Chapter 43
Chapter 43
M y brother’s life.
I don’t react, even though I’m fighting my rising anger and frustration.
I finally have all the power I could ever ask for, but my family is still in danger.
“Explain,” I command Dusana.
“If the humans agree to a fight between champions, your brother will be returned to you on the battlefield. If not, he will be killed.”
My mind whirls as I try to sort through Karasi’s motivations. She clearly wants me to convince the humans to agree to the fight, but why?
Karasi has maintained an appearance of strength, even though her army is depleted. A fight to the death will ensure she doesn’t have to reveal how weakened her army has become. It would also mean she doesn’t have to pit her people against dragons because defeating them would be extremely difficult.
But to pin her life on the outcome of a single fight, she would have to be confident that her champion would win.
Unless… there’s something I’m not seeing. Information I don’t yet have. A game with pieces I can’t yet see.
Dusana hasn’t stopped studying me, and now her hands twitch nervously. “I’ve delivered my message,” she says. “I will leave now.”
I arch my eyebrows at her. “How do you propose to do that?”
Concord hasn’t returned. There is still a massive dragon guarding the clearing along with a very unhappy human champion who looks like she would rather dispatch Dusana to the saints than listen to another word she says.
There’s movement at the edge of the forest, but it’s Erik. He carries a wooden bowl.
I experience a moment of concern that Galeia isn’t with him, but he wouldn’t leave her unless she was safe.
Dusana’s shoulders sink at the sight of Erik. She must be estimating her chances of leaving here alive and, judging from her resigned exhalation, have now gauged them to be very low.
I asked her how she intended to leave and now she replies. “I guess I won’t be leaving after all.”
“Why did Queen Karasi choose you as her messenger? Why not Elowynn?”
Now, Dusana flinches. She edges backward, shuffling on her knees, even though that only takes her closer to Catalina and her ominous, metal-gloved hand. “I can’t… I’m not allowed…”
I wish I could force her to tell the truth. But my power is in transformation. I can create something from something else.
I don’t have the power of compulsion.
Of course, I could change her nature to one of truthfulness. But that could be inherently dangerous. She could tell the truth to the wrong person, and it could get her, or us, killed.
On the other hand, here I am with a golden medallion unlike any other Blacksmith’s, and Dusana may well believe I’m using its power, even if I’m not…
My left hand snaps out faster than Dusana can take a breath, connecting with the side of her face. “Speak the truth.”
She freezes, her eyes flying wide, but they fill with tears. “I hate you! If you’d only died in that cave, like Karasi wanted?—”
“Like Karasi wanted? Karasi made a show of keeping me alive.”
“She’s always playing two games. One in plain sight and the other in the shadows. Officially, her orders were to give you safe passage. Unofficially, I was sent to kill you.”
I wish I was surprised by this. “You failed.”
“Which is why I was publicly beaten. Not because I disobeyed an order.”
“Did Elowynn know?”
Dusana snorts. “Elowynn knew nothing.”
“Where is she now?”
“Chained in a filthy prison.”
“Why?”
Why would Karasi chain her own champion?
“Karasi told me to follow your brother and sister into the east. I was to make sure they never made it to their destination. I simply had to drop some apple seeds from the sky, and the darkness would come for them.” Dusana exhales heavily. “My orders were to scoop Thaden up before the darkness got him and bring him back to Karasi.”
“Why Thaden?”
“Because he was changed into a dragon. He must know how it was killed.”
Of course, the Fae Queen would be desperate to know how to kill a dragon. Erik didn’t reveal his claws to me until after we’d left the fae castle and only a handful of people know about Galeia.
“I didn’t realize Elowynn was following me,” Dusana continues. “She saved Gallium and got in my way before I could get Thaden. When we returned to the castle, Karasi flew into a rage, called us traitors, and imprisoned us. She only released me to send me here.”
“What of my brother?”
Dusana’s shoulders are slowly sinking. “The last I saw of him, Karasi was keeping him like a pet. If he does something she doesn’t like, Elowynn pays the price.”
My blood boils. I don’t know enough about the dynamic between Gallium and Elowynn, but I know how much it will kill him for someone else to be hurt in his stead. “What about Elowynn’s sister, Gliss?”
“Also in prison. She’s refusing to tell Queen Karasi what the dragons are thinking.”
Before I left the fae castle, Gliss revealed to me that she alone could slip into a dragon’s mind and decipher their thoughts. She explained that dragons aren’t like other creatures. Their thoughts are complex and concealed with light magic, the purest kind. She told me that she was withholding information from her Queen and that if Karasi found out, she would be punished for it.
