Dedication

To anyone trying to find their way without losing themselves. . .

Chapter 1

Terran

Capital of Gyoria, Elydor

“Kill him, Terran.”

I would do no such thing, despite that the order had been given by my father, the king.

The Aetherian captive was haranya, and there was no glory in killing one who’d not lived yet one hundred years. I met the ice blue eyes of the warrior, one whose hands were tied behind him with vines from an ancient tree of my ancestors. Binds that would not break.

“He was delivered to me, and I will deal with him.”

That his father would even grace this corner of the palace underscored the importance of this particular captive. Here, in the eastern-most caverns of the mountain, the only one aboveground as much of the Gyorian palace was built underground, the men were more loyal to me. The Gyorian nobles and diplomats from other clans rarely ventured this far east either. It was my domain. That my father made an appearance meant there was more to the story than the guards had told me.

“He is an Aetherian spy.”

My gaze met the water wielder. He didn’t acknowledge my father’s claim in any way.

“Perhaps,” I said. “But until your men’s claims are verified, he will remain as my prisoner.”

One of the guards who’d brought him here cleared his throat, his discomfort obvious.

My father’s jaw flexed, the ground under his feet rumbling. That he allowed his anger to show in front of an audience was not surprising. The Gyorian king was not known for his stoicism or patience.

Few Gyorians were known for such a virtue, including myself. But the king less than most.

Watching Father’s fingers, I envisioned what might happen next. He could twist them so subtly most would not see them move. And as the most powerful Gyorian, not only would the Aetherian be dead in moments, my father would likely cause a fair amount of destruction to the courtyard where we stood.

Challenging him would not end well.

“He’s been questioned,” I said with a glance at the guards who handed him over to my men. “But not by me.”

I let the implication hang in the air. I would question him and then kill him.

“My lord?” The youngest of the guards who had caught the apparent spy, one not much older than the Aetherian himself, spoke.

My father looked sharply his way without responding.

“He was found speaking to Ilyas Rho just outside the gates, but Rho was nowhere to be seen when the traitor was apprehended.”

I didn’t know the guard well, but my opinion of him soared. He knew well how to appeal to my father. Naming him a ‘traitor’ would appeal to a man whose hate against the Aetherians had grown to a fever pitch of late.

Traitor.

I couldn’t think of the word without envisioning the face of one familiar to me. So familiar, I saw it each and every time I peered in a mirror. There was little time to dwell on my brother’s treachery. We were a heartbeat away from war. According to some, it had already reached us.

“Terran.” The reprimand was sharp. The one who delivered it, inflexible.

Perhaps more inflexible now than ever before, the father I’d known for so many years was nearly a stranger to me. Sometimes I wondered if duty was simply what my father used to mask fear. Fear of change. Fear of what we might become if we didn’t hate the Aetherians quite so much.

My jaw flexed. I’d not apologize. Weakness among a Gyorian was unacceptable, especially for a prince.

“I will question him first,” I said to the guard.

With that, my father spun angrily away, accustomed to having his orders followed. His men walked away with him, as quickly as they’d come, leaving me and my own to deal with the Aetherian.

I sighed.

Young. Defiant. He stood on a copper slab mined from the very mountain in which we stood. A defense against erosive air magic, mined from the ground beneath us, would ensure that even if vines that bound his hands broke, he would find it difficult to summon magic.

“You have been accused of infiltrating the Gyorian court as a spy.”

I could detail the reasons why such an accusation was leveled against him. But sensing it would not matter—the look in his eye telling me that the Aetherian would either not speak, or confess all—I instead said nothing more.

He met my gaze.

The air stilled as we both held our ground.

“The Gyorian court,” he said finally. “Is no longer what it once was.”

My nostrils flared in defiance. Not because his words were untrue.

But because they were.

“What do you know about our court? Are you yet a century old?”

The warrior’s chin lifted.

