Chapter 35
The falls were dizzyingly beautiful.
Cool water misted Mariah’s face. The river they’d followed deep into the Everheim Mountains—the one that had started as nothing more than a small creek—poured over the cliff above them. It was fed by a great, sparkling lake, one ringed on all sides by the towering mountains.
In those mountains, built straight into the Everheim’s themselves, was Eyarfell. The capital of Leuxrith.
“We are almost there.” Their guide, who’d introduced himself as Filip, gestured up. The goat-creature he rode—which they called a brusi, Signe had explained—stamped its foot impatiently.
Mariah’s gaze traced up the steep cliff. She could see the outline of buildings and could almost hear the people walking through the cliff-side roads. A stone bridge cleaved into the side of the mountain and arched through the air, leading to another nearby peak dotted with even more buildings.
She’d thought the palace in Onita—her palace—had been a feat of construction the way it was built into the low, coastal Attlehon Mountains.
It was nothing compared to this place. This city that touched the clouds, made to be one with the regal Everheim Mountains.
“Your Majesty?”
Mariah dropped her attention back to Filip, warmth blooming across her cheeks when she realized everyone’s attention was on her. Waiting.
How quickly her grief had made her forget her station when she didn’t feel the need to wield it.
“Sorry.” She nodded toward the steep path. “Up the mountains, then?”
Filip smiled warmly. “Yes. Up the mountains.” He turned his mount, the brusi’s cloven feet solid against the stone, and they started up the path.
Kodie bumped his head into her shoulder, nickering softly. She chuckled, reaching under his neck to scratch his jaw. “I know, boy,” she murmured. “I know it’s steep. But you can’t let those goats show you up.”
Her horse tossed his head again, as if he understood. As if he was agreeing with her. And maybe she imagined it, but she was sure his steps grew surer, tail swishing through the air.
She felt the heaviness of Andrian’s gaze before she turned to meet it.
He’d been quiet ever since the Leuxrithians had met them on the path to lead them into the city. Quiet during this entire journey, really. It was like he was retreating into himself, raising up all those carefully crafted walls again.
Mariah wanted more than anything to reach out to him. To ask him what was wrong; to beg him to talk to her; to tell him that no matter what he had to say they would figure it out, together.
But before any of those flowing thoughts could form into a question, Andrian was turning away, striding up the hill after their Leuxrithian companions.
Which left Mariah with Kodie, a breathless Matheo at her side.
Swallowing down her mild frustration at Andrian’s self-destructive tendencies, she turned to the younger Armature, his cheeks flushed with exertion.
“Matheo,” she said with a laugh, “you train nearly every day, and we’ve been on the road for a week. You cannot possibly be that out of shape.”
He shrugged, wiping the back of his hand across his sweaty brow. “It’s all this climbing,” he said. “I was not built for this.”
Mariah chuckled. “Fair.” She glanced up again at the falls. “At least it’s beautiful.”
And it was. The sunlight glittered off the water, catching the shadows of the mountains. Flowers in full bloom clung to the cliffs and towering pines stood sentry where their roots could sink beneath the rock.
Matheo made a low noise of agreement. “Yeah, I’ll give it that.” He followed her stare up to the mountains, brow twisting. “I grew up in the Attlehons. We always thought those mountains were mighty. But they have nothing on these.”
“I disagree. I think all natural beauty is equal,” Mariah mused. “Just because it’s different doesn’t make one better than the other.”
“Spoken like a true queen.” The corner of Matheo’s mouth tipped into a grin.
Mariah didn’t answer, though she returned the smile.
They trailed the others up the path, the only sound the quiet clop of Kodie’s hooves and the brush of the wind across the cliffs.
Cielle circled above, her feathers hiding her from sight.
Mariah didn’t mind, though—her new friend needed to go hunt, anyway.
Her bond with the eagle was yet another thing that perplexed her, but she hadn’t had time to dwell on it. She hadn’t bothered to dwell on it.
Why question a blessing, especially at a time when she had so few?
“How are you doing, by the way?” Matheo’s soft question carved through the silence. He waved a hand in front of him, around him—a vague, general gesture. “With…everything.”
Mariah pursed her lips. She knew what he meant.
“I’m fine. It’s complicated.” She sighed. “But when is it ever not?”
Matheo nodded. “If it matters,” he said, “he’s always been like that. Hot and cold. I think he just needs time. Who knows what he went through back there.”