I want to ask Dusana more, but even if I’m not forcing her to tell the truth, my contact with her mind tells me she’s exhausted.
I will only get one more answer out of her.
“If Elowynn is in prison and you are now our captive, who will be Karasi’s champion?”
“I don’t know,” Dusana whispers, meeting my eyes. “I fear she might fight for herself.”
I remove my hand from Dusana’s face, and she slumps to the ground.
Erik has reached my side and his grim expression tells me he heard everything.
He lowers himself to the ground with a quick, murmured reassurance. “Galeia is with Cailey. They’re playing with Blackbird and Concord near the stream. They’re safe and happy.”
He hands me the bowl of water. It looks like a piece of tree trunk and, judging by the scrape marks on the inside, he used his claws to hollow it out so he could fill it more deeply.
I hold it out to Dusana. “Drink.”
She leans away from the bowl as if it could contain poison.
I give a soft sigh. “Karasi’s message was thorough. It included a way for the humans to respond that doesn’t involve you returning with their answer. Karasi doesn’t expect you to make it back alive.”
“She expects you to kill me.” Dusana’s brown eyes appear faded, but she doesn’t look away. “She told me she hopes you will. I’ve outlived my usefulness. I’m a liability. My people will have been ordered to kill me on sight.”
I believe her.
“Well, then,” I say, inclining my head at the bowl. “You’ve got nothing to lose.”
Her brow furrows.
Hesitantly, she reaches for the bowl.
Maybe she thinks I’ll throw it in her face before she can drink it.
She doesn’t take her eyes off me as she lifts it to her lips and gulps down the liquid.
I turn my attention to Catalina. “Dusana is now my prisoner. She is no longer a threat to your people.”
Catalina’s lips press together. I imagine she’s trying to decide if she can trust me.
“I understand you’re not accustomed to relying on others,” I say to her. “Rachel knows I’m true to my word.”
“Far more than any person I’ve met,” Rachel says, finally stepping forward. “Lady Asha.”
It’s what she used to call me. I’ll never forget the day she helped me up the stairs to my tower, gave me water when I couldn’t lift the cup myself, and sat in the wooden chair in the corner of my room, protecting me while I slept.
“I’m glad to see you, Rachel,” I reply. “And you, too, Mother Solas.”
The older woman steps closer to me than Catalina or Rachel do. In the moonlight, her silvery-gray hair looks whiter than it did when I last saw her, and the smile lines around her mouth and eyes are fainter, her expression more strained.
“If the Fae Queen plays two games,” Mother Solas says, “one we can see and one we can’t, then she will have a plan within a plan. No matter which option Rachel chooses, we must also have a plan of our own.”
Rachel nods, her intelligent gaze taking in Dusana as well as me and Erik. “Gallium’s life is in danger. Maybelle’s heart will break if anything happens to him. Whatever plan we devise, rescuing him has to be part of it.”
She focuses on me. “Queen Karasi has proposed a fight between champions. Catalina is my official champion, but I don’t have to choose her for this fight.”
I’m wary of where Rachel might be going with this. I also expect Catalina might have something to say about it, but her response surprises me.
“Karasi has placed Lady Asha’s brother in danger,” Catalina says. “She will expect Lady Asha to insist on going into the fight herself. After all, Lady Asha is a Blacksmith with power unlike any other. Who better to destroy the fae?”
Catalina studies me carefully, no doubt trying to gauge my reaction to her theory. I don’t blame her. The weight of countless lives rests on her shoulders, and my choices could endanger them.
“It can’t be me,” I say quietly. “Queen Karasi has fallen back to the eastern plain. That’s right at the edge of the darkness. She knows I can’t fight there, or I will only draw the darkness to me and doom everyone around me.”
Erik has been quiet, but now he reaches for me. “Queen Karasi takes delight in holding power over others. She forced you to hunt Milena Ironmeld simply because she could. Of course, it benefitted her to have Milena dead, but you told me how she waited until the last possible moment to offer help.”
I close my eyes against the memory of the moment when I held a nail to his heart and prepared to drive it into his chest to end his suffering.
“Yes,” I whisper. “She waited until I was preparing to end you.”
“She took pleasure in your pain and grief, and then she seized power over you. Despite the fact that you could have killed her without any effort.” Erik’s eyes grow hard, the same kind of fury that was etched into his face when he recounted to me how his brother had died and how powerless he’d been to stop it.
He glares at Catalina and Rachel and Mother Solas and even at Graviter, who has remained resolutely quiet, but I know Erik’s anger isn’t directed at them.
