Chapter 39
Chapter
Thirty-Nine
Titus
The scent of freshly sharpened metal surrounds me as I enter Adrian’s office. Oil and sparks. Grit and survival. Not a bottle of bloodwine in sight.
He’d make a good king, but Everett saw him better suited as a turncoat.
Adrian’s forehead becomes silk on uneven ground. “You look different.”
I am. I just drank from my mate.
Adrian’s posture turns to that of fingers gripping a page they are hesitant to turn. In the blink of an eye, he’s standing, slamming his door shut so the silencing spells protect us. He stands firm as a tree, arms crossing—digging deep like roots for answers.
“Show me your chest.” His voice is a branch, snapping in the sudden storm.
The blood drains from my face. “What?”
“Your heart. Show it to me.”
He knows. Is it that obvious? My magic covers my arms, and the heat from the flames has him stepping back.
He lifts a hand, tugging down his collar.
“I’m bonded.” There on his chest is his unique mate mark.
“I know what the afterglow of the first time with your mate feels like. It can’t be hidden; it forces people to take a step back, to reconsider you in every way.
You can always sense a predator, and being mated means you are a step above everyone else.
” He pulls at his hair. “The gods must be with us. Galen left hours ago. He’d use your mate against you. ”
“That’s why I’m here.” Orange flames dance in my eyes.
Adrian’s hand slides from his hair to his neck. “Wait a bloody second. You’ve been with Selene, guarding her. No… no… don’t you dare tell me…”
“Then I won’t tell you.” Everett’s magic flares, ready to defend me and my mate. Relax, let’s see how he reacts, I tell the time magic.
His fingers turn into a cast, keeping his neck from bending.
His inhale is a strong gust of wind. “You truly bonded with the queen? Hey, don’t look at me like that.
I know what it’s like to have a mate. I know you’re about to snap my neck.
But remember, I have put my life, my mate’s, and my son’s life behind you.
All my bets are on you, Titus. The men want you as their leader. ”
I shape the fire in my palm into a ball. “Why not you?” I ask.
“I never wanted a crown.”
“Neither did I, but people keep trying to shove one on my head. First Everett, then you.” Now I need to accept that fate in order to keep my mate safe.
“Everett saw my future. I’m a hand for you to use.” His eyes drift down. “I’m fine with that.”
What’s he not telling me? I make a mental note to ask later.
“We all have our roles to play. This is mine. I lead armies, not kingdoms and… runes.” Sweat shines off his brow as my flames heat his office.
“You know a lot more than you previously let on.”
“As do you.” His eyes burn into the fabric covering my mate mark.
“What happened to your comment about not knowing what Everett wanted me to find?”
“It was easy to figure out. Everett told me to keep an eye on Sable, to let her break the laws here. So I did.” He walks over to his desk. “I kept all her midnight rendezvous a secret from Galen. But my men are loyal to me. They told me everything. Take a seat.” He nods toward the empty chair.
My steps feel like a journey until I sit down, preparing to be slapped with more secrets.
His elbow hits his desk as he presses a finger to his temple. “Sable has an eye for kings. We all know she was fucking Galen,” he spits in disgust. “But she also spread her legs for Hector Von Manson.”
Sounds like a name suited for an asshole; just Sable’s type. I steeple my hands. “Who’s that? What kingdom does he rule over?”
“You’ve been so busy fighting the fae, all my men have, but the world is large. Our war is not the only one raging. Hector Von Manson is a mage from the Valley of Sand and Bones.”
“That’s so far west of here.” I reply. How does this benefit Sable? “Wait, that’s where the girl with that shadow creature said she came from.”
Adrian nods, "Yes. It means the valley's monsters have come here. I've been there. It's all sand, palm trees, and insects bigger than my foot. Takes more than one sword to kill them. But in those burning lands is Hector’s castle. Or maybe I should just call it refuge."
“Refuge for what?”
“Not what. Who,” Adrian states. “Hector trains mages in unnatural ways.”
“Cut to the point.”
“Hector was the son of King Ferdinand of Sandia.”
“Never heard of Sandia.”
“Hector burned Sandia and its people to the ground using metal.”
“Metal?”
“One of his talents is causing metal to melt. He took all the army’s weapons, melted them, and turned them into a big fucking shiny mirror, which reflected the sun. He aimed it at the villages—made of palm wood, and thatched roofs—and the roads into town.
