Chapter Thirteen
Legend
The last of the dragons vanish into the cloud line, their massive silhouettes swallowed by smoke and brine as the sea finally settles into a resentful churn, blackened trenches still steaming where her fire carved through it.
The air reeks of fear and drained magic.
Beneath it all something darker hums in my chest.
The children—injured, but alive—are carried through portals straight into the infirmary in Rathe, where Silver and our other healers are ready and waiting.
Their recovery is what matters, even if the four-hundred-year-old structure—where thousands of youths have been educated—is nothing but a pile of shit at our feet, the majority swept out into the ocean.
Bet some of those broken pieces will wash up on that worthless island of hers.
They don’t deserve any piece of Rathe on that forsaken scrap of land, especially not some as sacred as the walls that protected the young of Rathe. The power the structure held should have been impenetrable. As far as we knew, it was.
Creed steps in close enough that I can feel the residual heat in his armor. “The council is assembling,” he says, and there’s something beneath his voice that mirrors the tremor running through my own bones.
Our soldiers, cleanup crew, and a second group of healers pour from an open portal onto the grounds. Their magic rolls over the lands instantly as they begin performing their tasks.
Of course, the council—if he insists we call them that—are assembling. It’s currently made up of only a few appointed gifted to take the lead and step in where their fallen, traitorous equals once stood.
The sea doesn’t just break through Royal wards with ease. Not without consequence.
There is a snake in our grass, and we have to draw it out.
Bet I know who the fuck it is, too.
My eyes slice toward the girl with midnight hair blowing in the damn wind like some sort of warrior princess. I swear it looks like those black flames are dancing along the tips of her curls.
Why is there a second element that’s drawn to her? She already carries the scent of the sea, for fucks sake, and now fire?
And where do the black flames come from? I’ve never seen one, and as far as I know, changing the color of fire is a hat trick. Something fire Fae do to put on a show, turn their flames into rainbows and shit. But even then, never black.
Hers didn’t look like that.
“Legend?” Creed’s voice cuts through my thoughts.
“Let’s go.” I yank myself free of his hold and spin toward the portal Knight opened.
The instant we pass, we’re hit with the chaos of a second storm.
The war chamber is already crowded. Gifted speak over one another; nobles force their way inside under the excuse of concern for their children.
Portals snap open and shut along the perimeter, spitting out academy staff, shaken instructors, and parents who look seconds from having a full-on meltdown.
The air inside is unstable. The demon smoke living in the walls grows antsy with the number of magical sources currently occupying the room.
The reports are coming in too fast through the royal mind links. The bridge between us and Vicente overflows to the point he has to cut off his message, and the mind link goes quiet.
But not before we get the news: five bodies found so far, all under eight years of life. And they’ve only worked their way through a quarter of the land.
My brothers and I share a single look before Arabella appears, cutting off my view.
“Oh, thank the gods!” she gasps, slamming into my chest, her arms coming around me. “I was so worried! I heard what happened. It’s just sickening, what she’s done.”
My muscles tense on their own and she pulls back, her fingers moving to rest along my forearm, grounding me for a moment, before she takes in the rest of the room.
“This is exactly the type of thing I feared,” she says, louder than her usually soft tone. “Chaos invites catastrophe. She arrived and the sea answered. We have to end her, Legend, once and for all. We have to protect our people.”
The air in the chamber changes, and Arabella’s mouth clamps shut.
Heat brushes the back of my neck before the sound reaches my ears. A quiet hiss followed by a harsh crackle, like kindling turning to—
The room gasps when the far corner of the space erupts in flames. The chamber warps like fabric pulled too tight and then tears open in a spiral of black fire.
She steps through, her body at ease like she didn’t just step into a den of fucking demons.
Water drips from her hair onto the floor in slow, deliberate taps. Slowly, she wipes the ash off her jaw, holding herself in a way that does not read reckless or wild.
Fierce. That’s what she is. A force not to be fucked with.
The relief hits me so hard I nearly stagger, but it’s unwanted and unwelcome.
The sensation is immediate and violent, a loosening beneath my ribs that feels dangerously close to something I do not allow myself to name, and just as quickly as it rises, rage follows.
