CHAPTER 37

We are flying. Skimming somewhere between sea and sky. I hold out my hand and watch the buttery sunlight trickle through my fingers with the wind. Warming my skin as it spills across my arms and face through the airship window. Like the foamy ocean spray wafting from below.

The ship rises and dips on the air currents just as Eogan steps in front of me, blocking my view of the distant coastline as he runs a hand through his hair.

“What do you think?”

“Of?”

“Of you becoming a delegate and moving here to Bron’s court.” That self-assured look in his eye glints his amusement even as I swear his tone sounds nervous.

“Is that where we are?” I ask, craning to see past him to row upon row of shimmery buildings on the horizon.

“Not yet. That’s Bron’s outer coast on the left. And that over there”—he points to our right—“is the famous fault line.”

“Separating your people from Drust and Draewulf.”

“Silly Storm Girl. Draewulf’s gone.” And before I can argue he leans in close, flashing me that unfair smile. To which I chuckle and present him with a kiss.

He raises a suggestive brow, causing me to laugh, and in that laugh, to inhale a world of beauty. Every smile, every friendship, every bit of goodness I’ve seen. Every bit of goodness I’ve hoped existed within me. And just like the ship I am fluttering, dipping, soaring . . .

“Nym?”

I jolt awake. Rub my eyelids. And open them to find myself in the window seat of my newly designated bedroom up at the Castle, which doesn’t look that different from my room at Adora’s. Except for the fact that Princess Rasha is staring up at me from her stomach on my room floor, in what has, apparently, become her preferred spot in the Castle these past few days.

“I think they’re starting.” She kicks her legs up behind her and toys with a set of throwing knives.

I smile my thanks and scoot my leg over. “Do you want to watch?”

King Sedric strides out onto his white stone balcony in direct line of sight. The crowd’s roar surges through the enormous Castle courtyard—a thousand voices of energy, lifting on the late-evening breeze, in rowdy waves of emotion.

Joy. Pride.

Relief.

Mixed with a few hints of bitter anger at what Bron has done and distrust over what a truce could still bring.

Princess Rasha shakes her dark head. “I often prefer to listen rather than see. Otherwise I sense too much and my head gets full.” She shifts the knives in front of her in order from smallest to biggest. “You were dreaming the future again, you know,” she adds in her airy, matter-of-fact way that is, in fact, confusing.

I freeze. Swallow. I want to ask what she knows of the future, just like I’ve wondered how she knew I needed a friend. But any reply I have stalls when King Sedric is joined by a familiar face that sends my insides blushing before searching for composure beneath my gaudy, pearl-white dress. Neither Rasha nor I have seen him since the Keep because, according to the knights and maids-in-waiting, “He’s been busy.”

Her girlish laugh is as oddly comforting as she is. “You should’ve just seen your eyes light up. Guess I’ll take that to mean Eogan appeared.” She pushes herself up and plants a quick pat on my hand. “While you enjoy that—alas, I have to trot off to get ready. See you at the banquet.”

I nod and, with the door closing behind her, turn back to the court. The evening wind is rustling Eogan’s sharp hair. He’s finished bowing to our king and has turned to the Faelen people, soliciting another cheer as his eyes scan the assembly.

King Ezeoha.

The lost prince back from the dead.

The brave prince who shunned his own family rather than take Bron to war against Faelen.

The prince who is now king of Bron.

In less than a week’s time, the minstrels have written fifty different songs extolling his noble virtues.

I smirk as Faelen’s citizens tip their ridiculous puffed hats to both men. They explode in more applause when, together, the kings hold up the newly signed peace treaty that swears an end to the hundred-year war and ushers in an era of peace and rebuilding for all people of all nations and all abilities. Even Elementals. Breaking the old agreement signed with Draewulf.

Draewulf.

Five, ten, fifteen times I’ve mentioned his name since the fight at the fortress. But “Draewulf is gone,” the knights keep telling me. As is his daughter, Isobel, with her betrayal and rumored Dark Army.

Then why, when you say it, does something whisper back that you’re wrong? I want to ask them.

I haven’t even brought up Lord Myles. Did he survive the bolcranes? Do they know of his treachery? They’re all too busy questioning Adora in her prison cell and making good with Bron to ask.

I shift in my seat as the crowd quiets and King Sedric’s voice rings out over the open court. “We are so thankful for this day. A day we’ve long sought and prayed for, a day we’ve fought hard for. A day of peace. Of new allies and united kingdoms, of conquered fears and forgotten wrongs. Of freeing all Uathúils. A day marking a turn in Faelen and Bron history, where we no longer see each other as enemies, but step into the future together as friends.”

The erupting cheer shakes the jar of mugplant on the floor beside me. I reach out to steady it. The future together as friends. I stare at one of the knives lined up, waiting to be used for new memorials. My skin itches for it. One for Colin. One for Breck.

