Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The wedding was held in the grandest hall in Ravensview, the stone chamber vast in height and length with wooden beams criss-crossing above that were decorated with black and white drapes. The traditions of our people were blended with that of our newfound allies. The Vampires.
Mirelle was dressed in a black gown which was encrusted with diamonds on the bodice, glittering like the night sky.
Her dress mirrored the ebony suit of her new husband.
Lazarus Astrophel looked imposing in his finery, the underlying savagery of his kind always hinted at in the depths of his hazel eyes.
We stood in rows, us on the left side of the hall while the Vampires clamoured and cheered from the right.
Their arrival had driven fear into the hearts of many Fae of our land, and I could still taste that fear now.
But at the encouragement of the ruling gang leaders, everyone had fallen in with this plan.
Perhaps seeing the logic of it and the strength it would glean our nation.
Magpies watched from wooden beams crossing the hall above us, their eyes focused on their queen while Mirelle and Lazarus led the ceremony, speaking out the words that guided them into marriage beneath the stars’ watch.
They laid their hands on each other’s wrists as they declared their union.
And so it was done, my mother married to the new leader of the most formidable Vampire Coven of his kind.
The Vampires roared with raucous enthusiasm as Lazarus took Mirelle’s hand and lifted it high to announce their union was done. Our people were quieter. Hands clapping more stiffly while uncomfortable glances were exchanged, the underlying fear among the Fae of Pyros bolstering my magic reserves.
I felt North’s eyes on me from my left and looked his way, finding a crease upon his brow. While I tried to decipher it and unpick my own feelings on the marriage, North leaned closer and whispered his truth.
“I don’t like this, Kai.”
“It’s a tactical move,” I muttered under my breath. “We’re unbeatable with them on our side.”
North nodded, but the crease on his brow only deepened. “But they’re bloodsuckers.”
“That we are!” Lazarus crowed at him, his gaze locking onto North, his heightened Vampire senses clearly catching the words from his lips. “Bloodsuckers he calls us.”
The Flamebringers quietened, shoulders tensing, the atmosphere growing suddenly heavy.
The Vampires hushed at Lazarus’s words too, throwing sharp glances our way.
This marriage may have been intended to unite us, but it was clear it was not going to be as simple as that.
Too many years of hatred stood between our people and theirs.
But Mirelle was a Fae of strategy. And this choice would likely be her greatest play in the war yet.
For all the logic behind it, my skin prickled with the sense of an oncoming fight. If this tension was not shattered, it might come to blows.
“Your prejudice is showing, young North,” Lazarus growled, flashing his fangs at my brother.
“No Vampire shall harm a single Flamebringer,” Mirelle said in a simple yet sharp tone.
Lazarus inclined his head, his lips twisting in a smirk. “Indeed,” he agreed, his fingers tightening on her hand. “We only harm our common enemies. Which brings me nicely onto your wedding gift, Mirelle.” His eyes sparked with something sinister, a look I knew well from my enemies.
I held no sword at my hip today, but my fingers flexed for the kiss of a hilt. My lust for violence had not been eradicated by my newfound emotions. In fact, there was something even more tempting in it now. An outlet I hadn’t known I’d needed before.
The iron doors at the back of the hall flew open and in strode two Vampires in coat tails, dragging a filthy-looking man between them. He screamed and thrashed as they hauled him down the black-carpeted aisle and tossed him at the feet of Lazarus and Mirelle.
The two Vampires bowed low then moved to join the masses of their kind.
Lazarus took hold of the man by the hair, dragging him up to kneel before them and taking a ruby-encrusted dagger from his hip.
He offered the blade to Mirelle, bowing his head slightly to her in an offering.
“An enemy spy of Avanis. We caught him on our way here sniffing around a little too close for comfort to your hiding place.”
Mirelle had sent a group of her sons and daughters to send word to Lazarus of the engagement and a date for the wedding – since North was still teaching me how to control and understand my emotions, she’d decided not to send us too.
When Lazarus had left Cinder Vale upon our last meeting, he’d left word of a meeting place in the south of Pyros where Mirelle could contact him should she change her mind on the proposal.
