Chapter 66
—Connak—
“It’s time you shared with me what you’ve learned in M’Ran,” Tristian said.
They spoke quietly on the Shardborn Island, staring as the clouds covered the sky with a false sense of comfort.
Connak studied his High Commander, trying hard to figure out what he wanted.
Was he truly asking Connak to remember Danek’s death?
To go back to the tragedy and analyze it as if he, too, wasn’t affected by all the loss they’d experienced?
Connak gulped and told him the only thing that mattered.
“Vaerin’s curse on her is like ours. We certainly can’t kill him. ”
Tristian’s lips parted, his brows furrowing as he processed what Connak told him. “Anything else?”
“You can’t just look past that,” Connak scolded. “The bonds are real, and it’s time you started acknowledging that—”
“Anything else, Commander?”
Talon’s bird, Zephyr, flew overhead, swooping below the clouds.
Connak tilted his head back, staring at the sky as he calmed himself.
Kienna’s mind unraveled, taking him with her, and he could feel himself slipping little by little.
If he wasn’t careful, he’d lash out at Tristian—for all the right reasons, but never the right temper.
Still, he focused on the entire scene of M’Ran.
A lot happened. Umbrin. Baila switching sides.
The king taunting Kienna. What were the words he was saying?
“He did say something peculiar about the river. Which might confirm a hunch I’ve been having.” Connak analyzed it further and told Tristian the king’s exact phrasing.
“Explain,” Tristian said, clasping his hands behind his back as he started to pace.
“King Vaerin doesn’t care about who she stands with. Not yet. It won’t matter in the end when he picks us off, little by little. Eventually, he’ll taint everything. For now, he’s waiting us out.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think?” Connak scoffed. “Have you not felt the wards weakening? They’re not fully broken yet, which is why Trinity still stands. But when they do—”
“He’s waiting for Sinmara.” Tristian’s eyes widened. He stopped pacing and ran his hands over his face.
Connak’s breath shuddered. At the revelation, his mind flooded with an eerie sense of calm that left him relieved.
His thoughts settled in his head, and the world came back to him in full color.
The sky boomed in vibrant pinks. The clouds promised silence and sleep.
Connak wanted nothing more than to sleep at that moment.
He sighed, the weight removed from his entire body.
“I need to rest, and then I’ll—” He stopped himself.
His heart thrashed in his chest. “Fuck. I’ll be back. ”
He ran down the bridges to the forest floor. Kienna’s mind had gone dark, and he feared what that meant. As he ran, he asked himself how she managed to learn the art of blacking out her mind. They’d never taught her that skill.
Panic seized him, overcoming any relief he’d recently felt.
Connak scavenged the forest for Kienna. He checked the villages.
The training grounds. He paid tribute to Danek’s burial tree.
When he couldn’t find her in Trinity, he left and checked her parents’ engraved tree.
He stretched his mind outward and tried to feel her.
She was alive, but there was nothing else.
Connak threw his hands in the air and performed the ritual to the Eternal Mother to grant him access.
Trinity unfolded again into his view. Trees stretched upward until everything fell into place, and he entered.
Weaving through the bridges, Connak neared the Shardborn once again.
He dreaded the conversation that was to come.
He was so tired, the weight of his entire life falling before him. Tristian waited patiently.
“What’s wrong?” he asked as Connak’s jaw tightened.
“Kienna’s gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?” Tristian’s eyes narrowed as he studied Connak’s face.
Hot tears flooded Connak’s eyes, the pain of salt brimming.
He couldn’t stop the flood. Everything he did was always for her.
Never for him. It was too much. The betrayal sat thickly in his chest that she’d be so careless with their lives.
“I can’t see her. She left Trinity, and I’m certain she’s going to go kill the king. ”
Tristian’s shoulders lifted. His mouth parted, but then his words escaped him. He stared at Connak, now a shell through the pain. His head turned toward the glowing runes near the trees. “I’ll take the burden now.”
—Kienna—
Kienna stopped in M’Ran, where Danek died, and knelt over the dried stains of blood, weather-worn and washed with rain.
She sent up a prayer to anyone that would listen and then stood.
Ruva remained quiet and out of the way, but she stepped through the rubble alongside her, each pawfall soft as ash.
“We’ll try for the desert first,” Kienna said to the wolf. “We’ll find food as we go.”
There was no place left for grief. No time for mercy.
She was done with the idea of being the Ashborn, not even sure what it truly meant or what was required of her.
All she knew was that the world burned, and she would burn with it if she had to, so long as the king fell.
Kienna would stop at nothing until he was dead.
No matter the cost. No matter the blood spilled in her name.
Even if it meant becoming a monster to do it.
Because monsters kill kings.
END OF BOOK 2