36. Byron

36

BYRON

I ’d read hundreds of books in my lifetime.

Apparently, I’d missed one.

“Are you unfamiliar with Hidgerson’s Treatises on Pre-Cumlerian Understandings of the Legend of the Nine ?” Ignatius asked Casimir.

“I will confess,” the vampire said carefully, “that particular title was not part of the Zeniryan royal libraries.”

Ignatius’s brow rose. “But you are the central wielder, yes? As the descendent of angels and as king, you would be the logical choice.”

Casimir bobbed his head in a way that could have meant anything. “Logical indeed.”

While another giant might have taken the answer at face value, Ignatius had spent too many years around politicians and other dissemblers to be fooled by the response.

Unfortunately.

“And yet I do not hear that as a confirmation.” Ignatius’s quizzical look included me along with the vampire.

And as ever, I was a coward. I ducked my gaze away, doing my best to hold a neutral expression while I fought to regain my mental footing. But, gods, it wasn’t easy. Implications were tumbling down on me faster than an avalanche on an icy slope, bombarding me with more realizations than my mind could handle.

Joined powers. That could mean anything.

But if there was a chance in hell that it meant what happened between me and Gwyneira wasn’t a catastrophic mistake the likes of which could kill her…

“Surely you have a central member of your joined powers?” Ignatius continued.

Casimir sighed, seeming to realize—like I did—that there wasn’t a way around the scholar’s question. Lying wouldn’t help us, not in the long run.

Telling the truth was the only choice.

“As I said,” Casimir admitted, “I am not familiar with that book. Nor, I believe, are any of my companions. We have not intentionally joined our powers.”

I noted how carefully he placed the word intentionally —and prayed Ignatius might overlook that.

But please, gods, if what happened between my power and Gwyneira’s wasn’t a mistake…

Hope overwhelmed me, making it hard to concentrate on the conversation. When Dex told me that my life and hers were tied, that my death could mean her end as well…

Horrified didn’t come close. To think that I’d been on the cusp of throwing myself into the gateway to save her, when I would have been damning her instead… it was more than I could bear.

My heart pounding, I cast a glance at the duke. He was too far ahead to hear, but the way he was buried in talks with his henchmen made apprehension join the elation racing through my veins. He likely thought we were plotting his demise, so he was returning the favor by plotting ours. Little did he know we were instead listening to lunacy that might still be the best news imaginable.

Well, best except for the part about needing to save the world.

“—don’t you agree?” Casimir turned to me.

I blinked, scrambling to recall his question. “Y-yes.”

Gods, let that be the right answer.

Casimir’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he buried the reaction with speed as he returned his attention to Ignatius. “So any information you have would be most appreciated.”

The scholar stared at us both. “If this is true, then it is even more important that we reach Syloria with all speed. Tell me, what do you know of the threat the world faces? Do you know why you’ve been called forth now?”

This conversation felt like quicksand, and any misstep could send us plummeting into its depths.

“Thus far,” Casimir said carefully, “the primary threat we’ve faced has been from a species known as the Voidborn.”

Ignatius straightened. “Oh dear. So it happened, then.”

Did I sound like this when I talked to my friends? Like I was speaking in maddening riddles and half-told stories?

Gwyneira cleared her throat politely. “Forgive me, but I’m unfamiliar with the stories you mentioned or what information you may have regarding the Voidborn and Syloria. Could you please share with me what you know?”

Her voice was decorum itself, and her words were phrased as skillfully as any scholar could have achieved. With that single maneuver, she carefully sidestepped the fact that none of us knew what the hell he was talking about and prompted the man to provide exactly the information we needed.

Gods, I loved her.

I stumbled, thrown by the sudden and overwhelming thought. My cheeks burning, I steadied myself, muttering, “Sorry.”

Thank Berinlian, no one commented.

“Of course, miss.” Ignatius tilted his head in acknowledgment. “My apologies. Given that Zenirya was lost to the Wild Lands so long ago, may I ask: are you familiar with Aneira’s war with Erenelle?”

“I am.”

Gods, her face didn’t even flinch. Nothing in her bearing showed the slightest reaction to the question.

