Aikana had not yet risen as Dewer rounded the final curve on the cliff road and beheld the bay of Kaelunis. The sun was setting, throwing long arms of gold over the waves and across the beach. He had not laid eyes on this place for an age, yet the sight of the palm trees gently swaying in the distance and the smell of the warm saltwater rushing along the shore still felt as familiar as the rhythm of his own heartbeat.

  Dewer heard the Kaeluni before he saw them. Drums were booming along the shoreline, rebounding from the cliffs and scattering gulls who cawed and wheeled away over the electric blue waters of the Kalee Sea. The Kaeluni spilled from a wide gap between two cliffs where they made their homes in the soft rock, spreading over the sand and into the water so that from Dewer’s perspective, they appeared to be a writhing carpet of people. They clapped their hands in the air, feet pounding on the sand to a tuneless rhythm, voices joined as one in a deep, guttural chant.

  It did not take Dewer long to pick Aliona out from the crowd. He watched her turn and sway, oiled body the colour of a russet sunset rolling like a swelling wave as her long hair fell in dark waves across her face. She had entered what her people called the Dreaming State. With the insistent chant ringing in her blood, she was no longer aware of the continuous movement of her own feet. This was a state in which great truths were made clear and stupendous beauty revealed. Dewer had often envied the Kaeluni’s ability to leave the world and their own bodies behind. It was something he had never been able to master.

  “Do they welcome the Purple Mother, or cry goodbye to Mamai as he departs?” the Salt Sword at his side wondered. Their weary horses hung their heads together, pulling at tufts of coarse grass.

  Dewer turned to look at him, surprised to hear the softly-spoken man speak. They were the first words Karane had uttered in hours.

  “Both,” he replied. “Although in all honesty, the Kaeluni would celebrate the wind blowing. This spectacle is not unusual.” He shifted on his horse, thighs tight from hours of riding, and glanced up towards the darkening expanse of lilac sky. “I wonder how Armoria fares?”

  “Critos will have the repairs well underway.”

  Dewer nodded. He was quite sure Critos was standing waist-deep in seawater as they spoke, barking at druids as well as the common workers, making sure no one was dragging their feet as they struggled to shore up the broken wall in the Pit of Thorns.

  “The tumari are loose in the world now, Karane. If Aliona has knowledge of this, if she knows what I have unleashed—” He tightened a hand around the reins of his horse. “Make haste back to Armoria if I do not return by morning. Gather the druids, the Salt Swords.”

  Karane dropped his head once in a stiff gesture of understanding.

  Dewer scanned the crowd on the beach once more, pausing when Aliona stopped moving and turned in his direction. Her face was the only point of stillness amongst the tumultuous sea of undulating bodies. He wondered how many hours she had been dancing barefoot on the sand.

  Across the gulf of beach and rock, they faced each other, both waiting for the other person to make a move. Dewer broke first. He motioned towards the far end of the beach, indicating the further cove where Aliona’s living quarters were. He dismounted, handed the reins to Karane, and began making his way down to the sand. On the periphery of his vision, he could see Aliona carving her own path through the crowd.

  Dewer finally stopped before a deceptively small house, hidden beneath an overhanging cliff shelf. The flat roof was covered with determined little sea poppies, their petals blazing yellow as they nodded at the sun slipping into the sea. He looked out over the waves, already beginning to sparkle with the dazzling luminescence that made the waters of Kaelunis famous throughout Joria. It looked as though a million strands of tiny, glowing sapphires were floating in the water, washing across the beach to glitter on the sand.

  Aliona glided across the cove on feet so swift and silent she almost took him by surprise.

  “Why are you here, Dewer?”

  The cove was a private, peaceful place, shielded from the main beach by a curve of cliffs. It was Aliona’s sanctuary and only her most trusted confidantes ever dared set foot there. Dewer was painfully aware that he was no longer one of them. He turned to look at her, hating the way his breath betrayed him by catching in his throat. Even after all these centuries, her beauty still mesmerised him. It was sickening.

