33. Gwyneira

33

GWYNEIRA

“ H e what ?” I stared at Roan. “How can he not let you into Erenelle?”

Roan glowered in that way I swore only he could, glaring in the direction of the duke as if he would personally wrap the man in darkness and leave him screaming for all eternity.

And quite frankly, I approved. After how my giants had debated and agonized about returning to their home country, for the duke to forbid them…

“He says we’re a ‘security risk,’” Roan growled with disgust.

“A security…” A breath left me, cold certainty suddenly taking the place of my shock. I’d seen the way Duke Ensid looked at me when my giants took me into the forest. “Or is it that I am?”

His glower dimmed into a wince. “Not just you. All of us. Because we’re dwarves and you and Casimir are ‘outsiders.’”

“Ah, a bigot and a nationalist,” Casimir commented dryly. “How lovely.”

Roan’s eyes twitched to him, a look on his face like he both agreed and hated agreeing with the vampire, all at the same time.

“No.” I shook my head, starting into the crowd of dwarves. “I’m not letting him lock you out after all of this. We all know what’s out there hunting for us, and if we’re trapped against this wall for hundreds of miles…”

I couldn’t finish. The thought of my stepmother sent chills down my spine. She’d come so close to grabbing me in the darkness, and if not for the gateway demons…

I shuddered. She hadn’t followed us out of the gateway. I wasn’t even sure she’d truly been in it, or if she’d done something with magic to only make me think she had been. But either way, that still left those apple trees out here, along with humans and monsters and the gods only knew what else. We’d already taken too much time fixing my hunger and Casimir’s. If there was even a chance an answer lay in Erenelle, we needed to take it.

The crowd stared as I strode through it, Casimir and my giants surrounding me. These people had seen my fangs—honestly, it’d been foolish to hope I could hide them when my hunger had been so intense. But from the whispers I heard as I passed, some of these people knew what I was and what that meant.

“—and as the highest ranking Erenlian royal still alive, I decide who has the right to enter my lands.” The duke’s voice rose over the crowd, and as they pulled back, I could see him towering arrogantly over Clay and Lars. The misty wall that shielded Erenelle lay only a few yards beyond them like a gray swath of fog that brought an end to the world.

“But I am telling you, my lord,” Ignatius insisted like he’d been arguing this point for some time. “It is imperative these people enter Erenelle. If you have ever trusted me for anything, I ask you to please trust me now.”

The duke scoffed. “You forget your place, scholar. The sanctity of Erenelle is my domain, and I will not have our precious land sullied by the likes of?—”

“What is the meaning of this?” Casimir demanded, cutting the bastard off.

Duke Ensid looked down his nose at us all. “Our alliance is at its end, king. You and your honorary citizens are free to go.”

Clay choked on a scoff. “ Free to go ?”

“Erenelle is our country too.” Dex spoke up, his voice tight. I could only imagine what the words cost him, given that he’d run for his life from Erenelle as a child. “Every Erenlian has the right to enter its borders. That’s the law.”

“It was the law, dwarf,” Norbert spat, still brushing away dust that clung to his leg from where it’d been trapped in the cavern floor. “That was before the royals made the wall.”

Casimir turned to Byron and the twins with a questioning look.

“Turns out the Wall of Erenelle is keyed to the royal family.” Clay bit off the words. “It won’t open except to someone of their blood. And anyone who tries to get through without a royal paving the way will die.”

He jerked his head toward the base of the wall, where a few pieces of leather and metal rested inside a pile of ash and dust.

Duke Ensid shook his head with a pretense of sorrow so false it was nauseating. “Even my trusted subjects could not restrain their impatience to return home.”

Casimir cleared his throat, pulling his focus from the dead giants to Clay and Lars. “But this man is your uncle, is he not? So your blood should also be sufficient to—” At a negating noise from Lars, he cut off.

“Deter is family by marriage, not blood,” Lars said. “His sister was one of our biological mother and father’s partners.”

My heart sank. Giants commonly took multiple mates, unlike in Aneira where only one man and one woman could ordinarily marry. So of course the duke could be family but not blood.

“Indeed.” The duke smirked. “And as I am descended of the royal line, it falls to me to decide who may enter our beloved homeland.” He lifted his chin, raising his voice to the crowd. “Erenelle will never again be threatened by an invasion of outsiders. Of this, you have my word!”

“I say we just rid ourselves of those outsiders right now.” Norbert started toward Byron and the twins.

My heart hit my throat, but Ozias was already moving. Shifting fast, he stepped between my men and the oncoming giant, a snarl ripping from him that made the hair on the back of my neck rise.

“Hold, son.”

