Leandros followed his cousin's trail out of the building, then down Unity's paths to a bench overlooking the sea. Rhea didn't look at him, even when his boots crunched on gravel and announced his approach, so he sat beside her and breathed in the salty air, heavy with the weight of an oncoming storm. It would be a thunderous end to a thunderous day.

He didn’t know what had come over him with the Magistrates. He’d thought that part of him, the part that felt and fought, had died in Histrios. It was just a shame it took losing his uncle to find it again.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rhea's expression shift, saw her jaw grind as she chewed on her anger. Animals in the wild often saw eye contact as a sign of aggression, and in Leandros’ experience, his younger cousin was much the same; so he kept his eyes on the water, knowing she'd speak when she was ready.

“What were you thinking?!” she finally snapped, her voice cracking like a whip. It surprised Leandros so much that he broke his own rule and looked at her. He'd known she was angry — angry at him, even — but he'd never expected her to lose control over it. He'd never known her to lose control for anything. For just a moment, her expression was hot fury, but then she shut her eyes. When they opened again, it had cooled.

“I'm sorry if I surprised you,” Leandros said, choosing his words carefully, “But that wasn't going well. I had to make the gamble.”

“We're Nochdvors. We do not gamble.” Rhea looked down her nose at him as she said this, lighting the kindling of Leandros' own temper, which he'd fought so hard to hold back with the Magistrates.

“Did you have a better plan? Pray, enlighten me, because it looked like you were running out of chances. This may not be a perfect solution, Rhea, but it's better than anything you came up with and it's better than them cutting us out — and I know you know that, otherwise you wouldn't have vouched for me.”

Rhea hmphed and looked away.

“Rhea, please. You can't fight with them.”

“Stop talking to me like I'm a child, Leandros. Until my father is back, I’m your queen.”

Leandros sighed. “That’s exactly why I’m warning you. You can't fight with them, Rhea. You. If we can’t get Amos back and it falls on you to lead—”

“Don't say things like that.”

“I’m sorry, but I must,” Leandros said, “My point is that the Magistrates remember their grudges, and you need to stay on their good side. But me? I don’t matter the way you do. I can be their villain, if it helps our people. You heard Magistrate Malong: they already have their grudges against me. What's one more?”

“This is more than a grudge. Do you really think you can threaten them without consequences?” Rhea asked. She lowered her voice before adding, “Unity is even more dangerous than Orean.”

“Only in the shadows,” Leandros said. “I plan on sticking to the light.”

“Whatever that means,” Rhea murmured. “Why did you stop me before? When we were talking about that woman?”

That woman. She meant the orinian, of course. They still hadn't found the words to describe her, and it didn't help that everyone — Magistrates, Unity Representatives, even Alfheimr officials — kept telling them they were in shock, that they misunderstood what they saw. “The Magistrates will never believe us. If we want their help, we have to play their game: hold the truth until the time is right, and in the meantime, use Unity's resources to get Amos back.”

Rhea made a complicated expression and wrapped her arms around herself. He’d never seen her guard crumble so far, but that didn't make her easy to read. “I need a moment.”

Leandros gave it to her. He turned away, watched a seagull drift down and land on the water. He knew how Rhea felt — he felt much the same. Grief, rage, frustration: they coiled inside him like a ring of magical flame, hot anger encircling his heart. It made it hard to think, hard to breathe. The truth was that every ounce of his energy, every second of every day, was spent keeping that anger in check. He had none left over for social niceties, and that was why he'd spoken to the Magistrates the way he had. He wished it was courage. Really, it was just exhaustion.

It wasn't until Rhea wiped her eyes that Leandros realized his cousin was crying. He reached a hand toward her, eyes wide, then let it drop. “Rhea? Can I help?”

Rhea laughed and shook her head, Leandros' question only making the tears fall faster. She wiped at them with a frustrated groan. “Don't look at me,” she said. “You've done enough. You're right, by the way. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't stepped in. It makes me so angry. You make me so angry.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Leandros stared at his cousin, shocked. “Me?”

“You're supposed to be the one losing control! I'm supposed to be better at this than you.” She said supposed like it was law. She scrubbed at her eyes again before continuing, “It's silly, but I used to be so proud of it. Before everything happened with your father, you were the favorite. Everyone loved you best. Egil loved you. Even my father loved you. I hated you for it, I was so sick with envy. But at least I could restrain myself. I could do something you couldn't and fit in somewhere you never would: home.” Rhea glanced at Leandros, her eyes and nose rimmed red. “I wish I could've talked to the Magistrates the way you did. But Leandros, I don't envy you what comes next. Are you sure you want to do this?”

