle on one color or shape, moving instead between potential outcomes as one might flip through pages of a book. “Will see it again.”
“They always turn on each other.” Chronoth trails weathered fingers through the waters. Where he touches, the visions shift. The same palace razed and rebuilt across centuries, the same conflicts arising under different banners. Different rulers with the same desires.
“Always.” Chronira’s form solidifies as one scenario gains strength in the waters. A scene of treachery. Of a sword raised in a throne room and a broken crown.
“The patterns repeat.” Chronir’s ageless voice demands attention.
The water beneath his palm ripples with images of a palace, of a woman with gold- and burgundy-streaked wings. She stands as more people enter the dining room, clad in the red and yellow of Meridia. They join the fight, pointing accusatory fingers at the winged people.
Chronira’s face reflects the aftermath of decisions not yet made. Tears of betrayal and loss flow down her cheeks. She shakes her head. “Always.”
The sorrow in her voice draws glances from her brothers before they return their gazes to the waters.
Chronoth peers closely into their depths, watching ancient civilizations rise and fall in the blink of an eye, each believing itself immortal, each crumbling to dust within a breath, within the blink of an eye. “They never have vision. Only blame.”
Chronira closes her eyes, blocking out the vanishing potentialities. “True.”
The number of choices will continue to shrink until only violence and destruction remain.
Until history repeats itself once more.
King Mihel’s knuckles are white where they grip the armrests of his chair. I sympathize with him. In a kingdom where manners are so crucial, having two groups of guests who barge in and start yelling is a grave insult.