Page 29 of A Sun Scorched Bloom

"Except he has deadly magic and the ability to call a devastating and fatal thunderstorm overhead in a second?" Lea joked, attempting to lighten the mood.

"Except with the ability to end the world as we know it," Erik confirmed. "We spoke about it before the wedding. The first wedding." His eyes crinkled at the edges. "I warned him this might happen as you traveled alone, or once you got to Calir and were surrounded by strangers. He was certain he'd be able to control his impulses to protect and isolate you."

"But you knew better?" Lea prodded.

"Gray is the closest thing to a brother I’ll ever have." Erik pulled a second apple from his pocket and Lea’s mouth began to water. With a chuckle and a quick slice, Erik ripped it in two, handing the slightly larger half to Lea. "I’ve seen how he is. Not just with you, but with anyone he cares for. Gray loves fiercely. Add in the mate bond…" he sighed. "It’s one of the reasons I was so reluctant to allow him to leave without me once we fled the castle."

"Then why did you?" Lea twisted to face Erik. He was conflicted. It was obvious by the way that he stared with tired eyes into the fire, as if answers might be hiding inside it.

"He is my king. My commander." His hand subconsciously traced the scar across his hand. "Emma's the one who reminded me that he is my family first."

Emma smiled sheepishly, looking toward the woods and clearly attempting to pretend that she wasn’t paying attention to their conversation as she pushed a stick around the embers of the fire.

The stars called Lea's eyes back to the sky, and she heeded their command as she laid her head back. She knew that as much as Gray loved her, it would be difficult to convince him he needed to put her at risk in order to follow her hunch. And to be fair, itwasa risk. Lea hadn’t missed the direction the stars were pointing them in, hadn’t missed how they shot directly southwest, past the moon and the star of Altair, straight toward the Wicked Wood.

Was it some cruel cosmic joke that they were being led straight into the horrible wasteland full of nothing but danger? Her mother’s words clanged against her skull.There are answers you may someday seek to questions you do not yet know—the stars will guide you to them. Let them.Let them.The words were the beat of her heart.Let them. Let them.Yes, it would be dangerous, but the way her magic squirmed inside her—the desperate feeling in her chest that urged her to stand and heed the sky’s calling—it demanded to be answered.

She was certain that this was her fate, her adventure. She’d been naïve, a foolish girl, too busy living in the past and focusing on herself to recognize that things needed to change. The sting of Thomas’s words the day before her failed wedding to Gray were sharper than talons in her mind, digging deeper and deeper as their truth settled into her very marrow. He’d warned her that change was coming, that the king couldn't continue to go on unchecked. Gray had been risking his life for hundreds of years to save the kingdom, to fight against and destroy his own family so that every Fae and human living in Desia could have a better life. And she hadn’t even been brave enough to join the rebellion on her own.

There was no excuse, but if she was being honest with herself, she knew it was because deep down she couldn’t join a cause that she thought would end in the elimination of the Nestruir family. Not when that family had included Gray.

It had been easy to fixate on her grief over losing her mother, her anger at being forced to leave Bearswillow along with Thomas and serve the king. Easier still to focus on Alaric’s hostility toward her and his constant presence in the back of her mind. And all the while, the king was stealing magic. Ruthlessly slaughtering the innocent, all for the sake of attaining power he didn’t even use.

All the attacks from the south had supposedly been dealt with by Gray and Erik, but Gray had said that King Tanad of Calir would be waiting for them—that he would help them. Why would he do that if his kingdom had been attacking them for centuries? It didn’t add up, and Lea started to wonder if there had ever been attacks at all, or if Gray and his battalion had simply been patrolling the woods as an excuse for Gray to meet with the King of Calir.

"Are the threats to the south real, Erik?" Lea’s voice broke through the silence, raspy as it scraped across the scar tissue from her healed wounds in her throat.

