Page 57 of Enchanted Shadows (The Enchanted Kingdom #6)

I was only going to be gone four nights max. That was what I kept reminding myself over and over again.

We were due to meet Artem downstairs, but dammit I didn’t want to leave this woman right now. And she was right, if I would’ve just talked with her earlier, I wouldn’t have spent the last week being angry. We could have found this happy bubble we were living in sooner.

But that happy bubble would pop in a hurry if we didn’t return Artem to Agria.

If both heirs to the Agrian throne stayed in Wylan any longer.

I could send Team One in my stead and stay with Kessara, but I also knew how much she loved her little brother.

The same as I loved my sisters. Not to mention the fact that he’d be a damn king someday. So I would be going with Team One.

I moved the bookshelf aside and gestured for Kessara.

“Why are we taking the secret passageway?”

“Because I want you all to myself? Because I want to kiss you goodbye disrespectfully without your brother there.” After a moment I corrected, “Brothers. Plural.”

So we headed down. And just before hitting the pantry in the kitchens, I kissed my wife goodbye in the dark and damp space which reminded me too much of the waterfalls in Agria.

I was only going to be gone a few days. I had to deliver Artem, and then we would head for home straight away.

“I will see you soon,” Kessara said to me, entirely out of breath. “How about we take this last week before training starts, the holidays, and hide away like it’s our honeymoon?”

That was music to my damn ears. I brought her hand up to brush a kiss to it. There were far more places to kiss her goodbye than I had time for. “I’d love to. I love you, Kess.”

And as the ship shoved off to sea within a few hours, I felt rather annoyed this mission was needed at all. Not when far more promising things awaited my return.

I was playing five-card draw with Amos and Artem beneath deck. I felt cards were a good front for getting to know people better. You had something to focus on and hold in your hands while you explored the way another’s mind worked. Their strategies.

And though Artem was only fifteen, he was destroying me. He thought I’d bet aggressively even when I didn’t have the cards to back it, and I didn’t know who he thought he was being so damn right about it.

“I sure wasn’t expecting to get beaten like this,” I told Artem as he pulled more of my chips in his direction.

“I’ve had lots of time to play lately with all the different guards,” he said with a laugh. “So I’m just more seasoned to it.”

He had a kindness and wit that reminded me so much of his sister. “I’m sorry you had to be locked away in Wylan. But I’m glad you were, that Calix didn’t find you.”

“He’s truly in jail? Both of them?”

“Last I knew Calix was on the way there,” I told the young prince. “And hopefully they are being kept away from one another. I trust neither of them. And even less in proximity to one another.”

He let out a long sigh.

“I’m sorry for the family drama,” I admitted. “It can’t be easy being in your shoes.”

“I’ve always grown up knowing that Damek would rule. I was just the spare heir. Maybe even the spare of a spare. Seems a bit surreal returning and being told I will now rule. All of a sudden, I’m the chosen one.”

In all our trying to fix things, how many of us had even asked Artem what he wanted? “Do you want to be king?”

“Do I have a choice?” he asked quietly. “I know Damek cannot rule. I feel Zara would’ve been the best of all of us, but the people would give her more issues and trouble than she deserves because of her lineage.”

Amos shuffled the deck as both of us gave Artem the space to think.

“I do not feel prepared. I do not feel ready, but I know it is what my country needs.”

“You have time,” Amos told him gently. “It’s not as if you will be crowned king tomorrow.”

He leaned back and waited for the next round of cards, his glasses reflecting in the lantern light. “Is it true that you offered to annul your marriage to Kessara so that she could rule if she wanted to?”

“I did.” My eyes went to Amos briefly. “Though Kessara was most angry with me for it.”

“I thought you got married to save her from Calix anyway.”

He’d known all along what was happening.

Kessara tried to keep him as informed as possible.

Even when he was under lockdown. And I should be concerned about him telling the queen of Agria all of it, but at this point, it didn’t matter because our marriage was real in every sense of the word.

“We did, but I do love your sister. Somewhere along the way, it became real. Likely somewhere close to the beginning. From the day your sister called me out in training and told me to teach the women to punch, I knew she was different. Good different. It just took us both a moment to realize the depth of things.”

Artem smirked. “Regardless, it got her away from Calix. So thank you.”

I gave him a nod as I peeked at the cards Amos dealt me. Which were atrocious. “I do not wish to keep her from you either. But considering when we were leaving Agria we had to fight our way out of it, I don’t feel all that confident about her returning.”

“Not for a while anyway,” he agreed. Then he switched to ask which of the queen’s guards would be returning with me. Kessara had asked Amos to stay to make sure Artem was safe, but the queen refused to leave Kessara in Wylan without a guard or two of her own and was sending them back with me.

