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Because he is determined to go out and save Islor by himself if necessary. He’ll probably get himself killed in the process. I push my growing panic aside and smooth a palm over his angular jaw, pushing it back far enough that I can admire his handsome face. “That’s fine. Fearghal should be back with his wife soon and has offered himself up as needed.”
Zander’s deep chuckle vibrates in my chest. “Is that to be my lot in life now that I am with you? Feeding off hairy old men that smell of ale and sausage?”
“Hey, don’t knock him till you try him.” The rugged mortal with missing teeth from the wild town of Woodswich has proven far more loyal than I ever expected when he sat down across from me in the Greasy Yak. I trail a fingertip down Zander’s chest, somberness taking over. “I wish you didn’t ever have to do it again. I wish we could stay here forever.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice.” He runs his tongue over the top of his teeth. “It’s like they no longer exist. I couldn’t call on them if I wanted to.”
“Imagine if it was like this everywhere in Islor?”
He rolls onto his back, giving me a sublime view of his naked form and all the hard, chiseled curves that come with it.
“The entire keeper system would be meaningless. What would the lords and ladies do?” His gaze crawls over the vaulted ceiling, his thoughts wandering.
I resist the urge to climb on top of him. “They’d still lord over people, like they do in Ybaris. That wouldn’t disappear overnight.”
“They still hold the money and property and title,” he agrees. “At least for the short term.”
“They’d fight to make sure that doesn’t change. The rich don’t like giving up being rich. They’d fight to keep the laws the same, or close enough that they can keep their power. They wouldn’t give the mortals any more rights, even though they don’t need their blood to survive, because they’ll never see the mortals as equal.” Status quo in my world. My old world. I’ll never see it again. That reality doesn’t bother me anymore, but I am sad I won’t see my father again. Now that I know the truth about him, about why he is the way he is, I wish I could go back and help him.
“You describe much of the east, I’m afraid. Led by Kettling, who is about to marry into the throne.” His molars grind. “The mortals would revolt in droves.”
“They’re ingesting poison to kill their keepers. They’re already revolting in droves, and they’re willing to die for their freedom.”
“It would be worse. There would be outright war.”
“Maybe not … at least not at first, and not in places like Bellcross, with lords like Rengard.” The Islorian impressed me, even if he doesn’t trust me. I wish I’d had more time to get to know him.
“Few and far between. Telor is honorable as well, but I do not have the same friendship to lean on where he is concerned.” Zander sighs. “I wish these seers’ prophecy would give us the answers we need most.” He smooths his palm over mine, matching our fingers against each other. “I wish they could help us choose the right course of action.”
“By the right course of action, you mean, should you and I do it on the altar under the full Hudem moon?”
He grunts at my crassness, but his expression remains somber. “Gesine said the seers have seen the door opened in the age of the casters. Given all that has transpired with this place, we have to assume she is right and it is inevitable, one way or another.”
“Maybe she is. She always seems to be. So we would be rid of this blood curse.” One positive.
“At what cost? Malachi as king and the Nulling’s beasts flooding these lands? How would we fight against them and a hundred hags and grifs outside Ulysede’s gates?”
“There has to be a way. He was defeated once, right?” Both Malachi and Aoife, masquerading as king and queen. “How?”
“I can tell you how it did not happen, which is with all our lands and people so terribly fractured as they are today. Ybaris, Islor, and Mordain would have to work together.” He scoffs as if the very idea is laughable.
“They did it once.” When King Ailill tried to release the nymphs the last time at Malachi’s behest and tore the veil into the Nulling. Wendeline said it took them fifty years to rid this world of the worst beasts and seal the tear.
“We did not have Neilina at Ybaris’s helm, scheming so vindictively. Islor was not being ripped apart from within. I can’t decide which is worse—the treacherous lords or the poison. I hazard it does not matter. I fear there are no alliances left to be made.”
