Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
Acold wind raced across my scales as I stood tall and menacing in my Dragon form, a reminder of the power the new king commanded.
Dragor won the crown of Stormfell, though some might have claimed I’d won it for him when I’d burned his brother Roarson alive moments before his sword could carve through Dragor’s neck.
The ballroom had been plastered in blood.
One of the two Gemini statues had been reduced to a heap of rubble and the charred remains of the royal table had been disposed of almost as quickly as the corpses of three of the royal bloodline.
Laurena, Roarson and Dragor’s wife Alexandrius had all met with their ends in the wake of the old king’s death.
Only Evard had escaped and I knew that was entirely in thanks to one woman. My spectre.
Though where they’d run to, no one was certain.
A cold wind blew through the mountains and swept over my scales as I stood in my shifted form, a growl upon my lips while I looked at the kneeling members of the court of the kingdom of air.
King Dragor sat before his subjects wearing his newly-claimed crown and lording it over them in a tall throne, raised up on a wooden stage to make certain all could see him.
His pet Cyclops Merika was moving through the amassed warriors and courtiers, politicians and war generals.
I watched as she took the trembling hands of one Fae after another, her single, bulbous eye peering into their faces as she stole her way through their minds and sought out their loyalty.
This was the third day I’d been forced to endure this. Luckily, most of those Fae who had harboured secret thoughts of rebellion had quickly changed their minds on the idea when forced to watch me burn their co-conspirators one by one.
Dragor wouldn’t stop this witch hunt until he’d had Merika test every one of the court’s most powerful subjects. Their loyalty to him would be assured either through devotion or fear. He didn’t seem to care much for which it was.
The cobbles of the courtyard that had once been a uniform and pale grey were now blackened with soot, forever stained to remind anyone foolish enough to plot against him of what fate would await them if they tried.
Vesper and her…husband were gone.
I knew she had saved him for the sake of her own vengeance, needing to maintain their alliance so that he could deliver his part of their bargain and give her the information she needed to find the man she hunted.
But that didn’t make me any more comfortable with the knowledge that the two of them were secreted away somewhere together.
She may have assured me that their union was nothing but political but that didn’t make me trust it.
He was using her just as she was using him.
But I was certain that hers was the worse side of their bargain.
Now she was in hiding with the most wanted man in the kingdom.
Who knew when any of us would see her again?
The thought alone had kept me in a foul mood for days, the memory of her mouth against mine little comfort when I was forced to listen to the howls of Dragor’s guards searching the city for her throughout the night.
I knew better than to fear for her life, but I did fear for her freedom.
If she had any sense she would have fled already, but my gut told me she’d done no such thing.
The light was dimming as the sun sank toward the horizon and my mind wandered while I waited for the last dozen Fae to have their fates decided.
Thankfully, Merika found no more traitors among them and I was spared the role of executioner at least.
“All hail King Dragor!” one of the faithful servants of the new king cried and the call was taken up quickly, the voices in the courtyard joined by those of the ranks of warriors who were amassed in the barracks beyond it.
For better or worse, the crown of Stormfell now rested upon a new head.
Dragor looked out over the crowd with enough smugness to tempt me toward the thought of roasting him alive.
Not that I could do so while our deal and this damn collar bound us, but it was a pretty thought.
I could almost hear the rattle his bones would make as they hit the cobblestones if I concentrated hard enough.
Just as the cries of his new subjects started to dim, an arrow speared through the sky and struck the wooden stage a few feet before Dragor’s boots.
My head snapped up from the quivering arrow and the note tied to it as the scent of her caught in my nostrils. My spectre was haunting this gathering.
My lips pulled back to reveal my teeth. It probably looked like a snarl, but it was a grin in Dragon form.
Dragor stooped to snatch the note from the arrow and I leaned down over him so that I might read it too.
There was only a single word written in her curling hand – ‘parlay?’
A rumble of amusement rolled through my chest. Vesper was toying with him.
“Show yourself then,” Dragor called and the sound of steadily paced footsteps came in reply a moment later.
I saw her over the heads of the crowd even before they parted to let her by.
Vesper was dressed in the style of the Sages of the mountains, a group of twenty or so of them following her into the courtyard, their eyes wild and the stench of dark magic clinging to them.
The seasoned warriors and bloodstained soldiers of Stormfell recoiled, many of them bowing their heads or dropping to their knees, muttering prayers to the stars to spare them.
But the Sages only had eyes for the king.
“The crown suits you well,” Vesper purred, and I couldn’t stifle the growl that escaped me as I noted the seductive tone her voice carried, the weight of her gifts spilling from her like poison. And every bastard watching wanted a taste of it.
She’d shifted. Her beauty in her full Order form was so captivating that it took me far too long to realise that she was holding the warriors back with air magic, keeping them from hurling themselves at her feet while they begged for the blessing of her attention.
She’d muted them too, their desperate cries hidden within a silencing shield so that it was almost possible to imagine the only people standing in that courtyard were her, the king and the Sages.
And I supposed they’d all taken note of the Dragon looming over them too.
“What is this?” Dragor ground out, his feet shifting forward a few inches and I could tell he was fighting with all he had to resist her allure.
“An offer. Evard will bend the knee if you keep him as your right hand and offer your word that you will make no attempt to take his life the way you took your other siblings’.”
“And why might I do that?”
Vesper smiled and I was hit by her beauty like a bolt to my chest, my clawed feet striking the ground either side of Dragor’s stage as I found myself fighting against the spell of her too. Though I would have gladly given in to it under any other circumstance.
“Because Evard is valuable…and so am I. You’d be far better off with us as your allies,” Vesper said, her voice almost teasing like she was playing with this man who had named himself king.
She didn’t state plainly that she included the Sages in that ‘us’ but the way ether rolled out from them to touch the stones of the castle walls made the threat plain.
I knew too little of blood magic to fully understand what those devoted to its call were capable of, but I wasn’t fool enough to want to risk finding out. This was an offer and a threat in one.
A growl slipped from me unbidden and Vesper turned those storm grey eyes on me at last.
“Down boy,” she teased and I growled again.
Dragor seemed to be weighing his options, his eyes scanning the crowd who had been so easily cowed by the powerful creature before him.
I wondered if she was doing the right thing by making this offer at all.
It seemed to me she might just be able to claim the crown herself if she chose to fight for it in that moment.
Though I supposed the cost of that decision would be paid in brutality and bloodshed.
“Deal,” Dragor spat, his boot stamping against the wooden platform as he fought the urge to step closer to her once more.
“Evard will be my heir until I produce another. He will swear not to harm me as I shall him, and there will be no quarrel between us. I love him, after all, as any good brother should.”
Vesper’s smile called him a liar as plainly as if she had shouted the word. But with a single nod she shifted back into her Fae form, and the Sages called the tendrils of dark magic they’d been wielding back to them too.
I released a deep breath, watching as it knocked the long curls of pale pink hair away from her face and tilting my head at her as she gave me a knowing smile.
I’d spent days fearing for her life should she be discovered, plotting ways to steal her away from here and making the decision to damn myself by turning on my captor if I had to for her sake.
And all the while she’d been ready to play this hand and save herself.
But of course she had. Vesper Crossborn was never going to be a creature in need of rescuing.
She’d learned the hard way to always be her own knight in shining armour and of course she wouldn’t ever wait on someone else to save her.
She was formidable, terrifying and utterly unstoppable, like a force of nature given flesh.
And that was precisely why I was so endlessly enraptured with her.