Chapter 25 Rowan
Rowan
The scent of stew and fresh bread announces the fae’s arrival a moment before the tent flap whispers open to let in the males, Autumn, and a tall female fae with an echoing resemblance to Kai.
The first pinpricks of rain on the canvas follow them though, the needle like rain sneaking inside the open flap.
Ellie gives a conspiratory giggle and ogles Kai’s body as if his physique — and not my pending escape back to Eryndor—had been the subject of our discussion.
“Brought some food.” Logan says, dropping himself and a large tray beside me.
I wonder why he's condescended to switch back into fae form but suspect it has something to do with the maps Kyrian carries and the tense expression on everyone's faces.
The kind people wear when preparing for battle.
“What do you think, Rabbit? Can you eat something?”
I eye the clay bowl of venison stew with chunks of root vegetables bobbing in dark gravy, and a half-loaf of crusty bread still warm enough to steam when Logan tears it open. It’s rich and savory and utterly mundane in the best possible way.
My stomach growls with complete lack of dignity. In the distance thunder echoes against the trees and the sound of pattering rain picks up its pace.
"Told you she'd be hungry," says Logan.
"Actually, it was Autumn who said that," the tall fae says, pulling her mane of orange hair back behind her ears.
"But I believed her,” says Logan. “It's almost the same."
"No, it's actually not the same at all."
Autumn clears her throat with the kind of delicate authority that makes everyone shut up. "Rowan, allow me to introduce Auri, Kai's twin sister. Auri, Rowan."
"Pleasure." Auri’s gaze rakes over me with an assessment that makes my skin prickle, giving me the distinct impression I've been weighed, measured, and found severely wanting. Or worse yet, that Auri knows what Ellie and I were discussing before the fae got here.
Kai growls at her, his shadows snaking around his forearms like bands of midnight.
Auri gives Kai a vulgar gesture without even looking in his direction.
“You. Food.” Logan breaks off a piece of bread and dips it in the stew before holding it to my lips.
“I can feed myself.”
“But you aren’t, are you?” He waggles the food in front of me the way one does to entice a puppy. Or, I suppose, a wolf cub. "You haven't eaten solid food in a week. Your body needs to remember how this works. Plus, I like doing it.”
Logan watches every swallow. Offering more until I finally gather myself together enough to take over.
"So, what's happening?" I ask, taking up the spoon. I hope to hell I sound nonchalant. Normal.
"Nothing that you need to concern yourself about," Auri says. "Does it really take all three of you to deliver a bowl of soup to one human?"
"It takes only one of us to throw you into a lake," Kai says.
"Initial reports put the incoming Eryndor force at three times our number," Kyrian says, earning a disapproving look from Auri.
“You do know that Rowan here is technically part of said Eryndor force, right? And, if my understanding is correct, the blood niece of the Eryndor queen?” She waves a hand in the air. “The undying love between her and Kai notwithstanding of course.”
“She is also about to be in the middle of battle. She deserves to know what we are facing.”
“Eryndor. We are facing Eryndor,” Auri says, enunciating the word. A faint gust of wind slips under the tent flap ruffling the bedding and cooling the air. The smell of wet earth moves in on the scent of stew. “I’d wager a guess she knows what that means better than we do.”
Kyrian lowers his head for a moment then turns on Auri, his shoulders spread.
“Enough.” The word is clipped. Quiet. Powerful.
“We made a pact with Rowan. She gave us her word and I take her at it. When we are on Slate territory, you may do as you wish. But right now, we stand on Flurry ground. Please do not overestimate the welcome of your council on this matter.”
The food that tasted so delicious moments ago suddenly turns to lead in my stomach.
Without waiting for Auri’s answer, Kyrian deliberately spreads the map he’s been carrying on the low table, ensuring that I can see.
Outside, a fat drop of rain hits the tent right above us and runs in a thin line down the canvas.
The growing rhythm of the drops makes the conversation feel urgent.
As if anyone needs the extra stress. “In the ideal situation, we’d simply retreat,” he says.
