Chapter 45
Valen
My fingers clenched the edge of the battlements as I stared out across the dark hills.
A hundred campfires flickered, a reflection of the fading stars in the sky.
They’d multiplied over the last few hours as the last stragglers of the legion had filtered out of the cursed wood.
They were grim ghosts of men. Some looked haunted, others mad, but most simply marched forward with somber determination.
How many of them were out there? A thousand? More?
They flew black banners with a blood-soaked hand.
The Crimson Host—one of the most notorious mercenary companies on the continent.
Their commander, General Sarkis, was an ancient, bloodthirsty immortal who delighted in torture and carnage.
His men were no better—thieves, murderers, and defilers recruited from the dungeons of every kingdom. They served only gold and violence.
And now, they were camped on my doorstep.
Footsteps ascended the stairs, and Locke emerged onto the narrow parapet. “This is an interesting development, and to think you’d given up on them ever arriving.”
“Where the hell have they been? We signed the contract two years ago.”
If the Fates-damned mercenaries had set sail when I’d hired them, things would be different. Two years may have cost me everything.
Locke chuckled. “It looks like they got lost in your woods.”
I cast him a deadly glare. “And you look like you’re enjoying this.”
The thin smile on his lips curled. “I’m simply appreciating the irony of a fucked situation. You hired them to help you drive the mages out. Now that the mages are dead and the barrier keeping you out of the Bloodvale has fallen, their army arrives. It seems a little too coincidental.”
“There are no coincidences in this place. It’s the demon or the curse, sabotaging everything I try.”
“Or perhaps giving General Sarkis half the gold up front was a mistake. He’s probably spent every last coin and decided to show up now that the work is done,” Locke arched an eyebrow in speculation. “I anticipate he’ll demand payment in full for nothing accomplished.”
“I wouldn’t put it past the bastard,” I muttered. Sarkis was a bloodthirsty plunderer and tactician, but at his core, he was a ruthless businessman with ambitions to be more.
“My informants tell me he’s on his way here for an audience.”
“Good.” I shoved myself away from the parapet and headed toward the door. “At least he has the sense to come and explain himself.”
Locke fell into step beside me. “More likely he’s interested in provisioning his men. From what I saw of his legion, his immortals seemed well fed, but it was probably short rations for the humans.”
“The last thing I need is a starving army outside my castle. Have the steward prepare stores of grain to send to their camp, along with the livestock reserves. Let’s get ahead of this and sort out the details with Sarkis later.”
“Details like what your dragon will eat if the cattle and pigs are gone?”
I shot him a hard look. He knew what he was asking. “My dragon can hunt. I have too many problems on my hands right now, foremost: how did Sarkis move an entire army through the woods without detection? I fly patrols. I would’ve seen something.”
“I don’t recall you flying any patrols recently. Perhaps you’ve been a little distracted.”
I grimaced and dragged my fingers through my hair.
That Fates-damned woman.
For weeks, she’d invaded my thoughts. Unwanted and persistent.
Defying me at every turn. She’d become more than an idle distraction.
I’d squandered days watching her in my mirror and entertaining my obsession instead of attending to my kingdom—and this was the result: an army at my gates just as I was about to kiss her.
I should never have let her out of the tower, let alone permitted her to join me on the damn hunt.
I’d grown permissive, but that ended now.
I couldn’t think clearly with her near me and didn’t want her within a league of the general or his bloodthirsty men.
I’d see to it that she stayed put, no matter how much she protested.
I reached the grand gallery windows as Sarkis rode into the courtyard, accompanied by five immortals in scale mail fashioned from intricate red overlapping plates.
“It looks like they’re expecting trouble,” I said darkly.
“As should we,” Locke muttered.
The general wore a black expression when he trudged into my cabinet, dressed in crimson plate that carried the scars of a hundred battles. He had raven black hair like my brother, but with a braided beard, and a mouth made to delight in cruelty.
His eyes quickly swept across the maps on the wall, then returned to me. “What an intimate place for a reception, Your Highness.”
