18. Aelindor
Aelindor
Istood in the eastern yard, over the vault where we kept the mutant corpses, and watched Drakken’s dragon climb until the cloud took him, flying south toward our mate.
Dread had been sitting in my stomach since Max left. I’d never feared for anyone that much, not even when my eternal realm fell. Every breath hurt.
My mate was in trouble.
Max. My brothers. The whole Nightingale crew.
Whitmore came up beside me. His convoy sat waiting at the gate behind us, and he made no move toward it.
“I ride for my territory within the hour. Reinforcements to your southern border inside a week.” He paused. “Shame. We never did get to compare notes on the Fourfold prophecy.”
“You have my thanks for the men.” The wind in the yard would not settle. Everything I had wanted to be in the air behind that dragon. “Come back when I’ve dealt with Xander. We’ll have a great deal to say to each other then.”
“Something to chew on before you go handle that snake.” He looked out at the empty sky where the dragon had been.
“I’ve had people in the Pallid Court since before the Rupture.
Before the Witch dropped the bomb. They were loyal to the old Federal government.
I’m what’s left of it, so they’re loyal to me, and they’re buried deep in her court.
The river never runs dry.” He shrugged. “Old saying.”
“And she has never rooted them out.”
“No, sir. She has not.” Whitmore’s mouth went flat.
“That used to keep me up nights. Then I worked it out. She wasn’t ignoring us.
She was waiting, knowing that heir was going to surface in one of the kingdoms eventually, and she’s spent every year since getting the ground ready for the day it did. ”
“And now it has.”
“Now it has. Word of the lost heir has reached her court faster than the wind, I promise you that.” He turned to face me. “Make no mistake, Aelindor. She knows. She’ll move. And when she does, we’ll need every damn thing we have.”
“Thank you.”
We shook hands, the short hard grip two men trade when they expect to fight the same war.
My aides saw Whitmore and his convoy out through the gate. I took my officers into the war room.
The base moved like a kicked hive. Inside ten minutes, the First and Third Armies stood ready to march.
I would take them to the New Mexico line myself and bring home my mate, my brothers, and my people.
We were going to war.