“It got so hot that the houses caught on fire, and people ran to escape, but they only made it a few steps into the road before the heat took them. Poof!”
“Sounds like a noble gentleman.” My tongue tests the point of my fangs. Hector is worse than Galen because he’ll willingly tear things down, whereas Galen would never burn a castle down. He’d add it to his pages of titles.
“Yeah,” Adrian rasps. “One Galen should be concerned about, but his vendetta with the fae blinds him. An army without weapons won’t last long. I don’t know the extent of Hector’s alchemy magic, but I don’t want him getting close to my men and their swords.”
There’s that look again, one that suggests Everett told him this.
“How did Sable get to the Valley of Sand and Bones?”
“I was wondering when you’d ask that.” He scratches his jaw, weighing his next words carefully.
“The mage Galen has here, the one that sent Sable back to Solaria, that’s Hector’s sister.
Name is Sofia, favorite color is purple, favorite stone to store her magic in is amethyst. Galen doesn’t know Sofia is related to Hector, or else he’d keep her as a bargaining chip.
She’s powerful; most mages can only open a portal a day, but she can open up three to four portals in a single afternoon.
A nasty secret she hasn’t revealed to Galen yet. Doubt she will.”
I slip my thumb into my fist and crack it. I never heard of a mage that powerful. “So Sable has been escaping to see Hector, plotting and then returning as if she’s the picture of grace for dinner.”
“More like the picture of whoredom. Listen, I have no qualms if a woman wants to fuck like a man. I do have problems when the woman only does it to break vows,” he says dryly.
“There is more. I’m told Hector has a lot of skin art, odd tattoos, symbols.
” His eyes press into mine. “So I started to dig deeper, sent a spy who is good with a pen. He copied down some of Hector’s tattoos; I sent those to an old friend of mine at Ishmor. ”
He stands and pulls out a book from his shelf. It slaps against his desk with a sharp pang.
“Ever heard of runes?”
I stare at the book. Mastering Techniques of Rune Drawing. I flip it open. It’s a how-to book on drawing runes correctly. It stresses the curves and lines, down to copying the exact thickness. If done wrong, the rune will not work.
Some shapes are simple, others… my hands can never reproduce. My pen has been a sword, the ink is the blood I spill.
“You’re tone implies you know what Everett asked me to do.” I close the book and place it on my lap.
“Connecting dots didn’t make me the Vice Admiral of this army.
Finding dots to connect did. Runes. It’s what Everett has you hunting for.
I did my homework. There are countless books on runes, full of dust; no one reads them.
But once you clear those cobwebs, you can find chapters about a book called the Vitalis.
They claim the Vitalis is a master dictionary of runes, it’s a source of power, a lifeline.
It seems to be where they originated from.
“Now, I don’t know if runes really worked the way my mom read to me as a child, but if they did, I’d be damn sure not to give Hector and Sable the master class on how they operate.
At this point, Hector’s tattoos are just self-expression, but I think he knows that in the future they can be turned into something else. ”
Adrian pushes off the bookshelf with the speed a loaded treasure ship leaves the dock. Full of alertness, ready to defend against being plundered.
His desk becomes a crutch he leans into as he continues, “I’m scared, Titus, and I don’t admit that easily. I’m not one to panic. I plan. Do you think Sable and Hector have this book? The last thing I want is a metal melting fucker who has runes enhancing his magic.”
My tongue moves like the hands of a clock, sweeping across my mouth, desperate to find a trace of moisture each passing second. “No,” I fail to swallow; my word stands firm and dry.
“You say that with such confidence.”
“They don’t have it yet,” I repeat.
“You know where it is.” His shoulders lift. Now I have another person I can’t fail. My mate, my family, his family, this entire kingdom, and yeah… the world, it seems. “That’s what Everett wanted you to find. That’s why he wanted you to have this army, to keep the runes safe.”
“There’s a lot of grey in that black-and-white statement.” I add.
“So paint the picture for me.” He leans closer, hanging over me like a torch. “I can not order an army without all the details. I need facts so I know where we stand. I have converted a vast majority of this army on our side. Every single person stationed in Lunestra is with us.”
My chest skips a beat. Every person?
“Yeah.” He smirks. “Your family is on our side. They want a king who has walked in their boots, who will walk in them after he gets the throne.”
My family. Ryker, Cyrus, Ember, and Nero all support me. It doesn’t reveal my stress, but grows it tenfold.