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

39. Evander

39

EVANDER

“Ancestors below—”

“I don’t think your Ancestors are going to help us just now.” Mya stepped out of his arms, extending a hand to the male on the ground in the middle of their tent. “Are you injured?”

The male pulled himself up easily. No significant injuries.

“I…” His mouth fell open as he caught sight of her face. He jolted backward, recoiling from her touch, fear lighting his eyes. “You are—”

“Queen of the Aquarian Fae,” Evander cut in, hand on the hilt of his shortsword. He recognized the expression on the elemental male’s face. And if the male even thought about acting on it, Evander would run him through without hesitation.

Instead of bowing or even uttering a word of reproach, he ran.

“What the—” Evander cursed under his breath, but Mya was already out of the tent after him. He pulled himself up just short of running into her where she froze, not even a full step past the tent flaps.

“Fucking Ancestors,” Evander swore again. He’d marked the rising ruckus, but he had not heard it for what it was.

Not the regular din of an army camp—but the next thing to a riot.

The male who’d come flying into their tent was already back in the fight, his fist swinging in a vicious uppercut that caught the chin of an Aquarian female. She staggered back, crashing into a brawling trio of two elementals, both fire wielders—whose every blast was parried by a powerful Aquarian’s wall of bubbling water. One of the elementals hit the ground, sending a blast of flame into the jeering crowd. Screams rent the camp as elementals and Aquarians both started to burn.

“Disperse!” Mya commanded, reaching for one of the Aquarians nearest her. Evander caught her wrist just short.

“No.” He was her shield in battle. Her sapphire eyes sparkled with calm ire. “You will not stop them that way,” Evander warned. He’d been a Goldstone Guard. He’d lived through the chaos of Arthur’s murder and the assassin’s attempts on Veyka afterward. These fights were to the death. If Mya involved herself, the elementals would not care that she was a queen.

Water sprayed on the other side of the fighting, dousing the crowd and quelling the flames. A familiar figure pushed through, her trident hovering above the heads of the crowd.

Mya saw her as well. “General Ache, stop this.”

“I am trying.” The general swung her trident in a wide arc, sending a powerful spiral of water from the lethally pointed tips. It knocked half a dozen of the fighters down, but those still on their feet did not even pause.

Evander unsheathed one of the daggers from his bandolier, his shortsword already in his other hand, ready to wade into the melee. But Mya’s hand on his arm stilled him.

“I will stop it.”

The glint in her sapphire blue eyes changed, the power of the Split Sea itself rising like a tide around her. Around them all.

A strange pulse rippled through the crowd. Elementals crashed into each other, into Aquarians, as they tried to dodge the droplets of water that the Queen of the Aquarian Fae pulled from the very ground itself.

Drops were all she needed. Drops turned into ribbons that grew into streams. They swirled high above the heads of the crowd, above the army camp. The tendrils of water curled around each other, coalescing into a massive, undulating orb. The fighting slowed as even those engaged in violence were distracted. But it did not stop entirely.

In a sudden flash, the water magnifying the winter sunlight above, the orb of water burst. Hundreds of waves crashed out from it. Except they were not waves, but creatures of the deep. Massive sea serpents, fanged otters, whales that the Aquarians called the wolves of the sea—made of water themselves, they swam and swirled into the crowd below, pushing apart the last remaining rioters, pushing the Aquarians and elementals apart and bringing nearby tents down as the dissidents tried to retreat. A few tried to run down the avenues of tents, only to be chased back by Mya’s water creatures.

They circled and snarled until there was not a single sound. Not a single movement.

There were water-wielders among the elemental fae. Fire, wind, ice, water, storms—all were among the powers elementals claimed as their birthright. But the Aquarians were something else. Water was not merely theirs to command; that salty sea brine flowed in their veins right alongside their fae blood. They were the water and the water was them.

And when Mya was elected and invested as their queen, every single creature in the Spilt Sea had offered up a kernel of its magic to her.

She stepped into the breach of space left by the fighters. Some were still on their knees. Others had retreated into the crowd.

“Enough.” On the second syllable, the army of water predators dropped away, dousing the crowd of soldiers in water. “Lord Agravayn.”

Evander had not seen him appear, too transfixed by Mya’s display of power. The male stepped forward.

“General Ache.”

The general lowered her trident, burying the base in the dried-out earth below their feet. “The elementals attacked—”

“I do not wish to hear excuses, General Ache,” Mya said sharply. She turned to the cluster of Aquarians, glaring at the elemental soldiers. Some of the Aquarians even smiled, reveling in the power their queen commanded. Mya did not return those smiles.

“The Aquarians are a peaceful civilization. We do not fight unless it is absolutely necessary. I do not know what slights you all imagine were leveled at you, but I can tell you with certainty that this violence was not absolutely necessary. You have weakened and bloodied not only yourselves, but our allies as well. I am shamed by your behavior.”

She rounded on the elementals, where Agravayn had moved to the fore. “Lord Agravayn. Is this how you propose to command?”

“No, Your Majesty,” he growled. The smirks melted off the faces of the elementals as well. “My shame of my compatriots matches your own.”

“Queen Mya will do,” she corrected. “I have no need of your honorifics. Only of your alliance.”

“You have it.” Agravayn inclined his head in acknowledgment. The elementals behind him murmured, but they did not refute him.

Mya stepped back, addressing the entire assembly. “We have one enemy—the succubus. Remember that, or we will all be dead by the end of this.”

Her gaze roved the crowd, pausing to meet the eyes of elementals and Aquarians both. Pride surged in Evander’s chest. Not once since bending his knee to Mya and pledging his allegiance to the Aquarians had he questioned his decision. Nor would he ever. Even if Veyka Pendragon considered him a traitor because of it.

Slowly, the crowd began to disperse. The injured were hauled towards where the healers had set up. If the Aquarians and elementals each sought their own healers, at least they did not squabble along the way. General Ache worked her way to Agravayn’s side, her trident bobbing above the heads of the crowd. Evander followed it with his eyes—until they snagged on something odd. Like a fish trying to swim upstream, a single tow-head pushed against the retreating tide of soldiers.

The elemental female pushed her way to Agravayn’s side, rising on her tip-toes to whisper into the commander’s ear. His cunning elemental mask did not slip, but his eyes zipped straight to Evander’s wife.

“Your Maj—Queen Mya. The scouts are bringing in a messenger,” Agravayn said. Evander paused just short of sliding his short sword back into its sheath. “The humans are calling for aid.”