Page 42 of The Shadowed Oracle (The Bonded Worlds #1)

Chapter Twenty-Four

The lack of company in the room gave the vast, ribbed vault ceiling an imposing feel. Only a few lady’s maids, a half-dozen king’s guards, and three older, pallid-faced advisors who’d been passionately conversing with the king prior to their entrance were present.

Above the king and his retinue on the dais, black mourning banners rustled in the breeze blowing in through the open stained glass windows. At each corner of the room were arched doorways festooned with thick golden curtains and guarded by more expressionless soldiers.

Ingrid and her companions stood in the center of it all, awaiting the king’s answer to their pleas.

Nestor, like his daughter, seemed methodical in everything he did.

He also had the white-grey hair match, but with darker skin and eyes.

Eyes, Ingrid noticed, that were also infected by a soft sadness, not matching at all with his volatile words.

“What, friends of Karis Endolinn, did you think you’d accomplish here today?” He barely strained himself enough to meet their gaze, choosing instead to share loaded glances with his daughter Callinora. He didn’t seem pleased with her for bringing these strangers to his throne room.

“You speak of tactics,” Nestor bellowed. “When my son has barely gone cold in the Mother’s embrace. What did you hope to hear from me, exactly?”

The eyes of the small group of advisors glistened at that.

Standing so close to the king, they were hard to miss, but once Ingrid noticed their animated scowls, she continued to watch them closely.

If anyone could provide an insight as to what the grief-stricken king might want in return for helping them, it was these males before her.

They were older, pale and thin due to a lifetime dedicated to intellect and politics. Each standing slightly hunched over, weighed down by the thick robes and jewelry they wore about their necks.

“We hoped that you’d fight alongside us,” Tyla spoke up finally. She’d already lost some of the luster to her appeal, but it also gave her an unassuming, genuine tone. “That was our wish. Maybe a foolish one, but, as you can imagine, we are desperate.”

“Desperate?” The king’s posture faltered.

He was of considerable size, but appeared small in the large golden throne, further dwarfed by the massive wall of portrait paintings behind him.

The faces of old kings and queens hung in elegantly engraved frames, posed in that very same chair Nestor now sat in.

Nestor turned to Callinora. “Daughter, will you kindly inform your guests who the last person to come to me in desperation was? Will you tell them how I loathe that word? Why I…” The king trailed off, voice turning weak.

Callinora lowered her head, anxiously stroking at a large ring on her index finger. “Mother,” she said. “She was the last to come to you in desperation.”

“My wife,” Nestor added. “She was desperate, yes… yes. Desperate to save her precious forest. Her first true love.” He spoke as if he were alone, talking to himself.

“It was a bond! A bond like no other. Agrokinesis, she called it. A soil-bender. My sweet lady of the flower. She’d spend hours in the forest just outside our walls.

Hours! Aggravated her mother and father to no end.

When she was a child, of course. Yes, yes.

When she was just a child. Supposed to be educating herself on history, language, swordsmanship, but no.

No. She would go to the woods. Practice that hidden talent of hers in private.

She didn’t tell anyone of her powers, not for many years.

She didn’t see a motive in revealing them.

She told no one! No, no. It was between her and the forest, that’s what she’d told me.

A bond like no other. My lady of the flower. ”

Nestor strained at the last words. He dug his elbows between his thighs, hands meeting the contours of his face.

“Father?” Callinora said. “Father, are you?—”

“I’m alright.” The king peered over his fingers with watery eyes. “As able as can be expected.”

“You don’t have to continue,” Callinora said softly. “Not with this story, father. Please. Don’t torture yourself. Not with this. Not now.”

Ingrid didn’t need to hear more. All breath escaped her involuntarily, and she buckled slightly at the knees. Nestor’s son, and his wife. They’d been lost in this war.

“You need sleep,” Callinora begged. She looked to his advisors for aid, but got none. They had an odd, glossed-over look to their eyes, staring back at the Princess like she was a ghost. “You don’t have to continue.”

The king raised his head, struck by a brief moment of lucidity. “I’m afraid I’ve been rather distant since my wife passed. These last few months, I’ve neglected my duties. Delegated to my children. But not now. Not in front of friends of Karis.”

Something in his voice had smoothed out, become less unpredictable. With this change, the vast room seemed to light up, showing signs of the leader he once was, or still could be.

“We hadn’t heard news of your wife,” Tyla said. “I’m very sorry.”

“No one knew,” King Nestor wiped the tears from his cheeks. “It was a secret. Between her and the forest. Just like when she was a girl. With her back to the soil.”

Princess Callinora stepped forward, reaching a consoling hand out to her father.

“She went out early one morning, but didn’t come back.

The Ungii attacked her. As father grieved, my brother and I decided to send our scout legion to map out the infected areas in the south.

