Page 126 of Of Nine So Bold

I shuddered. She hadn’t followed us out of the gateway. I wasn’t even sure she’d truly beeninit, or if she’d done something with magic to only make me think she had been. But either way, that still left those apple trees out here, along with humans and monsters and the gods only knew what else. We’d already taken too much time fixing my hunger and Casimir’s. If there was even a chance an answer lay in Erenelle, we needed to take it.

The crowd stared as I strode through it, Casimir and my giants surrounding me. These people had seen my fangs—honestly, it’d been foolish to hope I could hide them when my hunger had been so intense. But from the whispers I heard as I passed, some of these people knew what I was and what that meant.

“—and as the highest ranking Erenlian royal still alive,Idecide who has the right to enter my lands.” The duke’s voice rose over the crowd, and as they pulled back, I could see him towering arrogantly over Clay and Lars. The misty wall that shielded Erenelle lay only a few yards beyond them like a gray swath of fog that brought an end to the world.

“But I am telling you, my lord,” Ignatius insisted like he’d been arguing this point for some time. “It isimperativethese people enter Erenelle. If you have ever trusted me for anything, I ask you to please trust me now.”

The duke scoffed. “You forget your place, scholar. The sanctity of Erenelle ismydomain, and I will not have our precious land sullied by the likes of?—”

“What is the meaning of this?” Casimir demanded, cutting the bastard off.

Duke Ensid looked down his nose at us all. “Our alliance is at its end,king.You and your honorary citizens are free to go.”

Clay choked on a scoff. “Free to go?”

“Erenelle is our country too.” Dex spoke up, his voice tight. I could only imagine what the words cost him, given that he’d run for his life from Erenelle as a child. “Every Erenlian has the right to enter its borders. That’s the law.”

“Itwasthe law, dwarf,” Norbert spat, still brushing away dust that clung to his leg from where it’d been trapped in the cavern floor. “That was before the royals made the wall.”

Casimir turned to Byron and the twins with a questioning look.

“Turns out the Wall of Erenelle is keyed to the royal family.” Clay bit off the words. “It won’t open except to someone of their blood. And anyone who tries to get through without a royal paving the way will die.”

He jerked his head toward the base of the wall, where a few pieces of leather and metal rested inside a pile of ash and dust.

Duke Ensid shook his head with a pretense of sorrow so false it was nauseating. “Even my trusted subjects could not restrain their impatience to return home.”

Casimir cleared his throat, pulling his focus from the dead giants to Clay and Lars. “But this man is your uncle, is he not? So your blood should also be sufficient to—” At a negating noise from Lars, he cut off.

“Deter is family by marriage, not blood,” Lars said. “His sister was one of our biological mother and father’s partners.”

My heart sank. Giants commonly took multiple mates, unlike in Aneira where only one man and one woman could ordinarily marry. So of course the duke could be family but not blood.

“Indeed.” The duke smirked. “And as I am descended of the royal line, it falls to me to decide who may enter our beloved homeland.” He lifted his chin, raising his voice to the crowd. “Erenelle will never again be threatened by an invasion of outsiders. Of this, you have my word!”

“I say we just rid ourselves of those outsiders right now.” Norbert started toward Byron and the twins.

My heart hit my throat, but Ozias was already moving. Shifting fast, he stepped between my men and the oncoming giant, a snarl ripping from him that made the hair on the back of my neck rise.

“Hold, son.”

The duke’s command was nonchalant, despite the fact Norbert was easily within range of Ozias’s ability to kill him. When Ozias pushed Byron and the twins back, making them retreat back to where we stood, his smile only grew. “These Zeniryans are within their rights to gaze upon the power of our nation, knowing they cannot overcome it. Because that is our truth, isn’t it?” He raised his voice to the crowd. “The Wall of Erenelle is my solemn promise of safety, entrusted to me by blood and birthright! By that authority, I keep us safe from criminals and invaders, from usurpers and spies.”

My skin crawled as he smiled at me like he was labeling me with that description.

“I spare us the unpleasant business of executions and court proceedings because I understand that above all, the citizens of Erenelle need to feel safe!”

As Byron and the twins reached us, Ozias shifted again, putting himself between me and the duke. Nearby, Dex grabbed Byron’s arm.

Byron made a startled sound. “What are you?—”

“Stay here.” Dex pulled him to the rear of our group. “Donotmove.”

“But—”

At high speed, Dex whispered what Casimir had told us about how the scholar’s powers and mine were linked. A gasp left Niko when he overheard.

“Oh, gods.” Byron sounded nauseated.

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