Page 13 of The Queens and the Kings (The Isles #2)

PEDR

Himmel, Arcanist of the Sky, gathered on Pedr’s deck that evening.

Finally.

Midnight painted the sky, spraying stars by the thousands.

Their glittering speckles radiated a brilliant white as the bow splashed.

While active, arcane coiled and moved through the ship with random bursts of illumination, so subtle only an Arcanist could sense them.

Not even Britt mentioned it, despite all her time living with him during her teenage years.

The other passengers slept, oblivious to the horrors and beauties of the night.

When dark came, Pedr truly cherished the strength of the sea, the quiet.

The power. The teeth of it. The way currents sang through his blood and looped deeper and deeper.

With every year that passed, arcane captured him more fully.

The sea owned him.

Powerfully.

No, he thought. I don’t belong to you. Only to her.

Pedr leaned back against the wheel, staring at the watery cast of moonlight on sea, when Himmel’s vapors appeared.

They strengthened, forming in horizontal stacks that merged into the form of a wide-hipped woman with full lips and a haze of coarse black hair on top of her head.

Her smoky eyes held all her true glory. They sparkled like starlight. Himmel captured his breath.

Every time.

“Himmel.”

The haze solidified into her rounded and glorious body. She came no closer, hovering barefoot over his deck. She couldn’t step on the Arcanist of the Sea’s space, but the Arcanist of Sky didn’t need a platform.

“Your ship is so colorful these days it’s garish.” She granted a wan smile that grew wider with every word. “A veritable rainbow, you are.”

Pedr held out his hands to the side with an unapologetic shrug. Himmel tipped her head back, studying him through spreading, thick lashes. Her sharp gaze missed nothing.

“So . . . a wyvern at your home island.”

“Indeed.”

“Certainly, a strange surprise.”

“Do you have opinions?” he asked.

She chortled. “Many, but I doubt you’ll want to hear them.”

He flashed a smile. “Try me.”

“Your charm doesn’t work on me, Arcanist of the Sea.” She propped a hand on her hip, but didn’t lose her humorous luster. “Fortunately, I’m in the mood to assuage you, because I have questions as well. Me first, you second.”

“Always my rule,” he murmured.

She harrumphed, sent him a quelling look that earned a laugh, and proceeded when he motioned for her to do so.

“My main opinion about your large, flying friend is that the wyverns are away from the mainland for more reasons than a potential attack. What’s your home island called again?”

“Kapurnick.”

“That’s right. Well, I believe there’s more to it than hungry human power.”

He sobered. Her view was exactly what he feared. “Then why was the wyvern there? They shouldn’t be able to fly that far.”

“Why do you think, Pedr?”

Her soft-spoken question stirred up the first hint of hope he’d allowed himself to feel in years. Quick as it came, he closed it back down. He couldn’t afford the distraction.

Not yet.

Not without confirmation.

Pedr licked his lips, wrestling memories of soft skin, dark curls, a giggling whisper. Hoarse, he countered with his own question.

“How many years has it been since the Wyvern Kings were forced into exile?”

“I’ve been the Arcanist of the Sky for four hundred and eighty seven years. When I came into my position, the Wyvern Kings were already banished to the mainland, and The Isles were created in their current form.”

“By how many years?”

“Not sure, exactly.”

He winced.

Also as he feared.

She blew a raspberry. “Stop looking like I’ve betrayed you.

We have thirteen years before my power fades and I die.

My visit to the Arcanist of Souls is still over a decade away.

” Her eyes gleamed with anticipated pleasure, as if the thought of death excited her.

“My limited time left doesn’t matter, Pedr. What matters is that the Wyvern Kings weren’t newly exiled when I came into the sky. ”

“Thirteen years left, you say?”

She hesitated, then nodded. “If not exactly thirteen, close to it.”

“Which means their one thousand years of exile is almost up.”

“Yes.”

“How intriguing.”

Her head tipped to the side. “Do humans still think the Wyvern Kings are folktales? I don’t spend much time around humans anymore. That’s for Jordaire.”

His teeth tapped together as he considered her question.

The Wyvern Kings had long been discarded to folklore.

Wyverns, believed to be wild animals, were an annoying plague, but not one the mainland could do much with.

Impossible to kill—former Lordladys and Ladylords had tried—and nasty to a fault, all the mainland could do was keep them chained.

If they released the wyverns, the beasts wreaked havoc on their populace, slaughtering innocents left and right.

They were penned, mostly, but alive.

Pedr gestured to the book he’d extracted from his shelves. It lay on the deck a few paces away, fluttering in a whipping breeze. “That diary seems to think there will be signs when the banishment of the Wyvern Kings ends. It’s my diary,” he added, “but also Havard’s.”

A note of amusement brightened her chuckle. “Havard was an interesting character. I imagine his diary is revealing.”

“Amongst other things,” he wryly replied. The former Arcanist of the Sea, a dotty old boy named Havard, had been borderline insane.

She canted an eyebrow. “Why should you believe Havard?”

“Based on a few factors, it’s safe to say that Havard wrote this diary at the time when people still understood who the Wyvern Kings were. Not many, mind you, but enough to paint a picture of fear around . . .”

Those who banished and cursed the Wyvern Kings, he silently added.

Himmel, clad in a gossamer dress of ever-changing color that shifted to aquamarine, sapphire and then midnight, said, “I see.”

The words, they cursed me too, lifted in his throat. He pushed them away. Himmel already knew who cursed him. She’d seen it.

“I understand you want to end your curse, Pedr. But?—”

“You don’t,” he rasped. “You couldn’t possibly understand.”

