Page 49 of A Queen’s Betrayal (Legends of Worldbinders #1)

The earth trembled hard enough to make the room sway.

Figurines rattled as the mountains surrounding the heavy waterfall rumbled and cracked, bits breaking off and crashing into the clear water below.

Arenna glanced at the king, who braced himself against the back of a chair, his eyes simmering with wrath.

It wasn’t until this very moment that she realized it was Kayson who made the earth tremble all those times, as if he and his element were so connected that the world itself felt his emotions.

She looked past him at the broken rocks jutting from the water, uneasy that this was only a small display of his power.

Arenna couldn’t speak. Blood roared in her ears, her heart pounding in an unhealthy rhythm. She had always known this day might come, no matter how carefully she had escaped without a trace. But so soon?

Kayson asked what she was thinking. “How is that possible?”

Wylder rested his forearms on the table, his body slightly trembling. “There were two men. I only recognized one, Koltin Havenwood, Commander of the Brookworth armies.”

Arenna’s mouth fell open, fear pumping through her heart. She gripped the arms of her chair so tightly her knuckles ached. How? “Is he alive?” she whispered, her voice cracking.

Wylder opened his mouth, then hesitated.

“What is it?” she demanded, shooting to her feet as figurines tipped over and clattered off the table.

“Tell me, please.” If something had happened to Koltin—or to Isabella—she would never forgive herself.

Jaksen had already killed her sister to draw out her fire; she didn’t want to think about what he might do to learn where she was.

“He was fine,” Wylder finally said. “Dressed in Brookworth armor, in the room merely as a guard.”

“ Was? ” Arenna croaked, her hands shaking.

“The commander was dragged away, alive. But that’s all I could see.”

Arenna took a step back, the light stone chair clanging to the floor as she bumped it. She couldn’t breathe, and ran toward the water behind the table.

Pushing past the pillars and tripping over small rocks, Arenna stumbled toward the small body of water.

Mist from the falls splashed against her cheeks, cooling the heat that spread across her like wildfire.

She clutched her chest over and over again, panic quickly flooding her veins the longer her breath would not come.

Was Koltin alive? Isabella?

Someone moved beside her, settling on a large boulder, and said with an eerie quiet, “Shades have been sent to retrieve them.”

A hand found the middle of her back. Warmth seeped from it, spreading across her body as that strange magic reached her lungs, and within seconds, her breathing returned. The panic beating from her heart subsided, and her body calmed almost instantly.

Kayson kneeled beside her, the emotions on his face too confusing to read. He seemed angry, and worried, but conflicted.

Arenna blinked past the tears burning in her eyes. “What did you say?”

Kayson recalled his hand and folded his arms. “After we arrived home, I sent my Shades to fetch Koltin and your attendant.”

She shook her head, as if that would help her process the information. “You plan to bring them here, then?”

He nodded slowly.

Fear swelled in her chest, enough to make her dizzy. “They won’t make it in time.”

“Don’t underestimate what my Shades are capable of.”

That word again. She looked up at him as he stood. “Shades?”

“My spies, in a sense. They are a specific type of Fae, all with the same power. They bend shadows to their will and can blend into them easily enough to move through a room unnoticed. In the dark, you wouldn’t know they were there unless they wanted you to.”

Arenna blinked, stunned.

Shades . She had heard of creatures like that before from Jaksen, during one of the few council meetings she was allowed to attend. For whatever reason, Arenna never imagined they were real, always believing it to be a trick on the Fae King’s part to draw up fear.

And yet now Arenna could almost see them clearly in her mind. Hidden in the dark corners of Brookworth, slipping past guards, listening, risking everything.

“I need to go back for them,” Arenna said, turning sharply. “I have to do something .” She held out her hand, palm open and trembling. “Give me a capsule. Please.”

“Absolutely not.”

“I wasn’t asking,” Arenna seethed. She tilted her head upward, meeting his gaze, though her head stopped at the middle of his chest. “You don’t understand how badly I have to get to them. He’ll do worse than kill them.”

Kayson’s attention drifted toward the war room. Silence lingered for a moment before the king whispered, “I understand more than you realize.”

She followed his gaze, a pang of guilt settling in her chest. Yes, she supposed he did.

Arenna kneeled and brought a handful of water to her cheeks, letting the cool splash against her skin. “What do I do? I can’t just sit here and wait.” She stood and began pacing. “I shouldn’t have left them. Why did I leave them?”

