But we now had the papers in hand to find out who the next king of Wylan would be. Both princes had agreed to wait to open the papers until the next morning. We had all agreed that all walls would be opened and everyone in the kingdom free to come to Kavan Keep for the announcement of the next king of Wylan.
So tomorrow morning, the new king would finally be announced. To us and to the country at the same time.
“You do not have to decide tonight, brother, who your queen will be,” Krew said as he took a drink of his favored whiskey as we finished planning the announcement the next morning.
Keir’s eyebrows went up as he looked to me and then to Krew.
“You can continue your Assemblage for as long as you’d like,” Krew explained. “There is no need to rush it. You control your Assemblage. Our deceased father can no longer interfere. Take your time. Wylan can wait.”
The same sage who had married us was also in this meeting and piped in, “By law, you can extend your Assemblage as long as you want, king or not. Your father was already king when his Assemblage began.”
Keir rubbed a hand across his forehead. “I’ve barely even spoken with either woman in the past few days. There’s been... a lot going on.”
“There always is in an exchange of power, even a peaceful one,” the other sage in our meeting, River Galloway, added. This man with a white beard and glasses was one of the few royal sages the princes trusted.
We had a long road ahead of us of weeding out who we could and couldn’t trust in this castle.
“I think I know what is best anyway,” Keir said with a sigh.
I pitied Keir and this decision while at the same time wishing selfishly Molly could still be at his side. “The best for you or the best for Wylan?”
His eyes were on mine as he said, “Both.”
“Well think on it,” Krew offered. “There is no reason to rush into a decision tonight just because of what the morning might bring.”
Keir gave him a smirk. “Can we get back to our mother’s sword and what we are going to do with it?”
“There’s also another...complicationwe need to discuss,” I offered, my eyes going to John, the sage who’d married us.
He gave me a look. “Which is?”
I looked to Krew and smiled. “I recently found out Owen and I can speak telepathically. We are only kin bonded. Yet I can speak to him like I speak to Krew.”
John’s eyes went wide. “Oh.”
I’m still a little disappointed we can’t all talk though,Krew sent me down our bond.
I’m not. The two of you would drive me to madness. You two can find someone else’s brain to torment with your schemes.
My eyes flew to Owen as I added,Don’t you start with me, Owen Gerald.
Owen just grinned.
Krew snorted a laugh next to me as I turned to John. “Have any of you ever heard of this before? Do we chalk this up to my Iron Will or what?”
The other sage shook his head. “No. The bonding has always been about the strength of the relationships. I have heard of other kin bondings being that strong, though none recently. Then again, it hasn’t always been safe to broadcast a strong bond pairing.”
“It is incredibly rare to have one such bonding, two is....” John shook his head, unable to find a word to describe it.
“You had a strong relationship with Officer Raikes before bonding though, yes?” River asked.
I nodded as I looked to where Owen stood leaning against the wall. “Of course. He is the closest thing I have to a brother.”
“Which she means in only an abundance of adoration,” Owen added. “And for the record, though I specifically willed her enough magic to save both herself and the wolf, I’m not sure any of my magic is gone. I seemed to have retained most of it just like with Krew.”
John put up a hand and turned to me. “Odd though. In both, the extenuating circumstances of your soul bonding and your kin bonding, we know more than a drop of magic was willed to you. And more than that, in both instances, done so with the purest of motives. That combined with the strength of these relationships makes this more believable.” He paused. “It is still my belief that the pure motives of Prince Krewan are the reason why he retained all but a few drops of his magic to begin with. There has to be something in the motives behind these bondings. And I suspect neither of you will ever fully recoup these last drops of magic either. Think of it like a small payment over time rather than a large sum.”
River nodded his agreement. “Though please do not go randomly bonding yourself to others just to check us on these theories.”
