Page 116 of The Demon Tide

“Well, I’d appreciate it if we could prevent that.”

Bleddyn smirks, her head bobbing in a silent laugh, but then she grows somber, hesitating as if she’s unsure how to say the next thing. “I’m sorry about Yvan, Elloren. It was a shock to find out the secret he was carrying. And... I know Iris wanted him...but I also know that he was in love with you.”

A wave of emotional protest rises.

He’s not dead. I felt his fire. He’s searching for me.

I hold back the words as well as the jagged fear that they might not prove to be true.

“He was my good friend, and quite brave,” Bleddyn says, her voice cracking with emotion. “It’s...a great loss.”

I struggle to formulate a response, but find I’m unable, as the yearning to find Yvan surges. Were those brief, Wyvernfire connections enough for him to locate me? If he’s truly alive, could he be making his way toward me right now? I imagine Yvan suddenly sweeping into this restaurant and become momentarily breathless just from the idea of it. What would it be like to meet those fiery green eyes again?

My fire power knifes into a fitful, conflicted blaze as the fervid desire to go after Lukas breaks loose and blazes up alongside this heated longing to be reunited with Yvan.

But there’s no way to resolve any of it.

“I have one purpose now,” I whisper to Bleddyn, my voice strung tight. “To fight Vogel and his forces.”

Bleddyn nods as she flashes me a look of intense solidarity. “It’s what Yvan would have wanted.” Both of us grow quiet for a moment. “Iris has joined a group of Fire Fae revolutionaries,” she finally says, the surprising fact clearly troubling her. “They’ve taken over a section of Noi forest northeast of here. They say they have an ancestral claim to it.”

I raise my brow at this.

“The Vu Trin are having a hard time negotiating with them, and the Zhilon’ile Wyverns have issued a warning. Like I said, we’re all fragmenting. Their grievances are real. But it doesn’t change the fact that we’re divided.”

“Infighting right now...it’s not good.”

“I know it.” She looks toward the Noi restaurant and shakes her head. “I don’t know where I fit into all this anymore. I don’t align cleanly with any of the fragments. I argue with my fellow Urisk here too much to be accepted.” She looks at me, green eyes flashing. “Even so, I’ll fight for them. And I’ll fight for everyone trying to get in here.”

“Why would you have an issue with your own people?”

She blinks at me as if I’ve just asked something very foolish. “Have you forgotten that I’m of the Urol class? I’m on the next to lowest tier of the Urisk class system and religion. I have somesignificantissues with my own people.” She huffs out a breath, her mouth forming a tight line. “I don’t even know what I believe anymore. It’s all so troubling. And confusing. All I know for certain is that I want no part of any culture or religion that watchesanyone’schildren die of the Red Grippe on the other side of a rune wall and doesnothingto help them.” She considers the border, a seditious half smile forming on her lips. “I thinkthat’smy new religion. No children dying of curable things on the other side of a wall.”

I raise my brow at her. “That’syour religion? Your entire religion?”

She shrugs. “That’s all I’ve got, Ny’laea. Seems to keep me busy enough.”

My mind lights with the memory of Bleddyn caring for Smaragdalfar refugees back in Verpacia, most of them children. How gentle she was with them. And now she’s here in the East, smuggling sick people like Nym’ellia’s family, across the border so they can get medicine and care. It strikes me that Bleddyn, for all her confusion and harsh ways, is a deeply admirable person.

“It’s a good religion,” I tell her, chastened.

She laughs. “You know, I think it is. I think it’s a very good religion.”

“No, I mean it.”

Her eyes meet mine, more serious now. She nods. “It might be the only religion worth having right now.”

CHAPTER THREE

NY’LAEASHIZORIN

Elloren Grey

Voloi, Noilaan

Eastern Realm

One day prior to Xishlon

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