Page 16 of Legacy of the Heirs (The Lost Kingdom Saga #2)

Elisara

“ Y ou are his star.” Under the heat of the Ashun Desert sun, Elisara replayed one of the final things her mother said to her.

All along, she knew she would die at her own hand and send the other rulers to their deaths.

Had her father known? Or was he, too, betrayed and sent to his death alongside Elisara’s sisters?

Fury bubbled in Elisara’s blood as she pictured her mother and the tormenting sound of her voice.

Turning the words over, she stared at the back of Kazaar’s head.

With the oddity of their relationship—the sun, the moon, celestial —she wondered if a double meaning had existed in her mother’s words that day.

Had she known of this ancient tie binding her and Kazaar? Elisara had believed the only mystery was discovering who plotted the deaths of the royal families in Novisia. Now, however, she found that mysteries seemed never-ending. Perhaps the mystery of mysteries was their infinite nature.

Elisara rode at the back of the group, having been the last to arrive in the palace courtyard before leaving Tabheri, in a bid to avoid alone time with Kazaar.

Her fear had kept her from succumbing to his gentle caresses when she had awoken and from following the tie in their minds down dark corridors to find him during the night.

Despite being so far from Kazaar, she felt him.

Neither Nyzaia nor her syndicate, Vlad, Helena, Vigor, or Talia, could create enough distance from him.

She was foolish to hope distance would somehow erase his all-consuming presence in her mind, as though he was the ocean drowning her beneath his waves, never allowing her time to breathe .

Last night, Elisara needed space, the ability to breathe and gain clarity despite the invisible string tugging her back to Kazaar with every step she took towards her chambers.

She had not uttered a word to Nyzaia, not because she couldn’t think of anything to say after the evening’s revelations but because all she could think about was him.

His memories of her were entangled with her own, and with every light that flickered as she walked, a new memory emerged: Elisara on her throne, driving a dagger into the table as Kazaar arrived; Elisara sleeping on the Unsanctioned Isle with her back to him, her expression as he handed over his Keres sigil ring.

Elisara could not escape him, though she found she did not want to.

Eventually, when Elisara lay on the silk sheets of her chambers, staring up at the canopy, her vision switched to his bed—his chambers.

She tried to shake his presence, but Kazaar forced her to acknowledge his recollection of events.

So, she did. Still in her red dress from the ball, she watched the moment they first met, his thoughts after saving Caellum, and his emotions as he found her that evening after Izaiah attacked.

She felt it all. Tears rolled down her cheeks as he exposed his pain hidden behind the locked doors of his mind.

Elisara did not know much about Kazaar’s upbringing, though she assumed he was not ready to share it.

The next memory he shared was their quiet moment on the balcony in Nerida.

She recognised it immediately, but seeing and feeling it from his point of view was different.

Elisara heard Kazaar’s thoughts after he declared to spend his life proving himself as her commander; a war raged in his mind, and experiencing it was like standing in the centre of a brewing storm.

The desire to tell Elisara he wielded all four elements was overwhelmed by another emotion—fear.

Elisara hated her longing to forgive him despite the hurt infiltrating her very being.

Perhaps she was destined for betrayal. After all, they were never-ending: when her parents sent her to Keres, the royals’ secrets about the truth of Ithyion and the creatures, Caellum kissing another woman before spewing his hateful words.

It felt like every new day brought a new secret or betrayal, keeping her from returning to the way things were.

Those memories played at the forefront of her mind as they travelled to Garridon for her former lover’s engagement ball. She hoped she could conceal her frustration at having to attend. But through it all was Kazaar and his promise: “ I’ll spend my life proving myself to you, angel.”

“I meant it.” His voice rang through Elisara’s mind, returning her focus to the journey ahead. She narrowed her eyes at the back of his dark locks from where he rode several horses ahead.

“ I do not care.” She thought, and she could have sworn a smirk appeared in her mind. She ignored how he could likely see right through her pretences.

“If you do not care, why are all your thoughts of us?”

“I’m trying to determine a way to wipe them from my memory.” A laugh rumbled through her mind then, rich and deep. She shifted in her saddle as the laugh trickled down her spine.

“You might need to try harder.” An image of them in the alcove flashed in her mind: his feather-light strokes against her golden garter and the brush of his lips against her ear.

Elisara blushed and shifted in her saddle again, ignoring the rising emotion as she recalled his lips inches from hers when he claimed she would be his undoing.

“ Perhaps I am only overwhelmed by you because of this gods damned tie ,” she thought.

“I would not damn the gods who bestowed the tie if I were you.” A playful lilt sounded in his voice as though he believed her hatred to be a game .