When the people settle down, the speaking resumes. But this time it’s Eogan.

“My friends, believe me when I assure you what an honor this day is, both for me and my people. For too long, our kingdoms have been on opposite sides of peace. Under my grandfather’s, father’s, and brother’s dictatorships . . .” His voice lilts, and in it, I hear a hesitation, as if he is checking his notes. “Bron was forced to act as your enemy, when in all truth, the Bron people have longed for your camaraderie.”

He steps back and the crowd erupts. Hollering. Whistling. Straining to make their agreement heard.

They’re hungry for what Sedric and Eogan are offering.

I pick up one of the knives and balance its weight between my gimpy fingers. Unlike the rest of them, I don’t know if I’m ready to move into the future just yet.

I nudge the window shut and glare at the blade, waiting for the grief that, without fail, has come every evening since the Keep. Emerging in that hollowed-out place that hides behind the right words and the dresses and the right answers to all the High Court questions about how, in fact, a female Elemental can exist.

This time when the grief comes, it’s soft. Slow. Its salty, jeweled teardrops trickle down to fill my cupped fingers like tide pools, as my hurting heart swells and floods the room.

It lasts for too long, and yet not long enough.

Until, eventually, a shimmering glow extending out across my floor catches my blurred attention. As do the sounds of celebration replacing the kings’ speeches—signaling that it’s only a matter of time before I’m summoned to sit in the king’s banquet hall.

I wipe my face with the clean memorial cloth and turn back to the window, only to lose my breath at the hundreds of globe lanterns filling the courtyard. They’re ballooning up on the breeze to drift and dip as they make their escape into the sky.

Freedom.

He gave his life so that you could be free.

I grip the blade handle as a ripple runs down my spine. I stare at my memorial arm and imagine Colin’s name carved in it. Then stall—noticing for the first time how much the markings there look like those on my owner-circle arm. Swirls. Coils.

I did it for you an’ Breck, Nym. You deserved to be free . . .

I wipe my tears as slowly his words, his gift, settle over me. Reach into me where my soul still feels the etchings of his life. A life of worth, given for those he deemed worthy. Given free of guilt.

And for the first time I can ever recall, that twisted itching in my skin, in my chest, subsides on its own. My hands calm. My heart calms. I set the cloth down. A shamed memorial suddenly offensive. Degrading.

Unneeded.

I pick up the knife and slip it into my boot before placing a lid on the mugplant jar.

I straighten the wrinkles from my overly fancy, waste-of-a-good-fortune dress and walk over to the mirror. Besides, there’s a better way to honor him . . .

With a few tugs at the clips, my Elemental hair slips from its bun to fall in long snow flurries down my back and around my bare arms. My eyes harden with the unease in the pit of my stomach. I shake the siren awake and the cold from my bones just as a soft knock hits my door.

He doesn’t even wait for my “Enter.” Just opens the door, steps in, and pushes it shut behind him with his foot. In one, two, three strides Eogan’s in front of me exactly as I’ve been waiting for. As I’ve counted down the minutes for. A moment alone with him.

In one more stride he’s got my chin in his rough hand while slipping his other around my arm. That unruly lock of black hair all but conceals the intensity in his emerald eyes as they search mine. Weary. Concerned.

“Are you all right?” His voice is ragged.

I nod. My heart dithers and thuds. Echoing with questions and uncertainty. About him. His future. About us.

I rest my hand on his chest, and then my head.

And for a moment, this is where I belong. None of the rest matters because my soul is at peace within me. My soul is at home.

It’s been five weeks since Adora purchased me from Brea. Five weeks and fuller than any lifetime because I’ve spent them with him. I inhale his scent—which is no longer honey and pine but somehow musky—before lifting my head and sweeping my gaze over his neck, his face, searching out the healing bruises, the scratches and cuts I can see, and the internal ones I can’t because they’re hidden behind that annoyingly unfair tweak of a smile.

Until it ripples and widens. And suddenly his whole body is rippling beneath my fingers.

I step back. What in hulls?

He stretches his neck as if adjusting his shoulders, his back, then his grin broadens into a toothy smile, and he straightens to stare down at me. The firelight bounces off those teeth for a second. As if he is still Eogan. And yet he’s not.

He touches my cheek and utters a soft growl.

I swallow.

No.

Very carefully, very purposefully, he sweeps his beautiful black bangs from his face and tucks them behind his ear in a characteristic trait that makes the storm in my veins stand still. He tips his head and the light glints off a long gash running down the back of his neck.

It can’t be.

Suddenly my breath is reeling and my heart is choking out of my chest and my mind is screaming no no no no no—this can’t be.

He leans in and tucks a swag of my hair behind my ear. And whispers, “I told you that you couldn’t save them both.”