2. Kiera
TWO
KIERA
T wo days had passed since that fateful conversation and I still had not processed what had been said.
Jaxus was my flyer.
I was his ryder.
Every time I repeated the words to myself, I rejected them.
It could not be. I’m a healer. I cannot be a ryder.
The magic was different. I knew it was different! But after forty-eight hours in the healer’s library and barely any sleep, I had found no evidence either way. No healer who’d ever been a ryder, but nothing forbidding it. It was entirely unknown. The Goddess had simply never willed it before. But the realms were hers and if she willed it now, then it would be.
I just could not begin to imagine her reasons for this turn of events. My work was vital. Aside from my career as one of the leading healers in the Twelve Kingdoms, I had a duty far more serious. My family were the caretakers of sacred knowledge mostly lost through time and conflict. An archive of old magic and healing which was outlawed during unification. Our archive of works was saved by courageous healers and priests in the fallout of the Hundred Years War and had been guarded by generations of healers from my line ever since.
We collected and preserved any surviving old knowledge at the risk of our lives because we believed in the prophecies written by the High Priests centuries ago. That a time would come in the future when only old magic could restore the balance between the Goddess and her land.
I could not stray from that duty. It was in my blood, and I had pledged my life to the honor in a vow I took on the first equinox of my adulthood. I was bound to this life. Flying was not supposed to figure into my future. How could I possibly marry these paths?
And Jaxus, of all the flyers.
Even in the chaos of Nyx and Zaria’s return to the capital, I laid eyes on him and knew in my gut he would bring change for me. I had thought it would be as simple as resisting a devastatingly beautiful male who might seek to distract me from my work, but oh no!
No, this male was not simply a distraction. He was a blinding light I could not look away from. And if I ever could tear my gaze away, I feared I would only see ghosts of him in my vision from here on out. He was too much of all the wrong things.
Too much brawn to have enough brain. Too much beauty to have enough humility. Too much skin and not nearly enough clothes. Was it too much to ask him to wear shirts? Shoes? Should I just be grateful he was willing to compromise and indulge us with the pants? Perhaps he wanted to keep all the sacred symbols and designs he had intricately inked across his bronzed muscles on full display. It wasn’t good.
I was used to flyers with no inhibitions, but this male was testing my limits. And he had far too much hair for his own damn good. I mean, what potion was he using on those sun-kissed golden locks? Something he could bottle and sell to wealthy females in the city boutiques, I was certain. Some flyers only had a casual relationship with soap if we were lucky. Jaxus took looking good and smelling fantastic to new realms. He was a dragon, it had to be some kind of spell.
It was not okay. I did not have time for that kind of disruption in my life. I needed to focus, now more than ever. A war was at our door and we had taken losses. Personal losses we would never recover from. I wasn’t sure I would ever be the same in a world without Kol and I knew Nyx and Zaria were only surviving because they had each other. Now was the time I needed to be in control.
Nyx was strategizing for a war we had not seen coming. New weapons which could destroy all the magic we had left and I could not sit by. I had access to the wisdom of our forebears and in my world, knowledge was power.
He did not know it yet, but Nyx would need to learn to wield books over swords if we were going to survive. I did not have time to become anyone’s ryder, never mind the ryder of a flyer like Jaxus.
I heard determined footsteps in the hallway and just knew what was coming, I was running out of ways to avoid this conversation and he knew it.
I held up a hand when Nyx stepped into my workspace. “I don’t have time for this.”
“For a visit from a friend?” Nyx chuckled like he was innocent.
“For anything other than my work.”
He looked over my shoulder, scanning the texts I had open. “What are you working on?”
I pressed my eyes closed, trying not to be curt with him. “We are understaffed and we have a host of medicines to be picked up in the morning, and none of them are complete because the healer who usually makes them was called home to see his dying grandfather.”
Nyx stepped back, rolling up his sleeves.
“What are you doing?” I asked, putting my knife down to wipe my forehead with the back of my hand.
“I’m going to help. What do you need me to do?”
“You can’t help.” I sighed, returning to the chopping I was doing.
“Did something change about my ability to do prep work?” His tone dripped with sweetness, but I knew it was a trap.
Males.
“No, General, you can still chop as well as any Forest Kingdom apprentice. You can’t help because we both know what this really is.” I blew my hair out of my face, bending to my work and doing my best to ignore him.
