Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

" Y ou have no fewer than four seconds to start talking before I kill you." I felt my magic building and burning beneath my skin.

"How do you know him?" Esta asked.

"He was on the ship," Owen explained. The ship when we left in a hurry with Kian behind us. He had been in the lookout more than once. And had been on board offshore Dra Skor one of the other trips back and forth. The trip that brought Jorah and Owen here last time around. He had helped her off the ship into the smaller one that brought her feet to Dra Skor.

"I am originally from Agria, obviously," the man offered as Amory let up softly and he was finally able to turn around. "My name is the same one the crew knew me as, Lorenzo."

Keir? Amory asked. You wanna do that thing where you freeze someone? That way I don't puncture something vital.

"Gladly." I sent my magic out to encase him, starting with his hands in case Agrian Enchanted worked similar to our own in that their hands called out to the shadows. And then I willed it to wrap around him. Within moments, his fate rested entirely in my hands, lethal and capable of dealing the killing blow.

"I was in Wylan when the poison hit," the man explained, talking quickly as my power continued to cover him, rendering him paralyzed. "Ten years ago, Corsha started acting odd. Cut off communications entirely. Almost as if they knew something we didn't. Since they get visions, seemed obvious it was exactly that, they knew something was coming that we did not. We tried to reach out on multiple occasions, but they would never receive anything. We've gone to their shores multiple times the past few years, only to find their islands deserted."

White fuzz bumped into my side. Amory, trying to calm me down it seemed. My Enchantment pulsed with my need to fix this. More than I felt betrayed myself, I felt that I had brought this prick to Dra Skor's shores.

"Keir, don't kill him," Esta added from next to me. "Let him talk."

My eyes, lit up from how hotly I was burning, met hers as I stated, "If he is responsible for the attack on you, I will use my power to break every bone in his body, one at a time, and only then will I kill him."

"I didn't!" the man swore. "I promise you. I was on the ship that came back with you, remember? So I was in Wylan with you when it all happened."

He had me there, but that didn't mean he wasn't responsible for everything else. Or was somehow working with our culprit, the master puppeteer behind this mess in Dra Skor.

"Who are you working for?" Esta demanded, her tone all business.

"Agria." He looked to me. "Prince Keiran, you sent all those letters to Agria and the other countries over the years. All the correspondence. You just didn't realize you were putting them onto the ship right into the hands of an Agrian spy. I know you are nothing like your father. Learned it from years of listening and watching the Wylan royals. All I am ashore for here was to be certain that the lakes here were healed. I already saw that the queen was healed. Since I am one of two of us that still have our powers, I was sent in to see with my own eyes and report back." He inhaled deep. "Just got caught by a patrol, or I would've gone right back to the ship."

"Bold of you to assume you will be reporting back at all now," I snapped.

"Prince Keiran," he tried again. "You helped take down your father, you are actively righting his wrongs. Agria has no issue with you. If anything, they need your help."

"Funny way of showing that. Where were you for the first assassination attempt?"

"The one Serkan died in?"

My Enchantment flared even harder at that name, and he visibly winced. "Sorry. And no, I was aboard the ship. Offshore. You can ask the crew members. I never left them until today."

"You have shadow magic and most of them are human, I am not sure they will understand what you are capable of," I argued.

Esta stepped forward. "We will not be letting you go until we know more."

"What about for the attack on Kian?" I asked, not ready to end my interrogation yet.

"Again on the boat. I have no idea why you'd believe me, but if I really meant anyone harm, why would I wait ten years, all these trips back and forth to do so?" He gave me a shrug. "You've healed Dra Skor. Those rumors are reaching the entire realm. You don't think the rest of us want to be healed too? You don't think we deserve that?"

I let out a defeated sigh. "No. Agria deserves to be healed. I just don't agree with how you did this. You could have come to me at any time. "

"I didn't think you'd trust an Agrian spy."

Nor had I ever thought I would love Dra Skor's queen, but here we were. Each country trapped within the prejudices and perceived enemies of our countries, each country just trying to survive. If today showed me anything, how well the land shifters could hunt and track, how Amory and I had made a damn fine team, it was that we could accomplish far more together. Yet for more than just the last decade, from even before my father poisoned the realm, we had isolated ourselves. Kept the true power of our Enchantments intentionally elusive. To protect ourselves. From one another.

I wondered for a fleeting moment how it was possible Corsha was deserted. If they were, then where the hell had all their people gone? Had they seen my father and his disease coming? And if they wanted to be saved from the disease, the safest place to hide would have been Wylan itself. I needed to warn Krew immediately , but how could an entire country of people infiltrate Nerede without us knowing? It just wasn't possible.

Esta reached a hand out to place it on my wrist and squeezed. "We will have to question everything, no stone left unturned. So if there is something more you wish to tell us, now is that time."

He gave as much of a smile as he could from around the weight of my power. "You have my full cooperation, Your Highness. Ask whatever you'd like. Interrogate whomever necessary to prove my alibi. I only ask that eventually you allow me to at least write to Agria. To let them know Dra Skor's healing is real."

"Keir," Esta tugged gently on my arm. "Let it fall."

I stepped forward and dropped to the ground before me, eye level with the man. "If I see you so much as look at the queen of Dra Skor wrong, even a whisper of a threat, no amount of shadows will be able to keep you from me."

He gulped. "Understood, Your Grace."

I spun to leave. To where, I didn't know, but I wanted air. I wanted vengeance. I wanted answers, and all this had led us to was yet another dead end.

As I walked by Morana and Zaire, Zaire gave me a slight nod.

"Don't start with me right now," I snapped.

He held up a hand. "Not today. That was well done. That's not to say I don't think we should look into every soul that is on that ship that stays offshore, but how you handled this is respectable."

A compliment? From Zaire? Also, with a bit of a threat, but such was Zaire.

Malachi fell into step next to me. "I'd shift and whinny our way out of here, but I cannot." He knew me well enough to read all that I was feeling.

"Thank you," I gritted out.

"Keir," Esta called as she caught up to me. "I have never seen that man before in my life. If he was on the ship with you on the way back to me, it couldn't have been him. Or at least not directly."

I spun to her, my chest heaving. "I want blood, Es. Blood for what they put you through. So it's not this man. Find me who it is then. I have an entire realm to heal and fix, but I cannot breathe until we deliver this culprit straight to the very gates of hell."

I knew we were not alone; I knew the shifters had good hearing, but I was exhausted. I had barely slept since I found out about the second assassination attempt. I had foolishly hoped this was a lead. Instead, it was a spy from Agria I brought to Dra Skor with me. A hiccup in the grand scheme of things that likely didn't even matter.

Instead of pulling back or fearing the Enchantment warring within me aching to be used, Esta stepped into me, wrapping her arms around me. "If you needed a hug, you could have just said so."

"I am so pissed, Esta, so very irate," I whispered into her hair but hugged her back.

She pulled back and took a few steps away before shifting into her gorgeous purple hued dragon form. We will find them. If you want to tear the realm seam from seam, I'll bring my talons. This is not my war, or yours alone, it's all of ours to carry.

"I need to send word to Krew about this," I explained just before she swiped me in her talons and tossed me and Malachi both on her back. "We need to question all the crew members."

To both of us she said, And we will. We cannot fix it all this day, Keir. But if we give this day our best and the next, we will get there.

"Danger unto death, brother," Malachi added. "I think we all need to regroup, but I do have an idea."

"Oh?" I asked.

"Maybe we should adjust the way we are going about things. We are always too little too late, too slow in our reaction times. We have tried tracking and hunting the threat within Dra Skor, maybe we should try a well-placed trap."