“Do you really believe there will be a war?” He leaned back in his chair as Edna came up the stairs with two steaming mugs of ale. I didn’t know where Reva disappeared to but I knew she wasn’t far still. Alric would personally kill her if he found out she left us alone. Would I even be alone if I were to marry? If I were to take a bed partner?
I accepted one of the mugs with a smile and Edna bowed to the both of us. Jesper’s eyes closed as he took a deep drink of his.
“I don’t want there to be a war. I’ve seen enough death.” Ryven and Ash flashed behind my eyes and I felt my chest get tight. “I don’t want to send any more to an early grave but I also understand that this land,” I gazed out the dark windows across from us, now solemn. “Will not be free until the Fraud Queen is gone. I understand that both of us cannot rule, especially with all of the lies and genocide she’s committed.”
“Do you have what it takes to kill her?”
“I honestly hadn’t thought that far, I don’t want to do that but I also know that it wouldn’t be as hard as one might think. She took a lot from me. She tried to break me for so long.”
He placed his mug on the floor and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “You aren’t just a pretty face, are you?”
I let out a very unladylike snort. “I wasn’t allowed to even see my own face for many years.” That felt like a lifetime ago. Sometimes it felt like a nightmare that I just barely escaped.
“She held you prisoner,” His frown was frightening.
“I narrowly escaped.”
“Did she know who you were?”
I shook my head as the memories flooded my mind. The blood moons with nothing to take care of myself. The pain of the magic as it pierced my skin over and over again. The countless days of starvation and loneliness. The isolation that felt like it was going to suffocate me. These memories flooded me so quickly, that I found it hard to breathe. Somehow I’d managed to push them back, to not think of them, to continue on as if I was a new person. Because I was a new person but now, it felt different—overwhelming.
“I think it’s time for you to go now, King Jesper,” Reva whispered to the side but I was too wrapped up in the swarming of thoughts and emotions I couldn’t move. Nothing like this had ever happened before.
“Is she okay?”
Their voices were muffled as if I was underwater. I couldn’t seem to pull myself out. There she was, Queen Ender, cackling in my face. There she was plunging a dagger into my chest. There she was with her twin sister standing over my dead body. Was this what I was to become? Nothing?
One moment I was imagining my own death and everything that led up to it and the next I was staring into two compassionate brown eyes. The most familiar eyes I’d ever known. She reached forward with a linen cloth and wiped my face. I hadn’t even realized I was crying, I’d been so lost in my thoughts and turbulent memories.
“You will need to visit the Shadow Elves to issue an apology for King Jesper’s departure.” That was enough to snap me out ofwhatever spell I was under. I blinked a few times before I rubbed my eyes.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know, I was listening from my bedroom when I heard him ask you several times if you were okay. I rushed out immediately to find you staring into space and then you began to cry. Are you okay?”
“I thought I was,” I admitted. “But then we started talking about the war and who I was before. Those memories felt heavy and then before I knew it, they were suffocating me. It felt like another person’s memories, another time, another life.”
Reva lowered herself from her crouch and down onto her knees. She rested the side of her face against my lap and we just sat there for I don’t know how long, holding on to each other.
“What in the Seven Hells happened?” Alric’s voice broke through the small bit of piece we’d found momentarily.
“No one prepares you for the memories to be too hard to think about,” Reva answered for me and I was thankful. I didn’t have it in me to talk anymore for the night. I’d learned what I needed to from Jesper and now I needed to focus on healing myself.
I unfolded myself from the plush, armchair and ran my hands down the front of my skirts. When I passed Alric, I patted him gently on the arm. Reva tried to follow me into my chambers but I held a hand up. “I think I need to be alone.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
JUNIPER
Sky beasts. Wood witches. Dragons. Shadow Elves. Unicorns. Sprites. Mermaids. The list of my magical subjects seemed to go on and on. My head spun with the more creatures I mentally added to my list. Jesper now accompanied us when we met with new leaders. Alric seemed to be okay with it as Jesper knew most of them. The only ones he hadn’t met were the mermaids and when I asked why, he shrugged and said it wasn’t from lack of trying. He’d been trying to rally all of the magical creatures on this island since the last Mage Queen’s demise. He knew they would eventually need to stand against the fraud empire and the things she was doing.
Many of the groups of creatures weren’t native to this island but when the last Mage Queen fell, they had no choice but to find a new place to live here. They’d settled because there was nothing else for them. The ones that stayed behind on the mainland were slaughtered or kept prisoner for their magic.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Jesper walk to the ocean with us, we were going to the other side of the island today, closer to his home. Everywhere we’d needed to go to meet these new subjects we could walk but I knew the day would come when we would need to either ride the sky beasts again or evengo on horseback. When I saw him earlier in the week before we went to meet with the sprites, I’d tried to apologize for the little spell I went under during dinner but he simply ran his hands down both of my arms, linked our fingers together and shot me a sympathetic smile. He told me he understood that some demons were worse than others and we all had them. He didn’t expect me to explain nor did he need me to, he just hoped that one day I would be able to talk about it without the pain. I hoped I could too.
Today I was more than worried about those demons. We were on our way to the lagoon and the gods insisted I would need proper swim attire. I hadn’t been swimming since the flood incident with Alric so long ago. You couldn’t even count the hot spring as swimming. I wasn’t so sure I even knew how to properly swim but here we were. I had no choice in the matter and I prayed I didn’t drown. What a turn of events that would be.
I wore a thick gown that laced down the front and a cloak over it. My feet were still in boots but they weren’t lined in fur. The thought of trying to put them back on after coming out of the lagoon sounded horrendous. Honestly, swimming during the winter didn’t sound so good either. Reva wore a similar gown to mine and Alric wore loose clothing. I was curious to see how they would react when we got to the water. They knew we were meeting with mermaids, they knew there was a possibility of getting wet, but did they know the extent of what could happen? Absolutely not. Jesper’s eyes twinkled with mischief when he took in their appearances. He knew they had no idea what they were about to get themselves into.