Within ten minutes, I knew which guard was more reasonable, and that the other tended to take everything legalistically. Artem might have been young, but he was as watchful as his sister, it seemed. Perceptive. It ran in the Zavatari blood.

“Artem?” I asked as our card game wound down an hour later.

“Yes?”

“If you ever need assistance from Wylan because of unrest within Agria, please don’t think it a weakness to ask for help. We want to maintain peace in the realm. Not shatter it over egos.”

He dipped his chin. “Noted.” He shot me a grin. “And should Zara be too much for you to handle, this team of women you are leading too much to handle...”

“You’ll help?” I finished for him.

“God no. I’m fifteen. The whole lot of them quite honestly terrify me. I was going to tell you you’re on your own.”

Laughing, we headed back to Agria. I only hoped this time our exit strategy would run more smoothly.

I stood on the deck of the ship watching. As planned, Amos was dressed younger, like Artem, glasses on, with a hooded jacket thrown over his head, and led off the ship.

The queen would hug him and usher him into a carriage.

We would all wait and watch. If no move was made on Amos posing as Artem and he made it to the castle safely, they would all return back here and retrieve the real Artem at nightfall.

It was a way to test the tensions in Agria.

A way to see how many people remained loyal to Damek, loyal to tyranny.

And if Amos was attacked, the queen asked that we return back to Wylan with Artem for a few more weeks, not risking it until it was absolutely safe.

I wasn’t fool enough to think this path ahead of Artem would be an easy one, I just hoped his own people gave him a chance. The chance they were never willing to give his sister all because of scandal.

The real Artem was below deck, guarded by Miles and Allen and a few others as well.

Artem was going to be returned safely. And knowing how dark things had been in Agria, the pawns and pieces Damek had been moving around, I was thankful in this moment that both my wife and her brother were still healthy and alive.

Both would have to heal from Damek’s selfish motives, but they were both alive to begin that healing process.

Crowns and thrones were complicated business. Though I technically found myself the owner of one, I would like to avoid any more civil wars, or outright wars, in the future.

And for once, I felt excited to plan a future, my future with Kessara.

Would she want an estate in Savaryn so we were close to the king and queen?

Was she tired of living in castles? Did she want to live in Nerede?

How many children did she want? I was up for any adventure, so long as it was with her .

Then there was the issue of bonding. I’d bond with her when we arrived home, but Kessara had told me I needed to think long and hard about it, make certain I was sure.

The only thing I was certain of anymore was her.

Hours later, I stood on the deck again, this time walking the real Artem off the ship and to his mother, his mother who wept giant tears all over the dock in seeing her son returned home.

And then she shocked me by hugging me as soon as she had finished with Artem. “Take care of my girl.”

“I will,” I promised. “And you all take care here. Let us know if you need anything at all. I mean it.”

The queen wiped at her eyes. They had to be going quickly, that was the plan, still she stayed long enough to say, “I want to see her in a few months, your next training break. If you would be so kind as to put in a good word for me.”

“Why don’t you come see her?” I looked to Artem. “I know you both cannot come together, the queen and the heir apparent traveling together frowned upon, but you can both return whenever you’d like. Just let us know.”

The queen looked to the sky and took a deep breath before looking back at me. “Thank you.”

I’d just been offering my mother-in-law a trip, I hadn’t really realized I had just unraveled yet another strand of Theon Valanova’s legacy. That he stole Agrian power from the queen and then banished her from Wylan to raise their child alone.

“I think you’ll find the castle feels much different these days,” I said gently. “Let us show you how different Wylan is.”

“And Theon’s sons? What of the new king, would he even allow that?”

I read between the lines. She worried Krew hated her, as she had been the reason his father had cheated on his mother. But she hadn’t been Theon’s only infidelity. Far from it.

“Of course Krew will,” I assured her. Krew was living with the knowledge that his father had killed their mother in siphoning her magic. It wasn’t too difficult to believe his father had bonded with another. Theon Valanova being a cheater and a vile person in general was not new news.

I shooed them toward their carriage. “This isn’t goodbye, Your Highnesses. This is merely a homecoming. And I need to return home and see what Kessara and her team have gotten into now.”

“Apprehending more lowlifes, no doubt,” Artem laughed as he shook my hand.

“Hopefully no more sneaking off to parties,” the queen laughed.

“I do have my work cut out for me,” I joked. “See you after the next round of training.”

Back on the ship, we waited until the queen sent word Artem was safe back at the castle. Then and only then, did we set sail for home.