27. Veyka

"The Ancestors know, I'm a good sport. But I am sick of ending up on my ass," Lyrena griped. She took my proffered hand, pulling herself up from the muddy ground of the island's small courtyard.

It was either there or walk out to the mainland and spar on the lakeshore. Here, at least, I could keep my eyes on the terrestrials. And they could all get a sense of me, their new queen. They could learn exactly how sharp my blades were.

Lyrena sheathed her sword and hobbled over to the water trough. No elemental magic needed to cool it. When we'd come down earlier this morning, it had taken a blast of her fire to melt down enough for drinking.

"You won the last bout," I said, lifting my arms overhead and returning the two curved rapiers to their sheathes across my back.

The look she shot me was hotter than the fire that had singed my hair. Fair recompense for when I'd accidentally chopped off several inches of hers in the jungle above the faerie caves.

"You let me win." Disdain dripped from every syllable. Even my affable golden knight didn't like to lose.

"I would never," I protested.

I pressed a hand to my chest, my pale skin heated and flushed. I was back in my traveling leathers. By tomorrow, Cyara would have an assortment of gowns for me to wear. She was up in the tower chambers now, glaring at Percival, pitying Diana, and sewing rapidly.

Lyrena rolled her neck in time with her eyes. "Try stabbing Cyara and see if you can get the harpy to come out. I am done for today."

We'd dueled with magic, knives, and swords. My entire body was coated in sweat. But it was either this, or politicking, or wallowing in my own misery. At least for now. Until Yule, when the priestess and her acolyte would appear for whatever obnoxious ceremony. Until after Yule, when I would get to those amorite mines and start distributing the best weapon my kingdom had against the succubus.

The succubus I still had not told Elayne and Pant about. Because I still was not sure where I stood with them.

Fuck all of it. I hated being queen. I hated it ten times more without Arran at my side.

Maybe I would go back to my room and lock myself in. Summon that ember of power, step into the void. Return to Avalon—see Arran. Even for a few moments, just to see him…

And risk his life, again.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

The sweat and exertion were supposed to take the edge off, not melt the icy interior.

"I'll spar with you, Majesty."

Lyrena's head snapped to attention, her hand already on the blade she'd sheathed moments before. The courtyard was a strange trapezoidal shape, following the shore of the island, the lake itself waiting just on the other side of the mossy stone walls. Along one side there were alcoves. Doors that led up to the towers, down to the kitchens. Who knew where else. The voice had come from one of those alcoves, where a male loitered in the shadows, leaning against the door.

I rolled my shoulders, not bothering to draw a weapon yet. "You won't be the first terrestrial I've beaten."

The male stepped fully into the gray early-evening light. I got the sense he was grinning, though it was hard to tell beneath the bushy brown beard. For a moment, my heart stopped. The resemblance to Arran…

The thick locks were the same, the tight bun at the back of his head… but this male's features were lighter. Brown hair, not black. Green eyes. Shorter, too, though not by much.

He looked at me with equal alacrity, his unnaturally green gaze sweeping over my face and body. A lip quirked at the dirty boots. The other side joined it when he arrived at my normally white hair, which I knew was closer to gray now, caked with dirt and sweat until it hung limp around my shoulders.

The male lowered a hand to the weapon hanging from his belt. A mace. A fucking mace. "Arran certainly chose well."

"Arran did not choose at all." False. He'd chosen me. We'd chosen each other. Despite the Offering and the Joining and all the other bullshit.

But this male who dared to look me over like I was something to eat, a mated female, a queen—he did not get to know any of that.

He smiled through the gross, bushy beard. "The male I knew never acted against his instincts. Even for Annwyn. Even for duty."

My throat closed.

I will tear apart this world, realm after realm, until I find you.

"Who are you?" I said. If the male did not recognize the lethal softness of my voice, more the pity him.

The mace was in his hand now, the cast iron tips that covered its round head swallowing the gray light around us. "My name is Barkke." He tossed the mace into the air, caught it in one sweeping movement, gaze still holding mine. Challenge issued. "I am a friend of Arran's."

Accepted.

I drew my dagger—just one. That's all I would need.

Lyrena hissed.

I blocked it out. Shuttered every impulse, every shred of guilt, every queenly instinct, as I launched myself into battle.

He tried to sidestep my dive, but I put all of my weight and speed behind it. I knocked one knee out from under him. By the time he shoved himself back up, I was on the other side of the courtyard, back to the wall.

I didn't give him time to rest. I scuttled along the wall, not caring how ridiculous I looked. My movements were fluid, strong, but unpredictable. If he'd been watching me spar with Lyrena for the last two hours, then that was the only way to best him.

"Come and play, Majesty," he crooned, fingering the leather-wrapped handle of that mace.

I sprung before the last word finished falling from his lips. But he got the mace up, catching my arm against the thick wooden handle. I pressed up, using my feet as leverage, my powerful legs bracing.

"I did not see you at my feast last night," I said into the inches between us. The bastard was not even winded. He hadn't been sparring all afternoon.

Barkke had the audacity to smile. "Your feast?"

I pushed in, up, then spun away just as quickly before he could nick me with one of the iron spikes. "A feast to welcome me. My feast." I considered pulling my other dagger to use as a distraction. Decided against it.

Barkke charged, no chance to catch my breath. Using it against me. But this was nothing. The cold air burning blue flames down my throat? I welcomed them. A lifetime of torture had its benefits. Pain focused me.

I threw him off easily.

"So?" I smirked.

He took the pause I offered, his gaze reassessing. "I was seeing to a matter in the Spine."

"How mysterious." I shrugged. He could try to figure me out; good luck to him.

"When I heard you'd come to Eilean Gayl, I hoped you would have brought pretty Guinevere along." Hell. I'd judged this Barkke as one of those males who liked the sound of his own voice a bit too much. But it seemed he was a male with a death wish as well.

"I assume you have never met her. Because if you'd called her pretty Guinevere to her face, she would have skewered you with her sword. Or just shifted into her dark lioness and eaten you for her evening snack."

Amusement or ire, he used it to drive me back. Knock me down. Flat on my back, the terrestrial approaching with mace in hand. I felt the burst of flame from Lyrena's fingers. A warning for now.

"Fire wielders," Barkke paused, "Am I meant to be intimidated?"

"They are as effective at burning flesh as they are wood," I said in the same breath as I launched myself up to stand from flat on my back. A move I'd learned from pretty Guinevere.

Our weapons clashed, then our bodies.

"Where's Excalibur?"

I gnashed my teeth. "I only bring it out for special opponents."

"You wound me."

"You had better speed up, or I actually will."

He threw back his head and laughed—leaving his throat exposed. Fool.

I lunged. He brought his arm up to block, exactly as I'd known he would. I sliced down his arm, long and brutal, right through the wool of his tunic and into the skin and muscle beneath.

He stumbled back, blood seeping down his arm, a few drops falling in the mud.

I sheathed my weapon.

"You were warned," Lyrena said with a mocking grin.

Barkke did not bother to bind his wound. He stared at me across the courtyard, the half-smile on his face shifting that infernal beard. I wiped my hands on my leather leggings, ready for a bath and supper. I opened my mouth to say something snide—

But the words died on my lips.

Even across the courtyard, it was unmistakable. Maybe it was the unusual green color or the falling dark that made them so bright. It was impossible to miss. His eyes were glowing.