It hadn’t taken long for Lazarus’s response to arrive and his people to follow ours to Ravensview.
It was a great risk to lead them here, but there was no way out of our current predicament without taking such a chance.
Our spies had watched the Cascadians march through our towns and claim victory over our land despite the fact that we hadn’t been there to protect it. Mirelle had ordered that no battalion was sent to defend our lands.
She was playing the long game, and despite the disgruntlement of her people, they continued to follow her. She’d earned their trust in many ways during her rule, from providing safe havens from war to civilians, to bounties of food for her people.
So her position as the most powerful gang leader in Pyros held firm even in the face of her seemingly reckless decisions.
The Avanis spy had fallen quiet, looking from Lazarus to Mirelle in dawning understanding. “You… you cannot be wed,” he rasped.
Mirelle took the blade, sliding her hand into the man’s hair too and interlocking her fingers with Lazarus’s in a show of oneness.
“The queen of fire has coupled with the king of sin,” she purred then she slashed the spy’s throat in one clean swipe.
The man buckled forward, but their fingers remained knotted in his hair, keeping him upright.
Lazarus took the blade and stuck it in the man’s chest with a brutal stab that sent a crack reverberating through the hall.
Then with his free hand, he clasped Mirelle’s throat and she let him draw her forward into a kiss that proved to every Flamebringer and Vampire in attendance that they were one.
His mouth on hers was possessive as hers was in return.
They were two powerful forces that were now poised like cobras to strike venom into the earth of enemy lands.
Together they were unstoppable. And the burn in Lazarus’s eyes and the dark smile that tilted Mirelle’s lips as they parted left no room for argument. They would forge victory together.
Some of the fear festering among our people faded from my hold and I nodded to North, assuring him that this was working.
But the tension didn’t drop from my brother’s shoulders as our mother and Lazarus released the dead man and he slumped to the floor, leaving a pool of blood spilling out at their feet.
They paid no more attention to him as they stepped over his corpse and strode from the hall hand in hand, drawing each other close in a show of true alliance.
“There’s no going back now,” I said to North whose face was growing pale. “It’s the most powerful move she could have made.”
“So we’re just meant to accept them now?” He jerked his chin at the Vampires across the room, their celebrations growing in crescendo as everyone began to file out of the hall.
We followed on with our brothers and sisters gathering around us, the energy humming from the Flamebringers much darker than that of the rejoicing Vampires.
“Yes, I believe we are,” I answered, unsure how I felt on the matter.
It was an ingenious move. I’d even suggested it to Mirelle once.
But that idea had come from the tongue of a man who had not known his own truth.
I wasn’t sure I knew my truth even now. But I did know the logic behind this marriage, and logic was something I had long relied on.
“Fuck,” North cursed. “Look at them. All of them. Wait, look at that one. Why does he have to be hot? It makes it harder to hate him.” His gaze narrowed on a Vampire man who seemed entirely relaxed in the company of a nation that had long disliked his kind.
He was swigging from a wine bottle and offering it to friends without care.
“I thought you didn’t court men anymore,” I commented, and North jammed his elbow into my ribs.
“I don’t wish to court him,” he spat. “He’s a damn parasite.”
“But if he wasn’t?” I mused.
“As you say, I don’t court men anymore,” he muttered. “Not since–” He cut himself off. “Well, you know.”
I did know. And at the thought of it now, my heart did something unusual.
Somewhere between a tug and twist. I recalled how broken North had been by the warrior he’d fallen for two years prior.
A man a few years his senior who had regularly journeyed back and forth from war and who’d declared his undying love for North.
It turned out, he had declared such a thing to several others, but before North could confront him about it, he'd died in battle. It had left my brother in a strange state that I hadn’t understood back then.
I wasn’t sure I understood it now either.
But I’d always understood one emotion even then.
Fear. One of North’s greatest terrors was finding himself back at the mercy of a disloyal man he couldn’t escape his love for.
So, he’d sworn off men. Perhaps because they reminded him too much of the past or perhaps because he believed he might find more loyalty in women.
It wasn’t logical, I supposed it was based on emotion.
I hadn’t thought to ask him about it in all honesty and now I realised what a shitty brother that made me.