Chapter 45
Emmerick
Elsedora sighed when we swooped down toward the gates of Eros Palace and Lark wasn’t awaiting us there.
“I’m going to put a bell on that girl,” she grumbled.
The moon had climbed into the sky and now reflected on the shimmering tides that surrounded the city. We dipped low enough now to see lamplight from ships in the distance as they returned to the port. Surprisingly, the ascents and descents didn’t bother my stomach; the levity was exhilarating.
I laughed into the back of El’s hair as Mayra circled lower. “I’m sure she’s fine. Likely caught up in conversation and forgot to come out. It seems she’s been running circles around you all, though.”
An inkling told me that Lark didn’t have an errand to run in the middle of our tour of the realm. I may have woken up two days ago, but I wasn’t born then.
My bet was she’d snuck off to talk to the boy. Her husband. My son.
I’d only been with one woman other than Sybilla.
And she had died that day in the amphitheater.
Hadn’t she?
If what Ryn had said before I woke rang true, then the boy’s life had been gifted by the Sources themselves. The mounting anxiety over how to share that with Elsedora formed a knot in my gut. How could I admit I’d conceived a child with the woman who had betrayed Else’s brother centuries ago?
“She may be retribution for my independent streak as a younger immortal. Krait used to have every pub owner in Sahlmsara trained to alert him if I caused any disturbance. He eventually gave up.”
“Doesn’t surprise me a bit,” I said. “Don’t you miss getting up to that trouble?”
“Sometimes,” she hummed out. “At eighteen, the settlement in Sahlmsara was new. I missed out on a lot. I didn’t have the option of being young and carefree then.
Survival took precedence until I felt safe enough to enjoy anything.
Then the little enjoyable things became an escape. An excess that I could justify.”
Her tone had turned wistful, and I longed to see her expression as we drew near the ground.
Mayra landed hard, jarring my balance. El grabbed my wrist and steadied me, accidentally moving my hand across one of her breasts. I pulled it away like I’d touched hot coals.
“Sorry!” I exclaimed.
She chuckled and threw back a mumbled, “Sure, you are.”
She was right. I dreaded getting off the Griffith—it meant giving up her nearness, her warmth, her touch.
Mayra halted at the gate, shaking out her feathers. As the night breeze pulled at Elsedora’s hair, the soft scent of plum blossom tickled my nose. Mmm. Intoxicating.
“While cuddling up to you isn’t unpleasant, I’m ready whenever you are to dismount,” Elsedora teased and broke my train of thought. I’d laced my fingers through hers so absentmindedly, like it was the most normal thing in the world.
“Right,” I answered and released her before leaning forward just enough to hook my knee over the beast’s rump and slide to the ground. Once there, I lifted a hand to help El down.
“Those courtly manners will woo many ladies,” Else said as she grasped my fingers. “You going to kiss my hand, too?”
My cheeks heated. The chances of making Elsedora swoon were unlikely. “What if I did?”
Elsedora swung her opposite leg over to dismount, facing me. She slipped down and her boots hit the cobblestone, but her eyes never left mine, staring expectantly and with a hint of interest and challenge.
Unlikely but maybe not null.
I bent forward, intending to brush a kiss over her knuckles.
Before my lips reached her skin, limestone ground apart and metal clattered. The stone gates of Eros Palace opened for us.
Armored guards greeted us on the other side, and El gently pulled her hand away as a groom approached.
“You can unsaddle her and let her roam,” she instructed. “She’ll enjoy fishing the sea. Thank you.” The young man nodded as he took the rope to Mayra’s harness.
Elsedora gave her mount a scratch on the neck. “Menace, you be good, and listen for the whistle.”
A guard with war metals on his golden armor approached and greeted Elsedora by name. He held onto her hand too intimately and leaned down to whisper something to her.
A chuckle, too similar to the one I’d elicited from her moments ago, escaped her. “Not tonight. This is business,” she said aloud, dismissing him. I gritted my teeth anyway.
