Page 134 of Of Nine So Bold

Ignatius straightened. “Oh dear. So it happened, then.”

Did I sound like this when I talked to my friends? Like I was speaking in maddening riddles and half-told stories?

Gwyneira cleared her throat politely. “Forgive me, but I’m unfamiliar with the stories you mentioned or what information you may have regarding the Voidborn and Syloria. Could you please share with me what you know?”

Her voice was decorum itself, and her words were phrased as skillfully as any scholar could have achieved. With that single maneuver, she carefully sidestepped the fact thatnoneof us knew what the hell he was talking about and prompted the man to provide exactly the information we needed.

Gods, I loved her.

I stumbled, thrown by the sudden and overwhelming thought. My cheeks burning, I steadied myself, muttering, “Sorry.”

Thank Berinlian, no one commented.

“Of course, miss.” Ignatius tilted his head in acknowledgment. “My apologies. Given that Zenirya was lost to the Wild Lands so long ago, may I ask: are you familiar with Aneira’s war with Erenelle?”

“I am.”

Gods, her face didn’t even flinch. Nothing in her bearing showed the slightest reaction to the question.

Ignatius nodded thoughtfully. “Excellent. Well, when it began, I admit, our King Archerias and many of his advisors—of which I was one—were quite confident we would win. With our military might, physical strength and size, and our natural magic, we were certain we would be more than a match for Aneira.”

His mouth tightened briefly. “Or so we thought. But as the war dragged on and nothing we did could stem the Aneiran tide, it became clear that the force we faced was more than merely human.

“It may come as a shock—or perhaps not, given what you and your king both are—when I tell you that the queen of Aneira is also a vampire. She was one of the first in our world, turned by Voidborn prior to the start of the Witch War.”

A small nod was Gwyneira’s only reaction, and her voice revealed nothing when she replied, “I’ve heard this, yes.”

She was incredible.

“In that case, perhaps you also know that the Voidborn wish to destroy reality. They have various means of doing this, but one possibility is that they would consume and destroy the ley lines and nexuses of magic throughout a realm. And though the Aneirans themselves have a… shall we saystrangerelationshipwith magic, King Archerias and his advisors—including me—came to believe that ultimately, the Voidborn would use the queen of Aneira to remove anyone who could protected the nexuses and ley lines, both here and in every other nation. Thus they would destroy our world.”

He sighed. “With the king’s blessing, we kept this to ourselves, not even sharing it with other scholars in the Order. The king felt that the people of Erenelle faced enough threats without learning their enemy might devour reality itself. But in secret, we worked with the king to devise ways to protect our world.”

Regret closed his eyes for a moment. “So many of our plans failed, and in the end, we only had one last. The creation of the Wall of Erenelle—a final, devastating spell to avoid annihilation. We’d already seen the Aneiran Warden Wall. We knew that magic, though we’d never been so desperate or so heartless as to undertake it ourselves. But it was the opinion of the king that the impending doom of our nation left us no choice.”

Gwyneira’s eyes darted to me, and I could see her questions. “You sayheartless,” she said carefully to Ignatius. “Why heartless?”

“Because the spell to create the wall is a brutal form of magic. Yes, it renders a land untouchable to outside magic. Yes, if one does not possess the key—in our case, the blood of the royal family—it is nearly impenetrable. But to create it requires a special form of fuel. Death on a horrifying scale.”

“The crying,” Niko whispered.

I gave him a confused look. He never took his wide eyes from Ignatius.

“You hear them?” the scholar asked.

Niko nodded.

“The king refused to take that final step as long as he could. Even when he knew we’d lost, he tried to buy time to come toanother solution. But then the Aneirans laid siege to the capital.” Ignatius closed his eyes, shaking his head with sorrow. “I wasn’t there for the end. Aneirans captured me about a week before the final moments of the war, marching me off to a camp beyond the Aneiran border. But from what other prisoners have told me over the years, it seems the king ordered our people to flee in those last days. Ships of refugees took to the western ocean, seeking safe harbor elsewhere. Others fled via gateways to the farthest reaches of the land.”

“Like Dathan,” the princess said.

“Last I heard before I was captured, he’d been stationed at the palace itself. Since he still lives, he may well have been one of the final ones out. Because once the magic to create the wall was unleashed…” His brow rose and fell. “Anyone still alive within the borders of Erenelle would have been fuel for the spell.”

Suddenly, the silent countryside around us felt infinitely more ominous.

And full of ghosts.

“But the…” Gwyneira started. If one didn’t know her, she might have sounded calm. But I could hear her tension. “The Warden Wall. The one around Aneira. It didn’t kill everyone. So that must mean she didn’t…”

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