Her full lips closed. She pursed them, nodded once. “You’re right. I don’t fully understand the weight you carry, and I wish I could help you out of it. But that doesn’t mean?—”

He rudely overrode her inevitable, undesired advice by asking, “What do you know about the signs that precede the Wyvern Kings’ return?”

The stirring curse slid around his throat in warning, not yet restricting.

He kept his thoughts off of . . . them .

. . and focused solely on the new Ladylord, the existing wyverns, wild and feral and irritating as hell.

Himmel overlooked his uncouth behavior. She’d always been more patient than the Arcanist of the Land, Jordaire, who loathed him.

“Only that the signs would exist within the wyverns themselves. In order to face a thousand years of exile, their more intelligent parts would have been . . . slumbering. Not literally, perhaps. Knowing the Siren Queens the way I do . . . it’s fair to say they would have blunted the Wyvern Kings’ intelligence during their exile. ”

His heart raced at the words Siren Queens. Just thinking about them lodged the prohibitive ball firmly at the back of his throat. He didn’t have an Arcanist’s prayer of ever speaking those two nasty words.

Himmel, watching him closely, continued. “You’d have to study the wyverns to confirm it, or to gauge how close to their diminishing exile they stand, which you’re attempting to do now.”

“What would I see in the wyverns?”

“Increased agitation, I would imagine. Understanding. They’d be plotting to go west.”

“Plotting what? Revenge?”

The word issued.

Barely.

“Of course. After one thousand years, you’d want revenge, too.”

He smiled. “Yes, I do.” His fingers ground into a fist at the thought of revenge . Yes, yes he understood the desire very well.

She shifted uneasily. “They’ll try to return to their former home.”

“The Westlands?”

“Yes. The Wyvern Kings destroyed their own lands and created the Greater and Lesser Isles during the final battle against the Siren Queens, so one would imagine they’ll want to vanquish the Siren Queens and take the Westlands for themselves.”

The former Arcanist of the Sea had given an unsuspecting Pedr a blunted sense of immortality when he pawned his powers off on him.

No food, sleep, drinking required. Breathing was a suggestion, mostly, though he required some air.

His body still felt pain, but it didn’t require healing unless the abuse was significant.

He had limits, naturally. Including a five-hundred year life span.

He couldn’t leave his blasted ship, but that wasn’t an Arcanist’s curse.

Not at all.

That curse landed firmly in the lap of the Siren Queens.

Arcanists could be overpowered, but it would require a Siren Queen or Wyvern King. Technically, another Arcanist could kill him. More likely, though, was imprisonment. Using arcane so powerful he couldn’t escape.

Like the Wyvern Kings.

Pedr deftly avoided the other memories these topics dredged up by pointing out the obvious. “We can’t stop the Wyvern Kings.”

She laughed.

“But,” he continued, “would you recommend we help them?”

“No.” She spoke so firmly, her irritation so baldly obvious, Pedr almost smiled. “Stay away from them, Pedr. They’re nothing to you.”

“If they want revenge on the?—”

The curse stopped him. Siren Queens lay unstated, but heavy in the air. His nostrils flared with the effort of holding his irritated shout inside. Shite, but he hated . . . them .

“Siren Queens,” Himmel finished for him. “Yes, I understand your motivation. But doing something stupid by involving yourself in this battle will only get you in deeper trouble. Her, too.”

The words reverberated.

Her, too .

He wanted to say, she couldn’t possibly be in any further trouble, but those clogged as well.

“The Wyvern Kings are friends to no one, and they’re not trustworthy,” Himmel stated. “They wouldn’t be likely to align with you for any reason, Pedr. None at all. Not even to defeat the Siren Queens. They are as jealous of power and hungry for revenge as you would be, if not more.”

“Impossible.”

She leaned closer, eyes like flint. “During their battle, the Siren Queens destroyed the Wyvern King leader, the King Father. He was a very powerful wyvern named Riven. Arguably, the most powerful, if such a thing exists. His loss led to the wyverns succumbing during the last battle. For one thousand years they’ve been forced out of their home, mourned their leader, lived amongst humans, and away from the arcane.

Their quest for revenge exceeds yours by fathoms, Pedr.”

“Assumptions.” He clicked his tongue. “They get you into trouble, Himmel.”

Coldly, she said, “They would use you, then kill you. Don’t try it.”

“Would they destroy the Westlands in their bid for revenge?”

“I assume destruction will be part of their plan. Utter desecration of the Siren Queens makes the most sense, if it’s possible. We’re still not sure they can be killed. Annihilation of the land?”

She frowned. “That makes no sense. Keep in mind, Pedr, that the Wyvern Kings don’t know about the Arcanists.

We formed after the great battle. They may not understand what’s been happening during the last one thousand years.

Not their power scattering to the wild arcane that we attempt to wield now, nor the islands forming.

This could be new to their waking intelligence.

We must be careful, because we won’t be certain. ”

Despite her warning, his brain snatched and held only two words.

Utter desecration.

Well, he wouldn’t allow that.

Pedr breathed hard, barely containing the rage of years. The agony of love. The horror of watching every day slide by, quiksilver between his ageless fingers.

Gods, he missed her. Ached for her. In this case, the enemy of his enemy was not a friend. All he’d gain was another enemy, not an ally.

He hated the Wyvern Kings.

But they might still pose an opportunity, and it was to that feeble hope that Pedr clung. Long after Himmel dissolved into shadow. Long after the moon sank into the horizon, the sun broke the sky, and life stirred on his ship.

To one hope, he clung.

Revenge.