Chapter Eighteen
The Eternal Order
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The Floating Mountains, Nythanor.
Naal.
The Council Room had not been made use of for over a hundred years.
A different war, a different time, a different bloodshed.
Naal sat at the head of the stone table, its four legs blossoming like tree trunks from the floor beneath, and could not keep her mind from hurtling down pathways that led her back to the burned city.
Had she not been on the other side of Droria, had she been more vigilant in protecting her people in her absence, perhaps more would have survived. Perhaps the city would not have fallen at all.
Had she stayed, had she not saved Kyra in Avaldale, her people would still live.
Dangerous, to think that way. Regret and doubt was for the nonsensical. It had no place in the heart of a Warden.
‘Are you alright?’ Kyra broke the absent silence.
Naal looked up. Very few asked her that question because in the eyes of most, her strength never wavered.
It could not waver. ‘I have lived a long life,’ she said.
‘I have seen many harrowing things: wars and uprisings, death and betrayal. So much blood spilt. And yet… I have never witnessed a butchery quite like this.’
The Great Earthling War had been just that…
a war. Death was inevitable. This had been an unprovoked massacre.
‘I knew war was coming, Kyra,’ she continued quietly.
‘I knew the Empress was biding her time, waiting to strike. But… I must admit, I did not anticipate that even she could be this merciless.’
‘Will you retaliate?’
It would be all Azar deserved. But when the time came, it would be the Empress that suffered redemption, not her innocent subjects. ‘If I did, I’d be an impulsive fool.’
The door opened, and one by one her trusted inner circle trickled into the little room. Zuriel led them, her chin raised with importance. She had always been that way, for as long as Naal could remember. It was a trait she had certainly not attained from herself.
But then, Naal had raised her, not birthed nor made her.
Zuriel had come into this world in this very temple. Born to a fae female and fathered by a careless and cruel akee male who upheld the virtues and conceited ideologies of his forebears. He’d forced himself upon the barely-of-age girl and left her to deal with the repercussions.
Seventy-two years ago, underneath Gallena’s crystal shrine, that same young female had collapsed from intervals of pain, mere minutes away from giving birth, her belly swollen and heavy.
She had been a girl of few words, most of which were to beg Naal to save her child’s life, even if it meant losing her own.
That had ultimately been the unfortunate outcome, and that tiny babe, with her feeble, featherless wings still stuck together, took her first strangled breath as her mother took her last. The babe had wailed then, as if she had known the female that had brought her into the world was now leaving it, and her, behind.
‘Save her,’ the mother had rasped before her soul departed. ‘He’ll want her… dead. Save her from him… keep her safe… please.’
Naal swore to the girl that she would honour her dying wish, to raise the innocent babe as though she were her own.
It had been Gallena’s will to do so, Naal had known it as she’d looked into the depths of the infant’s eyes and was hit with an adoration such as she had never known.
An unexplored universe of boundless love.
It had never been Naal’s intention to be a mother. But she thanked Gallena every day that she was.
Zuriel was the youngest Eternal in the order, a furiously fast flyer and strong and loyal to her very core. But as half fae, half akee, she was constantly trying to prove to everyone, including Naal, that she belonged.
Naal had never been able to truly convince Zuriel that she did.
Behind Zuriel came Maida Lorafiel, Naal’s Third in command.
Maida was a dear friend, and possibly the most talented healer she had ever encountered.
She did not hesitate to embrace Naal the moment she stepped into the room with a tight squeeze that was silent yet said so much.
An aroma of varying herbs and concocted potions clung to her rich, mahogany skin, stained floating robes and white wings like a strange perfume.
Maida disentangled herself from Naal and took the seat opposite Kyra. ‘You must be the Earth Warden.’
Kyra grimaced. ‘Apparently so.’
‘There is no apparently about it. You either are or you are not. I should hope you are, otherwise your being here becomes quite pointless.’
A little stunned, Kyra opened her mouth, closed it, then narrowed her eyes. ‘I am the Earth Warden.’
Maida nodded approvingly. ‘That’s better. What do they call you, girl?’
‘Kyra,’ she replied hesitantly.
‘You come to Maida if you need anything, Kyra. If your bleed cramps your stomach, or your arm gets broken in combat with this brute,’ she nodded toward the black-winged Eternal who had just sat down beside her, ‘You come to me. There is not a single ailment I cannot help with,’ she finished boastfully.
