Fantasy Romance
“Absolutely not!” Alaric roared. “You are my sister. I will protect you.”
Claudia folded her arms over her chest. “I am a mage purple class.”
“All the more reason for you to stay here where its safe. Do you know what Ilyiosians do to mages?”
“I don’t care. I won’t lose you to them, too.”
War.
Claudia closed her eyes. Not again.
“I will join Prince Siegfried on the front lines. If something happens to me, it will be up to you to carry on the Whitecliff name,” her brother said.
Claudia wrapped both of her hands around his. “I am coming with you.”
Claudia paced as she thought through her prayer and found her brother alone in the great hall with an untouched glass of wine beside him.
“What’s wrong?”
He shook his head.
“Tell me.” Claudia crouched beside him. While he was almost ten summers her senior, she had been his confidant and voice of reason since Anton’s death.
“King Garon wants war.”
There were no spells in any of Claudia’s books large enough, powerful enough, to destroy all of Ilyious.
No matter how much she studied, how much she was willing to give up, there was no way to end the wars once and for all.
But she would not give up.
She closed her eyes and prayed to the Moon Dragon.
Claudia watched her mother all but beg for her father’s attention and was disgusted with both of them.
Her mother would never be the Duke of Whitecliff’s first wife.
She should stop trying.
Claudia stared down at the mage tome in front of her. She would never let herself be anyone’s second choice.
Besides, she had a war to end.
As they said their final goodbyes to Claudia’s brother, no one cried.
No one said anything.
Another death. Another family suffering. Another casualty of war.
Claudia was done with war, and she would do anything to stop it.