“Fifty years. One hundred years. Three hundred. What does it matter when the facts stand as they do? Prince Kael sees what you do not. A king who would damn us all.”

It was the wrong thing to say.

“Do you,” my fingers twitched. “Deny the accusations against you?”

Cheeks slim as slim as his shoulders, he was so unlike my brethren who were as brawny as this Aetherian was slight.

Justice.

My father demanded it.

My honor, after the Aetherians killed my mother, demanded it.

“Nay. I do not,” he said finally.

There was one penalty for traitors. All knew it. Including the young Aetherian spy.

“Release him.”

“Price Terran,” my right-hand-man began.

“Release. Him.”

My voice boomed. The tone I used was my father’s.

Dren did as he was told.

The moment the spy’s hands, and then his feet, were unbound, he lifted his hand and attempted to use a gust of wind so powerful it would have swept most off their feet.

But not me.

With one last exchanged glance, his eyes wide with surprise that I still stood, I swept my fingers in a small arc. The vines leapt to his feet and hands once more, binding him for the last time. With a twist of those same fingers, the stone beneath his feet trembled just before it opened and sucked him down to its depths.

Closing my eyes at the site of the chasm, I said a silent prayer to Terranor for his safe passage and then twisted my fingers once more, closing the crack and damning him to a death so few immortals faced.

Keeping my eyes closed, I cursed my father. My brother. The Gods.

Myself.

And then opened my eyes.

Some of my men appeared proud at the ease with which I’d killed him. Others, more inexperienced, likely knew not what to think.

Only Dren’s shoulders dropped as he looked at me.

Disappointed? Proud? Awed? Even after all these years, I could not tell. Nor did it matter.

Kill him, Terran.

And I had.

 

Chapter 2

Lyra

“Those stilts look as if they might give way at any moment.”

Peering out of the window of our table at the window of The Siren’s Rest tavern, I watched as wave after wave crashed against the worn wood ,expecting to plunge into the sea below us at any moment.

“They did once.”

My head whipped back toward the speaker.

Unlike Marek or Issa who also sat with me, I knew little of Ilyas Rho aside from the fact that he was our contact here. We’d met just before this meal, the Gyorian smuggler turned rebel grinning at my appalled expression.

“Pardon?” I asked, Issa seemingly just as surprised as me.

“They are fortified with featherleaf which, as you might know, can not break. But local legend tells of one Gyorian king who was so enraged that his queen took a lover that he demolished the original Siren’s Rest by splitting each of the stilts on which it was built in half and plugging she and her lover, along with the other patrons, into the sea.”

Marek, amused as always, shook his head in disagreement.

“Nay. ‘Twas not a lover but a woman who planned to challenge him at the Rite of Stone and Soil.”

The smuggler frowned. “What does a Thalassari know of Gyorian legend?”

Marek, unphased by the question, took a swig of ale. “When the woman in question was half Thalassari? Plenty.” He leaned forward, clearly relishing his new role as storyteller. “Her mother was Gyorian, her father, Thalassari. Though none knew of it until she was able to escape from a watery death with ease. She was the reason Gyoria, unlike the other clans, instituted the The Sovereign Clause.”

The Sovereign Clause. Only a full-blooded Gyorian could challenge the current king or queen.

“What happened to her?” Issa asked.

I was curious as well, never having heard the story.

“She survived and never challenged the king. Some say though, because she was more powerful than he, the unbalance sparked The Shattering.”

I rolled my eyes. “The Shattering was caused by two heirs who fought for the throne, and magic chose neither.”

“So say those who wish to erase her history.”

“The problem with a Thalassari,” I said, ignoring for this one brief moment the gravity of our mission. “Is that one can never discern whether or not he, or she, spins tales or relays real history.”

“That is not the only problem with a Thalassari,” Issa said wryly to which Marek did something under the table to her then made the human shriek.

I was about to comment on their interaction when a Gyorian woman walked by, brushing Ilyas’s arm. The movement was so slight, I’d not have noticed except I saw the tension in his spine. Without a word, he stood and followed her.

