Page 45 of An Empress of Earth & Darkness

Everyone was acting normally except for Emara’s cluster.

Had someone tried to attack her and they were keeping it under wraps? Had there been a disagreement? Surely, Breighly and Artem hadn’t knocked heads already. They had been nothing but friendly towards each other.

That wasn’t it. But there was definitely something. And the more Gideon studied them all, the more it irritated him that he couldn’t pinpoint it.

He leaned into Sybil, whispering low so only she could hear. “I need to ask you something.” Her vast green eyes found his face. “Can you sense something right now? Like something’s not right?”

She huffed a laugh, brushing a fiery curl from her face and putting down her flower chain. She leaned in. “I am an earth witch, Gideon, not the Empress of House Spirit,” she whispered back. “You would need to be more specific.”

One of her loose curls bounced back into her face a second later, and Gideon’s eyes followed it. Why did he have the urge to push it back from her face and tuck it behind her ear? That would be very unprofessional of him. He coughed, tightening his grip around his weapon belt. “I am being serious,” he said. “Something is wrong. Do you not feel it?”

He nodded discreetly to Emara’s hand interlinked with hers.

“She does that when she’s nervous,” Sybil whispered back. “It’s not exactly a new thing.”

“My point exactly. Emara had her case heard yesterday, surely nothing must come of it today, right? Did she say anything to you?”

A small smile pulled at her lip. “Gideon, you’re being paranoid,” she said, giving her hand over to him. “Must I soothe your paranoia?” Her creamy hand lay softly over his. It was tiny in comparison to his hand, and a small emerald ring sat on her middle finger, twinkling.

Her sister’s ring.

On their walks around the garden, she had told him many stories of her sister, how they were when they had grown up, close in age and even closer in bond. She missed her dearly and often looked to the emerald on her hand when she was thinking. It was like she was asking it, “What would Meryl have done?”

He smiled back at her as the soothing magic entered his body. “You need to teach me how to do that.”

Her delicate cheeks turned a pretty shade of pink. “You can’t learn someone’s sheer talent, Gideon Blacksteel. You either have it or you don’t.”

His grin was wide on his face as she removed her hand from over his. He whispered in her direction, “That’s very true.”

Before she could respond, the chief commander announced something that Gideon couldn’t hear as his gaze caught Sybil’s. For a second longer than it should have, something burned between them, bright and powerful. Something unexplored.

But she must have not been as ignorant in their moment together as he was; she must have understood what was happening around them as her head snapped to the commander and then to Torin. Shock brushed over her face. Gideon turned his head, looking around, finally coming back into the room. He watched as Torin rose from his chair, a whole court of people gasping like he had just wielded the element of fire or something.

What had the chief commander said? What did he miss and why did it involve Torin?

When Sybil’s mouth fell open wide and Emara’s knuckles tightened around the earth witch’s hand, he knew he had missed something unmissable.

“No, Chief Commander Stryker, I did not write to the prime prior to today for you to hear my case,” his brother said as he produced a letter from under his attire. “Because I feel that I cannot wait a moment longer to say what I have to say. I have sent you all endless letters and they have never been heard. But you need to read this one.”

Gideon looked from Torin’s face to Emara’s, and he could feel something uncomfortable coil in his gut. The chief commander took a few steps forward and removed the letter from Torin’s grip. After a few moments of terrible silence, Aerrick looked to Viktir Blacksteel, who was sitting rigidly in his chair. Gideon peeked at his mother to see that concern had found its way into her eyes. Utter panic pulled Naya’s shoulders up close to her ears.

“What I have here, Commander Blacksteel,” the chief said, “is a letter in plea from your son for me to command you to entirely dissolve your current treaty with the House of Air.”

Viktir rose, chest puffing. “How dare you, girl—”

“Are you not listening, Father?” Torin bit in that nonchalant way he did to get under Viktir’s skin. Gideon had always envied how he could do it. “The chief commander said that I wrote the plea, not her. So you can take that poisonous stare off her face.”

Gideon’s heart launched itself across his chest a few times.

Fuck!

Viktir growled, “I forbade this.”

“You did,” Torin said, and if Gideon wasn’t mistaken, there was a small, sly grin on his mouth. But Gideon knew Torin too well; that look was for show, for the audience. Gideon knew deep down the depths of how hard this had been for him. “And that is why I am going above you.”

Gideon’s throat squeezed shut, and he looked towards his poor mother again. Thank the Gods Rhea was by her side.

“You see, Chief Commander Stryker, my father has been the leader of our clan since my grandfather died at the hands of the Dark Army. And he has made many decisions, ones that I have not seen eye to eye with, yet I have taken instruction. I agreed to follow him obediently.”

---