“But that risks the egg and we will not do that to the draken. That leaves us three options: One — set up a stronghold around the draken field and defend it with everything we have.”
“That lets you leverage defenses to their maximum,” I say, wanting to show that I’ve at least some competence in strategy.
I’m not sure who I’m trying to impress exactly, but I suspect it's Auri. Also, she seems unimpressed. I clear my throat. “But it also centers the fighting around the very youngling you want to protect. And, should the defensive line fall, there won’t be any recourse. I’d think luring the entire engagement away from the draken field is the wiser choice, especially since Eryndor thinks draken are more like flying horses than anything else.
No reason for the marching army to veer away from the real fighting to go raid what amounts to a half-empty stable. ”
Sorry, Nyx, I say in my head, though I have no idea if the draken can hear me. I’ve only heard him speak once, when first learning about Logan’s mating bond.
There is no reply.
A heartbeat later, relief and terror flood me in equal measure. Thank the stars there is no reply—because if there had been, if Nyx could read my mind…
“What’s wrong?” Logan’s brows narrow as he seems to search me for signs of sudden injury. “You’ve just gone pale as milk.”
I shake myself. “Just still getting used to the whole not being dead thing. It’s tiring.” I make a point of bringing my attention back to the group leaning over the map. “So, am I right?”
Kai nods. The motion is small, almost imperceptible—yet it makes warmth spread through my chest.
I hate how much his approval matters to me.
Kyrian doesn’t seem to notice the exchange. “My thinking matches yours. Perhaps if we were defending an actual stronghold like a castle, the strategy would make sense, but even Autumn’s impressive wards won't turn a field into a fortress overnight.”
“The second option is the flip of the first,” says Kai, looking at Logan as he speaks.
Right. Logan had been with me the entire time, and away from the command tent’s discussion.
“We take the offensive. Meet Eryndor’s army head-on and as far from here as possible.
Hard, fast, a surprise all out assault.”
“You could leave the retreat route open.” I catch Auri’s frown and lift my chin. “Kyrian said just a moment ago that not having this engagement at all would have been the ideal choice. They will retreat before they die. So the engagement will be over faster.”
“Debatable,” Ellie mutters. “They’ll die before they retreat. Especially with your mother in charge.”
“I guarantee they won’t retreat after they die.”
“We’ll leave retreat an option,” Kyrian says. “Chaos is right. The sooner the engagement ends, the more lives will be spared. I’m not eager to expose the draken riot to any more auric steel than I must. Scouts are seeing a hell of a lot of archers.”
Archers who will be armed with arrows I helped forge. Arrows that, should they hit their target, will paralyze the draken. Trap those glorious creatures in a prison of their own body. That’s torture. There is no other word for it. Painful, horrible, torture. All because of the alloy I make.
And yet… Had the marching army not been thus armed, Kyrian’s draken riot would have destroyed them all in a matter of minutes. There wouldn’t have been a battle. Only slaughter. The human’s greater numbers would only matter for the size of the grave that no one would be left alive to dig.
Stars, this whole thing is a mess.
I’m suddenly not hungry, much to Logan’s consternation. “What’s the third option?” I ask.
“Stealth. We advance in small, concealed units.” Kyrian traces his finger along the map, pointing out the natural features of the terrain.
“Instead of a head-on army vs army melee, we pick at them with scalpel operations. A raid on supplies. A scrimmage to break their lines. A slew of small disorienting engagements all designed to distract and confuse while the draken herd their forces toward these narrowed paths. Paths that funnel the Eryndor soldiers into killing zones.”
I shudder. I can’t help it.
“Perhaps the battle doesn’t sit well with you, Rowan?” Auri says.
“It doesn’t, and it shouldn’t,” I snap back at her. At least my indignation sits on solid ground. “I’m no more excited about you slaughtering humans than I am about their arrows hurting the draken. Would you truly expect me to feel otherwise and still have a soul?”