He carried himself like the lord he would never be.
I pushed the papers on my desk aside and leaned forward. “I expect we both would prefer this conversation to be private—and this castle is nearly alive with whispers.”
Locke shut the door and joined my side.
The general narrowed his eyes. “It’s brave of you to force me to dismiss my bodyguards, yet you’ve kept your lapdog.”
I shrugged. “Brave of you to wear your mail and bring a blade into my presence when I wear none.”
His fingers drifted a fraction of an inch to the hilt of his sword. “I’ve learned to be cautious when dealing with volatile clients.”
I rose and poured a measure of blood from the decanter for each of us, then scattered salt across the crimson liquid. I offered him one cup and raised mine. “Then share blood and salt with me, and know that for today, you have the protection of my house.”
Not waiting for him, I let the blood slip past my lips. The meager amount was simply a tease, and rather than quench the relentless thirst within me, it only made it worse.
“So, you keep to the old ways,” the general muttered.
“You forget how old I am.”
Sarkis studied me for a long moment—as if I would be so cowardly as to stoop to poison—then finally drank. “I appreciate the hospitality of your house, but what about my men? They’ve come a long way, and they’re thirsty for women and blood.”
“I’m prepared to send food and supplies to support your legion. As for women and blood—you should have brought your own.”
“We did. But after our journey, they’re a little dried out.”
If it weren’t for the consequences, I’d gut the sick bastard right now.
“Let me make this clear,” I said, voice low and pitched in warning.
“Your men are forbidden from leaving your encampment. If they sneak into town and disrespect any of my women, I will cut their cocks off. If your immortals drink from any of my people without their permission, I will pull their fangs out.”
The general sneered and set his cup aside. “You show such disdain for my men, but you knew what you were signing up for. You’re the one that hired us.”
“I did. Speaking of which—where the fuck have you been?”
He took a step forward, his voice thick with threat. “You arrogant prick. You have no idea what we’ve been through to get here.”
“Enlighten me.”
He jabbed his finger at the map hanging on the wall.
“I lost a quarter of my legion crossing your fucking woods. The road disappeared within days of entering, and we were swallowed by the mists. Your beasts hounded us relentlessly, striking night and day, picking off my scouts and slaughtering my warriors. It took us two months to make it here—and we may have wandered another two if my scouts hadn’t seen the bonfires of your little hunting party. ”
“Then perhaps you shouldn’t have tried to go through the woods.”
His lips curled into a snarl. “I should never have accepted your contract.”
I stepped forward, regarding him with ice. “Had I known it would take you two years to get here, I wouldn’t have hired you.”
The general scoffed. “What are you talking about? It hasn’t even been six months.”
I stared at him in stunned silence. Was he serious?
Locke circled the general, his eyes burning with an inscrutable light. “You weren’t lost in the woods for two months. It’s been nearly two years.”
The general’s expression contorted in surprise, then collapsed into lines of rage. “You must think I’m a fool. We didn’t have two years of supplies. There was never a winter.”
The sorcerer retrieved a letter from my desk and flicked it out for the general. “Check the date. It’s no ruse.”
Sarkis seized it, studying the mark. “I refuse to believe this. It’s…it’s not possible.”
“Anyone you ask in the village will confirm the truth.” My expression hardened as memories flooded to the fore. “You wouldn’t be the first to lose time in those woods.”
I’d lost an entire year of my life when I’d fled into the cursed woods.
Sarkis stared at the letter in his hands, his face stricken between fury and doubt. “I should have never made a devil’s bargain with you.”
“The feeling is mutual,” I said. “So why don’t we consider our contract void? I’ll supply your legion with rations, and you’ll march your army straight back to Eradessa.”
“No.” Sarkis snapped his fist closed, crushing the letter, then hurled it into the fire. “We’re going to have a new bargain—and it begins with you paying for the two years we lost in your service.”
My shoulders knotted at the challenge. “In my service? You’ve done nothing for me but steal my gold. The Bloodvale already has a new ruler. You failed at your task. There will be no new contract, or payment of the old.”
