Chapter 14

His people. Trystan had always been the kingdom’s prince. The day he’d been named Toha had changed his world. His father’s words came back to him now, and he closed his eyes.

You are to be the kingdom’s shield against the darkness. Their hope.

He’d barely had time to perform the function of Toha and now he was king.

So, yes, they were his people before, but now it was… more. He held their oaths in the palm of his hand. Their lives sat on the edge of his blade.

And he was ready.

Not in the sense that he knew what he was doing, because he didn’t. But he would learn. He’d grow. He wanted to lead them. Needed to create their path.

He ran a shaky hand through his hair as he stood on the long balcony surrounded by redbrick pillars. What would his father say of him now? Would he be proud? Would Davion?

His eyes drifted out over the land beyond the estate walls where the people of Dreach-Sciene prepared to take back the throne. Pride bloomed in his gut. They’d come from the towns and the villages. There were nobles who’d abandoned their estates to join in with the common folk.

Even before they’d known Trystan still lived, they’d recognized Drake as the enemy he was. There was more bravery, more strength in his kingdom than he’d ever imagined, and it gave him hope. When the time came, Dreach-Sciene would rise against Calis Bearne. They’d fight for their homes and their king. Maybe they’d even win.

If he managed to re-unite the Tri-Gard and reclaim their magic.

He turned from the railing. Taking his throne back from his uncle was necessary, but every day they remained here was another day their mission went unfulfilled. The truth of the matter was Ramsey Kane’s recovery seemed as impossible a task as ever.

“Your Majesty,” Lord Coille said as he joined him.

“My Lord.” Trystan nodded.

A large hand landed on his shoulder. “Your father was my greatest friend, let’s dispense with formalities, shall we?”

Trystan smiled. “Of course, Adrian.” It should have felt strange but instead, there was comfort in the familiarity. Trystan had allies.

Adrian looked out across the sea of tents. “Your father would have loved to see this.” He shook his head. “The people rose for us the last time we went to war, and we were nearly destroyed. He once told me he wasn’t sure if they’d come for us again.”

Trystan thought for a moment. “He always underestimated how much they loved him.”

“No truer words have ever been said.” Sadness crept over Adrian’s face. “He was a good man.”

“The best.” Trystan breathed out slowly and then turned to face the lord. “What happened? Why is he gone? How did someone…”

Adrian averted his eyes and rubbed his chin. “Your father was arrogant. In the best possible way. He thought that because he could wield a sword better than any other, he didn’t need constant protection. Before magic was taken, there was no man in Dreach-Sciene with more power than Marcus Renauld. But in the end, it wasn’t his skill that failed him or his vigilance.”

“Then what?” Trystan pressed.

“It was his heart.”

“I don’t understand.”

Adrian Coille sighed. “Your mother has been gone a long time, and that was Marcus’s one weakness. He’d never loved anyone like he loved Marissa, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t feel anything. So, when the seer…”

“Lorelai?” Trystan’s eyes snapped to the lord’s, horror burning in his gaze. “She killed my father?”

Adrian’s slow nod was all the answer he needed. The woman who continued to haunt his dreams. The girl with the cold voice and stinging words.

Someone you love will die by your hand.

Someone you love will sacrifice their life for yours.

Someone you love will forsake your name.

He backed away from the duke.

“She was an agent of Dreach-Dhoun,” Adrian explained.

Trystan’s head jerked from side to side in disbelief. And then he froze. It all made too much sense.

She’d played his father with prophecies and promises.

Was the curse false?

The sacrifice had already come true, but was it real?

“She wants us to bring them to her,” he said suddenly.

Adrian looked to him in question.

“The Tri-Gard. She wants us to take Briggs and Lonara into Dreach-Dhoun. Lorelai set us on the path to finding Briggs. She convinced my father of the necessity with her prophecy.” His mind flashed through everything he knew of the seer. Finding her in the woods. Davion. He covered his mouth. “Davi.”

Adrian’s wide eyes didn’t leave Trystan as he too sifted through every bit of information they had. “What about Davi?”

