She kept her gaze firmly on the blue horizon. Kargan’s biremes were now distant specks. The nation of Ilea, proud center of an empire encompassing most of Salesia, had been humiliated. The sun king was dead but his position would be fought over by his heirs and commanders. The golden pyramid in Lamara would inspire the same greed that had led Solon to the Ark of Revelation.
Nikolas was correct. The war for the Maltherean Sea had only just begun.
As if on cue, Chloe heard heavy footsteps as Dion’s older brother came to join her. She examined his features as he approached. Nikolas and Dion were completely unlike each other. Nikolas was a full head taller than his younger brother and had black bushy hair with a thick matching beard. Dion spoke softly, while his older brother spoke with the rough voice of a soldier.
They shared the same father, but they were half-brothers, with different mothers. Dion had always spoken about Nikolas with love and respect; his older brother had guided and helped him for as long as he could remember.
But when she looked at Nikolas, Chloe saw a dark shadow in his eyes. Recent events had changed all of them.
‘Chloe. About my brother . . . I saw.’
‘You know?’
‘I wasn’t the only one. I know now what he is.’ Nikolas hesitated. ‘Where is he now? Is he dead?’
It was some time before Chloe spoke. ‘He threw himself off the cliff. But I don’t think he is dead.’ She turned to him. ‘Will he return?’
‘The question is, should he? He’s not one of us. His mother was always strange . . . I suppose it all makes sense.’
‘He is your brother,’ Chloe said with force.
‘He is,’ Nikolas said softly. ‘But perhaps he is better off now. Perhaps, away from all this, he can be happy.’
Chloe opened her mouth to speak, but then faltered as she saw her father approach, his arms wide and his shadowed eyes glancing from face to face with an expression of forced warmth.
‘It is good to see the two of you together. To survive the coming days our two nations must be strong. Our alliance must be a marriage between us.’
Chloe’s mouth dropped open.
Nikolas glanced at Chloe, then at her father.
He slowly nodded.
‘I see the wisdom,’ Nikolas said. His voice was filled with sadness and regret as he spoke. ‘I must mourn my beloved wife and son, but as king I must also think about the future. My brother is gone and may not return, nor do I think it right that he should. He is certainly not fit to be my heir.’
Chloe turned pleading eyes on her father, but he carefully kept his face turned away from her as he gazed at the new king of his neighboring nation, the man who had saved Phalesia.
‘First Consul,’ Nikolas said. ‘When I have finished grieving those I have lost, I will marry your daughter.’
Chloe whirled away, her chest rising and falling and her gaze fixed sightlessly on nothing, nothing at all.
The prophecy of the Seer of Athos thrust itself into her consciousness. The words, spoken in a sibilant hiss, burned as they entered her mind.
You will kill a man you pity.
She remembered Tomarys, her loyal bodyguard.
You will marry a man you do not love.
Chloe couldn’t fight the inevitable. The Seer had prophesied the sun king’s death. Her own fate was sealed. Nikolas was to be her husband.
You will desire a man you fear.
She thought of Dion. He had given everything for his homeland, and now he had lost everything he’d fought for. Out of two strong nations, he was the only one who came for her.
Chloe heard a soft voice behind her. ‘Chloe, are we safe now?’
Turning, she saw little Sophia staring up at her with wide eyes. She bent and pulled her sister into a close embrace, rotating so that Sophia wasn’t looking at the gruesome scene at the harbor.
Chloe’s own vision misted as she watched the waves crash into red foam on the shore.
63
North of Xanthos, in the land called the Wilds, a tall, lean man with silver hair entered an emerald glade.
The music of creaking insects and tumbling water mingled with the crash and roar of a distant waterfall. The glade was at the base of a valley, near a clear river that flowed over smooth white stones. Grassy banks at both sides gave way to an encircling perimeter of evergreens that swayed in a gentle breeze.
The eldran, clad in deerskin and bearing a crescent scar on his cheek, entered the clearing and stopped. The blue sky overhead was clear and bright. The sun’s slanted rays glowed on the high branches.
Despite the beauty around him, Zachary sighed as he resumed his soft tread.
In the middle of the clearing, an immense reptilian creature with shining black scales watched his approach with sad eyes. The dragon wheezed and raised its angular head before lowering it back down to the ground. Its monstrous form was muscled, its long body coiled with pent-up power. The wings folded on its back stretched out and elongated, fluttering for a moment before the creature appeared to lose will and its motion stilled once more.