  “You are as exquisite as ever,” he admitted.

  Aliona watched him. She had never been a fan of tedious small talk.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt the festivities,” he tried again.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Direct as ever, too."

  “Why are you here?” she asked again.

  “You’re not going to invite me in?” Dewer looked towards the little house, seemingly cobbled together from sea-smoothed stone and driftwood.

  “Certainly not.”

  The long waves of Aliona’s hair riffled across her bare shoulders in the salt breeze, and her eyes burned with a sad fury that made the mighty Lord Dewer want to turn and flee.

  “Ali,” he pleaded, unsettled by his rising desperation. “It’s been two lifetimes; when are you going to forgive me?”

  “Perhaps I will never forgive you. Only one other has betrayed me as you did, and she no longer possesses the use of her right mind.”

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  He flinched as he thought back to the night Aliona had discovered him beneath this very cliff, entwined with Kaide, one of her most beloved Kaeluni sons. In truth, it was not the affair that hurt Aliona as much as the betrayal of her secrets.

  “You exacted your revenge, did you not?”

  Dewer was still bitter at the memory. After putting Kaide to death by fire, Aliona had turned her attention to him. She stripped him of his magick with a binding spell so strong, all the druids in Armoria could not undo it. All those long years of training, practising, honing his craft under Aliona’s patient tutelage had crumbled to dust that night.

  “I did,” Aliona agreed. “But then you proclaimed yourself Lord of Armoria, no less, and built yourself a gaudy citadel. I know what you have been doing, Dewer. You have bent the power of the Armorian druids to your own selfish ends. I wonder what you offered them in return for their labours? Or did you simply threaten them with misery and death?”

  Dewer opened his mouth to reply, but Aliona lifted a hand to silence him.

  “No matter. It does not change the fact that you were supposed to suffer when I bound you. You were supposed to end your days alone and powerless. Instead, you crawled away and rose a king.”

  “So sorry to disappoint you."

  He tried to appear humble, but he knew Aliona could see his triumph flickering just beneath the surface. It was hard to reign it in. He had risen as a king, and he had done it with no help from his former queen.

  “Disappointing me is all you have ever done, Dewer. You were the most promising disciple I ever taught, and you threw it all away for a pretty boy.”

  “I was no mere disciple though, was I? You loved me, Ali.” Dewer moved closer, watching her carefully. “I believe you love me still.” He lifted a hand to her face but before he could touch her, she batted it away.

  “What disgusting arrogance.”

  “I thought it was my arrogance that drew you to me.”

  “It is your arrogance that leads you to believe such nonsense.”

  Despite her hostility, Dewer could see Aliona was softening. He had always been able to placate her after an argument. The fact that this argument had lasted for over one hundred years made no difference.

  “Have you missed me, Ali?”

  Aliona shook her head. Her lips were set in a thin line but her eyes betrayed her, the old fury replaced with a familiar resignation.

  “I will admit to missing you,” he said. “You saved me when I thought I was beyond saving. Do you remember?”

  “I remember.”

  “I worshipped you for countless decades.” He lifted his hand to her face again. This time she let him brush her cheek, her long eyelashes fluttering at his touch. “Surely we still mean something to each other?”

  Aliona took a step back and Dewer’s hand dropped to his side.

  “You presume much.” Then, unable to meet his gaze, “Although perhaps there is some truth in what you say.”

  Dewer took this as an invitation. He closed the gap between them and pulled her to his chest, pressing his mouth to hers. It was a bold and reckless move. Either Aliona would accept his long overdue apology, or she would rip his heart from his chest and cast the tortured organ into the sea.

  She stood stiffly in his arms at first, and Dewer felt sure he was destined for the pyre. Perhaps if she was feeling particularly benevolent after their century-long cooling-off period, she might simply break every one of his limbs and topple him from the highest clifftop. It would make quite the show for Karane and their tired horses. But eventually, Aliona relented, her hands reaching up to entwine in his hair. When she finally pulled away, there was a smile playing on her face.

