Chapter Twenty-Seven
Daemon
The gentle lap of water against the shore did nothing to calm the storm that roiled within him. Daemon looked out over the Cerulean Sea, taking in the glittering water that had always been a home away from home and the thing that always brought him back to Kalmeera.
But home was no longer the city he grew up in, not in the ways that counted.
Home had become long, golden waves of hair. It was the smell of lavender and the warmth of an embrace. It was quiet nights and ones tangled in sheets. Conversations beneath the stars while fireflies danced overhead.
Home was Auraelia.
It had been for longer than he’d realized. The magic in his veins knew the second he laid eyes on her all those months ago. But it hadn’t been until the Summer Solstice when she was dressed as a queen of his court, that he’d finally begun to understand.
Daemon closed his eyes and let the soft sound of water meeting sand remind him of what he had to lose if this all went awry. He’d lose the home he’d always known and the one that took its place, and he couldn’t let either of those happen.
“Is it always this warm?” Xander asked as he lifted his face toward the sun, his words pulling Daemon from the thoughts swirling through his mind since they ported the night before.
“It is a tropical island,” Yvaine laughed, shaking her head at the absurdity of the question.
“I’ve only been here once before, remember?” Xander shot her a sardonic look. “But I guess I was just a little surprised, is all. Even Emerald is unusually cool for this time of year.”
“It was damn near freezing when Davina was here,” Daemon scoffed, his hand rubbing at his sternum. It was as if the mere thought of her brought back the ice in his veins, stealing the breath from his lungs and causing his chest to ache.
Yvaine placed a gentle hand on his forearm, her eyes soft yet determined as they met his. “She will never set foot on our islands again, D. I’ll make sure of it.”
Placing his hand over hers, he gave it a reassuring squeeze. “We both will.”
“On that note, let’s get started,” Xander cut in, rounding out their little group into an awkward triangle. “Did you get what you need?”
Nodding, Daemon pulled a dark leather satchel from the bag he’d slung across his body.
Having done this in Lyndaria, he knew he’d need sapphires…
and a lot of them. The Sapphire Isles may have been islands, but they were large, and more than one needed protecting.
After pouring some of the stones into his palm, Daemon looked up to meet the wide eyes of his sister.
“Did you rob the treasury? What the fuck are those for?”
“We need them to strengthen the runes that set the wards,” Daemon explained as Xander picked through the gems. “Just pay attention, okay? I’m going to need you to repeat this process on Malaena and Lunaria while I handle things here.”
“What do you mean, ‘handle things here’?” Yvaine asked, crossing her arms as a singular brow reached toward her hairline.
“I need to prepare the fleet and get the council on board. Unless you want to deal with Lord Syrus and his rabble.”
Yvaine’s hands flew up in surrender. “Nope. Wards on the other islands got it. So how do we do this?” The latter was directed toward Xander, who had walked a short distance away to a where the grass tapered off as it met the sandy bank.
“Come on.” Daemon pulled Yvaine along until they reached where Xander knelt in the sand.
“You have to dig a hole deep enough to not be discovered but shallow enough that the magic can penetrate it easily.” The crunch of his spade piercing the wet ground mingled with the crash of waves in the distance and the cries of the birds overhead.
When he finally finished, Yvaine squatted next to him to examine the hole.
“Now—” Xander reached into the pocket he’d deposited the sapphires into, “you have to place the gems in the shape of the rune.” Slipping his other hand into the opposite pocket, he pulled out a small sheet of parchment and handed it to Yvaine.
“Here, I drew it out for you. It has to be this exact shape. It’s really simple, just a few lines that have to connect at the right points.
Any deviation and the wards will not set.
” Xander raised a skeptical brow, tapping his finger against the ink scrawled on the parchment. “Do you think you can handle that?”
Yvaine lifted her gaze from the slip in her hand to meet Xander’s, and Daemon blew out a breath through pursed lips as he rocked back on his heels.
She hated when people, especially men, spoke to her like a petulant child.
She’d been reduced to number two the moment he’d been born.
