Adrian Westergren #2
Haru released a breath and relaxed against his chair, shooting him a smile as Adrian drew his hand back. In Haru’s mind, mates were forever. If Haru lost his mate, he couldn’t imagine going on with his life, let alone moving on to finding love with another mate. Never mind four other mates.
“Regardless of Rati Feng’s personal life,” Vitor cut in, his tone painfully dry, “we don’t know who the true power behind the endeavor is.
However, considering how the man micromanages his children’s lives, I would wager that he is the mastermind.
If we take him down, the operation should fall apart. ”
Shey tilted his to the side and lifted one brow. “And the current war?”
“That could be trickier to manage, but if the assassination was framed as happening from within his own support system, rather than say, the prince of a foreign country, I could see the interest in the ongoing war fizzling and New Rosanthe rushing to the negotiating table.”
Tyche extended a finger and poked Shey in the shoulder. “Sounds like Vitor is ordering you to stay home and keep out of trouble.”
Shey captured Tyche’s finger as he tried to draw it away and held it trapped in his fist. “I’m pretty sure a good disguise would allow me to stay involved.”
“We’ll see,” Vitor grumbled, not looking pleased at all.
Adrian frowned, a tightness growing in his chest. He wasn’t usually involved in these decisions.
These kinds of decisions were made by people above him—namely King Caelan and his chief advisor, Rayne.
“Wait a minute. Have you talked to Cael about all this? I might be wrong, but can we really go in and kill the chancellor of the Federation of Order? Doesn’t Erya have laws against affecting the regime changes of other countries?
This is a slippery fucking slope we’re standing on. ”
Vitor peered at Adrian, his bland expression unreadable.
Adrian couldn’t tell one way or the other if Vitor gave a shit about what he was proposing.
“I have been sending the king regular updates about what I’ve discovered as well as my assessment of the situation.
However, we’ve not had a discussion over a proposed course of action. ”
Adrian glared at the shiny wooden tabletop.
No offense to Caelan, but Adrian felt like he could guess what his king’s opinion was.
Burn down the entire government of what was New Rosanthe.
The man lost a mother and father in the initial attack.
There were also hundreds of innocent citizens killed in the fighting that followed as New Rosanthe invaded Stormbreak.
If Caelan had one flaw, it was that he clung to grudges. Forgiveness was a long way off.
However, Rayne was right there to keep Caelan from giving in to those dark feelings.
Tyche leaned forward so he could stare across the table at him.
There was a surprising amount of sympathy in those bright emerald-green eyes.
“Adrian, I have lived a very long time. I’m older than this damn castle.
That makes me an expert at stepping back and letting humans settle their own problems. This started out as Damardor hunting people in Damardor.
Yes, that’s a Damardor problem, and Erya and Caspagir should stay out of it.
However, it stopped being a Damardor problem the day Feng handed the powers of the God of Wind to a human and sent him to attack the Isle of Stone.
Do you think it’s going to stop there? Erya’s lucky enough to have a live-in god to protect it, but Caspagir doesn’t have such protection.
Neither Ilon nor Zastrad does. The gods in the godstones have scattered and don’t give a shit about the humans. ”
The queasiness in Adrian’s stomach ramped up until he thought he was going to be sick.
He’d forgotten about the man who’d tried to land on the beach.
How many dragons had come out to fight him?
None of them had reached him. It had taken Tyche stepping in with his luck magic to turn the tide.
He couldn’t deal with the idea of someone trying to attack the dragons again and succeeding.
Shey folded his hands together in front of him and rested them on the table.
“Adrian brings up a fair point. As the heir to the Caspagir throne, this is a question I take seriously. We have had numerous problems with New Rosanthe in the past and have never taken this route. We’ve also had endless problems with that Kiss of Death drug trickling over our border from Zastrad and never even considered this.
Hunting gods and stealing their power to use as a weapon tips the scales.
Beyond even the slaughter of innocent gods—”
A noise escaped Tyche, and he held up a hand. “Sorry. Mostly innocent, I’ll grant you.”
Shey rolled his eyes and continued. “They tested these powers out on the Isle of Stone. I don’t want to wait around for them to come after the people of Caspagir. I have some magic, but I’m no god.” He looked at Tyche. “What are the chances that the Order locates and kills another god?”
Tyche flopped in his chair, causing it to squeak, and scratched his head.
His features twisted up, making him appear very uncomfortable.
“Honestly, pretty damn good. While we never made a joint decision, all the minor gods seemed to make a personal decision to put as much space as possible between themselves and the major gods. Even while they were so-called trapped in the godstones. As a result, we all sort of slowly migrated to Damardor, New Rosanthe, and Uris-Oladul. The only exception was Brightspire in Ilon. Lore was always quiet for a major god, and he acted as a buffer for Zyros. Even so, the godstones haven’t been shattered long enough for us to disperse throughout the rest of Thia. ”
“Fuck,” Adrian groaned. His elbows hit the table with a hard thud, and he dropped his head into his hands. “We don’t know how many gods they could have killed already, and if they continue, there will be more. I take back my concerns. These assholes need to be stopped.”
“One good thing in all of this is that, according to my sources inside Aswa, Rati Feng squeaked into power on a wing and a prayer,” Vitor continued, his voice noticeably lighter.
“Feng made huge promises about increased power for the politicians and increased wealth for his supporters. Taking control of Damardor was the first step—which was made possible by Ruben Deinum and his cronies. He has promised to conquer Caspagir and force the dragons into being their slaves. For the populace, he’s working the fear angle, stating that Caspagir is plotting with Erya and the dragons to conquer New Rosanthe and Damardor. ”
Haru leaped out of his seat, his eyes wide and nostrils flared. “Lies!”
Tyche smirked and pinched Haru’s sleeve, pulling him to sit. “Obviously.”
Haru sniffed and dropped into his chair, causing it to squeak. “If we wanted to conquer those silly people, we would have flown there and burned all their cities.”
“In short, we need to take out Feng and hand their military a substantial loss to convince them to stop their nonsense,” Shey stated.
He nodded, his brow furrowing slightly. “We’ve been holding back with our navy.
If we cripple and sink enough of their ships, that should cause opinions to sour toward the war.
Plus, we can force those ground troops to retreat south into Zastrad.
That would isolate the ground troops against the mountains, leaving them with no supplies.
Fiona could rally our forces into making them surrender.
” Shey spread his hands on the table, palms up.
“That would leave us with only Feng to handle. But that would mean going all the way to Aswa.”
“Actually, there’s an opportunity coming up in the next couple of weeks to take out Feng in Bellcairn.”
“No shit!” Adrian gasped, drawing a snicker out of Tyche. Definitely not the most professional reaction. This was why Adrian was happy to remain a royal guard and not be an advisor. He couldn’t talk like proper officials or hide his feelings.
Vitor tapped on the laptop, bringing up the map of Thia on the screen. “We have several allies in Uris-Oladul and Damardor who would very much like to see New Rosanthe return to their borders.”
Tyche clicked his tongue and stared at the map.
“Not surprised. Uris-Oladul can read the writing on the wall. They saw how New Rosanthe erased Damardor. It’s only a matter of time before they join Damardor.
If they’re going to have any hope of being an independent country again, they need to strike now. ”
Vitor grunted in agreement. “Feng is scheduled to go to Bellcairn in two weeks, where he is to be present for a special flag-raising ceremony over the former capital. There are already talks of protests and marches happening during the event. Word has spread throughout Damardor about the missing people. The capital has become a powder keg.”
Tyche grinned and knocked his fist on the table twice. “And we’ll bring the matches.”