Page 43 of Renegade Kingdom
“No,” Ryder said firmly. “I absolutely will not.”
Before I could respond, a shout from the beach had me spinning, magic surging to my fingertips before I’d even completed the turn. My mates reacted instantly, a choreography of threat response that would have been impressive if it wasn’t born from necessity. Dean’s hand went to his weapon. Tank stepped in front of me, claws already extending. Maddox’s eyes flashed gold as his lion pressed to the surface.
But it wasn’t an attack.
More of the freed Endless were still leaving the ship. A larger group than I’d expected, streaming down the gangplank with a determination that hadn’t been there before. Vera, one of the representatives they’d elected, jogged up the beach toward me.
“We’ve changed our minds,” she said, slightly out of breath.
I blinked. “Changed your minds?”
“Those of us who were planning to leave.” Vera straightened, lifting her chin. “We’ve talked it over, and we’re staying. We’re going with you.”
“What changed?”
Her gaze shifted to the forest behind me. To the pathway the trees had opened. To the place where the guardian had stood. I watched her expression shift as she looked at it, the hardness in her eyes giving way to something I hadn’t seen there before. Not quite belief. More like the reluctant acceptance that comes when the evidence becomes too overwhelming to deny.
“You’re the real thing,” she said simply. “Nymeria’s last chance. We can see that now.” Something hard settled back into her expression, but this time it was directed outward. At the war. At Arik. At the future she’d chosen to face instead of run from. “We’d rather die on a battlefield, if that’s to be our fate, than risk becoming one of the Endless again if Arik wins. He doesn’t get to have us back.”
The conviction in her voice hit me somewhere deep. These people had been stripped of everything. Their magic, their freedom, their identities. And here they were, choosing to fight. Not because they thought they’d win, but because the alternative was worse. Because surrender meant becoming hollow again, and they’d tasted enough of that to know that death was preferable.
“We’re glad to have you,” I told her. “All of you.”
Vera nodded curtly, then turned and jogged back to her people. I watched her go, something warm and fierce expanding in my chest.
“More soldiers,” Dean observed quietly. “Good.”
“More people to protect,” I countered.
“Both,” Tank said. “Always both.”
We turned back to the path through the trees and began the walk to the palace. The freed Endless and Rhidian’s crew fell in behind us, a procession that was far larger than it had any right to be. Our footsteps were muffled by moss and fallen leaves, and the forest seemed to breathe around us, alive and welcoming in a way I’d never experienced anywhere else. Light filtered through the canopy in golden shafts, and small creatures I didn’t recognise watched us from the branches with curious, unafraid eyes.
But as the palace came into view through the thinning trees, I stopped.
It wasn’t empty.
Smoke rose from chimneys that should have been cold. Light flickered in windows that should have been dark. And as we stepped out of the treeline into the courtyard, I could see people. Dozens of them. Moving through the grounds, carrying supplies, training in the open areas with weapons and the faint shimmer of magic that looked tentative but real.
My magic flared instinctively. Beside me, Tank’s claws extended fully, his bear surging forward. Dean drew his blade in a single fluid motion. Maddox’s shift rippled beneath his skin, his lion ready to explode from him at a moment’s notice. Ryder’s hands crackled with static.
Then a figure emerged from the palace doors, and I laughed.
The sound burst out of me before I could stop it. Surprised, relieved, disbelieving. Because walking toward me with afamiliar scowl on his face was the last person I’d expected to see here.
Ezra stopped at the bottom of the steps, crossed his arms, and looked at me with an expression caught somewhere between annoyance and grudging respect.
“Took you long enough,” he said.
I stared at him. The last time I’d seen Ezra, he’d been newly freed from Arik’s control. The first Endless soldier I’d ever freed. He’d been hollow-eyed and barely standing, his body moving like it had forgotten how to take orders from its own mind. I’d wondered then if the damage Arik had done to him was something he’d ever recover from.
The man in front of me now looked nothing like that. He’d filled out, gained muscle and colour in equal measure. There was steel in his stance and clarity in his eyes and a confidence that came from having built something worth protecting. And behind him, the Spring Court was alive in a way it hadn’t been since we left. Since we last walked up to these doors and found Rhidian had made himself at home inside. The memory ached in my heart in a way I knew would never leave me and yet I was relieved by it all the same. Because even through the grief, it meant that memories of Rhidian would never fade. I owed him much at least. .
“Ezra.” I closed the distance between us, shaking my head in disbelief. “What are you doing here? How did you... what is all this?”
He glanced over his shoulder at the bustling courtyard. “What does it look like?”
“It looks like people keep moving into my court without asking,” I said, and the grin on my face was impossible to fight.
