Berk cursed and closed his eyes.

For the first time since Aster left, I laughed in earnest, though I soon sobered.

It was time to give in to the curiosity. Just a little. Just enough to move on and hope the growing ache she’d left me with would soon reach its peak before letting up. “Have you heard much about what goes on over there?”

Berk grunted and opened his eyes. “Where?”

I refrained from gritting my teeth. “You know where.” He’d mentioned more than once that he was still in casual contact with a distant relative from the isle. And with little to fill his days, the veteran made it his business to know everyone’s business.

“Oh, right.” He straightened in the chair. “Not much has changed. The humans still cause a stir. The bloodshed continues.” Dark eyes scrutinized me. “Why?”

I ignored his question. “Still?”

“That human king won’t stop until vengeance for the death of his family has been met,” he said, as if I were daft, then threw his hand out. “Everyone so much as connected to his bloodline was wiped out.”

“Yet somehow he survived.”

“Well, the emerald fae thought him dead, of course, but I heard he was raised within the butchered lands of the isle until he grew strong enough to build an army and take back one of his family’s strongholds. What was his name? Merlin?”

My spine began to lock.

“No,” Berk said, tapping at his crooked nose. “Marvis? Stars, I don’t fucking know. Something stupid like that.”

“So he won’t stop.” I licked my teeth, pondering that. “How much vengeance does he desire exactly?”

“Fuck knows, but given the duration of it all, and that the emerald king still lives, he still hasn’t accomplished it.”

I went to sip my water, forgetting that it was empty.

“Hard to believe they once existed peacefully, those humans and the emerald fae,” Berk said after a tense minute had passed. “That for a great length of time, humans were welcomed and even celebrated,” he hacked, “for the trade and entertainment they offered those ignorant faeries.”

“Just as the golden royals have encouraged with those in Errin,” I said, referring to the two kingdoms across the ravine that split through our continent of Nodoya. Errin, the human territory, shared a portion of the continent with the fae kingdom of Sinshell.

Berk nodded. “That will tear a chunk out of their asses, just you wait.”

Indeed, I concurred silently.

“Do you know much of the tale?” Berk asked.

Knowing he was itching to speak it, I shook my head. Berk had few things left he enjoyed, and one of them was sharing stories.