Chapter 18 #2
“My mother was a Froster,” he began. Sorrow flitted across his dazed eyes, as if he wasn’t seeing Adara before him but his family sometime long ago.
“I was always fascinated by the way ice would trail in the wake of her fingers, but my brother . . . he feared it. And our little sister was too young to understand. Eventually, my mother was discovered. We didn’t have enough money to pay for her leave on a dwodi.
She knew she wouldn’t survive a trip across the Plagued Sea.
And she refused to be an experiment for them to try to take her magic.
So she was executed.” He leaned his head back against the crates, exhaustion weighing his words.
“My brother grew up and joined the king’s guard, believing magic to be a curse from the gods.
So when Pherra got the nerve to fight back, he was targeted.
A Searling set our house ablaze while we were all asleep, barricaded all the doors and windows so we couldn’t get out.
Except for the windows on the second story, where my room was.
They couldn’t reach those. I jumped out.
“I went back and broke down the door, smashed through the windows, hoping my brother, sister, and father could make it out but . . . they never did.” His jaw clenched tight, anger instead of despair gripping his features, holding him tight, fueling him to make rash decisions like searching for Andreilia’s enchanted water.
“So, I want out. A new start,” he said, jaw set in determination.
“I want a new home, one with magic and wonder. A place my mother would have loved. I’d been watching you all,” he said, longing flitting in his irises.
“You’re like one big family. The way you and that other boy came back hurt and were immediately helped by the others.
The way you all created a diversion and ran rampant like thieves through the street, all with a smile on your face, knowing the others would have your back .
. . I want that,” he said. “I don’t want to have to hide.
” The words strained to break free from his throat, but once they did, they were like a tsunami—powerful, all-consuming.
A tide that would wash away the remains of the past. “I don’t want to be alone. ”
Adara’s heart reached out to him, reading the sorrow in his eyes and seeing her own. She missed her family too. And this stranger was right. She had begun to count on the Andreilians to have her back. Hel, she fought the Whisperer blindfolded, and not once did Dominic let her down.
“I’m sorry,” Adara murmured, but she knew those pathetic words were no consolation for such loss.
Without change, apologies were merely a breath of fresh air before the ocean pulled you back under again, filling you up with the pain of what could have been.
“In my kingdom,” she began, “Pherra are worshipped.” Sparks sprouted from her palm.
The boy flinched, but when Adara made no move to harm him, his eyes widened with intrigue.
“You can summon from nothing?” he asked, lips parted in disbelief. His eyes were lit with glee.
She nodded. “A Flamecarrier, not a Searling,” Adara said.
“My kind are born from the bloodline of the gods. Even normal Pherra are celebrated.” The fire at her fingertips morphed into a massive tree, branches sprouting out, leaves tumbling from the limbs.
Then it changed into a horse, galloping across her hand.
“On my continent, the land is watched over by twenty-seven gods. Magic runs wild and free, sometimes even without a mortal to wield it.”
He stared at her with awe. All the tension that stiffened his body before ebbed away. “Where is this place?” he asked, a bit of urgency in his tone.
Adara shook her head solemnly, flames dwindling to ash. “As of now,” she said, “it is lost to this world. But I will find my way back.”
He looked at her expectantly. And maybe she was foolish for promising something that was never guaranteed—for this whole Realm Fracturer could be nothing more than a myth, a hoax to send fools like her running rampant for nothing—but a beacon of hope wove its way between them, luminous and indestructible, and Adara said, “I’ll take you there one day.
I'll show you all five kingdoms. I swear it.”
A wide smile cut across his face, genuine trust and happiness emanating from him. “I’d like that,” he said and extended a hand. “I’m Evreux.”
“Adara,” she said, shaking his hand.
“Did I pass your little test?” Evreux asked with a raised brow. The corners of his lips tugged into a victorious smirk as he crossed his arms over his broad chest.
She laughed quietly. “Yes, I suppose you did.”
“Now what?”
“Now you lay low here until we reach Andreilia. I’ll bring you food in the morning and keep the others away from this room,” she explained.
“And what about when we get to the island? They’ll know I didn’t sail there on my own.”
Adara chewed her lip. “Dominic will be furious you slipped past him, but I’ll convince him to let you live. I’ll say you were clever enough to sneak on our ship and go unnoticed the entire way. Outsmarting us like that could be an invaluable trait to have. You’ll have proven yourself by surviving.”
He nodded, but his features were tight. He looked at her down his straight nose, eyes skeptical. “Why should I trust you?”
Adara smirked. “Maybe you shouldn’t . . . but you have no other choice.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Are you with Dominic Nite?”
The insinuation jarred her, and she sucked in a sharp breath, muscles tensing.
Adara glared up at him. She was not with him, not in the way Evreux implied, romantically, lovingly.
No, Adara was with him in the toxic, deprecating sort of way that would have people questioning her sanity.
Which she had to admit, she did sometimes as well.
A war of hearts against the King of Keys, she supposed, would have that effect on someone.