Page 5 of Legacy of the Heirs
“I cannot tell you everything—”
“Kazaar—”
“It’s not because I don’t want to, Nyzaia, but because not all of it is mine to tell. There are things Elisara must know first.” He stared at his queen and gently stroked her collarbone. Whatever had happened somehow involved both of them.
“Tell me enough so I can help,” Nyzaia said. He sighed.
“I betrayed her,” he said, earning a frown from Nyzaia. “There is a secret I have kept from everyone, and I will tell you… soon.” His eyes pleaded with Nyzaia not to ask more, and she nodded. “It hurt Elisara. She’s been betrayed so much recently that this broke her. We fought with our powers, and something happened. Theymergedsomehow.” Kazaar appeared pained, recalling the fight. “The force of our powers colliding threw us back, and when I awoke, Elisara was like this.”
Nyzaia did not want to push for more information but could not gather much from what little he had revealed. She had never heard of powers merging.
“It is odd for fire and air to merge,” she said. But was it? After all, fire required air to survive.
“It wasn’t fire and air.” Kazaar looked up at Nyzaia, and for a moment, she thought his eyes changed—a flicker of shadow and light. “It was white, like the essence of our power.”
The essence.Nyzaia first heard the term from the Historian when he explained that Sonos and Sitara created their children from the essence of their power. Nyzaia furrowed her brow, unsure of the connection.
“What do you need me to do?” she asked.
“I just—” Kazaar choked. “I want her to wake up, Nyzaia.” A loose strand of his dark hair fell from his leather band. “Ineedher to wake up.”
Nyzaia thought through her options. During her time in the Red Stones, she had seen plenty of individuals like Elisara unconscious and knocked out by drugs. She could send Tajana to the Red Stones for an alchemist—someone to gather the salts used to wake the Dealers from their drug-filled slumbers.
Essence.Sonos and Sitara had merged their essence to create the four gods. Yet if the combining of their power was similar to Sonos and Sitara’s, perhaps it was not as simple as using salts to wake Elisara. The word ‘essence’ replayed in her mind; whatever kept Elisara locked in slumber was perhaps not something of this kingdom but of Ithyion. But Nyzaia knew little of Ithyion, other than what the Historian had told her and the stories passed down from the elders. But how could she decipher any of that if they had simply been myths?
Myths and Lies of Ithyion.Nyzaia recalled the name of the dustless book she had found in her father’s study when searching with Tajana.
“I know where I need to look first,” Nyzaia said. “But neither of us is any help to Elisara right now.” She walked back toward Kazaar and squeezed his shoulder. He did not look up, staring only at his queen. “You need to rest, Kazaar; I will search for information in the morning.” He tensed beneath her hands, desperate to start immediately. Still, as Nyzaia spotted the mark of a moon on Elisara’s collarbone—directly where Kazaar had stroked her skin—she knew there was more to this than anyone realised.
Chapter Three
Sadira
Jasmine vines twisted around Sadira’s wrists as she absent-mindedly re-arranged the flowers while her thoughts ran away from her just as wildly. Humming, she replaced the white roses with petunias. She missed her garden. Not the endless castle gardens, with their manicured lawns and rows of pristine flower bushes, but her real garden, where the plants reached for her touch, where no bare patch of soil or rock existed. A garden that was free to explore and grow of its own accord. The garden that lived and breathed with the freedom she had lost.
Once Sadira’s name was no longer Mordane but Balfour, and this garden became hers, she would make Antor’s manicured lawns and stone flowerbeds her own. She pictured scattering wildflower seeds throughout the lawns and turning the stone walls into a mosaic path weaving amongst the paradise, with the plants twisting in any direction they pleased. Sadira hoped then she might feel at home and accepted by these lands.