Leandros gave the question due consideration. Rhea deserved no less. The aftermath of the explosion had passed in a blur, as had the journey back to Alfheim. There, they'd been greeted with fear and anger disguised as pity, and they hadn't had even a moment to grieve before they'd been forced on a train to Gallontea to beg Unity for help. They were both exhausted and numb, which left little room for surety. Still, Leandros was as sure as he could be.

“We grieve in different ways. For me, stillness is agony. I can’t sit and wait for news; I have to do something to get him back. I owe him my life, and I have to be the one to bring him home.” Leandros looked back at the courthouse looming behind them. This place, this island, was civil and clean and quiet, unlike Illyon. The cobblestone paths were surrounded by fields of blue flowers, blue like shallow waters off a southern shore. The taurel swayed in the breeze, and Leandros nodded at them. “You've heard the rhyme, haven't you? Taurel, taurel, old stone and coral.”

Rhea glanced dully at the flowers, unimpressed. She narrowed her eyes at Leandros. “Is this going to be about Egil?”

Leandros gave her an apologetic smile. “Yes, sorry. It's just...they make me think of him. This may not surprise you, but that's something I do often. I find myself wondering what he'd do or say, how he'd approach a situation. For him, decisions like these were easy. He'd do what would help people, what was right. He never centered himself. I'm not so selfless, but I believe this path is right.”

He didn't voice his concerns: that this wasn't right for Amos, but right for himself. That this whole scheme was selfish, that it was easier to take up some grand quest for revenge than return home without him.

Rhea peeked at Leandros past her long bangs. For decades after Histrios, Leandros barely spoke to them — to Rhea and Amos. He regretted it now, regretted the distance it wedged between them. Something wavered in Rhea’s expression and for a moment, Leandros worried she’d cry again.

“I suppose I should let you go. But I don’t like it.”

“I thank you for your sacrifice,” Leandros said, biting back a smile. “I’m sorry I’m leaving you to face Alfheimr alone.”

“I don’t care about that. It’s what I was raised to do,” Rhea said. She studied Leandros like she wanted to dissect him, like she could see through him to the storm raging inside, darker than the sky. “If you repeat what I'm about to say to anyone, as your new queen, I will have you executed.” She paused, took a deep breath. “I've always looked up to you, even when I was angry with you. This doesn't surprise you.” Leandros hid a smile and shook his head as Rhea continued: “I lost my father, maybe for good, and next to him you're the person I'm closest to in all the world. I don't want to lose you, too.”

“You won't,” Leandros said. He knew it may well be a lie. “Trust me, Rhea. Trust that this is something I can do.”

“Only if you promise to be more careful with the Magistrates,” Rhea countered. As if afraid of being heard, she looked back at the island. There was no one there, just the courthouse blotting out the sky. “Do you really think they have alternate motives, or was that a bluff?”

“It was only a bluff,” Leandros said. A much easier lie.

Rhea nodded, her brow unknitting. “And if you run into that woman...be doubly careful. Even Unity might be in over their heads, with her.”

Neither of them had said it out loud, but they knew what the woman was. The word was at the front of their minds, heavy on their tongues: magic. Strange, fantastic things happened all the time, but nothing so impossible as what they saw that day in Illyon. That woman was magic, and magic wasn't supposed to be real. Not even in Leandros' world of folk heroes and oracles had he seen someone like her. Except...

“Rhea, back in Illyon...did you notice anything strange about that woman's eyes?”

He hadn't been able to get the image out of his mind, the whites of her eyes eclipsed by black. Just like Egil's.

“They were glowing,” Rhea said. “Bright orange.”

“Not that,” Leandros said, though that was concerning in its own right. “Did you notice anything else? Right at the end?”

“No,” Rhea said. When Leandros stayed thoughtfully silent, she asked, “Leandros?”

“Nevermind. I must've imagined it,” he said. It was a lie, of course. He often doubted himself, but but he always trusted his memory. At his cousin's pout, he smiled and leaned into her, just enough to knock shoulders. It was the most affection he'd shown her in decades; the most shocking part was that she allowed it, even leaned into it. “Don't worry, Rhea. Magistrates permitting, Unity and I will find that orinian and rescue your father, and I'll be back in Alfheim before you even miss me.”

“Idiot,” Rhea said through a smile, “I'll miss you the moment I leave this place. Make sure you write with updates.”

“I will.”

Leandros let Rhea lead the way back, back to the courthouse and back into the chambers where the Magistrates waited. And afterward, Leandros escorted Rhea to the train station as the new Captain of Unity's rescue mission. They spoke little on the journey, and when they reached their destination there were no tearful farewells. Alfheim guards stood by to escort their Queen; it wouldn’t do to show that sort of weakness in front of them, not so early into her reign.

All she said was, “Good luck, Captain Nochdvor. Bring my father back. Make Alfheimr proud.”

Leandros responded with a low bow. As the train departed, he walked back to Unity’s Island alone, the anger in his heart settling like silt at the bottom of a river.