Chapter 19
TERRAN
It had flickered.
Not once, but three times. Three more than the Stone should have given. I wasn’t the most powerful land-wielder in Gyoria.
“It happened again.”
Dren stopped what he was doing, showing a young one how to harness the core of Elydor well beneath his feet, and sent the girl back to her trainers. Partnered but childless, like most Elydorians, he would have been a good father.
“When?”
“Just now.”
Dren looked at the leather pouch. “You have it on you? Have you gone mad? And how do you know it happened again if it’s in there?”
I gestured for him to leave the training field with me.
“The same grumbling, when the land beneath our feet has been disturbed… it’s something like that.” I shrugged. “I just… felt it. When I looked inside, it flicked as it had done before.”
Neither of us wished to discuss its implications.
Dren was more concerned with the fact that, as of yet, the Stone hadn’t been discovered as missing.
As for my thoughts, they were frequently, since last eve, on a silver-haired Aetherian whose body responded to my command.
Whose lips tasted like a cross between the sweetest Thalassarian fruit and… and danger.
A deadly combination.
Every instinct I possessed screamed to keep my distance. She was a weapon wrapped in silk, deception cloaked in desire. And yet I’d tasted her, let her see more of me than I had anyone in years.
Fool.
“Even now,” I said, “it pulses as if waiting.”
Like her, in Grimharbor.
“You need to speak to Kael.”
It wasn’t the first time Dren had said it. After a fitful sleep, I woke to the same feeling as I experienced now from the previously sleeping relic.
“If only he was here.”
We passed the outer rim of the training grounds where thistles grew wild and sharp… useless for healing, excellent for teaching pain. I remembered scraping my palms on them during my first trial run, bloodied but proud. That was the Gyorian way: bleed first, ask questions later.
I’d once believed in that.
Now I carried a stolen relic in my belt and couldn’t stop thinking about an Aetherian who made me forget the rules I’d been raised on.
“You could—”
“No.”
It was becoming a tired argument.
Dren stopped walking. Sighing loud enough for my father clear across the palace to hear, I did the same.
“Pride will be a useless defense when he discovers it missing.”
“Pride? I have no notion—”
“Aye.” Dren cut me off as if he were the Prince of Gyoria and I was his right hand. “You do. After raging against your brother for months, you refuse to admit his actions may have held some merit.”
I hated how well he knew me.
“She lied to me,” I said, not for the first time.
“Aye,” Dren agreed. “But perhaps the Stone serves a dual purpose.”
Whether he meant it could both restore balance and open the Gate, or something else, it mattered naught.
“I will confront him,” I said, more determined than ever. For answers. For clarity.
“And I will give you his response, if you wish to hear it. His rants have become predictable as of late.”
“As have yours,” I said, considering tossing Dren into the thistles.
We both froze then, the ground rumbling under our feet.
I knelt down, closed my eyes, and connected to its source. Sighing, my worst fears confirmed, I stood.
Dren’s brows raised in question.
“He’s discovered it missing.”
“Are you certain?”
“His energy is unmistakable,” I said. “Sharp. Furious. Like when he shattered the basalt pillars after the treaty was signed.”
“What will you do?”
I stood. Resigned.
“Speak to him. Father has gone unchecked for too long. His lies were the tipping point.”
At least, that was the plan. I was no coward, to run as my brother had. Neither was I a traitor to Gyoria.
Kael is neither.
Attempting to reconcile my brother’s actions had taken a toll. One that appeared to pale in comparison to what was about to be a confrontation for the ages.
My father’s guards.
They marched toward us with purpose.
They marched toward me.
Their formation split the training field like a blade, boots pounding against sun-baked earth as if they meant to shake the land itself. Gyorian elite, armed and unyielding. Not a patrol. Not a warning.
A retrieval.
“Do not engage,” I warned Dren, already unfastening the pouch at my side and slipping the Stone beneath my tunic, against my skin.
“It’s too late for that,” Dren warned.
The captain raised a fist. “Prince Terran, by order of the king, you are to be detained for questioning.”
Dren dropped down, slamming his palm to the ground.
The field responded instantly.
A ripple surged through the hardened soil, cracking the surface in a jagged line that raced toward the oncoming guards.
The first two stumbled, the earth shifting beneath their boots.
One fell. The other righted himself just in time to catch a face full of grit as the ground kicked upward like a beast bucking its rider.
I didn’t wait.
I dropped to one knee, fingers splayed, and sent my focus deep. The pulse of Elydor thrummed beneath the surface… restless, awake. It knew me. It listened.
Shift, I commanded silently.
A stone barrier erupted between us and the front line, not tall enough to last but enough to break formation.
Dren grabbed my arm, hauling me to my feet.
“They’ll go around it,” I muttered.
“They’ll try.”
Another rumble echoed as I slammed my heel into the ground, eyes narrowed. The air around us shimmered with residual energy… thin threads of power flickering up from the soil like steam after rain. It was the old magic, the kind most had forgotten. But not me.
Not the king’s blood.
A low-frequency vibration rolled beneath my feet, subtle, but growing. The Stone at my chest pulsed in time with it.
Behind us, one of my loyalists dropped to the ground, hands pressed flat as he whispered a command. Another followed, and then another. A chorus of intention. We weren’t soldiers now. We were sons of Gyoria, bending its body to our will.
The terrain shifted again, this time more violently. Thin fissures broke through the clay, forming a pattern we’d trained for, a spiral disruption meant to confuse pursuit.
“Now,” Dren hissed. “Before they anchor.”
We ran.
The ground opened in our wake, not enough to kill, but enough to warn. The guards slowed, unsure where to place their feet as the field betrayed them.
“We can’t keep this up,” I said, breath ragged as we sprinted toward the ridge path.
“No,” Dren agreed, “but we only need to make it to the outpost.”
“To her,” I corrected.
He glanced sideways. “Took you long enough.”
One last command before I did the very thing I swore I’d never do: flee my land, my people, as Kael had done.
“You will not be branded as a traitor. Go to the Hollow. Find those still loyal to Kael. My men will meet you there.”
I’d hoped my father would not do this, but I’d prepared just in case he did.
“What do I tell them?”
We panted, running away from the very place that had kept me safe.
“Tell them the tides are shifting. That Gyorian blood still flows with purpose, and we’ll need every ounce of it before this ends.”
Dren stared at me for a breath too long. “You sound like him.”
My brother. The one I’d been railing against since the Gate responded to Princess Mevlida.
“No,” I panted, focusing on the trail. “Kael ran from Gyoria. I’m taking it back.”