“Oh? What is it?” Nyx returned to reading over my shoulder. “I’ll get the tubers.”
I almost put down my knife but then thought better of it, turning on him with it angled in his direction. “Stop in your tracks, Nyx Asra.”
He wore an amused smile but heeded my words, holding up his hands in a paltry defense. “I’m listening.”
“You’re going to try and use helping me to create a way to talk reason to me. I know what you’re going to say—” I cut myself off as he began to laugh. It was nice to see after all that he’d been through. Daily, I worried we’d never be able to find the lightness in life again after Kol’s death. But I was not pleased he was finding it in my situation.“What is so funny?”
“It’s rather adorable how you can’t even properly aim a knife at me.” He disarmed me in a heartbeat, setting the knife back on my cutting board before I’d even processed what happened.
“Zaria is right about you being a douche.” I slumped against the workbench, taking some of the pressure off my aching feet .
Nyx raised his brows in surprise. “I genuinely want to help.”
“Don’t you have a military or something to run? This cannot be the best use of your time.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“It’s after midnight. Save for an emergency, this should be my free time, should it not? I finished my work and thought I would check in on my friend before retiring.” Nyx’s smug smile had me thinking of getting my knife again to get him out of the apothecary.
“Wait, what time did you say it was?”
“After midnight.”
Where had the time gone? There wasn’t enough in the day to do my normal tasks as it was, let alone all the tasks stacking up on my personal list I wanted to do to prepare us for the impending war. Those things could not wait, but I had to do more research before I could present my theories to Nyx. He would hear me out, but I needed to have something solid before he would take it to the King.
“I have to finish.” I wiped my hands on my apron and tried to remember where I was.
“So let me help. You need it.” Nyx pressed.
“Don’t you have a mate to get to?” I questioned, wondering where Zaria was.
“She’s asleep. Long so. She is still adjusting to the relentless schedule and physical demands.” The threat of war was getting to everyone. I felt it in all aspects of my life. Fae were fearful and it bled into every interaction.
“And why aren’t you with her?” I asked, sure I’d caught him.
He broke our eye contact, showing a side of himself I’d never seen before. Pure vulnerability. He sighed. “Every time I close my eyes, I see Kol.”
I frowned. “Let me make you a sleeping draft.”
He grabbed my hands, stilling them as I reached for the necessary ingredients. “The dreams are worse.”
I looked at him closer, my frustration fading. The circles under his eyes were deep purple and rimmed with black. He hid it well, but he didn’t look good. “Nyx, you can’t not sleep.”
“I know but—” He swallowed, closing his eyes. “When I dream, I see his—our face, our dragon, staring back at me, undead.” His words rocked me to my core.
What could I even say? Now I just felt bad. I was being an arsehole, avoiding him at all costs because I didn’t want to have a difficult conversation when his twin brother, his best friend and other half, had just died. He needed friendship and support. He needed me.
I closed one eye, steeling myself. This still felt like a trap, but I couldn’t deny him.
“I’m so sorry.” I pulled him into a hug.
“Please, just let me help,” he begged, sinking into the embrace and soaking up the support it offered.
“Only if you promise to keep your mouth shut about you know who.” I pulled back enough to meet his eyes, making sure he knew I was serious.
“I promise.” He nodded, letting me go so we could get to work.
Not sure I believed he could keep his word, I set up another cutting board with fresh herbs for him to mince. “As fine as you can make them. Then you can get the tubers and sea slugs.”
He pulled a face. “Do I have to kill them?”
“Says the dragon.” I hid a laugh. “I’ll kill them, but you have to cut them.”
“They are just little guys. They don’t deserve to face a dragon.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re something else.”
“Thank you,” Nyx said, getting to his work.
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
“Maybe not to you.” He showed me his work and I pointed out the chunks he needed to go over again.
“You’re a mess. Not sleeping, happy, upset. ”
“I don’t have time to be a mess. I have to keep it all together for the good of the Twelve Kingdoms.” There was truth in his words, but it didn’t make it fair on him.
“Do you think the attacks in the Second Kingdom will continue with Octavian dead?” I asked, not sure how much he would tell me.
“I don’t know.” He exhaled heavily. “I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to believe and every report we get contradicts what I saw with my own eyes.”
“What is it contradicting?”
“That we are up against an army of the undead never before seen by the Twelve Kingdoms, and it’s not the Vivi Mortui.”