The duke’s command was nonchalant, despite the fact Norbert was easily within range of Ozias’s ability to kill him. When Ozias pushed Byron and the twins back, making them retreat back to where we stood, his smile only grew. “These Zeniryans are within their rights to gaze upon the power of our nation, knowing they cannot overcome it. Because that is our truth, isn’t it?” He raised his voice to the crowd. “The Wall of Erenelle is my solemn promise of safety, entrusted to me by blood and birthright! By that authority, I keep us safe from criminals and invaders, from usurpers and spies.”

My skin crawled as he smiled at me like he was labeling me with that description.

“I spare us the unpleasant business of executions and court proceedings because I understand that above all, the citizens of Erenelle need to feel safe!”

As Byron and the twins reached us, Ozias shifted again, putting himself between me and the duke. Nearby, Dex grabbed Byron’s arm.

Byron made a startled sound. “What are you?—”

“Stay here.” Dex pulled him to the rear of our group. “Do not move.”

“But—”

At high speed, Dex whispered what Casimir had told us about how the scholar’s powers and mine were linked. A gasp left Niko when he overheard.

“Oh, gods.” Byron sounded nauseated.

Watching us all, the duke smiled like a cat with a mouse between its paws. “But if anyone should disagree with my decision to protect Erenelle—” he leveled a pointed look on Ignatius, “—they are welcome to stay behind in Aneira with the honorary Zeniryans and their king.”

Worried murmurs raced through the crowd. Nearby, Clay muttered something about bigoted assholes, and Dex had already turned his attention to scanning the terrain like he was plotting the best way out of here. Shaking his head with disgust, Niko looked at the misty wall like he couldn’t believe what the leadership of Erenelle had become.

“You forget,” Ignatius said tightly, “you need my blessing on the waters of Syloria to establish the legitimacy of your rule. The magic there has chosen every king and queen for a thousand years. You swore when I agreed to support your position as de facto king in the mines that once we returned to Erenelle, that tradition would be honored.”

The duke leaned closer to Ignatius, and my vampire hearing picked out his murmured words. “I think you will find, scholar, that the puddles at Syloria and your pretensions of authority are irrelevant now. I am already more than legitimate to these peasants. I freed them, after all. I control the barrier that will let them go home and that will make them feel safe against the scourge of Aneira. I hardly need you or your precious temple at Syloria to tell these commoners I’m their king.”

His contemptuous sneer made me sick.

“So your first act upon escaping imprisonment—” Casimir raised his voice just loud enough that the crowd could hear without ever seeming like he was doing it on purpose. “—is to reject the traditions of your people and scorn the magic that declares who is fit to be their ruler? Moreover, you would make an enemy of the very nation that helped free you?” He shook his head, a cautioning look on his face. “You should know I have a very long lifespan, Duke Ensid. If you go through with this, I will never forget or forgive how you treated my people.”

More murmurs passed through the crowd, apprehensive and displeased.

Duke Ensid arched an eyebrow. “I could have left you to die in those caves, Your Highness.”

“Without our assistance, you would have died right along with us.”

“And yet you think that gives you the right to dictate our border policy.” The duke scoffed. “I have the blood of the king, my dearly departed cousin?—”

“Third cousin,” Lars pointed out coldly.

“And thus the wall of our nation will answer to me,” the duke continued like he hadn’t spoken. “This proves my legitimacy!” He drew himself up taller, looking down on us like we were scum beneath his boots. “Erenelle is done with the cowardly approach of compromise with other nations. We are done letting foreign powers and foreign values influence our decisions. We have seen where that leads. Imprisonment! Torture! All while those who were born lesser than us think they can tell us what is right and good and— Wait, what is the dwarf doing?”

I spun.

Niko was walking toward the wall.

“Berinlian preserve us,” Ignatius gasped. “Stay back, boy! It will kill you!”

Ignoring him like he couldn’t even hear the scholar, Niko lifted a hand.

Terror shot through me. “Niko, stop!”

I lunged after him, shifting fast.

But not fast enough. His palm came to rest on the misty surface.

A deep and resounding gong rang out. It reverberated from the wall like a massive bell whose chime was so low, it became more sensation than sound. The gray fog rippled like water, radiating away from his hand.

The fluctuations grew until the surface bucked and roiled like waves on the high sea. Green tendrils of light spread from beneath Niko’s palm, twisting through the colorless fog like radiant emerald vines. Around them, the pale blue of the bright winter sky began to peek past the mist.

And then white joined it, closer to the ground. Flecks of brown and green too, here and there.

I gasped. That was the snowy terrain on the other side of the?—

Like ice melting beneath the sun, the mist before Niko faded away, creating an opening tall and broad enough for even the largest of giants.

Silence hung over the crowd.

Niko turned. “It told me what to do,” he said quietly.

I stared. “How? It?—”

“This is a trick!” the duke shouted. “A dwarf lie!”

Niko shrugged. “Or we just don’t need royal blood after all.” His smile faltered when he saw our stunned expressions. “Right?”

“That… that’s not it, boy.” Ignatius shook his head. “This means you’re descended of Erenlian royalty too.”