Page 67 of Calling of the Crown

“He probably won’t even come, Angus,” Jesiah replied calmly. “But if he does, we will welcome him as a guest.”

“Because I’m sure he’ll act as one,” Angus growled.

“Elias is a fearsome Fae,” Rune offered. “But he does follow customs and always carries himself with decorum. He won’t attack while here. He likes things to follow the correct order. He won’t act until an official call for war has been made between him and Bria, not the one started by his father.”

“Well,” Angus boomed with a fake chuckle. “We should give him an award then. A King who murders entire Kingdoms but does it with class.”

“Angus,” I snapped, my patience finally reaching a breaking point.

His gray eyes met mine, but the hostility didn’t fade. His anger was clear, but the exact cause of it was muddy.

Angus had questioned Dawn about where she fell in her beliefs about peace with Land Fae. Well, I didn’t need to ask Angus his stance. He’d been against peace from the beginning, and clearly, his feelings hadn’t changed. He was too angry. Too bitter. Too lost to hatred.

Taking a calming breath, I said, “We are all guilty and played a part in creating the current state of Ambrolia. Just as you view Land Fae as callous, malicious, and the enemy, they view us the same way. We have both done wrong, and we both need to work to come back from that. You seem to believe that you’re on the side of being right while Land Fae are the ones in the wrong. There is no right side, though. There are simply two fractured Kingdoms in desperate need of healing, both of whom committed offenses against the other.

“I understand your opposition to a fresh start with Land Fae, Angus. Really, I do. I know you distrust them and don’t believe a future of friendship is possible, but I plan on proving you wrong. I hope that you, like the others who don’t agree, see the good in what we’re doing. I don’t expect that change to happen overnight, nor do I expect to find you having casual dinner with Elias. However, I do expect you to be open-minded and willing to give the Land Fae a chance.”

His cheeks reddened.

The room was quiet as everyone waited for his response.

Finally, he gritted out, “Yes, Your Highness.”

I knew he was agreeing just to table the discussion. He probably wasn’t going to be as open as I’d prefer. Hopefully as he interacted more with Land Fae, especially at events like the upcoming ball, he’d slowly see the good in creating harmony.

The tension in the room dissolved as the conversation switched to my disappearance. I explained what happened, and everyone nearly fell out of their chair when I revealed the real fate of my mother. Shock was an understatement. It was as though I’d just told them that the very world they lived in was a lie.

“Is there anything we can do to bring her back?” I asked, passing a desperate look between the Water Fae here.

Jesiah stared at seemingly nothing as he shook his head, dumbfounded. “I can’t … I can’t believe she’s still alive.”

“Does that mean Bria won’t become Queen?” Rance asked, looking at the scholars for an answer. “Because the current Queen is still alive after all?”

“Since Alesta isn’t here,” Brennus answered slowly, “Bria will still become Queen. If a royal is unable to lead, which it sounds like Alesta can’t, the throne falls to the next in line. The title of Queen will pass on to Bria via the completion of the public coronation.”

Angus held his head in his hands and stared down into his cup, silent for once.

Maggie, one of the scholars, rubbed her forehead and said, “To answer your question, Bria, getting Alesta back won’t be easy, if even possible. If it was an extreme emotion that triggered the power and sent her there, I assume she’d have to experience the same thing to come back.”

“Though it sounds like it’s too late for that,” Imani noted as she squeezed her eyes shut in anguish. “It sounds like you have to immediately experience another trigger of emotion to pull you back.”

“How did she send you back?” Rance asked me, his voice heavy with awe.

I shrugged. “I’m not sure how she did it. She didn’t explain. The best way I can describe what it felt like is to visualize a house of cards. When I’m like this—human, fleshy, and normal—I’m a house of cards standing solid. But when I became water, it almost felt like I folded in on myself, crumbling into nothing. Only the abyss I fell into was some sort of state where I existed as water within water.

“When my mother sent me back, it was almost like she reached inside of me, controlling the water that made me up in that state and forced me back like a house of cards rebuilding from the base up. I slowly came back, taking form, both physically and mentally. She did that at the same time that I remembered Rune. I think the two things—her forcing me solid and my sudden memory—sent me back.”

Jesiah ran a hand through his braids. “I’m not sure how to get her back or if we can. It may be something she has to figure out and do. But we’ll look into it. We’ll exhaust every avenue in researching how to bring her home.”

The news was both disheartening and exciting all at once. On one hand, it worried me that there was nothing we could do, and on the other, I couldn’t help but feel hopeful that together, we’d find a way to bring my mother back. If not, perhaps we could figure out how I could become water and return. If I mastered it, I could go back and maybe teach her.

A knock came at the door, cutting off the discussions. Dallas and Rance got up to answer it.

Khalani swept into the room, and she looked at me with worry. “Bria, you have visitors here. Land Fae. Ardley said they were harmless for the most part, so I left them in the west wing sitting room.”

I raised a curious brow and rose from my seat. “Ardley knows them?” I faced the Council of Doctrina and quickly said, “This meeting can end here today. Thank you all.”

“What do you mean, ‘harmless for the most part?’” Rune asked as he trailed after me and Khalani.

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