“I know,” Mariah said quietly. “I just…he was getting better.”
“And he’s still better than he used to be. Because of you.” His hazel stare touched her cheek. “Just keep trying. Don’t give up on him.”
Something in her hardened. “I never will.”
They fell back into an easy silence. “What about this place?” Matheo finally asked. “What exactly do you hope to find here?”
Mariah considered his question. There was so much she wanted.
Vengeance against Kol and the Royals for what they’d taken from her.
For Andrian to open up about what happened in that gods-cursed castle.
To have her magic back, to learn more about that second form she’d only just discovered before it was yanked away.
Her mother, back in their family home in Andburgh. Her father, relaxed and happy again. Her brother, without sadness hardening his gentle heart.
When the breeze brushed her cheek, stirring her hair around her face, she gave the truest answer she could find.
“Myself.”
It was just Mariah’s luck that their arrival would require the interruption of a very public communion in Eyarfell’s main temple.
The room was magnificent, as was everything in Leuxrith, and yet wholly rough and unshapen.
Carved into the mountain but not in the way Verith was.
The ceiling was cavernous, dripping with stalactites and gleaming with crystalline waters.
Rich veins of mineral and gemstone deposits glittered on the walls, creating a natural opulence.
Rows and rows of curious faces, eyes of varying shades of purple blue, watched Mariah stride toward the table at the far end of the temple. Andrian and Matheo flanked her, their boots too loud on the smooth floor.
Seated at that table were five individuals, both men and women of varying ages. All wore simple robes and gold-plated discs hanging on chains around their necks and resting over their sternums.
The Leuxrithian Council.
Signe had briefly filled Mariah in on the northern kingdom’s politics.
Like Kreah, Leuxrith was governed by a council rather than a singular monarch.
Unlike Kreah, though, the Leuxrithian Council wasn’t elected.
It was instead chosen by the Oracle, a religious leader with a reincarnating spirit blessed by Callamus and reborn each generation.
At least, that was what Signe said. Mariah, even after all she’d seen—all she’d experienced—still was a bit of a skeptic.
That skepticism didn’t stop the shiver of nervousness that raced down her spine. Her hands twitched at her side; she wanted to twist them together, to hide the trembling in her fingers that she knew was close to starting.
A shoulder brushed hers. Strong and solid and warm. A familiar, calloused hand grazed her palm, just the barest hint of a steadying touch.
She found Andrian’s gaze. His expression was still shuttered and closed, but he couldn’t hide the concern glittering in his eyes.
Mariah gave him the barest hint of a reassuring smile—the best she could muster—before facing forward and halting.
The four Leuxrithian councilors watched her with guarded curiosity. Mariah sensed nothing hostile from them, but still a bead of sweat tracked a path between her shoulder blades.
Her nervousness spiked higher as she finally met the Oracle’s scrutinizing stare.
She was an elderly woman, hunched and wrinkled, and yet an ageless intelligence gazed out through her light-purple eyes. The type of stare that knew too much, saw too much.
The type of stare that Mariah loathed.
Callamus emerged from the shadows behind the council table. His indigo hair gleamed in the soft lantern light, and the reassuring smile he gave Mariah settled her, just a touch.
Murmurs rippled through the temple at the appearance of the god. Was this the first time most of them were seeing Callamus returned?
Though Mariah supposed she’d have her answers to all of that soon enough.
Mariah cleared her throat. The whispers and murmurs died, silence descending upon the cavern.
“Thank you, members of the council, for welcoming me to Leuxrith.”
Water dripped from the stalactites, echoing mockingly off the walls.
The councilor seated in the center of the table—a middle-aged woman with long, night-black hair and pale indigo eyes—rose to her feet. There was something vaguely familiar about the way she moved, in the proud tilt to her chin.
“It is an honor,” she began, her tone warm, “to welcome the first Onitan Queen on Leuxrithian soil in over one thousand years. It was foretold that our kingdoms would be friends again; to see hope of that happening during my lifetime is the greatest privilege.”
Mariah inclined her head, ears pricking at the bit about her arrival being foretold. How much could the Leuxrithians, with their magic of prophecy and spell work, see? “The honor is all mine, Councilor…?” The question in her voice was clear.
The councilor smiled. “We go by no titles here. I am Merete. This is Tomas, Birgitte, and Viktor.” The other council members bowed their heads in acknowledgment.