“Do not try to put logic to Queen Karasi’s plans,” he says. “What she wants is to watch you destroy yourselves, trying to protect the ones you love. She will win, and she will enjoy it.”
My heart is sinking with every word Erik speaks because the connection between us is so strong that I can feel his pain.
Only a short time ago, he told me that war is in his blood.
His message was clear: He was not built for peace.
“Erik.” My throat constricts. “No.”
He turns his furious gaze on Dusana. “Who will rule the fae if Karasi dies?”
Her eyes widen. “Queen Karasi doesn’t have any children—no daughter to whom she can pass the crown—so her champion will inherit the crown. That would be Elowynn.”
“Elowynn,” Erik growls. “Who has already proven she will fly into darkness to protect Gallium—a Blacksmith who could be her enemy. She is a fae with a conscience and a heart.”
He turns his glare on Catalina, his teeth sharpening, and I’m impressed when she doesn’t flinch at his ferocity. “The human army will assemble in multiple positions,” he says to her. “One on the front line, another two in defensive positions behind it. And yes, Catalina Shield, I’m telling you how to assemble your army, and I appreciate how offensive that is.”
She arches an eyebrow at him. “Just a little.”
Erik’s voice lowers as he turns his focus back to me. “Asha will free her brother. I will fight for Rachel.” He takes a breath. “Queen Karasi won’t miss the battle, even if she isn’t fighting for herself. Either way, I will kill her.”
“Erik—”
His hand closes around my arm. “You will not lose your brother, Asha. I won’t allow it.”
He’s gripping my left arm, and my power surges at his touch, but I clamp down on it.
I want to convince him that he doesn’t have to do the cutting.
But I can’t deny that he has the strength to end the Fae Queen.
Neither, it seems, can Catalina.
“Once you kill Karasi, the fae will come after you,” she says.
Erik nods. “Their forces will be split until Elowynn can take control.”
Catalina appears to chew on this, but she defers to Rachel.
“I have no wish to annihilate the fae people,” Rachel says. “Erik, do you believe Elowynn will accept an offer of peace?”
Dusana interrupts before Erik can answer.
“Accept peace and go where?” she snaps, glaring at the humans. “My Queen wants the fight to happen near the darkness because it doesn’t discriminate. Dragons, humans, fae… As soon as any magic floods the air, we will all be lost. All it will take is one thunderbird cracking its wings, or a Solstice fae panicking and using the power of sunlight, or stars forbid, a Frost fae snatching hold of the dark wind by accident and dragging it toward us.”
She stares at the humans. “Don’t you see? Nobody can win. Any fight is doomed! Nobody…” Her shoulders slump. “Nobody can win.”
“Then that’s what she wants,” Rachel says, her voice clear but resigned. “It’s clear that Queen Karasi delights in power. She knows she can’t win a battle against dragons, no matter how strong her thunderbird riders are. The darkness is closing in on her. She’s going to die, but she will make damn sure she takes us with her.”
“In fact,” Catalina says, her gloved fist clenching and unclenching, “this whole proposal could be a ploy. She proposed three days, but she won’t have that long. Not when she’s pulled her people so far back. It has to be a diversion. She’s planning something, but there’s no way for us to know what it is. We need to fortify our position so that we can defend against any attack she may make. And we need to do so quickly.”
Mother Solas gives a resigned sigh and nods. So does Rachel.
Even Dusana inclines her head, although she mutters, “A human thinking like a fae. I’ve seen it all.”
But Erik… I study him closely.
He is always two steps ahead. Always planning his moves and countermoves, understanding another person’s motivations and remaining a step ahead.
I used to believe that his machinations were for himself. Then I found out they were all for me. Whatever he did, no matter how harsh it seemed, was to keep me alive.
Now I can see the outcome of his words here. The moment he told Catalina how to maneuver her army, he nudged the humans to push back against his suggestion.
“Vandawolf,” Rachel says, addressing him formally, “I have no choice but to reject entirely the notion of war on that battlefield. I respect your suggestion that the human army assemble and be ready to fight, but that will only play into the Fae Queen’s hands. The only way I can keep my people safe is to employ the same methods that kept us alive in our lost city. Our new home is free of darkness. We will fortify our defenses, dig in, and stay alive. If there is a war, we will fight it on our own terms.”
Her expression softens. “But I can’t ignore the plight of Asha’s brother. If you are willing, you will go as my champion. Not in three days, but at dawn tomorrow. You will call out the Fae Queen’s bluff and make it clear you are ready to fight her champion. And if you have the chance…”
Her voice becomes a snarl. “You will kill that fucking queen.”