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“I came to find the human.” Renfis’s eyes darted to me again. “He needs his chain back.”
We’ve been waiting to retrieve that sword you drew for a very long time. But to have found you along with it…” She shook her head. “You have no idea how important you are, Saeris. I’m afraid my father isn’t liable to give you up any time soon.
“He is Belikon De Barra,” Everlayne said evenly. “King of the Yvelian Fae.”
***
“It’ll grow well here. Long hair is a sign of high-born status for Fae women. Others will be jealous of your dark coloring, too. Dark hair is a royal trait amongst the Yvelian Fae.”
“My mother told me once that the people used to pray to gods in Zilvaren, but their names and their temples were eaten by the desert a long time ago. We say ‘gods’ to curse our luck or emphasize emotion. Other than that, Madra’s the closest thing we have to a god in Zilvaren.
“Styx, god of shadows.” She moved along the line, inclining her head and touching her brow to each of her gods before she named them. “Kurin, god of secrets. Nicinnai, goddess of masks. Maleus, god of dawn and new beginnings. These two are often counted as one god,”
“Balmithin. Twin sisters. Goddesses of the sky. Legend says that they once were one god, but a mighty storm came, and Balmithin refused to take shelter as it raged across the land. The powerful spirit within the storm was furious that Balmithin didn’t cower before him, and so he lashed her with forks of lightning.
Instead, she cracked and split in two, becoming Bal and Mithin. Bal is the goddess of the sun, but goddess of the day in a looser sense. Mithin is the goddess of the moon, but again, she presides over all of the night.”
“That’s Zareth, god of chaos and change.” She walked up to him and bowed, placing her fingers on her brow as she had done with all the others, but then she reached around and placed her hand on his foot.
“To look upon Zareth’s face is to draw his focus. And very few people enjoy Zareth’s attention being focused on them. We respect and revere him, but we’d all rather he was paying attention to what other people were doing instead of us. We touch him on the foot to guide him away from us.”
“A dragon. The last dragon,” she said meaningfully. “Its name was Omnamshacry. A legend amongst my people.”
It was the sword. The one I’d drawn in the Hall of Mirrors. The metal glinted, reflecting the firelight, as the king absentmindedly spun the blade.
We know your queen. A power-hungry despot with a black and shriveled heart. Violence is her creed.
“What do you think about Onyx?” I asked him.
“This is not my brother, Fisher. This is Carrion fucking Swift!”
“You can kick and scream all you like,” he said. “But he wants the Alchemist, Fisher. If he has to burn down all of Yvelia to claim her, you know perfectly well that he’ll do it.”