Despite all that she did for their kingdom, she was downgraded to a “pretty woman” by most of the men at court.
She’d been undervalued by most of their father’s council for the majority of her life, which meant her tolerance for arrogance was below zero.
Daemon watched Xander’s eyes widen, his jaw going slack as blue began seeping into Yvaine’s eyes. “Vaine,” he scolded.
Her hold over Xander’s mind continued as her gaze met Daemon’s, the bright turquoise engulfing the mossy green that matched his own. “I’m not going to hurt him…just get him a little wet.”
A sweet smile graced her mouth, but there was venom behind it. There was a reason few knew of Yvaine’s abilities. A siren’s song could be a tremendous blessing or a curse, and the line between the two was thinner than a strand of hair.
“Yvaine, let him go. He’s trying to help us.”
Still in the trance, Xander stood and took clumsy steps toward the water’s edge.
“He’s got a shitty way of showing it,” she scoffed with a roll of her eyes. Her entire demeanor shifted then. Her breath came in slow, calm pulls as the blue began to retreat from her eyes, luring the unsuspecting prince back to where he’d been before fading away into their usual green.
“What the hell was that?” Xander asked, shaking his head before pressing his fingers into his temples.
“Must have gotten overheated,” Yvaine supplied dryly, then gestured toward the half-completed rune. “You going to finish that?”
By the time they made it back to the castle, the sun was painting the sky in vibrant oranges and pinks as it slowly sank into the horizon.
Xander excused himself as soon as they’d crossed the bridge, claiming a lack of appetite due to a persistent headache. As soon as he was out of earshot, Daemon turned to his sister. “You really did a number on him, Vaine.”
“Weak minds are easier to corrupt, little brother.”
“He’s not weak-minded. He’s worried about his sister and their kingdom. The same as you and me. Give him some grace. He didn’t have to come here.”
Yvaine sighed, then closed her eyes as a sweet hum rang out through the marble of the castle. Echoing down the halls and through the chambers.
“What are you doing?” Daemon whispered next to her ear, his eyes on a constant swivel to make sure that no one was around them. A siren’s song was only meant to be heard by those who were targeted, and the fact that he could hear it had his magic coiling beneath the surface.
“Fixing it,” she stated matter-of-factly. Her song faded out, the usual sounds of the castle returning to fill the space once more. “There. Prince Xander should be fine in a moment or two.”
Daemon blew out an exasperated breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Do me a favor? Until I’m positive there are no spies in our court, keep the magic to a minimum? Please? The last thing we need is you-know-who finding out what you are capable of.”
The fire burned in the depths of Yvaine’s eyes—whether from anger or the need for retribution, he wasn’t sure—but as she opened her mouth to respond, Sariah rounded the corner.
“Daemon! You’re back!” Her arms wound around his neck in a quick embrace before she pulled away, her brows furrowed in confusion. “Wait, why are you back? I thought you were going to Ly—” Yvaine elbowed Sariah in the ribs. “Ow!What the hell, Yvaine!?”
“The walls have ears, Ri,” she hissed through clenched teeth.
A disbelieving chuckle slipped past Daemon’s lips before he released the hold on his shadows and whisked them into his suite.
The last thing he needed was for his council to catch wind of his whereabouts before he was ready for them to.
He needed things in place. Needed to see how deeply his court was entangled with the Court of Garnet before he could begin to unravel the foothold Davina had established.
He needed to weed out the vermin that undoubtedly sat at his father’s table.
And if Davina had established a stronghold in his court, it was going to take more time than he had to demolish it.
“Exactly how many people know where I went?” he seethed, storming across the room to the bar cart. As he poured amber liquid into a glass, he heard someone fall onto one of the leather couches, followed by an exhausted-sounding sigh.
“Mother told me, and I told Ri. No one else knows. Even Father thinks you were on Lunaria, doing your princely duties with the Priestesses.”
Daemon downed the contents of his glass, then poured another before turning to face the women sprawled across his sitting area. “You’re sure?”
“As sure as the nose on my face, little brother.”