Ignatius nodded thoughtfully. “Excellent. Well, when it began, I admit, our King Archerias and many of his advisors—of which I was one—were quite confident we would win. With our military might, physical strength and size, and our natural magic, we were certain we would be more than a match for Aneira.”

His mouth tightened briefly. “Or so we thought. But as the war dragged on and nothing we did could stem the Aneiran tide, it became clear that the force we faced was more than merely human.

“It may come as a shock—or perhaps not, given what you and your king both are—when I tell you that the queen of Aneira is also a vampire. She was one of the first in our world, turned by Voidborn prior to the start of the Witch War.”

A small nod was Gwyneira’s only reaction, and her voice revealed nothing when she replied, “I’ve heard this, yes.”

She was incredible.

“In that case, perhaps you also know that the Voidborn wish to destroy reality. They have various means of doing this, but one possibility is that they would consume and destroy the ley lines and nexuses of magic throughout a realm. And though the Aneirans themselves have a… shall we say strange relationship with magic, King Archerias and his advisors—including me—came to believe that ultimately, the Voidborn would use the queen of Aneira to remove anyone who could protected the nexuses and ley lines, both here and in every other nation. Thus they would destroy our world.”

He sighed. “With the king’s blessing, we kept this to ourselves, not even sharing it with other scholars in the Order. The king felt that the people of Erenelle faced enough threats without learning their enemy might devour reality itself. But in secret, we worked with the king to devise ways to protect our world.”

Regret closed his eyes for a moment. “So many of our plans failed, and in the end, we only had one last. The creation of the Wall of Erenelle—a final, devastating spell to avoid annihilation. We’d already seen the Aneiran Warden Wall. We knew that magic, though we’d never been so desperate or so heartless as to undertake it ourselves. But it was the opinion of the king that the impending doom of our nation left us no choice.”

Gwyneira’s eyes darted to me, and I could see her questions. “You say heartless ,” she said carefully to Ignatius. “Why heartless?”

“Because the spell to create the wall is a brutal form of magic. Yes, it renders a land untouchable to outside magic. Yes, if one does not possess the key—in our case, the blood of the royal family—it is nearly impenetrable. But to create it requires a special form of fuel. Death on a horrifying scale.”

“The crying,” Niko whispered.

I gave him a confused look. He never took his wide eyes from Ignatius.

“You hear them?” the scholar asked.

Niko nodded.

“The king refused to take that final step as long as he could. Even when he knew we’d lost, he tried to buy time to come to another solution. But then the Aneirans laid siege to the capital.” Ignatius closed his eyes, shaking his head with sorrow. “I wasn’t there for the end. Aneirans captured me about a week before the final moments of the war, marching me off to a camp beyond the Aneiran border. But from what other prisoners have told me over the years, it seems the king ordered our people to flee in those last days. Ships of refugees took to the western ocean, seeking safe harbor elsewhere. Others fled via gateways to the farthest reaches of the land.”

“Like Dathan,” the princess said.

“Last I heard before I was captured, he’d been stationed at the palace itself. Since he still lives, he may well have been one of the final ones out. Because once the magic to create the wall was unleashed…” His brow rose and fell. “Anyone still alive within the borders of Erenelle would have been fuel for the spell.”

Suddenly, the silent countryside around us felt infinitely more ominous.

And full of ghosts.

“But the…” Gwyneira started. If one didn’t know her, she might have sounded calm. But I could hear her tension. “The Warden Wall. The one around Aneira. It didn’t kill everyone. So that must mean she didn’t…”

She trailed off, and when Ignatius shook his head, a sickened look crossed her face.

“Aneira had the luxury of time,” he said. “And sadly, a lack of concern for life. We had neither of those. But the spell requires lives to be sacrificed, and it’s likely the queen accumulated that power by killing those no one would miss.”

Gwyneira looked away. “That… that does seem likely, yes.”

I ached at the tight pain I could hear suppressed in her voice. From what we’d shared, I had memories of her stepmother. Of Melisandre’s cruelty and the way she twisted truths to hide her lies—not that Gwyneira had understood that when she was a child.

But that was the benefit of hindsight. Or sometimes, the curse of it.