“Lorelai knew him. She was the person who convinced my father to take him in as a boy.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.” Trystan turned back to the balcony railing and gripped it until his knuckles turned white. “Maybe nothing now that Davi is…”

“Do you really believe it had no purpose?”

“No.” Trystan pushed out a breath.

Anger spiked through him, and he spun as he let out a growl. “Everything we’ve done, every action, every decision has been orchestrated. And all we have to show for it is loss. I’m tired of losing people.”

He pointed toward the people below. Alixa and the rest of his friends were among them. “Every person that helps me could be walking into their own deaths.”

Adrian put a hand on his arm and pushed it down. “A fact they were all aware of before pledging themselves to you. Trystan, my king, I miss your father and Davi didn’t deserve to die, but you can’t stop now.”

Trystan’s shoulders fell. “I know.” He sighed with a shake of his head. “I know.” He met the duke’s understanding stare. “We let her into the palace. I carried her through the front gates myself. We healed her. We trusted her. And she killed him. Do you know how it happened? Where it happened?”

“Trystan-”

“I need to know.”

“I was told it was in his rooms in the late hours of the night.”

Trystan closed his eyes. “He didn’t deserve that.”

“No.”

“My father deserved to go out on a battlefield where he belonged, fighting for his people.”

“Trystan.” Adrian’s gaze reminded him so much of his father’s. “No one deserves the battlefield. Your father was a warrior, but in the end, a fair life would have seen his end come after he’d grown too old for it. And he would have had your mother at his side.”

“I wish I remembered them together.”

Adrian chuckled softly. “Trust me when I say this, my boy, if you ever want to know what your mother was like, all you have to do is watch that sister of yours.”

Trystan smiled as thought of the Rissa that existed before this mission. Sarcastic, but quick to smile at the same time.

Adrian patted him on the back once more and bowed quickly. “Your Majesty.” He left Trystan to his thoughts.

Lorelai.

This changed things. He couldn’t just walk into Dreach-Dhoun with Briggs and Lonara. Not now that he knew Calis wanted just that.

He hated to think what that meant.

It seemed never ending. Their fight. He re-entered the estate to go over tomorrow’s preparations. Lorelai’s actions had set off the events that led them here. She’d set them on this path to civil war.

But he refused to fight his own people inside the palace walls. Not when there was another way.

Trystan’s mind worked swiftly over the new information and his eyes did not see her before he almost ran over her. Rissa hid near the balcony door.

She set her jaw and turned hard eyes on him. “It was her?”

“You heard us speaking?”

“What do you think?” She took a step away from him. “All this time.”

Was she putting Lorelai together with Davi in her mind? Making the connection? That knowledge had thrown everything he knew into question. Even Davi’s loyalty, and he hated himself for that.

He refused to cloud Rissa’s feelings with doubt. They might never know why Lorelai wanted the orphan boy in their household.

No, if she didn’t think of it, he’d let her anger rest solely with the seer.

She shook her head, her pleading eyes finding his. “Please.” She rubbed her hand over the hilt sticking up from her belt. “Tell me I get to fight something tomorrow. I need…”

“Ri.” He stepped towards her, but she backed away.

Her jaw clenched. “We need to take it back, Trystan. They stole Father from us. They cannot have our home.”

Lord Coille might be right. No one deserved the battlefield. But some yearned for it. For the first time, he saw that desire in his sister.

There were no words he could say to make her see any different, and he wasn’t sure if he should even want to. He’d need Rissa fired up when they reached the palace. But that didn’t mean he had to like it.

Taking a deep breath, he met her gaze. “Yes. Tomorrow, we will push them from our home.”

He wished he could say something to clear the fog of anger from her mind.

He was angry too, but he was also king. And a king didn’t have the luxury of giving in to his anger.

Once they regained his throne, he’d tell her what he’d pieced together from Lorelai’s treachery. He’d tell them all. Because there was one thing he was now sure of.

They couldn’t risk taking any of the Tri-Gard members to Calis. Briggs and Lonara would have to stay behind.

They’d be forced to enter Dreach-Dhoun without their new allies’ magic to protect them. But not yet. Tomorrow, he had an uncle to defeat.