She shouldn’t fucking be here. And she definitely shouldn’t have been on the front lines of that fight. Our fight.
In my fucking realm.
I thought when she broke free of the hellhounds, she was fleeing. Disappearing.
Leaving.
And I didn’t want her to. Worse, she shouldn’t make my chest unclench the moment I notice that she’s unharmed, eyes still bright, and jewels at her temples pulsing with color in a way I don’t remember them doing before.
As if they’re not just decorations on her already perfect fucking face but that they’re alive.
Every pulse that beats within them is answered by the organ in my chest. It slams against my ribs only to soothe into something else.
Warmth. Need.
I lock it down, hard.
Arabella’s voice cuts through the silence like polished steel. “Murderer!” she screams and everyone’s attention turns toward my mate.
Instantly, I shift to shield her, and Haide’s lip curls, her pupils dilating.
“Take her back to the prison and reinforce the restraints!” Arabella barks, hoping one of the guards will answer. “This time make certain she cannot manipulate her way free. Don’t let her harm another innocent!”
“You!” Master Halvryn pushes through the crowd in a torn robe, his eyes red from seawater and smoke as he rushes Haide.
My feet jerk forward without permission, every nerve in my body firing, screaming at me to protect. Kill.
Mine.
Arabella’s small hand latches onto my wrist before I get too far, and my feet freeze. Still, as Master Halvryn reaches Haide, my claws break free, and Arabella gasps in pain. I can scent her blood, but I can’t pull away from where I’m currently locked into.
I wait for him to go in for the kill, knowing she will likely make a mess of his insides.
He doesn’t.
The two-hundred-year-old Argent Fea drops to his knees before her.
What the fuck?
It’s not a polite bow to an outsider he doesn’t know, nor the dip of a head before a sovereign.
It’s a full fucking kneel, gray hairs and forehead kissing the stone at her feet.
“My house bears the Ember Debt,” he says, voice rough and shaking. “By the Covenant of Flame and First Oath, I bind my blade, my bloodline, and my final breath to the one who saved our children. I am in your debt until my debt has been fulfilled.”
The words are old enough that they carry weight in the walls themselves. So old and rare, I’ve never heard them spoken. They ripple through the chamber as a sigil of ancient language lights the walls, blinding everyone in the room before it disappears completely.
Haide scowls at the man, taking a step back, only to bump into someone else.
She spins, stiffening as more people follow: parents drop to their knees in tears, and the academy staff bow their heads. Even a war captain lowers his sword in silent acknowledgment.
“This is hysteria.” Arabella’s grip tightens on my sleeve, a small crack in her tone. “Can you not see it? She did this. She destroyed the academy herself!”
I meet Haide’s eyes across the kneeling bodies. For once, there’s no smirk or taunt daring me to react. I’d almost swear it’s sorrow. Like the shit she saw today actually weighs heavily on her . But she’s not capable of such emotion.
This is a game to her.
I am a game.
Comfort her. Hold her. Ease her pain.
Fuck! I grit my teeth, trying to claw through my own mind.
She still has power over me, influence I can’t trust, because the facts are clear.
Arabella brings me peace Haide never did.
So why isn’t it drowning out whatever this is?
I should feel indestructible, should have power beyond the norm with my true mate at my side.
My Ethos should be pressing beneath the surface, my demon preparing to rise until we become one.
Yet all I feel is strained, like two threads pulled too tight in opposite directions.
The strongest stretching straight toward her.
I hate that feeling because it makes me question myself.
She makes me question everything.
“No!” A woman yells, gazing at Arabella in horror. “The fates brought her to us the day they knew we’d need her. It gave us the one thing none of us had to fight back against the sea: The lost flame! Without her, all the children would be lost.”
“What are you talking about?” Arabella frowns. “She—”
“She is a gift of the gods and she should be treated as one,” another screams.
“I…” Arabella leans closer, her voice low and urgent against my shoulder. “Legend. Do something.”
Probably should, but what? If I drag her back into chains now, I fracture the loyalty of every parent kneeling on this floor. Fuck.
“Rise,” I say, my voice carrying across the chamber. Slowly the kneeling bodies obey. “This is a matter of the royal court and council.”
“But my king,” A man shuffles a step. “We need to know what happened out there. My brother’s young are still unaccounted for. What am I to tell him?”