“We never knew how many were killed to create the Aneiran wall,” Ignatius said. “Only that the queen has trafficked in the death of others for years, starting from the decimation of the Jeweled Coven down to the start of the war and the creation of the so-called Warden Wall. And her masters want more death still. The destruction of the world itself. King Archerias was determined for our people to survive. In the end, the only way to ensure that was sending away as many Erenlians as possible, and then creating the wall to make certain the queen could not reach the nexuses and ley lines within our borders. Thus the king and every giant left in Erenelle, along with all the Aneiran soldiers within our borders, lost their lives.”

“They died to save the world,” Niko whispered.

Ignatius nodded. “But when the war ended, the queen did not do what we’d expected. Rather than grant the Voidborn entrance into our world immediately, she seemingly resisted them and maintained the pretense of being the ‘human’ queen of Aneira instead. No attack on the ley lines came, nor any nightmarish apocalypse unleashed by the Voidborn. For all those years I endured in the mines, I never could figure out why.”

No one spoke, and gods, no one looked at Gwyneira. But we all were aware of the answer.

The queen had been waiting to turn her stepdaughter into a vampire and sacrifice Gwyneira to the Voidborn in her place.

“But,” Ignatius finished, “now you all are here, so I take it that has changed.”

Dex studied the scholar briefly, evaluations running behind his eyes. “Did you see the fissures on the Aneiran mountainsides when we left the gateway?”

The giant nodded.

“Those fissures are surrounded by apple trees, corrupted ones that bear fruits that steal the will and that force whoever eats them to attack any who do not.”

“They turn people into puppets for the queen,” Roan added. “They even speak in her voice.”

“Berinlian preserve us,” Ignatius murmured, taken aback.

“How can the magic of Syloria help?” Casimir asked.

Ignatius drew a breath, regrouping. “Legend says the strength of the Nine is united around a central member, one whose gifts will focus and refine that magic into a weapon against their enemy. I assume that will be the Zeniryan king.” He nodded in brief acknowledgement to Casimir.

None of us reacted. But gods, was I the only one who knew to his bones that the scholar was wrong? There was only one center for us. There always had been. And even now, she walked at the heart of us all, protected and surrounded by those who’d give their lives for her.

Our treluria.

“Regardless of who the gods and fates choose to be your center,” Ignatius said, “as you have not yet joined your powers, the magic of Erenelle can help you with that process. Syloria is one of our most holy sites. The waters there are steeped in the magic of our ley lines and our land.”

Dex managed a nod, and Casimir did the same.

The rest of us seemed too poleaxed to speak. Gods knew I was.

“But—” A hint of pleading entered Ignatius’s eyes. “—I am well aware other matters may interfere with what you need to do.” His gaze didn’t quite go to the duke, but the implication was clear, and I thanked the gods the man was still distracted.

Admittedly, he seemed distracted by the fact he was plotting with his henchmen, and we should probably do something about that soon, lest he get us all killed.

But at least he wasn’t listening to this insane conversation.

“I swear,” Ignatius said, “I will do all in my power to help complete the rituals for joining your powers. But I beg you, if the question of royal inheritance should go a certain way, do not abandon us. No matter how strong the wall remains, sooner or later it will not be enough. Not if the entire world falls. Erenelle cannot stand on its own forever… no matter what some may believe.”

Worried looks passed between my friends and the vampire king, but Gwyneira showed no such hesitation. “We won’t. Erenelle will be free and safe. You have my word.”

Underlaid by iron, her voice brooked no compromise.

Ignatius regarded her for a moment. “You remind me of the diamond witches of old. Rufinia the Wise. Eira the Brave.”

At her mother’s name, Gwyneira tensed slightly. A heartbeat passed before she softly said, “Thank you.”

He nodded. “And if all does go well and the Nine prevail—” He turned to me and it was all I could do not to freeze. “—then perhaps together you, I, and any other survivors could restore the Order of Berinlian as well.”

I faltered. “T-together? You would ask me to?—”

“There are so few of us left who know the old ways and swore our oaths within the Halls of Magic. And your friend tells me you’ve held true to your vows and observed our traditions all these years. That faith is a testimony to the loyal scholar you’ve proven yourself to be. If I were to let my old prejudices stand in the way of rebuilding the Order, it would be the height of foolishness, would it not?” He smiled. “In Syloria, we will start over. With hard work and dedication, you and I will see the Order rise again.”

