Chapter 1 Crowns and Gowns #2
Elyria let her eyes drift to the floor. “I am a soldier, not a mannequin.”
“Who says you can’t be both?”
Kit yelped in protest as the grapes in her hand suddenly sprouted, thin vines rapidly winding out from the tiny seeds within, ruining them as anything edible.
She glared at Elyria, who pasted an innocent expression on her face even as her hand remained outstretched, fingers still twitching with wild magic.
“Touchy.” Kit sighed, pinching a small grapevine between her thumb and pointer finger and discarding it.
“Oh, try to look on the bright side, won’t you?
You’ve been complaining about all this waiting for months, whining about how bored you’ve been, champing at the bit to get moving.
It may have taken some time for the pieces to fall into place, but things are finally happening. ”
Elyria huffed a breath out of her nose but said nothing. She rubbed idly at a spot in the center of her chest, as though she might reach the shadows that lay deep within. They’d been quiet ever since she left the Lost City of Luminaria—tangled, knotted, tense. Inaccessible.
Not that she’d really tried to wield them.
She didn’t want to. Didn’t deserve to, considering the last true act she’d used them for was to rip the love of her life from this world.
Because corrupted or not, that’s what Evander was.
Had been. And when Elyria killed him, even if it was in defense—of Kit, of her fellow champions, of him—a little part of her died too.
She would never stop hearing Evander’s final goodbye.
“Going to Kingshelm means the beginning of a whole new kind of game,” Kit continued, and Elyria was grateful to be torn from the memory. She shook her head, as though it might shake loose the part of herself that was still stuck in the Crucible.
“Especially where the Victor of Nyrundelle is concerned,” Kit added with a small smile.
A groan fell from Elyria’s lips. “Not you too.”
“Hey, this is what you signed up for. You won the fucking Arcane Crucible. There’s no avoiding it, Lady Victor.”
Elyria threw a grape at Kit, who laughed as it narrowly missed, ricocheting off the wall behind her head.
“You know full well that is not what I signed up for when I followed your ass through the Gate,” Elyria grumbled.
Kit shrugged, tracking the roll of the grape across the polished wooden floor. “Might as well enjoy the ride while you’re on it. Besides, I’ll be right next to you the entire time, suffering in near-equal measure.”
“That’s riiiiiight,” Elyria said, her melodic voice stretching the vowel. “So why aren’t you being poked, prodded, and stuck with pins, hmm? Where are your fancy dresses fit for this momentous celebration of Arcanian and human peace?”
“I’ve nearly two centuries as Duchess Laeliana Ravenswing’s daughter and niece of the king under my belt. You think I’m not already armed with dresses to spare? Stars above, Ellie. The years apart really did a number on your memory of how it works around here.”
Elyria plastered on a halfhearted smile, the weight of Kit’s words sinking into the space between them.
A reminder of the separation Elyria herself had imposed on their friendship—their sisterhood.
One that began the moment she realized Evander wouldn’t be returning from his attempt at conquering the Arcane Crucible and only ended when Elyria followed Kit into the next one.
Kit’s face fell. “No, that’s not—I didn’t mean—”
“I know.” Elyria gave Kit’s knee a light pat. “And you’re right, we still have much to catch up on, even now. I suppose it’s a good thing we’ll have plenty of time to chat on our way to Kingshelm.”
“Aye,” boomed a gruff voice from the doorway. “A trip I’m very much lookin’ forward to, I admit. Never traveled by gryphon before.”
Thraigg’s unexpected appearance had Elyria jumping to her feet with a yelp, reflexively pelting a handful of grapes at the dwarf. He caught one with surprising deftness, the ornaments decorating his thick brown beard jangling.
“Oi, don’t shoot the messenger,” he said, blue eyes twinkling. “Though ye’re losing your touch, Rev, if ye thought this would stop an intruder.” He popped the fruit between his teeth with a grin.
Elyria fought an answering smile of her own, though it quickly morphed into a frown as Thraigg went on to add, “Ye’ve been summoned, yer ladyship.”
Kit didn’t bother trying to hide her laugh this time.
Elyria shuffled toward the doorway with a scowl. “So glad I can be here for your entertainment.”
“If it makes ye feel any better, rumor is our Lord Victor over in Kingshelm isn’t quite loving his new title either.”
Elyria stopped mid-step.
“If we’re to believe the traders’ reports,” Thraigg continued, “Ric’s been paraded up and down the whole stars-damned human kingdom nonstop these past few months. Poor man’s only just now getting a break.”