Kyra nodded once in response, but the cool apprehension on her face considerably warmed.
To her left, Mankar frowned at her implication of an accidental injury at his hand, but ignored it and smiled kindly at Kyra. It did not quite reach his eyes.
Eternals were not often a huge bulking mass of muscle like he was, and though his reputation as a fiercely formidable warrior was indisputable, he was perhaps the gentlest of souls to walk the Mothers’ lands. His sister, on the other hand, was quite the opposite.
‘Where is Nysari?’ Naal asked as Zuriel closed the door, noticing the lack of a steely white-head in their midst.
‘Disobeying,’ Zuriel muttered under her breath as she took the place beside Kyra.
Mankar shot her a reproachful glare, then leaned forward to look at Naal. ‘Nys remains on the summit with the hawks. She has grown anxious of another attack.’
‘As have we all, but her place is here, not playing lookout. The pramah has requested her presence and she ignores the call,’ said Zuriel bitterly.
Ignoring her, Naal told Mankar, ‘I trust you will pass on the accounts of this meeting to her after its end?’
‘I will,’ Mankar promised.
‘Nysari’s worries are justified,’ Naal said, her voice fractionally rising to address the rest, particularly Zuriel, whose lips were tight with restrained disagreement.
A respectful silence settled as she spoke.
‘This attack will not be the last. It is the beginning of a war I have been foolish enough to believe would not come to pass just yet. But this threat is unmistakable. Zarynth attacks to send us a message: that Empress Azar is finally ready to fight, and that we should submit to her reign or become extinct in her new world.’
‘We will do neither,’ said Maida fiercely.
‘But we are just a small fraction of Zarynth’s number,’ Zuriel said, her eyebrows furrowing. ‘We are the only unit in Droria who would dare rise against her. How can we hope to defeat her growing army?’
‘Through Orro’s recent revelations we know that those armies are made up of humans.
Though the battalions far outnumber us, we can be certain that our power and unity gives us the advantage.
Those humans are slaves. Their loyalty to her is based on fear, not respect nor love.
Their unhappiness leans to our favour; she has not won their hearts.
’ Naal remembered her oldest friend then. ‘What of Orro? Have we received word?’
If the room had been quiet before, the silence that followed was profoundly more so. Clammy dread flushed over her skin. ‘Tell me,’ she whispered.
It was Maida who delivered the devastating blow. ‘He was caught. Azar killed him.’
Orro Myrso was dead.
Her gaze immediately went to the giant at Maida’s side. ‘Mankar,’ she breathed through a constricted throat. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Orro had been her Second in command and the Eternal spymaster for over five hundred years. He had also been a great father to the twins, Mankar inheriting his rare aptitude for unconditional kindness.
‘He knew the risks,’ Mankar replied, and though there was sadness in his icy blue eyes, his chest swelled with pride. ‘He died serving you and this order. He would have considered it a great honour.’
The sentiment did little to alleviate the grief in her heart. ‘I doubt Nysari shares the same view?’ Naal asked, now understanding his twin’s self-inflicted segregation.
‘She does,’ Mankar insisted. ‘But it is not without anger.’ Across the table, Zuriel shook her head slightly. It did not go unnoticed by Mankar. ‘Have you ever lost a father?’ he demanded of her. ‘Have some empathy, Zuri. She is grieving.’
‘As are you, but you have not neglected your duty.’
Mankar’s wide hand on the table balled into a fist. ‘She has not neglected-’
‘When the attack on the city happened, she was on the Summit,’ Zuriel said vehemently. ‘The city fell on her watch.’
Mankar’s face flushed with anger. The veins in his thick neck popped. ‘You cannot blame her for-’
Zuriel’s voice rose. ‘It was her watch! She was there on the summit with the hawks, she should have been the one to see the princes coming! She hides up there now because she knows she is guilty of that oversight! If she had control of her emotions, all those people would still be here.’
The irony of Zuriel berating Nysari for a lack of emotional control was not lost on Naal, for her daughter was as short-tempered as a dragon.
Kyra, who had sat quiet the whole time, said, ‘I don’t think that’s fair.’
Zuriel’s attention snapped toward her. ‘Forgive my bluntness, but your opinion does not matter here.’