My heart kicks behind my ribs. Thankfully, London comes forward, pressing a gentle hand to the man’s arm while Knight tenses, ready to intervene just in case. But there is no fight in this man as he looks to the single queen of Rathe.
A position soon to be filled by Arabella, too, after our bond is officially complete when my Ethos rises.
“Tell him we’re searching until there is nothing left to search for.
” She keeps her voice calm. “Tell him the royal house of Rathe will seek vengeance and retribution for every life lost, and more, but first, we need the facts. What we can share, we will, but for your safety and the safety of the rest of your young and families, there may be things that only endanger you more. You understand?”
Hesitantly, the man nods. Slowly, the families of the academy students begin to vacate, leaving only the staff behind.
“Please, Commander Vaelor.” Creed inclines his head at the man in question. “Report.”
Commander Vaelor of the Eastern Marches steps forward. The sigils etched into his armor mark him as the Keeper of the Outer Boundaries, and Warden of the Tideward Line.
“Wait.” I lift a hand when he makes to speak. “She does not get to be here for this.”
My gaze cuts sideways toward Haide without turning my head fully.
Imagine what she could do with inside knowledge.
“But, my king,” Vaelor begins carefully, glancing once at the Headmaster before straightening again, “she saved the children. If she hears what we know, perhaps she could—”
Arabella steps forward before he can finish. “She came from the ocean,” she says sharply. “She lived on an island surrounded by it. Do you not see that she is manipulating you all? The sea just so happens to rise the day she appears. What does that tell you?”
Two of the new council members nod faintly, fear always eager for direction.
Haide has the nerve to just stand there like we’re boring her.
“Enough,” Creed interjects calmly, but the tension in his gaze is unmistakable as he nods toward Vaelor. “Go on. We can worry about the rest later.”
Vaelor inclines his head, and steps closer to the table where a projection has already been activated. A faint shimmer rises above the wood, the surface rippling as an arcane recording unfolds in layered illusion.
“We consulted the Tideward Echo Archives,” he says, gesturing to the projection. “The Mirror Tides were active along the eastern barrier at the time of the breach. They capture magical disturbances in coastal wards.”
The illusion sharpens.
One moment the sea is calm, slate gray; the next, the wind shifts.
“There,” Vaelor points. “You can see the moment the air begins to distort.”
“A spell of some sort?”
“That’s what’s odd. There’s no trace of residual magic.” He looks across us. “The only thing we detected was harmonic resonance along the ley line.” The projection shudders to show us a slight rippling wave breaking across it, as if a soundwave is being tracked through a radio signal.
“What are we looking at exactly?” Creed frowns.
“It wasn’t pressure that broke the barrier,” Vaelor says. “It was sound.”
I scowl, cutting a quick glance at Arabella when her fingers tighten in mine. “What does that mean?”
“Well, the only conclusion is the waters, or perhaps the air, began to…sing.”
Arabella exhales sharply, incredulous. “That is ridiculous.”
Every head turns to her.
Vaelor does not.
“We reviewed it three times,” he says steadily, eyes on Creed. “The harmonic signature prior to the attack, it was not Stygian or Argent, nor Water Fae.”
“What are you saying?” Knight steps closer.
“The source is an unregistered, which means—”
“Untraceable.” Sinner scowls, eyes locked on the water in the illusion as it splits and the barrier snaps. The flood surges and just as it breaks against the academy, he wipes his hand through the illusion and it vanishes.
Arabella lifts her chin. “You have an exile who escaped a royal banishment. Unheard of just like what you are explaining. She is responsible, manipulating everyone, just like before.”
“And yet,” Creed stares her down. “The Echo Archives recorded the harmonic spike before she entered Tideward airspace.”
I drag my gaze to Haide, mind reeling.
Her lips move soundlessly as she stares at the ground with furrowed brows.
Is she doing some sort of spell?
When the fuck did she get so much power?
Sensing my gaze, she lifts her head toward me. I can’t tell whether my muscles lock because having her in the room with us is strategically necessary.
Or because some traitorous part of me demands to keep her in my reach.
If she is behind this, we will find out.
And if she isn’t…
What exactly does that change, if anything at all?