“Oh? What do you mean by that?” She attempted to keep her voice nonchalant, the question casual. Another snort of laughter from Kit told Elyria she’d failed in a spectacular fashion. She resisted the urge to pelt more grapes at her friend.
The look Thraigg gave Elyria was entirely too knowing, and she felt the instantaneous urge to tell him to forget the whole thing.
But then he said, “Something about a party from the capital heading out on a mission to that magical academy of theirs—what’s it called?
Pie-something.” He shrugged. “Supposedly, it’s being led by the Victor of Havensreach. ”
The sudden disappointment blooming in Elyria’s gut must have shown on her face, because Thraigg was quick to add, “Granted, dwarven chatter is often just that, y’know. Chatter, gossip, scuttlebutt. Could very well be wrong.”
“True,” Kit chimed in. “Who amongst us hasn’t been on the receiving end of a rather embellished tale from a dwarven trader?
You’d think them masters of transfiguration with the way they can spin a crumb into an entire story.
” Something like sympathy flashed in her blue and green eyes.
“Plus, even with the accords in place, messages aren’t exactly reliable.
Especially with the humans’ shoddy magic at work.
My mother tells me every other missive sent across the Chasm is delayed or misdelivered. ”
Elyria groaned inwardly, the pity she could feel seeping from Kit and Thraigg coloring the apples of her cheeks with embarrassment.
But there was something else too, something deeper, more painful.
The realization that after all this—the weeks spent planning the trip to Kingshelm, the months of waiting—he might not even be there when she arrived.
The thought sat uncomfortably in her chest. She should feel relieved, shouldn’t she? The last thing she needed was to see Cedric Thorne again. If even the absence of him had been this distracting . . .
Truth be told, from the moment they’d parted ways in the Lost City, with Elyria eager to get a dangerously wounded Kit to the nearest healer, and Cedric’s human escorts sweeping him off in another direction, she’d done her best to ignore his existence entirely.
Refused to think of him much at all, in fact.
Unfortunately, that hadn’t stopped the thoughts from coming anyway.
And now, with the accords settled, the unprecedented was finally happening. Arcanians were being granted entrance to Havensreach—officially, legitimately. Ceremoniously.
Elyria Lightbreaker, the Revenant, was about to be welcomed to Kingshelm.
Which meant they would finally be on the same side of the Chasm again. And the ever-present, well, presence of him would only get harder and harder to ignore.
Harder to lie to herself about.
Why should I care? she wanted to say. Wanted to believe.
But now the idea that he might not be there at all brought a wave of messy emotions to the surface.
They threatened to break free from that little box inside herself where Elyria had stuffed them after the Crucible ended.
Right alongside the memory of his golden-brown eyes staring into hers, the feel of his hand brushing her wing, his hair tangled between her fingers, his lips upon hers . . .
Nope. She was most definitely not thinking about any of that. Not even a little bit.
She clamped the lid of that rattling box down tighter, reburying it deep below the knot of shadows in her chest—the power that had been idle ever since they left the Sanctum. Idle, but not dormant. She could still feel it there, coiled and restless. Like it was waiting for something.
For someone.
Kit cleared her throat, pulling Elyria’s attention back. “You said Ellie was being summoned?” she reminded Thraigg.
“Right-o. Her Grace said it’s time to head to the palace. Ye’ve got a final meeting with the king before we take off in the morning.”
Kit rolled her eyes. “And did you remind Her Grace that she has dozens of servants working on this estate who could have easily delivered this message? You don’t have to do that, you know. You do not work for my mother.”
Thraigg grinned. “And miss the chance to see my two favorite gals in their, er, natural habitat?” He waved his hand at the messy room, then let out a dramatic sigh. “Sometimes I think ye really don’t know me at all.”
“Were only we all so lucky,” drawled Tenebris Nox, their unmistakable voice—both hard and soft, feminine and masculine—seeping into the room from the open doorway.
Thraigg scowled at the nocterrian, who leaned a broad shoulder against the doorframe.
A shadow passed across their indigo skin as they tucked long strands of pitch-black hair into a bun that sat between the horns curving back from either side of their forehead.
“Well, since the gang’s all here,” Elyria said, a chuckle bubbling up between the words, “far be it from me to keep the king waiting.”
Still, as she followed Thraigg out the door, Nox shadowing his steps and Kit skipping behind, the humor she felt transformed into something sharper. This was it—the start of something new. The next step.
Kit’s voice echoed in her mind: Kingshelm means the beginning of a whole new kind of game.
Elyria hoped she was prepared to play it.