Zander has always felt larger than life to me, from the first moment we met on that riverbank outside Cirilea’s gates, he in his suit of armor, his dagger primed to spear through my heart. In the days and weeks and months since, he has played every role in my life here, from executioner to captor to reluctant accomplice, unlikely ally, and suspicious lover.
But now he holds my heart, and he’s my reason to keep accepting every new challenge this deadly world throws at me.
Zander breaks from studying the terrain to watch me stroll in. “I do not understand how you sleep so much.” There’s a hint of scolding in his tone.
I saunter over. “Someone kept me up late into the night.”
“Someone kept me up, and yet I’ve already walked half of Ulysede.” A glimmer of humor peeks through his steely mask as he slides his hand into mine for a moment of contact before releasing it. I’ve grown used to the two sides of Zander—the passionate man who will take his time admiring every inch of my flesh with his mouth, and the unyielding ruler with curt words and a brooding nature. Behind the privacy of our doors is the only time I’m treated to his affectionate side, but I don’t mind. It’s intoxicating, facing this stony version during the day and then watching him break for me each night.
In front of others, though, he is an exiled ruler solely focused on how to regain his throne and save Islor.
Both tasks seem impossible.
And now that the Legion feels satisfied there isn’t a deadly threat lurking within these walls—not an imminent one, anyway—Zander has been spending all his time in here, pacing over his next move.
“You were talking about Telor and his army?” I eye the map and the path from our location in the Venhorn Mountains, south toward Norcaster.
“There is still no sign of his approach, or of the Ybarisans, but our scouts are only able to cover so much ground before they’re forced to turn around to avoid nightfall.”
Or more specifically, to avoid the saplings who emerge at sundown to hunt and are armed with paralyzing raw merth, a silver cord that Princess Ybaris gifted them in a deal we don’t understand. It’s already cost us two legionaries captured in Norcaster and additional lives lost during the attack on our journey here.
“Nothing from that sapling you’ve been … questioning?”
Abarrane stands on the opposite side of the table, her ripe-wheat-colored hair freshly plaited, a dozen blades strapped to her lithe warrior’s frame. She wears her usual grim expression. “Nothing yet, but he will yield.” Zander’s Legion commander has been outside Ulysede’s gates every night since we arrived, torturing the prisoner in a bid to find Iago and Drakon’s location.
Yield or die. She isn’t known for tame methods of persuasion. That he’s still alive—and remaining quiet—is shocking.
“If he has not given up their location by now, I am not hopeful,” Zander says, as if reading my mind.
“Then I will take a handful of legionaries and search.”
“We cannot hunt aimlessly through these mountains looking for two legionaries who may already be dead,” Jarek says, joining the conversation.
Abarrane’s eyes flash at her former second-in-command. “Then we draw them out.”
“And if you draw out a hundred of them? Without those merth cords, I would say that is an even match, but with them?” He shakes his head. “You will find Drakon and Iago, when you are lying next to them, being fed upon.”
“Then what do you suggest? Abandoning your brethren to those … those …” Her face twists with rage, the thin scar that runs from her forehead to her ear crinkling.
“We’re not suggesting that.” Zander shoots a warning glance at Jarek. For as coldhearted as Abarrane can be, she is fiercely protective of her warriors, especially those she trained as children. “But we have more pressing matters than rescuing two legionaries. Hudem is coming, and between this poison that circulates and Atticus’s edict to execute humans without trial, Islor will soon tear itself apart.”
“I hazard it already has,” Elisaf says somberly.
“All the more reason for me to leave now.”
“And do what?” My panic swells. It’s not a surprise that Zander plans on abandoning the safety of Ulysede’s gates to return to Islor, where a king’s army hunts for him and the blood curse he despises so vehemently reclaims him. He’s been talking about it since the moment we arrived. But it seems reckless, and I don’t know how to make him see it.
“I must sway Telor to our cause. The western lords follow his lead. Even Rengard will abandon his neutrality if Telor stands with me.” His voice bleeds with conviction.
“How many men does Telor have with him? A thousand, Rengard said?”
“Give or take.”
“You have fifteen warriors, Elisaf, and me at your side.” And I barely have a grasp on my affinities. I’m learning, and quickly, but right now, I would be more a liability that an asset.
“Eleven warriors and not you,” Jarek corrects, his jaw setting with willfulness. When I appointed him my commander, one of his requirements was that he claim Zorya, Horik, and Loth for his little Legion unit to protect against any threats within Ulysede.
Zander and Abarrane agreed.
As for me staying in Ulysede? I never agreed to that, but now is not the time to argue with the stubborn oaf. “You can’t go out there against a thousand soldiers, Zander. That’s suicide.”
He smirks. “You might recall, I am not defenseless.”
“No, you’re not. Especially if you plan on killing them all at first sight.” He only needed a single, small flame to raze an apple orchard with his powerful elven connection to Malachi’s fire.
“That is not my plan,” he admits. “But the longer we sit here waiting, the more time we give Atticus to learn where we are and send more soldiers to hem us in.”
“I’m sure Atticus already has an idea of where we are.” Vaguely, at least. But he would never expect a new kingdom within his own realm. I wish I could be a fly on the wall when he receives that news. “Okay, so then you want to talk with Telor first? Do you remember what happened the last time you talked with a lord? In the Greasy Yak in Norcaster? Let me remind you. You could have died, and he only had, what, twelve soldiers with him?”
Zander grits his teeth. “I won’t make that mistake twice.”
“No, but you could make another one. Telor has a thousand soldiers. Plus, there are the saplings to worry about.”
“And anything else that crawls out from the shadows,” Elisaf adds, smoothing a hand over his leathers. Beneath, his thigh is as strong as ever, but it wears countless silver teeth marks where the grif shredded it.
Zander pinches the bridge of his nose. We’ve had this conversation more than once, and it never ends in agreement. “Then what do you suggest, Romeria? That I continue to hide here within these pristine white walls?” He waves around us. “What kind of king is that?”
One who won’t die. I bite back those words because they’re selfish and they won’t bend his will. “Can we wait a few more days to give the Ybarisans a chance to reach us? We know they travel through Kamstead regularly. They’ll get the message we left. They’ll come.”