Page 10 of Fallen Nocturne

The meeting doesn’t end as cleanly as I had hoped. Landon dismisses his warriors with a curt nod. They disperse reluctantly, as if they’re not quite finished making their point. Theo exchanges a long look with Landon before mounting Pyraxis. Kieran offers me a respectful bow that feels genuine. Glenn simply nods. Eacharn grins as if this has all been tremendously entertaining.

Alys is the last to leave. She moves slowly, adjusting Nightshade’s saddle straps with more care than necessary. Her ruby eyes flick to me, then to Landon.

“Commander,” she says sweetly. “Will you be joining us for evening drills?”

“Perhaps,” Landon replies.

“I do hope so. We fly so well together.” She swings into her saddle with fluid grace. “Your Highness, it was truly a pleasure.”

She speaks with perfect politeness, though every word feels edged like a blade.

Nightshade launches into the air with a powerful downbeat of wings that sends dust swirling around us. I watch them climb, that beautiful dark creature and its equally beautiful rider.

We walk back toward the keep in silence. Coral trots beside me, occasionally looking back toward the field where Shadowfyre still lingers. The young wyvern watches her go with a slow blink.

“They’ll see each other again,” Landon says, noticing my glance.

“Will they?” I ask. “What if your warriors leave?”

“Some might stay. Glenn and his legion will stay I think. They have nowhere else to go.” He pauses. “Theo will stay because I ask him to. Kieran will stay because he likes the wine in your kingdom.”

That startles a laugh out of me.

We reach the steps leading up to the main entrance. Landon stops, turning to face me fully. The afternoon sun catches in his dark hair and I’m struck again by how beautiful he is.

“They won’t fight for Aelfheim,” he says. “You understand that, don’t you? Even if the Fae King marches on your borders tomorrow, most of them will refuse.”

“I know,” I say quietly.

“Then why offer sanctuary at all?” he asks. “You gain nothing from it except more mouths to feed and more suspicion from your own people.”

I consider the careful arguments my advisors made and every strategic advantage they claimed his warriors might offer. Standing here with the bond humming between us, I choose honesty instead. “Because you asked me to.”

Surprise crosses his face before he can hide it.

“I trust you,” I continue. “My heart tells me this is the right thing to do.”

Landon reaches out. His hand pauses in the air between us for just a moment before he turns it and brushes the backs of his fingers along my cheek. The tenderness of the touch makes my throat tight.

“You’re going to make a dangerous queen if you keep making decisions with your heart.” Amusement warms his voice.

This time he smiles. It’s small and fleeting but it transforms his face. I wonder what he looked like before the betrayal, before he became the Herald of the Wild Hunt. If he smiled more easily then.

“Come,” he says. “I’ll walk you back to the city.”

We climb the steps together. Coral follows, claws clicking on stone.

The city rises in broad stone terraces, its slate-roofed buildings crowded between workshops, inns and open markets. Arched bridges connect the higher streets while narrow canals carry mountain water past mills and smithies. Even this late in the day, merchants call from painted stalls and wagons rumble through the gates bearing goods from kingdoms far beyond Aelfheim.

Völundr is not like the capital. It never has been. The streets here are wide and busy, and the people who fill them come from a dozen different places. Merchant caravans unload their goods near the eastern gates. Dwarven traders argue prices in three languages at once. Half-bloods and humans rub shoulders with elves without a second glance. I have always loved that about this city. It has never been precious about who it lets through its gates.

But they look at Landon.

Heads turn as he walks beside me. Conversations falter, and several shopkeepers pause in the middle of their work to watch us pass. Fae merchants, travelers and envoys are hardly uncommon here, so it cannot be his pointed ears that draw their attention. It must be his armor, his bearing and the authority he carries with every step. Seeing a fae in Völundr is ordinary. Seeing a commander of the Wild Hunt walking beside their queen is not.

As we turn onto the street leading toward the keep, a familiar unease returns. There is another matter that has troubled me since I woke. My uncle brought a vampire into our kingdom. Not just any Nightwalker, but a Strigon, one of the first of their kind.

Arescaine Darian Andras.