Chapter 4
LYRA
“I leave you here.”
Mounted beside Ilyas, I thanked him for his aid. “You’ve been invaluable,” I said, the smuggler an unlikely ally in our mission to reopen the Gate. “Thank you, Ilyas.”
“Had Marek not saved my life, I’d still be glad to serve you. Unlike my family, I understand the value of diplomacy and believe, as you do, the key to survival in Elydor is to foster alliances, even with those who have been enemies for generations.”
“I don’t consider you an enemy,” I said honestly. “Even if others disagree.”
The warrior sat straighter, turning his mount back toward the coast. “Nor do I.” With a fisted hand over his heart, the Gyorian greeting and parting signal of respect, he spurred his mount forward, leaving me alone on the road.
Precisely as planned.
As I began the trek to Thaeron, one that would see me reaching it before nightfall, I thought back to the day our final phase of the mission that could finally see the Aetherian Gate opened and its unlikely gathering of individuals at King Galfrid’s Council table.
For days, the debate had raged. Kael wanted to return, to be the one to confront his brother and father.
It took everyone present to convince him that was the least likely way to retrieve the Stone of Mor’Vallis, the remaining artifact needed to open the Gate.
Especially after the disaster that was his last visit.
In the end, it was the king and his daughter, Mev who had devised a plan, one similar to my own in the days after Marek and Issa returned Aetheria’s Wind Crystal back to its rightful owner.
I would visit the palace as an emissary.
It would raise few suspicions as I’d done so many times.
I’d been trained, as my parents both had before me, as an Aetherian diplomat.
And also trained well beyond that role too in another few knew about.
The spies we had in place knew me well. It had taken some time for me to convince the others to allow me to travel alone, but since King Balthor was highly suspicious of all Aetherians and tolerated my presence, they had finally agreed.
Marek and Issa would escort me to Grimharbor, and Marek’s friend Ilyas Rho would take me as far as he could without being spotted by palace guards.
We’d quickly set the plan in motion. The easy part was complete.
Gaining entry to the palace would be easy.
It was retrieving the stone that would prove a challenge.
Kael thought his brother could be turned.
The others disagreed. But all trusted me to assess the situation, make contact with the Aetherian spies, though only one now remained, and decide how to proceed.
“I know what you’re thinking, Lyra. Do not do it.”
Kael’s warning rang clear in my mind as I approached the formidable structure built into the side of a mountain. Impenetrable. A fortress like none other.
How Kael had known the secret plan I hatched, I could only guess.
Apparently, I was not the only one who noticed the way Terran looked at me throughout the many years we’d been thrust together.
Though I dealt more often with Kael, or even the king himself, Prince Terran and I had had many, many encounters.
“My brother cannot tolerate a liar,” Kael had said. “Be honest with him from the start. Convince him to join us. But do not do it under the guise of mock-interest.”
It was that last bit Kael had wrong. There would be no need for me to feign interest in the second son of King Galfrid.
From the moment we first met, when he’d accompanied his father to a Council meeting, well before the Gate had been opened, something about him had intrigued me.
He was Gyorian, no doubt. Even less easy than his brother to coax a smile from.
But when it did happen, there was a genuineness about him that most lacked.
I shuddered as a Gyorian guard stopped me.
Thaeron was a fortress disguised as a city.
Slate-gray stone buildings huddled beneath the palace, their rooftops shingled in dark metal that reflected the overcast sky.
The palace gates were massive, hammered from dark iron and opened for me.
Much of it lay beneath the mountain, hidden and impenetrable.
I rode beneath a familiar archway of obsidian stone. Inside, the entry hall was vast, with high ceilings supported by twisted trees, roots clawing the floor, and branches cradling flickering lanterns above.
Draped in the calm mask of diplomacy that I’d learned to exude, even in the face of fear, I stepped into a small antechamber reserved for guests such as myself. Carved from stone, the windowless space wasn’t meant to be welcoming.
Candles buried in every crevice gave the chamber a glow that would never dim.
Land magic made use of so many minerals that, even after all these years, I knew only a sampling of their powers.
Their flames were sustained not by wax, but by slivers of pyrolume, an amber-veined mineral found deep within Gyoria’s mountains.
I sat under the constant watch of a guard who knew me well but still stared at me as if I would attempt to murder his king at any moment.
No offer of a meal. Or lodging. In previous years, before the Gate, I’d have been offered both.
Even after, when relations strained between our clans, a cordiality remained among official envoys.
But those days were past. I would be forced to talk my way into remaining at the palace long enough to secure the stone.
Though I’d asked for an audience with the king, they would never give it to me so easily.
Aetherians were often accused of slyness and deception, but the Gyorian court also wielded both as weapons.