The man fell in line with the others, but my jaw remained clenched. Elsedora had once seduced my guards to get into the castle. It had bothered me then, but for a different reason than it did now.
“You know him?” I whispered to her as we passed the guards, who bowed.
That gut reaction was precisely why I couldn’t let our physical intimacy continue down the wild path we’d started.
I didn’t want to be jealous, or to throw my emotions into the uncertainty of what attaching myself to her might mean. I’d nearly flipped the table every time Haag’s gaze inappropriately roved over her.
Elsedora glanced at me and shrugged. “I might,” she answered, which only irked me more. “Your molars will crack if you keep doing that.”
“The bowing and formal greetings just make me uncomfortable,” I lied.
At the doors to the palace, the young King Sheffield stood beside Amara.
When my birth mother’s eyes landed on me, they glistened. It reminded me of a different time and place—one that I should not have witnessed yet had. The moment my father had abandoned her and she’d sent me away to Mama and Papa.
I’d thought charming away our memories had been cruel. For three decades, I’d never known what I’d lost. She had to face that hurt every day.
Who had she truly been cruelest to? She’d let me go to keep me safe.
I broke stride from Elsedora and approached her, outstretching my arms. Amara fell into them with an ease and familiarity that I was only beginning to feel; I might still resent her, but she never would resent me.
“It is so good to see you awake,” she said, her voice muffled by my tunic, as she left tearstains on the fabric. When we parted, I rested my hands on her shoulders and took in the woman who’d given me life.
Coils of her black curls, pushed back with a thick golden band, shone in the moonlight. Her rich golden-brown irises were glassy with unshed tears.
Despite my greatest efforts to hold anger toward her, it all melted away.
“It’s good to see you again, too,” I answered.
The South Corridor King shuffled closer to us, seeming to not want to interrupt the moment.
“This is King Lyl Sheffield. He succeeded his uncle. Lyl, meet King Emmerick Mattock,” Amara said.
My actions had forced a child onto a throne. I’d killed his uncle.
Caym’s actions. Caym killed…
It was hard to remind myself not to bear the blame.
Amara spoke my new surname with such undeserved pride—I’d never known Corric Mattock. He’d fought Caym until he could not survive the tortures of being an envoy any longer.
King Sheffield outstretched a hand, and I shook it. “I’ve heard great things,” he said. “I look forward to a lasting partnership with the North Corridor.”
Lark sprang in behind us from the direction of the entry gates shouting, “Lyl! You chopped your hair off!” She hugged the South King before pulling away and spinning him around.
The boy, with light hair cut tight to his head and a smattering of freckles over his pale cheeks, was little older than Lark.
“Princess Darvanda—thank you for noticing.” He laughed. “It’s been ages. How long has it been?”
“I was here last week,” she answered dryly and glanced over at Elsedora and me. “He just doesn’t find me memorable. Where is Dara?”
The King scoffed and shook his head. “Absolutely not true. Dara’s in the East Corridor for a dress fitting. I’ve had dinner set up on the veranda. Come this way. I have no desire to negotiate matters so late, and a friend of the Central Corridor is a friend of mine.”
My mood lightened. I liked King Sheffield immediately. There wouldn’t be any heated discussion on this stop, thankfully.
Lark chattered quietly with Lyl, who led us across the grounds, through a sandy patch of grass, and down to a covered patio by the ocean; the view of the sea cliffs surrounding us and the towering castle spires took my breath away.
Elsedora trailed behind them, like an at ease watchdog. Her throwing knives were lined up on a belt around her waist, but she didn’t hover a hand over them as she had in the West.
Leather breeches hugged her hips in a way that drew too much of my interest, knowing what lay beneath them. Her hair was in a side braid that had been wind-torn when we traveled and mostly stuck out on all sides now.
Amara squeezed my arm. “It’s something, isn’t it? I always dreamed of raising you by the water.”
Ah, right. The sea.
The vast ocean before us guarded the truth of where my admiration had wandered.
