Chapter 3
TERRAN
She stood alone beside the river.
I watched her for no other reason than a young one was such a rare sight to behold.
I understood the balance that kept Elydor from overpopulating.
Having so few young ones was the price we paid for immortality.
This particular cherub belonged to one of my father’s warriors and his partner.
When she was born, all of Gyoria rejoiced.
I should have been training, but spotted the young one on my return to the training yard.
Beyond her, Gyoria spread out like a living tapestry of stone and fire.
Our beauty wasn’t delicate like Aetheria’s or fluid like Thalassaria.
It was carved, earned, and enduring. Towering cliffs rose behind the strongholds which comprised Gyoria’s capital Thaeron.
Ironwood trees lined the ravines. The river, fed by ancient springs beneath the mounts, shimmered in the daylight.
“Too rare a sight.”
I heard Dren coming, his step unmistakable. The former scholar turned warrior’s footfalls—courtesy of his partner having been executed many decades ago—were heavier than most.
“Aye,” I agreed. “Her magic is progressing nicely.”
“Indeed?” Dren asked. “It seems to me she’s been attempting to summon riverlilies all morn.”
Also true. But at least she persevered despite her failed attempts.
“Your father’s Council met earlier. I heard you did not attend?”
My father’s Council was nothing more than a collection of Gyorian nobles who agreed with everything he said and did, regardless of the merit of his actions.
Over the years, as he became more and more embittered after my mother was killed by a human plague that somehow managed to take hold here in Elydor, even though such diseases did not usually find their way through the Gate, the Council had become a mirror of their king.
“I did not.”
Dren sighed as we stood side by side, watching the young one.
“He will be angry.”
“My father is always angry.”
Dren shifted his weight, his leather jerkin creaking, reinforced with obsidian-scaled plating and char-stained from the forges beneath Thaeron. Like all Gyorian armor, it was built to withstand blade, flame, and the weight of expectation. “Perhaps. But more so recently.”
The young one tried again, and failed.
“First Kael,” I said, trying not to think too hard on my brother. “And the recent unrest, as well as Adren’s defection to Hawthorne… Father has had his share of traitors and spies of late.”
She was becoming frustrated. Willing her not to give up, I watched, belatedly realizing Dren had gone silent.
“What is it?” I asked, my eyes still on the young one.
“Your anger will rival your father’s if I speak my mind.”
With a sharp look, I diverted my attention to the Gyorian who had been my right hand for many years. He rarely hesitated to speak openly to me, meaning there was just one topic he wished to broach.
“There will be no talk of Kael,” I said, leaving no room in my tone for discussion of my brother.
My twin. The only shield against an increasingly angry king who had once been a loving father but whose bitterness and hate for the humans who killed his wife—or so he believed—had turned him into the ruthless ruler he’d become.
Dren fell silent once again.
The young one’s shoulders slumped in defeat.
Try once more.
Instead, she sank to her knees. It would be years until she understood that all that was needed to make flowers bloom where there were none was there already within. She had but to learn to harness it. To block out all other thoughts and, most especially, doubts.
Stand up.
Like most Elydorians, the thought of having my own babe to raise, to teach, to nourish, was but a dream. One that I’d given up on long ago. Were she mine, I’d spend my days attempting to show her that the light within her only faded if she allowed it.
She stood.
Needing a victory, even a small one, this time, when she raised her arm and swiped her small fingers into an arc, I did the same with my own.
A single bloom from the stonebloom plant at her feet appeared.
A bright-yellow riverlily, stark against the browns and greens of the landscape around it, peeked out as if to greet her.
The girl leaped into the air and then fell back down to her knees to inspect it. Smelling the flower, her elation evident, she rose once again. This time, when she raised her hand and swiped, a second bloom appeared, one I did not produce.
I smiled. One which fled immediately when I spied Dren’s amusement.
“She’d not have done it otherwise.”
“Likely not.”
“Why do you smile like a fool?”
“No reason, my lord.”
Knowing I’d regret it, I relented. “Say what’s on your mind.”
“Is he a traitor? Truly?”
Every muscle in my body tensed, the urge to reach out for magic and destroy something, particularly Dren, one I fought to succumb to.
“How can you ask such a question?”
“He is not the only one who disagrees with your father’s stance on the Gate.”
We’d spoken little of my brother since he left, with good reason. Thinking of him, of how easily he’d forsaken me and his men…
“Agree or disagree, he is a traitor to Gyoria.”
“Perhaps. But not to his own convictions.”
He spoke barely above a whisper. Dren had suffered more than most, a suffering that bore visibility even after so many years.
“Convictions,” I spat, impatient with the conversation. “His only conviction was loyalty to a woman he hardly knew.”
“Love does such things.”
I would not argue with that appalling fact, for I’d seen as much with my own eyes. “Which is why it should be avoided.”
Surely, an argument Dren could agree with since love had cost lifetimes of peace.
“It has the ability to transform us, aye. As it did your brother. And father. Though in very different ways.”
“Enough.”
Dren sighed heavily. “The Council warned your father of Thalassari raiders off the southern coast.”
“Odd. We’ve not dealt with them in many years.”
“Precisely. But the waters around the Maelstrom Depths seem to have calmed, making them more daring. Your father is sending men to investigate.”
Interesting. “First, the Gate reopens for the lost princess to return but then promptly closes once again. Then a new Thalassari queen is chosen and now anomalies around the Depths. Not to mention signs of a new imbalance. One my father seems overly concerned about.”
“Concerned?” Dren snickered. “Not the word I would use for your father’s recent behavior.”
“Obsessed, then,” I said, acknowledging Dren was right. “I will speak to him.” I was convinced there was more to the situation and not trusting recent events were isolated. Coincidences, I’d learned in the hundreds of years I’d been alive, were rare.
With one final glance at the growing bed of flowers being summoned, I turned toward the palace, each step I took toward the formidable structure, and the man who reigned over it, heavier than the one before.
The burden of calming the King of Gyoria—my father—and his increasingly erratic actions was heavy before Kael left. Now, it was nearly unbearable.
But it was my duty. And unlike my brother, I’d not forsake it.