Before they could report, however, they were cut down by Makkar’s army.

Butchered and placed at our gate like waste. It was then that we decided to fight.”

One of the advisors couldn’t help but grunt in disapproval.

Callinora shot a glare at him.

Then, as if waking from a nightmare, King Nestor jerked upward.

“I… I... I should’ve stopped it. Should’ve held court as scheduled.

” He appeared utterly detached again. The mourning banners that had been hung along the ceiling of the throne room now seemed like rain clouds over him. “I failed them. I failed my son.”

“He rode out without consulting us,” Callinora cut in again. “A few men and women in the scout legion were like family to him. He rode for revenge, not tact. A mistake we won’t make again.”

Sensing the momentum shift, Tyla tried to reiterate her plan in a new way.

“You won’t find a group more sympathetic than us, Princess.

Our faction is entirely made up of people wronged by Makkar.

People who will gladly aid you in your time of need.

Please, let us join you.” She contemplated her next words carefully.

“Let us come through your portal and fight.”

Audible gasps from the small audience of advisors echoed in the capacious hall.

King Nestor snapped to attention, wringing his hands while the elders nearby pleaded with him to end the meeting.

One counselor in particular, his stringy blonde hair swinging as he spoke, was listing off all the reasons not to trust Earth-dwellers.

“They’ve been away from Ealis for too long. Irreversibly influenced by humanity’s careless practices. How can we know they don’t aim for our land?”

“I understand,” Callinora gently argued. “But Ballius, other than the rhetoric that a certain King in the west would like us all to believe, what reason would you have to think they are telling the truth?”

Ballius didn’t answer, only tucked his hands behind his back and looked on like a pouty child as the princess spoke.

“Forgive me, father, but didn’t Karis himself spend many years on Earth? One of your oldest friends. He spent decades on the other side, no?”

With a huff, the king replied, “We all heard news of his efforts there. Finding lost Viator and adopting them into his cause. Can’t say I agree with it, but Karis always marched to a different beat.”

Ballius nodded and offered compliments to the king for his eloquent words. “Agreed. Karis might’ve been a friend. But he was hardly an ally.”

Silence fell for a moment, then Tyla once again pushed the boundary. “But he is an ally, my King. He’s dedicated his entire life to the teachings your predecessors followed. So why is it so shocking to find Karis’s flock here now? Would you turn Karis away because of his affection for humans?”

The king didn’t answer.

Tyla stumbled after seeing his indifferent face, but kept on.

“Why would you doubt us so easily? When was the last time you even encountered an Earth-born? Any of you? Anyone?” She turned to the princess in dignified haste, begging for fair treatment.

“Please, if only you’d hear us out. Listen to our story. What we have set out to do.”

Callinora rubbed at her large ring again, contemplating. “It is my king and father’s decision,” she said dutifully.

“Yes,” Ballius spoke up. He ran his hands over the front of his skin-tight doublet, looking to Nestor. “It has been a day rife with decisions already, my king. I speak for all those with your best interest at heart when I say?—”

“Not yet, Ballius.” Callinora held up her hand, taking a few steps down the dais to address her visitors. “These exiles you speak of,” she said, “Your army. Are they ready to fight now? Today?”

Tyla perked, hope glimmering in her eyes. “If we have an ally in Maradenn.” She took a half-step toward the throne. “In you, my king. Then they will return. They will fight. They will go to war. Now.”

Callinora nodded, turned back up the stairs, then kneeled at her father’s side to whisper in his ear.

Ingrid couldn’t be certain from where she stood, but something in the way the cunning princess cupped her hands around her mouth seemed like she was far more worried about her father’s advisors listening in than she was of the world-walkers.

Nestor stiffened in his seat as his daughter spoke. Restless, his fingers tapped out of rhythm on the arm of his solid gold chair, shuddering once, then placing a gentle hand on his daughter’s cheek.

Callinora allowed the moment of fatherly affection, but her smile turned sour the moment her father looked away from her.

“I’m sorry,” Nestor declared. “You will have to find another ally. As of this morning, my council and I have decided to announce our neutrality in this war. We’ve lost too much.

By tomorrow morning, the war sigils will be taken down, and by the evening, Makkar will receive word of our forfeiture.

” He snapped his fingers, summoning one of the lady’s maids.

“My daughter and her maids will escort you to the guest wing, if you would like to stay. And please, in honor of my friendship with Karis, I beg that you will accept.”

Tyla clenched Raidinn’s arm, as if she needed something to take out her frustration on. Her brother didn’t flinch.

“Thank you, King Nestor,” Tyla managed. “We will take you up on your generous offer. And we hope you reconsider.”

The king and his advisors had already begun filing out of the room, one after the other, in no rush.

Only Callinora, her personal retinue like shadows over her, now stood before them. “Come,” she said. “We have much to discuss.”