I swallowed hard, imagining what life could have been with Amara. But then there would be no Mama or Papa. “How did you know my parents back then? My mama would only tell me bits and pieces. She said she owed you for saving Papa’s life but never told me the details.”
Amara smiled. “Angeline is an old friend. Early in their marriage, she showed up at the doorstep of my tower. They used to live here on the isles when they were young. Leo took a nasty fall off his horse. She begged me to heal him. She said she would take any punishment for the use of magic if I would just let him live. His injuries were beyond what any mortal healer could mend.”
My brows furrowed. I’d heard none of this before. “And you did. Even though it was forbidden?”
Amara patted my arm. “I did many things that were forbidden. And I regret not a single one. When I had you and realized I couldn’t keep you safe in the towers, Angeline offered to—” Her voice cracked, and I took her arm and veered us away from the table for a few more private moments.
“I understand.” I met my mother’s gaze.
She whispered, “I owe Angeline and Leo my life for every happy moment they gave you. I negotiated with the late King Wymark to hire them on as staff in Luz.”
She’d risked so much for me. “Thanks to all of you, I had an amazing life. But why charm us to forget you?”
Her lips turned down, and only then did I realize I’d used the past tense; my childhood had been so full of love, and I’d longed for nothing. Yet the past twenty years seemed like a dividing point.
I could find that happiness again. I glanced over at Elsedora, who had poured herself a glass of deep burgundy wine.
“If ever questioned, they were safer left in the dark. They agreed to it,” she answered. “I didn’t think the charm would ever break in their lifetime, that they would ever know who you truly were. I never meant to hurt them… or you.”
So not only had Amara lost me, but she’d lost her friends too in her sacrifice.
I frowned and said, “I’m sorry.” In understanding, forgiveness sprouted from my former resentment toward her. “And more sorry that I never asked to speak with you through the mirror.”
She closed her eyes, as though absorbing the words deep into her soul. When she gazed at me again, she shook her head. “You do not owe me an apology, Emmerick,” she said, wiping at her cheeks. “I am happy to see you safe—it’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
A stretch of silence settled between us before she held out her hand for me to take.
When I clasped her fingers in mine, her expression brightened. “We should join the others; you must be tired from your travels. And Bringham is rather exhausting.”
I chuckled. “That’s putting it lightly.”
Lark and Sheffield had a map sprawled on the table already as we sat down across from them. Elsedora was standing, looking over Lark’s shoulder.
“King Sheffield is skilled in cartography,” Amara explained. “He’s been helping Larkspur and Elsedora find leads to new ruins.”
“Some legends of Henosis say that there used to be seven ceremonial sites to worship the natural Sources spread across the realms. I believe one to be here,” Lyl said. He pointed to a spot on the map—Belray.
“The Temple of Light is in Belray,” Lark said. “I suspect it is one.”
“What makes you think that?” Elsedora asked, leaning over further—her interest piqued.
Larkspur’s shoulders stiffened, and her mouth drew into a line. “It’s the oldest standing temple in Henosis and mentioned in ancient texts.”
My gaze narrowed on the Princess.
She so resembled her mother when she lied.
Sheffield continued, “By that logic, the oldest city in the Southern Isles is Ikanten. Just here.” He pointed to a village on the shoreline of a neighboring island. “And this small beach is rumored to be protected by a sea beast—no one ventures there. Have you explored it yet?”
“I haven’t.” Elsedora’s smile could light up a room.
Amara flipped the map toward us. “That’s about a mile or so away from where I found Asterie.”
El’s stare seared into me. “Would you like to come on a detour with me after dinner?”
Who needed sleep?
She would not find a relic in those sea caverns, but learning all we could about the Sources seemed prudent, anyway. In my gut, I knew Ryn had spoken the truth—the last relic was my son. I’d rather explore a cave than tell her that. Coward, I chided myself.
I’d follow El to whatever depths of the realm she wanted if it meant she didn’t walk away from me.