Erik laid down beside her near the fire and stared at the shooting stars. "There is still a lot you don’t know. The attacks to the south aren’t from Calir, if that’s what you’re asking. The demons within the wood, however…" he pondered for a moment. "They’re spreading further east, venturing beyond the boundary we’ve spent centuries pushing them into. We don’t know why they’re becoming increasingly bold. Gray thinks they can sense that villages and towns are becoming weaker, less protected by the magic we have tried to keep from being discovered. People like you. Like Thomas, and the others in your village… The demons can smell you, taste that you’re different and a potential threat. It provides some measure of protection, but the more the king kills, the less magic lives throughout the villages to warn them away, and the bolder the monsters get."

"But what is it they want?" Lea shivered as a chill shot down her spine.

"They simply crave death. They are mindless killers, built for ripping through flesh and rotting minds. Some can make you go mad just at the sight of them, and others…" Erik shuddered, and Lea’s hands clenched at her sides in fear at the enormous Fae’s response to thinking about what dwelled within the woods. "I’ve seen grown men weep, cry out for their mothers as their intestines were ripped from their stomachs. I’ve seen lifeless bodies hanging from trees, so high in the branches it would have been impossible for them to have climbed."

"But you and Gray have always survived." Lea prodded, desperate for an ounce of comfort. For something that she could hold onto to know that they could survive this.

"We have, as have many others, but at what cost? Half our men quit the patrols after their first time in the Wood, choosing less danger and less pay so they never have to return."

An uncomfortable chill ran through Lea’s body, and suddenly she no longer wanted to speak about the evil they might face if they followed what the stars compelled her to do.

"How did you come to be Gray’s right-hand man, Erik?" Lea asked, clearing her throat and shaking away the thoughts of demons and monsters. She now understood why Gray was willing to go against his family, but the danger of Erik helping lead this rebellion in secret? It was a gamble, one that could very well end his life far too early.

Erik’s eyes shone with sorrow in the fire, glazed over as if remembering a long-gone memory. "Have you ever thought about what motivates men, Lea?"

"I’m not sure I understand exactly what you’re asking." Lea lowered her eyebrows.

"Men and women, both Fae and human alike, we do not sacrifice for nothing. Rarely, if ever, is it selflessness that brings us to risk our lives. Vincent—his motivation isalmostpure. But his is also a sacrifice he makes out of trepidation. He grew up in Calir, was a high-ranking general of their king. He joined our cause out of fear that the Black King’s magic would travel beyond their borders. He wants better for his own kingdom than the hell we’ve been living through in Desia for hundreds of years." Erik threw the core of his apple into the fire, causing the flames to hiss in response. Sparks shot up, but turned to ash with a flick of his fingers, floating back into the fire like snow. "I’m assuming Gray told you his reason?"

Nodding, Lea reached out and placed a hand on Erik’s forearm. He’d revealed his reason earlier when trying to prove who he was to Gray. Lea could hear his broken voice as he’d relived the memory echoing in her mind. Even now, hours later, his voice was still too raw, and she knew from the frown on his normally smiling face that his own motivations were something that were hard for him to speak about. "You don’t have to talk about it, Erik. Your reasons are your own."

He forced a smile and placed his hand on top of hers. "It’s okay, my queen," he teased with a wink. "Do you remember the man always at the king’s side? Herald?"

Lea nodded. She’dneverforget the blond man who had sat to the king’s right, the one who had smirked knowingly as Alaric had pinched and burned and tortured her while she served his meals.

"He sired me."

The fire grew taller, the heat so intense that Lea had to pull down the blanket and scoot backward. "Herald is your father?" She tried, and failed, to keep the surprise from her voice.How did I not know this?

"He isnotmy father. That title is reserved for men who love and protect their families." Erik took a moment, tracing shapes Lea couldn’t see with a stick into the hard ground. "What motivates me, Lea, is revenge." Erik took a deep breath and lifted his hand, watching as sparks and flames danced along his knuckles. "Not long before Gray’s sister… When the king…" he sighed, stopping to take a slow breath. "The king was learning to practice his newfound magic," Erik continued. "His ability to steal power from others. I know your pain of losing your mother to the Lonely Death, because my mother was its first victim."

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