Sarkis slipped his fingers to the hilt of his blade. “I advise you to reconsider your position, Your Highness. I have a thousand men at arms camped outside your castle, all of them hungry for blood and battle.”
Was that what he wanted? There’d been rumors that he was hungry for a seat of his own, but I hadn’t thought him so arrogant that he would dare challenge my own.
Flames crept beneath my skin. “Are you threatening my kingdom, General? Because that would be very unwise.”
“Consider your next move carefully,” Sarkis said, an eager violence in his eyes. “My men have orders to raze this castle to the ground if I don’t return. They’ll shoot your dragon down with wingbreakers the moment it comes out of its cave—we practiced back in Morhaven. They are quite accurate.”
He’d gladly taken my coin, then brought a knife to negotiate. Fuck the rites of hospitality. I would rip his head from his neck and drink the blood from his open veins.
Locke grasped my shoulder before I could strike. “Perhaps we should all take a moment to reflect. The general has suffered much and lost many men, Your Highness. Let’s give him a chance to retract his words, while we reconsider his proposition.”
“Why should I reconsider anything?” I snarled.
“Although the King of the Bloodvale has changed, your situation has not,” Locke muttered, his fingers tightening.
Like a sinister echo from my past, the demon’s words ignited in my mind, as wicked as the day he’d spoken them: If you don’t take back your throne and slaughter those that rule your lands, then you will become one of my beasts forever.
And now, to break my curse, I had to kill my brother and Belle’s sister. The only family she had left.
I was trapped: by my curse, by the woods, and now, by the general and his army. They were a sword hanging over everything.
Or were they the answer?
My eyes narrowed at the general’s gloating grin as the dark tendrils of a plan rose in my mind. Sarkis had no idea who I was, or that the throne was mine by right. As far as he knew, I wanted a rival kingdom eliminated. I could use his greed and ambition.
He’d come prepared to take a kingdom, be it mine or the Bloodvale. Fine. I’d give him one. I’d use his army to depose Cassius and his queen and drive them into hiding, then put Sarkis on the throne in their stead—a new lord for the Bloodvale, and one that would play straight into my hand.
I let Locke pull me back. “Perhaps the high magister is correct.”
There was a gloating triumph in the general’s eyes. “I think so.”
Sarkis was as cunning as he was ruthless, and he’d be suspicious if I simply handed him a crown.
I needed to make him think that he’d torn it from my grasp.
Let him think I feared his army, that I was desperate enough to offer him the Bloodvale in exchange for his loyalty as my vassal.
I’d demand tribute so excessive that it bordered on insult.
The greedy bastard would agree, of course, with no intention of ever paying. The moment he consolidated control over the Vale and the royal court, he’d turn on me.
I wouldn’t give him the chance. The second the priest placed the crown on his head, I’d rip out his heart and anoint myself with his blood.
The ruler of the Bloodvale would be dead, and the demon’s curse satisfied. The general would finally have earned the vast ransom of gold I’d paid him.
And I’d have my throne.
A deep calm came over me, and the beast subsided. Belle’s face flashed in my mind, anger and betrayal in those beautiful eyes. I forced it away. I couldn’t think about what this would mean for her.
Turning my back on the general and his eager blade, I dropped into my chair and dragged my fingers over the familiar wood of my desk. “You and your men have dealt us a shock—and received one in return. Now is not the time to discuss contracts.”
It was a desperate plan. I needed time to think, to weigh the risks.
The general eased his fingers from his hilt. “When then?”
“I’ll host you and your officers in two days’ time, as tradition dictates, and we will discuss the terms when our heads have had a chance to clear.” I met his eyes. “Until then, get the hell out of my castle.”
He gave me a sarcastic bow, a victorious sneer pulling at his lips. “I look forward to doing business with you, Your Highness.” With that, he turned and strode toward the door.
“General,” I said.
He paused, looking back.
“If you or your men move against me, I swear to the Fates, my dragon will burn your army to ashes.”