I would be strung along for at least a day, or more, before gaining such an audience.
Which suited me fine. My first goal was having Dell learn about my presence and make contact.
Who could have imagined the Aetherian spy who’d been placed in the Gyorian palace more than a decade ago would become the greatest asset in our history?
“To what do we owe the pleasure of welcoming the daughter of the most prestigious noble family in Aetheria?”
Before he fully appeared, I knew that voice.
Prince Terran filled the entrance, his frame even more imposing than his brother’s.
Some had difficulty telling them apart, but I did not.
Both dark-haired and skinned, both relentlessly handsome, there were differences too.
Even when Terran smiled, creases never reached his eyes.
He looked at everyone, especially me, with mistrust.
Arms uncovered, his training garb as presumptuous as his demeanor, Terran dared opponents to injure him.
No armor, just leather pants and a sleeveless black tunic that clung to the sharp lines of his torso.
Bronze cuffs encircled his forearms, more ornamental than practical, and dust from the training yard still clung to his boots.
He was every bit the warrior prince, unapologetically unguarded, as if daring the world to strike first.
“I am more than simply a daughter now.” I stood. “Perhaps you’ve not noticed.”
His gaze perused me from head to toe, as I knew it would. Terran taunted with every part of him… his words, his eyes.
You are wrong, Kael. Your brother can never be turned to support Aetheria.
“I have noticed.”
And there it was. The jittering in my stomach, my core, whenever he was near. I’d asked for it, goading him as I had.
I’d dealt with the more difficult immortals in Elydor with more cool than I was able to muster when Terran was near. But this time, the stakes were too high. There was no room for error.
“I requested an audience with your father.”
“He is unavailable.”
As expected.
“I will wait.”
His brows shot up. “For how long will you wait, Lyra?”
He drew out the second syllable of my name, making it sound more like a lover’s caress than an insult.
But it wasn’t the way he said, “Lyra” that had me decide on a course of action.
Tossing Kael’s warnings aside, and praying to the gods it wasn’t a miscalculation, I narrowed the distance between us, taking two steps toward him.
“I have an eternity, Terran.”
The undertone of my voice was unmistakable. Not surprisingly, he reacted.
“What game do you play?”
I blinked, as if innocent, which I most certainly was not.
“No game, my lord.”
“So deferential, suddenly?”
“I don’t have a deferential bone in my body, Terran. As well you know.”
As expected, he couldn’t resist the challenge. The darkening of his eyes told me as much.
“You will, by the time we’re finished here.”
Ahh, Terran. It was almost too easy.
“Aye?”
He closed the gap between us.
“I will have you begging before this game is through, Lyra. Do not test me on this.”
“Begging? For what? An audience with your father?”
He smelled like the land. Like strength and warrior. A heady combination for someone who could respect his power, even if it was a danger to me and my people.
When his hand shot out, I didn’t stop him. It was not the first time Terran had touched me, his finger lifting my chin to meet his gaze. But it was the first time in many years, and never in a conversation such as this one.
A dangerous game, indeed.
“I am impervious to temptation, Lyra. Especially when I’m being manipulated.”
I leaned in, just enough to feel the tension coil between us.
“Then ’tis a good thing I’m not trying to tempt you.”
His hand dropped, but Terran didn’t step away. We were close. Too close. If anyone walked past, they would think something was happening between us, but Terran didn’t seem worried. Instead, he held his ground.
If I were sensible, I would have stepped back.
Terran smelled of rain-cooled stone and the metal tang of his magic.
I could map his tells now: the way his jaw tightened when he swallowed a truth; the way power gathered at his left hand first; the way his gaze dropped to my mouth when he was about to say something he should not.
I had been trained to exploit weakness. The trouble was learning where his ended and mine began.
“Why are you here, Lyra?”
I stepped back, my senses already heightened with the threat of Gyoria all around me. An unsettledness I’d expected, but even so…
“To speak to your father.”
“Speak to me instead.”
I gestured behind him, the entrance still flanked by guards. The corridor open for any to walk past. “We’re too exposed.”
I didn’t drop my gaze until Terran turned from me. Without another word, he walked out, as quickly as he’d come, saying something to one of the guards and then stalking away, his strides taking him quickly out of my view.
Prince Terran leaving without a proper fare-thee-well was unsurprising, but it stung nonetheless.
“Come with me,” one of the guards said.
I expelled a breath, my shoulders untensing for the first time since I’d heard Terran’s voice. Where we were going, I had no notion. But wherever it was, only one thing mattered. And it wasn’t my feelings, however misguided they might be, about Kael’s brother and son of Aetherian’s greatest enemy.