  “Very well. I will listen to what you have to say. I am not foolish enough to believe you would risk returning unless you had need of something.”

  Dewer nodded. “My strength is fading, I need—” He paused to summon his courage. Admitting weakness felt like pulling barbed thorns from his skin. “I need that which only you can give me, Ali.”

  “Of course, your strength is fading. You have lived through two moon-changes since you left Kaelunis. Now the Purple Mother is rising once again and you have always drawn strength and comfort from her cold partner, Mamai, who even now is passing away above our heads. The moons are changing, the world is in flux. I warned you of this. Have the years really been so long you have forgotten all I taught you?”

  “No,” he said, reaching for her again. “I remember everything, Ali.” When she failed to react he shook his head, his voice rising. “Do I have to beg? Would you like to see me on my knees?”

  “If I help you, how can I be sure you will not throw this world into chaos? I hear whispers from Armoria. I am no idiot.”

  “Only you know the true reason for my actions.” He took hold of her hands. “Need I remind you of the promise you made to me? You vowed to assist me, no matter the cost.”

  “I never believed the cost would be all of Joria."

  “I have no interest in destroying Joria.” Dewer was beginning to worry she would never agree to aid him. “I only wish to take back that which was stolen from me.” He refused to break eye contact, tightening his grip on her hands until at last, she pulled them away.

  “This will be the last time you seek life from me.” She moved to enter the small house beneath the cliff. “I refuse to be held by this debt forever.”

  “One last time is all I need.” Dewer closed the door behind them, shutting out Aikana’s rising lavender light as it washed across the sea to ripple over the sand where the Kaeluni were still dancing.

  The house was simply furnished but deceptively large, cut back into the cliff face. Glistening seashells studded the walls and garlands of dried seaweed hung from the low ceilings.

  Dewer followed Aliona in silence as she led him to her bedroom, hardly daring to even tread too loudly for fear he would break the spell and she would change her mind. The last time he had seen her, her face so distorted by fury he believed she was possessed by some vile spirit, he thought they would never cross paths again. A part of him was finding it hard to believe she had not banished him on sight, sending him home with a new scar or two for his trouble. Another part of him never doubted his ability to win the Kaeluni queen back to his cause.

  Aliona walked into the dully lit bedroom and halted at the foot of her bed. She turned to face Dewer.

  “If the sea whispers to me of unbalance, if a darkness rises in Armoria large enough to touch these shores, I will come for you. If that happens, you will beg for a death as kind as the one I offered Kaide.” Her eyes became large as she spoke, infused with a dreadful, trembling light.

  Dewer thought again of Kaide burning on the beach. They’d forced him to his knees to watch as his skin blackened and bubbled amid a riot of flames and drifting ash. He still dreamed of that night. Horribly bright, detailed nightmares he dared not tell another living soul about. When the dreams came he would forcefully claw himself back to wakefulness, the seemingly endless screaming that had finally guttered to a raw death rattle still echoing from the walls of his bedroom.

  Dewer closed his eyes and pushed the images away, grasping his resolve with a shaky breath. “You will not hear any such whispers,” he promised, forcing himself to look at Aliona. The terrible light had faded. She looked like a young woman again, her features soft and delicate. “I promise you.”

  Aliona nodded and took his hand. Her fingers were cool against his own, smooth as waxed paper. “You know there’s only one way to draw from my essence."

  From the cast of her gaze, Dewer was fairly certain Aliona had no qualms about what came next.

  “I know,” he said. “In fact, I—”

  He was silenced by a single finger pressed against his lips. Aliona pushed him down onto the soft expanse of the bed, draped with silks and coloured scarves. As she hitched up her skirts to straddle him, Dewer gave way beneath her. He watched her move in the lantern light, hair falling across her face, and forced himself to relinquish control. He had never been very good at that.