Chapter 13
Thirteen
Turcicus
I reel back, my eyes snapping between Willow and Aster. They know Daimon is the Lord of Shadows. Unease slithers into my stomach. How would they know? He’s confined to the Shadow Realm—even the council didn’t seem to know who he was.
I’m reminded of the fact that we don’t truly know what Willow and Aster’s goal is. We don’t know why they were there when they saved us—what prompted them to leave Kauri to go to the edge of the Shadow Realms.
My stomach lurches, and my magic stirs, readying for the worst outcome. For the possibility that Daimon knows them—and knows where they are. Which means he would be able to find us. And right now, we aren’t prepared to face him again.
Leda hisses, jumping to her feet as she looks between them.
“You knew?” Brielle asks, her voice rising an octave. “And you never thought to come back and tell us?”
Willow shakes her head. “And what would that change—you knowing?” she challenges.
I bristle at her tone. Knowledge is power, and right now…
she and Aster are holding all of it. “The first time we saw him, we tried to talk to him.
And then he tried to kill us—just as he did with you.
We were lucky that we were able to get away.
He killed over half of the people with us, Brielle.
“It was early in our search for a new home, and in one fell swoop he nearly killed all of us.” Her eyes sheen, and she looks to the side, swatting the tears away before they can reach the bottom of her cheek.
I flinch at her words. I’ve known evil men my entire life, but this is different. This is a man beyond redemption, no matter how much Brielle is convinced otherwise.
Leda stays standing, but her shoulders relax. Slightly.
“I know he isn’t the same. I had to fight one of my oldest friends, too.” Brielle’s voice cracks. “The friend that we all thought was dead. But he isn’t and he needs our help.”
Willow clenches her jaw and looks away, her eyes again filling with tears. She shakes her head. When she finds Brielle’s gaze, her nostrils flare.
Brielle shifts her shoulders and says, “Willow—”
“Brielle, you know how long it’s been,” Willow interrupts, settled in a chair in front of us, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. “If he’s been within the darkness for all these years…” Another tear slips down her cheek. “We can’t help a man that doesn’t wish to be saved.”
Her words strike me in the chest like a blade piercing my heart. I can’t deny that the man we saw—the one who tried to kill us—didn’t look like someone who was begging to be helped.
If anything, he looked like he enjoyed the damage he was inflicting on us. Daimon didn’t so much as blink that I was his daughter, and if that doesn’t bring an emotion out of someone, I don’t know what would.
“You know me, Willow,” Brielle pleads. “I have to do something—even if that something can’t be right now, I can’t ignore it forever.” She shakes her head and mumbles, “Like you two have ignored the rest of the realm.”
Something in Willow’s expression shifts. “I don’t know where you’ve been these last hundred years, and as much as I want to believe I can still trust you, I have to be sure.”
Her eyes soften, a quiet plea in her voice for Brielle to understand. But Brielle’s gaze hardens, her mouth tilting into a frown. Aster leans back and crosses his arms, his forearms flexing.
These three warriors, who have been through more than I could probably imagine, have been ripped apart by grief. Brielle’s right—some people choose to flee from their heartache, while others choose to stay and fight.
“He was our leader, Brielle. Our family,” Willow spits out, her tears now falling freely as she turns back to us. “No one can make Daimon do something he doesn’t want to do. He had to have chosen that. There was only one thing strong enough to push him over the edge like that.”
“Don’t,” Brielle warns, her voice sharpening like a blade against a stone.
Willow’s jaw clenches, and her eyes briefly flick to me. She shakes her head and looks back at Brielle, a silent conversation passing between them.
“We don’t know what happened,” Brielle whispers. “We owe him the benefit of the doubt—he’s saved us more times than any of us could count. At the very least, we owe him this; believing he had his reasons.”
Willow sniffles, and Aster slides his arm around her shoulders. He tugs her against his side, their chairs touching, and allows her to scoot a little closer to him.
I shift, tired of hearing about how admirable Daimon once was.
What we need to know is how to approach this version of him.
Even if he had his reasons, it doesn’t change the man that he is now.
Aster and Willow realize that, too. But that doesn’t answer why they have been on the border.
Why leave Kauri at all? We told them why we were there, but they’ve yet to tell us their reason.
“What were you two doing on the border?” I finally ask, breaking the silence.
Brielle may have known them during the war, but that was three hundred years ago. That’s more than one lifetime—plenty of time for people to change. I’ve seen people change in the blink of an eye, their true colors surfacing in the span of a few breaths.
I want to trust them—want to believe they’ll help share any knowledge they have about Daimon and Vidaris in the days to come. But I’m not entirely convinced. They gave us a place to sleep, fed us, and have been helping Brielle heal. Still, that doesn’t mean I trust them fully.
“You have had your battles to fight, and we have had ours,” Aster answers gruffly.
His vague answer causes the hair on my neck to stand, and I see Leda’s spine stiffen. We need more than generalized answers to help us fight back against Daimon and Vidaris.
“Things may have felt peaceful in the land, but that doesn’t mean darkness isn’t working to destroy that every hour of every day,” Willow rasps, her voice hoarse.
Her eyes dart to Aster, face paling as she swallows slowly.
“It was only a matter of time before Vidaris needed more than the split to sate her thirst for blood and chaos.”
Brielle nods, knowing the draw of the wyverns as deeply as they do.
Willow and Aster are skilled in war, having already lived through one. Now, when called by Eurydice again, even gifted these incredible beasts, they choose only to sit safely on their little island while the rest of us prepare for the worst.
No one wants to die in a war, but we’ve all answered the call that’s been given. We don’t even know where the battle is or what we’re fighting, but we’re here. We’re trying. Which is more than they can say.
I stand, my frustration rising at the two ex-warriors who seem to have forgotten what it means to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves. “So, you all are just living here with your happy little lives knowing everything is going to go to shit?”
Willow’s eyes snap to me, and she slowly gets to her feet, too. Aster remains seated, but there’s a shift in the air as he watches us closely.
“Do not pretend to know us,” she says carefully. “To know why we have done things the way that we have. Get to know us before you make assumptions.”
I don’t miss the way she doesn’t answer my question, the way her nostrils flare. It doesn’t add up that they would stay here, knowingly out of the fight, while the realm is launched into war. Especially regarding what Willow said earlier—that they saw us fighting with Daimon on their patrol.
Why leave the island at all if they only care about what happens here? They could patrol the perimeter of Kauri instead of going all the way to the mainland. Why risk scouting along Zenovia—so close to the curse and the Shadow Lands—if their plan was to stay put?
“Come,” Willow relents. “If we have any hope of trusting one another, then you need to see how we live and why we’re here.”
I glance down at Brielle, and she gives me a soft nod. Trusting has never come easily to me, but if this is what it takes to get Graylen back, then I’ll do what has to be done.