Page 35 of The Sundered Realms

“You said nothing wrong,” Vhannor told her. “This is my problem, not yours.”

Liris’ chest tightened. He wasn’t going to be honest with her after all.

Anger swiftly followed that thought and she snapped, “So I’m supposed to be honest with you, but you don’t have to explain things to me?”

Distress flashed through his expression, but whatever he might have responded was cut off when Shry interrupted sharply, “He’s trying to not share stories that aren’t his to tell. As you can see, he’s very bad at it. Vhann doesn’t use spells to hide from me because he doesn’t want me to think he feels the need to hide from me. There, are we all friends again?”

Liris blinked.

Looked at Vhannor, who blew out a breath. “Do you have sisters?” he asked her.

Liris glanced between the two of them. “You’re related?”

“Perish the thought,” Shry said.

Chosen family, then. Liris wondered what was so distressing about the Lord of Embhullor’s family.

“I do,” Liris said, “but they were born after I went into training and we’ve never met.”

Vhannor frowned. “You weren’t permitted to see your family?”

“What for?” Liris asked. “It’s not like they could help me become an ambassador, and I couldn’t help them with whatever their duties are. And I entered training so young it’s not like I missed them.”

This explanation did not make his expression any less severe.

Then Shry drawled, “If you think you’re going to win a battle of whose families are more fucked up...” She leaned forward, and the ends of her fingers blurred like shadows and transformed into long, sharp black claws. “I’ll win.”

Liris froze, sorting information very rapidly.

Shry had a personality, Vhannor considered her family, and yet that shadow...

“You’re... not a demon,” Liris said slowly. “Related to a demon? Somehow?”

“Half,” Shry confirmed, black gaze holding hers. “Human mother, demon father.”

“That’s possible?!”

“Typically not,” Shry said. “It takes a whole lot of very questionable magic.”

Liris dared a glance at Vhannor, who was watching this exchange very closely, then back at Shry. “I have so many questions and no idea how to ask them inoffensively.”

Shry grinned quickly, a slash across her face. “Better start than most make. The short version is I’m like a demon in that I can’t use spells even a little, and I’m like a human in that I can live in the world and its ambient magic without pain.”

Liris sucked in a breath, understanding all at once. “They wanted to make a demon not susceptible to magic.”

Shry’s gaze narrowed on her, an expression Liris had seen on a lot of faces: it was the look of a person realizing just how fast she put information together.

“Got it in one,” Shry said. “I’m obviously a failure.”

What? “You can live without being a slave to the obsession of bringing demons into the world and have more personality than a gaping maw. Seems like an improvement to me.”

Vhannor finally spoke again, his tone dry. “We’ll see if you keep that opinion of her personality after spending time with her.”

“Oh, I think Liris and I are going to get along just fine,” Shry said, winking at her and then asking Vhannor, “Do you want to do the honors?”

Liris was about to ask what she meant when light struck her peripheral vision. She glanced forward and then was struck speechless by the emerging cityscape. Castlescape?

Like she was peering through a hole in a wall, a perfectly framed view of a valley protected by cascading hills: inside was all stone, but colorful, and every one of them different like they were unplanned; scattered buildings that led inexorably to a spire that reached into the sky like a beacon.

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