Page 44 of Renegade Kingdom
Something shifted in Ezra’s expression. The scowl softened, just slightly, into something more complicated. He looked at the freed Endless filing through the courtyard gates behind me,their expressions shifting from wariness to wonder as they took in the training grounds, the supplies, the evidence that someone had been preparing for exactly this moment.
“I was going to leave,” Ezra admitted. “After everything. I was done with it. Done with the fighting, done with this realm, done with all of it. I was going to cross the ocean and find somewhere new. Somewhere that had never heard the name Arik.”
“What changed?”
He was quiet for a moment, his gaze dropping to the ground before lifting back to mine. When he spoke, his voice was different. Stripped of its usual gruffness. Almost reverent.
“I had a dream,” he said. “A woman came to me. I didn’t recognise her at first. She talked about the land, about how it was crying out for help. How the magic was fading and the realm was dying from the inside out.” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “She talked about heroes. About how the land needed people willing to stand and fight for it. I thought she was talking about you at first. But the more we talked, the more I realised it wasn’t just you she meant. It was all of us. That you couldn’t do this alone. That no one could.”
A chill ran through me that had nothing to do with the cold. A woman in a dream. Talking about the land crying out. Nymeria. My mother, reaching out to the people of her realm. Still fighting even from wherever she was trapped. Still trying to save what she’d created, one dream at a time.
“So I started making my way here,” Ezra continued. “Figured if there was going to be a last stand, the Spring Court was where it would happen. It was the only court still standing free, and it’s where you’d come back to eventually.” His mouth quirked into something that was almost a smile. “And as I travelled, others found me. People who were looking for you. People who’d heard rumours about what you did outside the town. About an Endless being freed. About a woman with golden magic who couldbreak Arik’s chains with a touch.” He gestured at the courtyard. “People looking for the place where they were going to finally take a stand.”
I turned slowly, taking in the full scope of what he’d resurrected. It was like seeing a mirror image of Rhidian. There’d have been no living with him if he’d made it back here with us today and seen this happening again. Training grounds where people sparred with weapons and the faint shimmer of awakening magic. Cook fires where food was being prepared, the smell of roasting meat and baking bread drifting across the courtyard. Supplies being organised and stored in orderly rows. A makeshift armoury where weapons were being repaired and sharpened. This wasn’t a refugee camp. This was a base of operations. A foundation for war.
“You did all this?” I asked.
“There was already the basis for it in place that someone had started before. It was just waiting for someone else to finish it,” Ezra said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You were busy.”
Tank stepped forward, extending his hand. Ezra took it after a brief hesitation, and something passed between them. An understanding.
“How many?” Dean asked, scanning the courtyard with tactical eyes that were already cataloguing defensive positions and supply levels.
“Forty-seven, as of three days ago,” Ezra replied. “With the ones you have with you we’re looking at close to two hundred.”
“Two hundred against Arik’s army,” Ryder murmured.
“Two hundred who chose to be here,” Ezra corrected, and his voice carried the weight of someone who understood exactly what that meant. “That counts for something.”
He was right. It counted for everything.
I looked at my mates. At the freed Endless filing into the courtyard ahead of us, eyes wide as they took in what Ezra had built. At Rhidian’s crew, already moving to introduce themselves to the newcomers, sharing information, comparing notes. At Ezra, standing in front of a court he’d brought back to life through sheer stubbornness and a dream from a goddess who refused to give up.
Something was building here. Something bigger than any of us. Bigger than courts and prophecies and ancient grudges. A movement. A rebellion forged from the broken pieces of a realm that had been told it was beyond saving.
And for the first time, it felt like we might actually have a chance.
“All right,” I said, squaring my shoulders. “Show me what you’ve done. And then we need to talk, because we’re not staying. We’re passing through.”
Ezra raised an eyebrow. “Passing through to where?”
“Somewhere that’s supposed to be a myth.” I smiled at the look on his face. “I’ll explain on the way.”
We walked into the Spring Court together. And behind us, the trees closed the path, sealing the forest once more.
Protecting its own.
Gathering supplies was about to hopefully get a whole lot easier, but moving this number of people through a forest any sane person wouldn’t dare to enter, was starting to look more like an impossible challenge.
Chapter Thirteen
Ryder
It was strange being back.
The rooms were exactly as we’d left them. Same furniture. Same view of the courtyard through windows that seemed to be made from living crystal. Same faint scent of something green and growing that permeated every surface of the Spring Court, as if the palace itself was alive and breathing. Someone had laid fresh sheets on the beds and stoked the fires, small comforts that felt almost absurd given what we were preparing for.
But we weren’t the same people who’d left these rooms.
