Alvina and Quinn have never been further apart, but their connection to the spirits might be what reconnects them again.
***
Quinn av Stál is slowly losing his mind. He's sure of that, and the only thing keeping him together is his fiancé Islo Charr...
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"Sign this," Dreki murmured and pushed a document across the table to me. I scanned it quickly and frowned.
"Take out the paragraph that mentions anyone with ties to the Aatskina tribe will be prosecuted. We're not committing genocide."
He looked up from his papers and arched a brow at me. "An awfully large word for such a dimwit."
"I'm not a dimwit," I bristled back.
He chuckled and leaned back in his chair. "Sign it, Quinn. And fast. I don't have all day."
"I won't allow you to do this."
"I don't care. Sign it. Or I'll force you. You may need two hands, but does your beloved Islo?"
Cold flooded down my spine and my stomach dropped. I looked down at the document and swallowed hard.
Islo's life or the lives of the Aatskina people who lived in Andaheim. It wasn't a fair choice. And it wasn't like they wouldn't find a way to do this without my signature. The only thing they needed it for was the armed forces of Andaheim. Nothing else. I needed to do this. I had to do this. But I didn't want to. I wanted it all to end. I wanted the Bursaaq out of my stronghold and I wanted my sister back.
Both were fantasies and I was no longer a child who had the luxury of believing in fairytales. They didn't come true. And Islo was working on something. He told me he was working on something. I just had to believe in him and whoever was helping him.
I signed the document and slid it back to Dreki. "Why do you hate them so much?"
"Hate them? I don't hate them." He shrugged as he poured sand over my signature, to make sure it didn't smudge.
"You seem very determined to kill them all. There must be a reason."
He looked up from the document with a pretty fierce look. "I want my tribe to survive. If we're going to do that, we need the land the Aatskina tribe stole from us."
"They didn't steal any land. They were given that land. By my father."
"Was it his to give?" He arched a brow at me.
"Yes. He took the Bursaaq tribe. You killed his oldest son."
"I think we both know I did no such thing. I was barely an adult back then. And you were a child. We're living on rules established by the generation before us, and why? Because that's what some dead king said? You're the king now. You're going to pay reparation to the Bursaaq, like we deserve."
"And will it make it better by destroying the Aatskina tribe?"
"It certainly will. Good day, Quinn. You're excused."
I clenched my fists. He could not just dismiss me like this. I would not have it.
My eyes went to the ink flagon. I wanted it to explode. And it did. The flagon exploded and ruined his shitty document. Dreki jerked back, shielding himself with his hands from the flying glass.