“I will ‘damn’ whoever I like if it means escaping you .”

“I would damn whoever dared take you from me.” Elisara gulped at the gravelly tone of his voice and watched the muscles flex in his back as he rolled his shoulders. He turned to catch her eye with a glint in his own, and she looked away, staring at Helena’s smirk instead.

“What?” Elisara said with an exasperated sigh. Helena looked pointedly to the commander ahead and then back at Elisara.

“You know what.” Helena swept her white, blond hair back, dusted with red sand. “I knew he cared the moment he asked about you after the incident in the springs.” Elisara nudged her as the two rode side-by-side on horseback.

“You did not,” Elisara muttered.

“Nyzaia mentioned something about you two being able to hear one another’s thoughts.

Is that true?” Elisara glanced away, and Helena laughed.

“I will take that as a yes.” Elisara wondered if the other rulers should know of this development between her and Kazaar, though she trusted her friends would say nothing of it until she decided what to do. Yet she trusted many people once.

“ It is your decision ,” said Kazaar.

“Stop eavesdropping!”

“Stop projecting your thoughts so loudly, then.”

“Are you doing it right now?” Helena asked. “What is he saying?”

“Nothing important,” Elisara grumbled.

“That doesn’t surprise me. Most men think of nothing except swords, drink, and their cocks,” Talia called over her shoulder from where she rode behind Kazaar.

“Talia!” Helena scolded. “You should not eavesdrop nor generalise in such a vulgar manner.”

“She’s not wrong,” laughed Vlad, dropping back to join the group.

“I would like to remove myself from such a generalisation,” requested Vigor, and Helena flashed him a sweet smile as he reached over to squeeze her thigh.

Elisara smiled. She could not recall the last time they had all been together, particularly as Vlad was absent during the incident at the springs.

Elisara was struck by the difference in her life since then. Ruling Vala and deciphering the prophecy encompassed all else. These were the people who had shaped Elisara when she returned from Keres, and yet, she continued to neglect them.

“They do not see it that way,” Kazaar reassured her.

“How do you know?”

“Because they came when I called.”

Elisara glanced down at the reins in her hands and turned over his words.

She relished in their laughter, smiling as she half-listened to their words.

The other half of her focused on their surroundings, watching the Ashun Desert sands rising in the breeze, reminiscent of the black, sparkling sands of the Unsanctioned Isle.

She wondered if she would ever return and pondered the two thrones that bore the markings of the sun and moon.

She rubbed her collarbone, the loose white shirt thin against the raised mark.

Darkness darted on her left, and Elisara whipped her head to face it. She could have sworn a shadow trailed into her vision yet found nothing, only the distant rocks forming Nefere Valley. She faced the front again to where the palm trees lining Khami approached. The precession slowed.

Elisara had never visited Khami. Long ago, she would have preferred to ride late into the night until reaching Antor.

She was unsure whether her preference to remain in Keres was to do with avoiding her—until recently—betrothed or because the wrongness she once felt clouding her in the fire realm had dissipated. Now she felt indifferent to it.

The sun sunk in the horizon, casting an orange glow over the pale estate and Nyzaia and Kazaar who rode ahead.

Why could Kazaar so easily hear her thoughts, but she struggled to detect his?

She watched the two converse back and forth and frowned as Kazaar tensed.

Elisara closed her eyes and thought only of him.

“I cannot tell you,” was all she heard him say to Nyzaia. She wondered what secrets he kept from his closest friend and if it was also something he had not shared with Elisara. Nyzaia redirected her horse.

“Will you dine with me tonight?” she asked Elisara, who raised her eyebrows. “I expected neither of us had the energy to entertain, and I would much rather keep away from the public eye. It is the first time I have visited Khami as queen, and I know it will be a spectacle if I host—”

“Of course,” Elisara said.

“I feel we have been distant since—”

“That is my fault,” Elisara reassured her. “I have been… adjusting.”

Nyzaia smiled.

“Then allow me to help you adjust. We can have an evening with laughter and drinks and forget about our other halves for a while.” Nyzaia reached for Elisara and squeezed her shoulder .

Other half. She was not sure she and Kazaar were two halves in the same way Nyzaia and Tajana were, but she did not wish to speak more of him right now.

Elisara glanced at Tajana, who from up ahead had turned to find Nyzaia.

“That would be lovely,” Elisara said. Perhaps for the first time since the gods had tainted her with this tie, Elisara would be able to forget about him.

Kazaar caught her eye, the two nearly side-by-side as they approached the archway marking the entrance to Khami.

She did not need to hear his thoughts; they were clear from the look in his eyes. She would never be without him.