Queen of Blood and Vengeance (Secrets of the Faerie Crown #4)

31. Evander

31

EVANDER

Just because he knew the two males waiting for them on the beach did not mean he trusted them. And he certainly did not like them. The only being in the world he truly liked was the female standing at his side. The side where she promptly poked him.

“Stop glowering,” she chastised.

She did not give him much time to comply—not that he would—before lifting the arm that was not looped through his in greeting.

“Good tides,” she called, her smile widening with every step.

Agravayn’s eye twitched, which was his equivalent of an effusive welcome. Gaheris, the conciliator, offered a bow to Mya and a respectful nod befitting a consort to Evander.

“Thank you for your quick response,” Gaheris said. He offered a hand to Mya, escorting her higher up onto the beach.

Evander let her go, but only because he knew that she needed to touch Gaheris without being weighed down by him. If she touched more than one person at once, it could become difficult for her to parse motivations and intentions. Evander would not risk a mistake on behalf of his own possessiveness. Letting her go was the best way to protect her in that moment, he told himself. Again.

“You are worried,” Mya said, glancing back over her shoulder.

Gaheris did not deny it. “The succubus will not stay away forever.”

Evander reached for his shortsword by instinct. He’d given up all his other weapons but this. Small enough to allow him freedom of movement in the water, but still deadly sharp.

“What have you heard?” Evander demanded.

“Nothing,” Agravayn answered. The oldest of the brothers angled his body, never fully turning his back on the sea. Even after signing an alliance with the new queen, he had not eradicated a lifetime of distrust of the Aquarians.

“Messages stopped arriving from Baylaur weeks ago,” Gaheris elaborated.

“You’ve been ignoring their missives for months. What did you expect?” Evander countered.

They’d ignored them because the brothers had suspected treachery from the crown, Evander knew. Rightfully so, after word had come of Gawayn and Roksana’s betrayal. And then the death of their third brother, Gareth. Evander did not linger on the events of the past few months. That was a luxury the current situation did not afford them.

But if Baylaur had stopped sending any communication at all…

“We sent a runner. A wind wielder, using the breeze to hasten his steps.” Gaheris looked at Evander as he spoke. Evander also wielded wind, though his was so cold he only used it to touch another’s body in battle.

Mya gasped, jerking her hand away from Gaheris’ arm. She could not read his thoughts. Despite most interpretations of the prophecy, that was not how her ethereal powers worked. She sensed intentions and emotions. Her light blue skin turned grayish as she paled, reeling from whatever she’d felt from Gaheris.

“Baylaur has fallen to the succubus,” Agravayn said. “The war has begun.”

Mya reached for him. Once, he would have pulled away. First, to hide his emotions from her. Then, to shield her from them. But theirs was a true marriage of souls. There was no hiding from her now.

Evander tried to sort through his own emotions so he could understand what Mya was able to with a single touch. There was fear for what this meant for his new Aquarian home. Anger that Agravayn and Gaheris had not found a way to tell them sooner—unreasonable a response as it might be, it was there nonetheless. He expected to find regret. But though the loss of an entire city meant something to him, he truly held no affection for the goldstone palace itself. He did not regret any of the actions which had brought him to Mya.

There was guilt. It was strongest, and Evander knew Mya felt it by the way her sapphire eyes softened at the corners.

“My forces are ready. General Ache has command and has agreed to serve alongside your troops. Not under them,” Mya said, looking specifically at Agravayn. The Aquarian scouts had reported he’d gathered his own force from nearby elemental estates and towns.

For seven thousand years, the Aquarians hid beneath the surface of the Split Sea, passing away from all fae memory. There was no human realm or fae realm in the sea. It was a single shimmering, ever shifting entity all its own. Those ever changing, opening and closing layers made them more vulnerable to the succubus. They were nearly decimated by the Great War. With the succubus banished, they’d wiped away all record of their existence and disappeared into the watery depths to recover.

Until the succubus returned and Mya was elected Queen of the Aquarian Fae.

“I have sealed the sea.” Mya folded her arms across her chest, drawing herself up to her full height. Not tall, but solid. Strength. A regal bearing that had existed within her long before she was elected queen. “The Aquarians are trapped here in Annwyn until the succubus are defeated.”

She’d agonized over the decision. Sealing the sea meant that for the first time in history, the Aquarians could not travel at will between Annwyn and the human realm. She’d altered the magic of the sea itself, because every shimmer of light in the water was a sort of rift, an entry point for the succubus.

“And under my command, we will defeat—”

“I do not think you understand, Lord Agravayn, what I mean when I say I have sealed the sea,” she cut in sharply, needing no weapon but her iron will. “The equivalent might be cutting off both your arms. Or banishing the very clouds from the sky so you cannot wield them. I have separated my people from a vital source of their power. I have nearly crippled them—so that the succubus cannot use our kingdom to enter yours.”

She extended her hand into the space between them. “We will fight as equals or we will not fight at all.”

Gaheris rumbled something between a cough and a sigh.

Agravayn stared at Mya’s proffered hand like the threat it was.

Her meaning was clear. Submit to her conditions, offer his touch so she could validate the sincerity of his agreement, or the Aquarians would disappear into the Split Sea for another seven thousand years.

Evander saw it for what it truly was—a bluff. When Mya had made the agonizing decision to seal the sea, she’d also decided to fight. But how and when and with who remained to be seen. The terrestrial kingdom waited on the other side of the Split Sea. She could offer her aid there instead, leave the elementals without her valuable reinforcements—and Agravayn without the glory and status he’d achieve by securing their alliance.

If it were Evander’s decision, they’d walk away.

But in the aftermath of Gareth’s death, Mya had clasped hands with both Gaheris and Agravayn. Whatever she’d seen and felt then was enough to bring her back to the shore today.

Agravayn took her hand.

Mya smiled. Soft, like her. Kind, down to her watery essence.

Whatever Agravayn felt, he stepped back the instant she released him, putting several feet of distance between them.

The curves of Mya’s smile flattened out into a line of grim determination. “Well, then. It is time for us to find Veyka Pendragon.”