Page 3 of The Keeper of the Kingdoms

“Ignore them, Sol,” he said, not taking his eyes from hers. “They just wish they had their mates in their arms right now.”

“Pfft! Mates indeed,” I scoffed. “I’m lucky if I see daylight some days. Where do you think I’ll find a mate?”

Nyx turned his head toward me and grinned. “I don’t know. The Goddess moves in mysterious ways.”

“Well, she has her work cut out for her. My life is my work, so I’d need a mate who is as passionate about magical theory and history as me, who is as happy to wile away the hours in a library with me as he is to join us for an ale, and also happens to look good enough to eat. And I don’t believe such a fae exists,” Iexclaimed, banishing the image of Jaxus that flashed into my mind unbidden.

Nope. That was not happening.

A throat cleared behind me and I froze.

“Excuse me, Kiera? I was wondering if I might have a word.” The deep voice was like a caress and I had to school my features.

I turned slowly to look at Jaxus and couldn’t prevent my eyes trailing over his incredible physique before finally meeting his unusually golden eyes.

“Umm, sure,” I replied after a moment’s hesitation. What did he want with me?

He inclined his head towards a quieter part of the tavern and with trepidation, I got up and followed him to an available table in the corner. I should have brought my drink with me. From the serious look on his face, perhaps I would need it.

TWO

KIERA

Two days had passed since that fateful conversation and I still had not processed what had been said.

Jaxus was my flyer.

I was his ryder.

Every time I repeated the words to myself, I rejected them.

It could not be. I’m a healer. I cannot be a ryder.

The magic was different. I knew it was different! But after forty-eight hours in the healer’s library and barely any sleep, I had found no evidence either way. No healer who’d ever been a ryder, but nothing forbidding it. It was entirely unknown. The Goddess had simply never willed it before. But the realms were hers and if she willed it now, then it would be.

I just could not begin to imagine her reasons for this turn of events. My work was vital. Aside from my career as one of the leading healers in the Twelve Kingdoms, I had a duty far moreserious. My family were the caretakers of sacred knowledge mostly lost through time and conflict. An archive of old magic and healing which was outlawed during unification. Our archive of works was saved by courageous healers and priests in the fallout of the Hundred Years War and had been guarded by generations of healers from my line ever since.

We collected and preserved any surviving old knowledge at the risk of our lives because we believed in the prophecies written by the High Priests centuries ago. That a time would come in the future when only old magic could restore the balance between the Goddess and her land.

I could not stray from that duty. It was in my blood, and I had pledged my life to the honor in a vow I took on the first equinox of my adulthood. I was bound to this life. Flying was not supposed to figure into my future. How could I possibly marry these paths?

And Jaxus, of all the flyers.

Even in the chaos of Nyx and Zaria’s return to the capital, I laid eyes on him and knew in my gut he would bring change for me. I had thought it would be as simple as resisting a devastatingly beautiful male who might seek to distract me from my work, but oh no!

No, this male was not simply a distraction. He was a blinding light I could not look away from. And if I ever could tear my gaze away, I feared I would only see ghosts of him in my vision from here on out. He was too much of all the wrong things.

Too much brawn to have enough brain. Too much beauty to have enough humility. Too much skin and not nearly enough clothes. Was it too much to ask him to wear shirts? Shoes? Should I just be grateful he was willing to compromise and indulge us with the pants? Perhaps he wanted to keep all the sacred symbols and designs he had intricately inked across his bronzed muscles on full display. It wasn’t good.

I was used to flyers with no inhibitions, but this male wastesting my limits. And he had far too much hair for his own damn good. I mean, what potion was he using on those sun-kissed golden locks? Something he could bottle and sell to wealthy females in the city boutiques, I was certain. Some flyers only had a casual relationship with soap if we were lucky. Jaxus took looking good and smelling fantastic to new realms. He was a dragon, it had to be some kind of spell.

It was not okay. I did not have time for that kind of disruption in my life. I needed to focus, now more than ever. A war was at our door and we had taken losses. Personal losses we would never recover from. I wasn’t sure I would ever be the same in a world without Kol and I knew Nyx and Zaria were only surviving because they had each other. Now was the time I needed to be in control.

Nyx was strategizing for a war we had not seen coming. New weapons which could destroy all the magic we had left and I could not sit by. I had access to the wisdom of our forebears and in my world, knowledge was power.

He did not know it yet, but Nyx would need to learn to wield books over swords if we were going to survive. I did not have time to become anyone’s ryder, never mind the ryder of a flyer like Jaxus.

I heard determined footsteps in the hallway and just knew what was coming, I was running out of ways to avoid this conversation and he knew it.

---