My body was numb. Blood rushed in my ears. Acceptance like this was all I’d ever wanted. More than that, even. This was a level of honor and respect I’d never once dreamed I would receive.

So why did I feel like I was falling from a great height, all the world spinning and tumbling around me?

Gwyneira’s voice came from far away. “That is an incredible honor. The Order means everything to Byron. So what must we do to protect Erenelle and make that a reality?”

Speechless, I turned to her. Did she want that? For me to leave?

She wasn’t looking at me.

“The other nexuses in this world must be freed,” Ignatius replied. “The ley lines as well.”

I wanted to laugh, but it wasn’t funny. Insane , but not funny.

Gods, did no one else feel the world falling to pieces?

“They all must be purged of the Voidborn poison,” he continued, “until you claim even the queen’s own power center in Aneira.”

“Lumilia,” Dex filled in.

Ignatius nodded. “I believe so. Apples have been the symbol of the Aneiran queen for countless years. The capital city reportedly even has a royal apple tree at its heart. That those are the vehicle of her corruption seems rather like a calling card for where she might have started her campaign.”

“Or like a cruel joke,” Gwyneira murmured bitterly.

“Indeed. Considering that to claim Aneira, she killed the previous queen Eira and blamed the murder on us, the sadism of her choice is most pointed.” A shrewd look entered his eyes as he studied Gwyneira. “I must say, you seem rather familiar with that nation.”

Panic choked me, but the princess didn’t even blink.

“Only compared to some,” she replied, as if it was neither here nor there that her carefully chosen words could mean anything.

Gods, she was brilliant.

My mouth opened, teetering on the verge of telling her that. She was incredible. Breathtaking. I’d never once let myself see the truth this clearly, and the stupidity of that oversight stunned me.

“Nevertheless,” Ignatius said, “your knowledge is impressive. Did you also learn from the scholars assigned to Zenirya?”

She smiled at me. “Byron is the first of your Order I’ve met. It is his knowledge that has always impressed me.”

Her words were polite. Her expression too. The compliment seemed designed to warm me, but it felt wrong, like a cup of tea gone too cold. Her tone and bearing radiated a benevolent gentility that spoke of friendly respect and nothing more.

The combination was a noose around my throat.

My mouth clamped shut, icy pain strangling me. I was a fool. I couldn’t blurt out the truth of what she was and expect that to change anything. Not after I’d spent every waking moment since we met showing her exactly what she’d seen in my memories. A man who was first and foremost a scholar.

A man who, if made to choose between her and his studies, would leave.

“What else do you know about how we might fight the queen and these Voidborn?” Casimir asked, and I flinched, jarred from the realization rolling like an avalanche through my entire being.

Gwyneira was fine with how things stood between us. She had no need of me.

“The queen and the Voidborn won’t go easily,” Ignatius said, oblivious to my world crumbling. “I suspect you will still need help. Tell me, what allies have you gathered? How might you rejoin them?”

“We are not sure,” Dex admitted. “Those who might help us are… scattered.”

Ignatius blinked, reevaluating. “Oh dear. I will think on that. But you will have my assistance, regardless.” A grim, haunted look flashed over his face. “Too many of our brethren died to save this world for me to refuse to help you now.” He gave me a nod as if acknowledging a pain we both shared.

Instead of driving home the truth that was killing my soul.

For years, I feared I might be the only scholar of Berinlian left in the world. Yet in all that time, I’d held true to my vows not merely because of how Ignatius and others had said I would fail, but because I honestly believed what those oaths stood for. I’d sworn my heart and soul to the Order. I’d been willing to give my life for it, without hesitation. And to now have the chance to bring back that beauty and mystery to which each scholar dedicated their lives…

It was overwhelming. All I’d ever wanted.

Except…

Gwyneira smiled at Ignatius, her entire being a picture of nobility. “We would be most grateful for anything you could do to help.”

Except I loved her.

And it felt like I’d lost everything.