“Aprisoner?” His head shakes in disbelief. “Gods, you cannot be serious. Would I have gone through all the effort of saving you—repeatedly—only to make you my prisoner?”
“If I’m not a prisoner, what am I?”
“You are a piece in a puzzle I have been trying to solve for over a century.”
I blink slowly. “So, you aim to fulfill this prophecy Soren spoke of? To restore the balance? Or is it…”
“Is it what?”
“He indicated that…that you…Well, that you were trying to assuage your guilt over something that happened a long time ago.” Sucking in a sharp breath, I force myself to continue despite the tension ebbing from Penn in waves. “Something with the previous wind weaver. With…Enid.”
The bark beneath Penn’s fingers begins to smolder. He quickly pulls back his hand, clenching it into a tight fist at his side. I keep my eyes on the blackened tree trunk as he mutters, “This is not the time or place to discuss this.”
He begins to walk away.
“Trust.” The word rings out, halting him in his tracks. “This is where it begins, Penn. You want me to stop questioning your motives? Give me a reason to.”
It is as close as I’ll allow myself to get to begging. The plea in my voice must register somewhere beneath his brimming anger, because he does not walk away. His shoulders are stiff as he turns around to face me. The ten paces between us feel at once far too vast and far too near.
“Ask, then,” he says flatly. “Ask your questions.”
“Who was she?”
“A Remnant of Air, as you know already.”
“I didn’t ask what she was. I askedwhoshe was.”
His expression is blank, all emotions carefully contained. “I found her seventy years ago, in a city near Lake Lumen. What is now Westlake, though it had another name then. Another king. She was born the daughter of a lord there. Her father was wise, for a mortal. He had read of Anwyvn’s history, had seen the slow sickness spreading through his lands. So, when his wife gave birth to a babe bearing a strange mark on her breast…he did not cast the newborn out, as others would have.” He takes a deep breath. “Harboring a halfling was punishable by death. But he knew she was a child of the prophecy. He named her Enid, which meanssoulorspirit, for she had moved his with her first breath. And for sixteen years, he did his best to keep her safe.”
I have never heard him speak so much. I keep very still and very silent, afraid any interruption will break the spell of his words.
“But discontent grew in the Midlands, spurred by famine and plague. And, with it, an insatiable violence. Wars raged, kings usurping one another with such speed, it was hardly worth writing down their names in the historical annals.”
Paper kings, Eli called them.Their sovereignty easily scratched out.
“It was a bloody time,” Penn continues. “A dangerous timefor everyone, but especially for the fae. Most especially for a Remnant. Enid spent her whole life locked away in that manor house, hidden from a world that would kill her on sight. She never stepped outside, never got to laugh or play or be a child. Books were her only escape from confinement. Still, it was not enough. Servants talk. Even her father’s position could not halt the whispers forever.”
My stomach turns leaden with foreboding.
“Once the rumors began to spread, there was no stopping them. A changeling girl lived under the lord’s roof, they said, swapped at birth for his real child. Fae trickery at work. And he, a fool for loving her. Not fit to see the truth in his own household. Not fit to rule their small fiefdom.” A muscle leaps in his jaw. “I got her out as the townsfolk closed in with their torches and pitchforks, as the king’s soldiers rode in to finish the job.”
“Her family?”
“Butchered. Everyone in the manor, down to the scullery maids. They even killed the hounds.”
My throat is thick, my words choked with horror. “And Enid?”
“I brought her north. To Dyved. Eventually, to Llyr.” Penn’s voice is flat, his face expressionless. Even his eyes are banked of their normal fire, as though speaking of this requires such control, he has no choice but to contain his emotions in a vise. “There was a time when Soren and I were not at odds. We were not even mere allies. We…”
“You were friends,” I finish. I had guessed as much. Theirs is no feud between estranged enemies, no disagreement between acquaintances. Such enduring vitriol is only possible because it feeds upon the fuel of a ruined friendship. For what is hate but love turned poison?
Penn stares at me, delaying for a long moment. I get the sensehe does not particularly want to share whatever he is going to say next. “You must understand, there is a certain…bond…that exists among all the Remnants. Like it or not, we are linked.”
My brows lift. “What do you mean bylinked?”
“We share an inherent compatibility. A common energy. Think of it like a blood bond or a family tie—only deeper, for this connection cannot ever truly be severed. We are four weighted scales hung from the same beam, forever seeking a balance only the others can deliver. Independent, but irrevocably tethered.”
I think of the ornate tetrad symbol etched into the leather of Soren’s book—those four triangles, individual yet interlocked. “That’s how it is with you and Soren?”