Marek leaned his head to the side, watching Ilyas’s retreat.

“That was. . . abrupt.” Issa sat back in her seat, peering in the same direction as her partner.

The Siren’s Rest was precisely as Marek and Issa described it.

Though I’d never been here—Gyoria , a region I typically avoided—-I could admit it was exactly as they had explained. Located over the sea in a port known for smugglers and the like, it was the only place in Gyoria where a Thalassaria, an Aetherian and a human could sit together unnoticed.

When one’s activities were illegal, they were less likely to question the actions of others.

“The Gyorian woman,” I said. “With her hair in a circlet braid—”

“I saw her,” Marek responded before I could finish. “With the weathered leather doublet?”

“Aye.”

“Did she summon him?” Issa asked.

It was no wonder these were the team Mev and Kael had assembled for a mission as important as ours. Marek noticed what most would not. Issa surmised what others would have waited for me to explain.

“I’m assuming she did,” I said.

“Do you think she is our contact?” Issa asked.

“Uncertain,” I admitted. “But since we arrived a day early, I do not believe so.”

“Agreed,” Marek looked around the small tavern. “But the sooner we can make contact, the better.”

None would argue that point.

As we ate, and drank, in silence, waiting for Ilyas to return, my mind wandered back to the king’s directive. One which my parents, two of the most influential nobles in the Aetherian court had no knowledge of as they were now retired from the king’s employ.

Go to Gyorian. Infiltrate the court. Get the Stone of Mor’Vallis.

No easy feat for someone such as me.

An Aetherian noblewoman and friend to Gyoria’s most notable traitor, the king’s son.

Kael was less welcome here than all three of us combined, but that didn’t mean he had stayed away. After the third artifact had been recovered, he immediately left Aetherian to treat with his brother Terran and attempt to convince him to switch sides. To choose peace over war. Love over hate.

For his efforts, Kael had nearly been discovered by his father’s men and nearly been killed.

And so we were here to finish the mission Kael started. Retrieve the stone, bring it back to Aetheria and reunite all three clan artifacts. Only then could we reopen the Aetherian Gate, the portal to the human realm that King Balthor had closed nearly thirty years ago.

“There is a. . . complication.”

Illyas, who’d returned to the table a moment ago, sat.

“What is it?” Marek asked.

“Seryn was discovered. And executed.”

I froze.

Seryn was one of two Aetherian spies Mev and Kael relied on for information. But Seryn was more than just a spy. I’d suggested him for this mission. After proving his worth by summoning and dispersing a storm on the Sky Pinnacle at Aetheria’s most sacred festival, the Trial of the Tempest, King Galfrid had asked me to train him. He was a more adept wine-wielder than most, and for a time, I thought perhaps his magic might even surpass that of the king’s.

It did not. . . though I suspected there was one alive now whose magic might make that claim. Even so, he was clever. Kind. And supremely talented. And now he was dead.

“How?” I asked, my fists clenching.

“He was discovered—”

“How was he killed?”

Ilyas, Marek and Issa exchanged a glance. The smuggler frowned.

“He was brought to the king. But it was Prince Terran himself who commanded the mountain to swallow him.”

Prince Terran.

My heart sank. If it was any other, I’d have found the culprit myself and ensured his immortal life was ended. But I could not kill Kael’s brother.

“Fortutitous,” I said, all three now watching for my reaction, not even knowing my ties to the young life forsaken.

“I could almost feel pity for him,” Issa said, watching me.

She likely knew what I was thinking. It mattered little that Issa was human and not Aetherian and could not hear my silent whispers. But she knew the path to the Stone of Mor’Vallis went through Terran.

“He will pay,” I promised. “I am assured of it as I am we will retrieve the Stone.”

“I do not doubt it, Lyra,” Issa said. “For I’ve not seen you unsuccessful on a mission yet.”

“This,” I vowed, resolute. “Will not be my first time.”