“We came looking for you—and found you gone,” Rhys said—but those were tears in his eyes. “Makes it hard to ask someone for aid.”
Drakon snorted. “Yes, we realized that. Miryam figured it out—why we hadn’t heard from you yet.” His white wings were almost blindingly bright in the sun. “Three centuries ago, we had some trouble on our borders and set up a glamour to keep the island shielded. Tied to—you know. So that anyone who approached would only see a ruin and be inclined to turn around.” He winked at Rhys. “Miryam’s idea—she got it from you and your city.” Drakon winced a bit. “Turns out, it worked too well, if it kept out both enemies and friends.”
“You mean to tell me,” Rhys said softly, “that you’ve been on Cretea this entire time.”
Drakon grimaced. “Yes. Until … we heard about Hybern. About Miryam being … hunted again.” By Jurian. The prince’s face tightened with rage, but he surveyed me, then Nesta and Cassian, with a sharp-eyed scrutiny. “Shall we assist you, or just flap here, talking?”
Rhys inclined his head. “At your leisure, Prince.” He glanced to the armada now aiming for Hybern’s forces. “Friends of yours?”
Drakon’s mouth quirked to the side. “Friends of yours, I think.” My heart stopped. “Some of Miryam’s boats are down there, she with them, but most of that came for you.”
“What,” Nesta said sharply, not quite a question.
Drakon pointed to the ships. “We met up with them on the flight here. Saw them crossing the channel and decided to join ranks. It’s why we’re a little late—though we gave them a bit of a push across.” Indeed, wind was now whipping at their white sails, propelling those boats faster and faster toward that Hybern armada.
Drakon rubbed his jaw. “I can’t even begin to explain the convoluted story they told me, but …” He shook his head. “They’re led by a queen named Vassa.”
I began crying.
“Who apparently was found by—”
“Lucien,” I breathed.
“Who?” Drakon’s brows narrowed. “Oh, the male with the eye. No. He met up with them later on—told them where to go. To come now, actually. So pushy, you Prythian males. Good thing we, at least, were already on our way to see if you needed help.”
“Who found Vassa,” Nesta said with that same flat tone. As if she somehow already knew.
Closer, those human ships sailed. So many—so, so many, bearing a variety of different flags that I could just start to make out, thanks to my Fae sight.
“He calls himself the Prince of Merchants,” Drakon said. “Apparently, he discovered the human queens were traitors months ago, and has been gathering an independent human army to face Hybern ever since. He managed to find Queen Vassa—and together they rallied this army.” Drakon shrugged. “He told me that he’s got three daughters who live here. And that he failed them for many years. But he would not fail them this time.”
The ships at the front of the human armada became clear, along with the gold lettering on their sides.
“He named his three personal ships after them,” Drakon said with a smile.
And there, sailing at the front … I beheld the names of those ships.
The Feyre.
The Elain.
And leading the charge against Hybern, flying over the waves, unyielding and without an ounce of fear …
The Nesta.
With my father … our father at the helm.
CHAPTER
72
The wind whipped away the tears rolling down Nesta’s face at the sight of our father’s ships.
At the sight of the ship he’d chosen to sail into battle, for the daughter who had hated him for not fighting for us, who had hated him for our mother dying, for the poverty and the despair and years lost.
Drakon said drily, “I take it you’re acquainted?”
Our father—gone for months and months with no word.
He had left, my sisters had once said, to attend a meeting regarding the threat above the wall. At that meeting, had it become clear that we had been betrayed by our own kind? And had he then departed, under such secrecy he would not risk the messages to us falling into the wrong hands, to find help?
For us. For me, and my sisters.
Rhys said to Drakon, “Meet Nesta. And my mate, Feyre.”
Neither of us looked to the prince. Only at our father’s fleet—at the ships he’d named in honor of us.
“Speaking of Vassa,” Rhys said to Drakon, “was her curse—ended?”
The human armada and the Hybern host neared, and I knew the impact would be lethal. Saw Hybern’s magic shields go up. Saw the Seraphim raise their own. “See for yourself,” Drakon said.
I blinked at what began to shoot between the human boats. What soared over the water, fast as a shooting star. Spearing for Hybern. Red and gold and white—vibrant as molten metal.
I could have sworn Hybern’s fleet began to panic as it broke from the lines of the human armada and closed the gap between them.
As it spread its wings wide, trailing sparks and embers across the waves, and I realized what—who—now flew at that enemy host.
A firebird. Burning as hot and furious as the heart of a forge.
Vassa—the lost queen.
Rhys kissed away the tears sliding down my own face as that firebird queen slammed into Hybern’s fleet. Burning husks of ships were left in her wake.
Our father and the human army spread wide. To pick off the others.
Rhys said to Drakon, “Get your legion on land.”
A slim chance—a fool’s chance of winning this thing. Or staunching the slaughter.
Drakon’s eyes went glazed in a way that told me he was conveying orders to someone far away. I wondered if Nephelle and her wife were in that legion—if the last time they had drawn swords was that long-ago battle at the bottom of the sea.
Rhys seemed to be thinking of the past, too. Because he muttered to Drakon over the din exploding off the sea and the battle below, “Jurian is here.”
The casual, cocky grace of the prince vanished. Cold rage hardened his features into something terrifying. And his brown eyes … they went wholly black.
“He fights for us.”
Drakon didn’t look convinced, but he nodded. He jerked his chin to Cassian. “I assume you’re Cassian.” The general’s chin dipped. I could already see the shadows in his eyes—at the loss of those soldiers. “My legion is yours. Command them as you like.”
Cassian scanned our foundering host, the northern flank that Azriel was reassembling, and gave Drakon a few terse orders. Drakon flapped those white wings, so stark against his honey-brown skin, and said to Rhys, “Miryam’s furious with you, by the way. Three hundred fifty-one years since you last visited. If we survive, expect to do some groveling.”
Rhys rasped a laugh. “Tell that witch it goes both ways.”
Drakon grinned, and with a powerful sweep of his wings, he was gone.