She turned the opulent vase and analysed every inch of the bouquet to ensure it was devoid of imperfection, readjusting the leaves with dainty fingers. Clouds floated in the early morning sky as sunlight streamed through the large, greenhouse-styled wing of Antor Castle. As Sadira straightened from her analysing stance, a single white butterfly drifted through the sunlit dust, dancing in the rays of light. She extended her hand to the creature and grinned when it eagerly landed on her finger. Sadira was enamoured by the creatures her nature called to.
Sitting on the worn sage chaise by the glass wall, Sadira sighedand imagined the butterfly did, too.
“Do you think my grandmother knows I am here?” she asked the butterfly. It fluttered its wings. “She told me about this wing. This is where she and my grandfather hosted their balls.” Sadira glanced around the large glass hall, which would soon be the venue of her engagement ball later that week. She pictured her grandparents dancing beneath the sun. Caellum had not questioned Sadira when she asked to see it upon returning from Nerida. He had also not questioned the tears stinging her eyes when she asked to be wed there, too. “Do you think they are proud of me?” Sadira fidgeted with her hands in her lap and smoothed down the fabric of her dress. As if in agreement, the butterfly fluttered from her finger and onto the shoulder of her pearl-threaded dress. She chuckled. “If you say so.”
No longer wishing to think of home, Sadira resorted to her usual method of distraction: growing. Beneath a banquet chair, a small green shoot appeared in the minuscule crack between the two flagstones until vines twisted around the wooden legs and coated the back of the chair; tiny white flowers dotted among it. With a flourish of her hand, the same artistry blossomed on every banquet chair until the hall was a field of beauty and light perfume. It wasn’t long before a flight of multicoloured butterflies breezed in through the open doors, and she beamed as the white butterfly on her shoulder remained in place.
“You cannot stay with me forever, little creature.” Sadira moved her finger, lifting the butterfly as green vines formed beneath her feet. “Beautiful things near me tend to decay,” she murmured, placing the creature on the nearest stem. As if the gods wished to prove her statement correct, the plant wilted and browned, drying until it crumpled to the floor. Sadira closed her eyes and sighed as the butterflies in her vicinity fled. Soren entered through the large archway on the opposite side of the hall.
The scowl on her sister’s face deepened as her deep green eyes glowed and scanned Sadira’s creations. Soren’s silver breastplateclinked against the metal cuffs on her forearms as she cracked her knuckles, both sounds echoing throughout the glass room. She proudly wore the Garridon sigil—three trees and a soaring hawk—on her chest. She had worn the same thing upon their return from Nerida, though that was unsurprising. After all, the attire was an obvious declaration of Soren’s rightful place as heir.
“Please don’t do it to all of them, Soren.” Sadira tried to remain civil and glanced briefly at the crumpled plant at her feet with a wince. Sadira did not know why she even bothered. Soren’s heavy footfall sounded on the flagstone as she circled the room, trailing her finger along the vines and flowers as a crisp brown tinge appeared in her wake.
“What is the point of doing all of this now?” asked Soren, rounding the head table until reaching Sadira. “There is still a week until your engagement ball.”
Sadira had wished to start on the florals as soon as possible to ensure they were nurtured and fragrant for the ball.
“There is no harm in being prepared.” Sadira flashed a tight smile, and her sister scoffed before whistling low. Her wolves prowled into the hall. “Must you take them everywhere with you?” Sadira glanced sideways at the large creatures stalking the room, searching for any smaller creature that may have ventured in to admire Sadira’s work. Sadira wondered what the citizens of Garridon would think about the beasts prowling so freely around the castle. The public had only seen them once upon arriving in Garridon, yet they had been surprisingly tame. Sadira imagined that would change as Soren ventured deeper into the realm, using her wolves as a sign of power and a connection to nature’s creatures—an ability Caellum did not possess.
“They assert dominance.” Soren pulled one of the banquet chairs from the table and turned it to face Sadira, snapping vines as she did. Perching on the chair, she widened her legs and leaned onto her arms, glaring at her sister. Sadira shrank away at Soren’s all-consuming presence and adjusted the weeds that formed in thecracks by her feet.