“Wylder will make sure it gets done.” Kayson turned and began walking back toward the council still seated at the table.

“What do I do?” Arenna asked again, tears welling.

Kayson’s face twisted, almost like he cared about the pain she was in. “You train. You work hard, and you trust that I am handling it.”

“Trust?” she repeated. “Trust you?”

The Red Reaper walked away without a response.

* * *

As if Arenna’s world hadn’t just fractured, conversation in the war room continued. After calming herself as best she could, she returned to her designated chair. But no matter how many breaths she took, nothing stopped the shaking in her hands.

Koltin and Isabella were her only friends, raised together in a kingdom of darkness, in a castle of horror. They had bonded over their shared trauma in Brookworth, finding comfort in one another to get through the worst of it.

Every time Arenna blinked, tears burned her eyes. She couldn’t imagine a world where they didn’t exist—or a world where they were tortured and killed because she had been selfish enough to rely on their help to escape.

The council assured her she was safe, and that they would take preventative measures against the Serpent King, but it did not ease the worry Arenna felt. Until they were with her, safe and unharmed, no amount of reassurance could fix that.

Her chest tightened, her ribs crushing her heart until it felt like it might burst. For some reason, she felt a pull—a tug, almost—as if an invisible hand sat under her chin, lifting it until she locked eyes with the Fae King.

His brows were furrowed, jaw clenched, but he watched her so intently that Arenna didn’t think he was blinking. Normally, that feral look in his light eyes would send a shiver down her spine or a stab of fear through her heart. But now, the only thing she felt was peace.

The raw, aching pain in her chest subsided, and even her hand stopped trembling under the table.

Kayson finally looked away and back to the map Bramnen was pointing to.

“If Jaksen knows where you are, then we need to make quick work of starting our search. We need to find Water and Wind,” Bramnen said.

He moved the wooden figures back to their places.

“So far, we have one human and one Fae elementalist. We don’t know if they’re two humans, two Fae, or one of each.

But it’s safer to start our search in Vlazias. ”

Forcing herself to focus, Arenna asked Wylder, “Can you find them with your abilities?”

“Not usually,” Wylder replied. “Soulwalking lets me see into the minds of people we know. I can’t place myself inside their heads if I don’t know who they are, unless the Seven wills it.”

“ Stupid girl,” Eldric spat. “Do you have any intelligent questions, or are you just here as a pretty trophy?”

Kayson’s jaw tightened. Slowly, deliberately, he turned to Eldric. “Not another distasteful word toward Arenna,” he warned, his voice low but edged with steel. “If you speak to her like that again, I will personally make sure you no longer have your tongue—or your position.”

Eldric stiffened. “Apologies, my king.”

“It is not me you should be apologizing to.”

The Lord Justice’s hardened eyes flicked back to Arenna, hatred still etched into his face. His jaw worked as he swallowed his pride. “I’m sorry, Firewielder,” he said, the words stiff on his tongue.

Shame burned in her throat, but fear rooted her to the spot.

She said nothing, letting his apology hang uselessly in the air, and instead reached for the nearest book on the table.

The title was small, barely visible, but the symbols matched those on the open pages.

“Is this written in the Founder’s Tongue? ”

Marea nodded.

“It speaks of the prophecy,” Kayson said. “It was found within ancient mountains and copied into that book thousands of years ago by Worden’s first scholars.”

Arenna suppressed a gasp at the age of the text. She touched the first symbol, tracing the outline with her finger. “How does one stumble across a prophecy and translate it into text?”

Rodsan smiled, his first sign of emotion. “It was found in Valdows Cove.”

The Lord Justice limped to the other side of the table and sat beside Arenna. “Give me your hand,” Eldric said, extending his own. His tone was anything but kind.

She eyed him suspiciously, but Bramnen gave her a subtle nod. Arenna glanced at Kayson, who did the same—a silent instruction to trust Eldric, though everything in her screamed not to.

“I will show you what they saw, what still exists in the mountains to this day. I’m a Dreamweaver and with a single touch, I can reveal any memory I choose and any place as well,” Eldric explained.

Arenna let her eyes slip closed, instantly feeling the warmth of Eldric’s magic encase her. The void in her mind rippled until an image of stone and light appeared. His vision seemed so real that Arenna thought she might actually be there, rather than in the war room of Castle Worden.