“Seems to me, at least half of that soul crushing problem is in your ability to solve,” Auri’s voice has a song-like musing tone.
“You can take the auric steel out of play. What’s that term that’s been making rounds about camp?
Rust-dust. Why don’t you rust-dust some of those auric arrows and protect the draken from a fate worse than death? ”
“She can’t.” Kai snaps before Auri can even close her mouth. “The last burst of magic nearly killed her. She still hangs onto life by a thread. I can feel it. Rowan will use no magic tonight.”
“But if not for her weakness, she’d—”
“- Enough.” Kai takes a step toward his twin, his canines bared. “You are not going to play your hypothetical ‘what if she could’ games. And let me save you the trouble anyway. The bargain I made with Rowan never included her raising a hand against her kind. And I wouldn’t ask her to.”
“Bargain?” Auri steps back, her hand fluttering to her heart. “Is that what they called love-proposals wherever you’ve been skulking the past years?”
The tips of Kai’s ears darken.
Hot fury shimmers through the bond and it takes me a moment to realize the emotion isn’t actually mine. And that behind the blazing fury is a sheen of something comfortable and familiar.
“They do this a lot, don’t they?” I murmur.
Autumn crosses her arms. “I’d go so far as to call it a past-time.”
“Wait.” I hold my hands out between the siblings, desperate to get a word in before it's too late. “There’s another option. Eryndor is only waging this battle because they believe you intend to attack them. And you are only attacking to make sure Eryndor doesn’t mount an inconvenient assault first. You don’t actually want to fight the humans.
The only reason you’re even contemplating it is because you have something precious to protect. ”
Kyrian nods, but his brow furrows. He doesn’t see where I’m going with this. And he isn’t sure he likes it.
I hurry on while I have the chance to speak. “Well, the humans are in a hard and very different position. No one wants to be battling; Eryndor is fighting to protect its borders and cities. The damage a single draken could do is not known, nor is the value placed on the draken.”
“So what are you saying?” Auri asks.
“I am saying that this is a battle — a war — that neither side wants to be fighting. So if you don’t want to fight Eryndor, and Eryndor doesn’t want to fight you, what if you go and talk to them. Negotiate. Commander to commander. What if we come out of this with peace? Or at least a cease fire.”
All the fae shake their heads, though there is something like sorrowful empathy in Autumn’s gaze. Kai’s on the other hand is ice cold.
“Any show of weakness on our part will be blood in the water for Ainsley,” Kai says. “If there is anything I’ve understood over the two years at the Spire, it’s to never negotiate from a position of weakness.”
“Plus, discovering that the commanders of the enemy force are the fae agents who’ve been deceiving the Commandant for the past two years and then kidnapped her daughter, isn’t going to inspire trust,” Kyrian adds with blunt finality.
“The only way the queen will back down is if she’s given no choice.
Until then, any human commander who does less than kill every fae they see will be executed or worse. ”
“We fight,” Kai says with such chill that it echoes all along my spine.
Dark silence fills the tent.
“Well, that settles that.” Ellie says after a moment. “So then, which option have you distinguished warriors decided on?”
It’s all I can do not to flinch. Not to give any sign of how much the answer matters. On why it matters.
“That’s yet to be figured out,” Auri says before any of the males have a chance to speak.
She surveys the room and I see the born leader in her shining through.
“You said it yourselves: Rowan never signed up to take up arms against her own people. So don’t put her in a position of having vital information that could save hundreds of human lives.
Even if she keeps to the terms of your bargain, as you are so certain she will,” the stray gaze she gives me says she doesn’t share her brother’s certainty, “it will be a decision she has to live with for the rest of her life. One that will spill someone’s blood. Don’t put her in that situation.”
Kyrian studies my face, but there isn’t time to say whatever he is contemplating because just as Auri finishes her declaration, a horn sounds in the distance and lightning silhouettes the draken circling the field outside, making them look even more menacing.
“The scouts are back,” Kai says as the pelting rain rattles through my bones and the storm starts in earnest. “We need to go. Now.”