Chapter 6
“Who would dare? Who would fucking dare insult me and mine in such a manner!”
The Demon King was in a spitting temper, each stomping step shaking the windows of the great hall.
His sunlight markings dimmed with every bellow he freed, until the obsidian flare of his membranous wings were like a void behind him.
It was the footprints trailing him, though—the ones left behind in Baldrir’s drying blood—that had Brand seeing his own shade of red.
“You said he was well! You assured us you’d seen him! Now, this?!” Lyriat chucked a wooden bench across the great hall, the seat splintering into infinite pieces as it landed and he roared to the glass ceiling, “I want the fucking truth, Magnus, right fucking now!”
Brand choked back the rage trying to rise in answer to his friend’s fury. Hedda and Faldir didn’t possess anywhere near his level of control, having long-since succumbed and made the change to tower above him along with the seething king.
If not for Lyriat’s copper hair to the twins’ wine-red coloring, the three of them could have been triplets pacing there, growling and grunting with every pass.
“I swear to the Sisters and all I hold dear that I left him whole and hale last night,” Mag rasped, a haunted look in his golden eyes. “He was well. I don’t understand what happened.”
“Would you say the same while under the effects of a genuinely binding oath?” Lyriat spun on him, snatching Mag’s rumpled robe in a colossal fist as he crouched and brought their noses together.
“Shall we call Caius and your precious Chieftains here to perform it? Maybe the lot of you can take turns sinking your dripping, poisonous teeth into one another for good measure so that I am reassured and no longer tempted to lay waste to every last, fucking inch of your traitorous realm!”
Shite.
Invoking one of the Wolflords’ most precious customs in that mocking fashion was careless in the extreme, and well beneath Lyriat as a Realm Ruler.
Pet flashed over his brother’s features in a silent snarl.
“I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and chalk this up to grief, despite the fact that you’ve just come perilously close to an unforgivable offense by saying such a thing to me,” Mag bit out.
“Even so, aye. Gladly. If for no other reason than to put you back in your place and remind you that Bal is as much my friend as the rest of you—which, by the way, is the only reason I haven’t bitten your fucking hand off for touching me thus.
Let go of me, Lyriat, before I force you to do so. ”
Brand drew in a deep breath while they stared each other down. Pointless to get between them. They’d have to figure out their own shite for the moment.
“Where are those messengers, Faldir?”
Brand’s Third didn’t bother to look at him when he held up three fingers, two, one… The doors burst open, five Demons marching through in the wake of their clanging sound.
“Uncanny bastard.” Brand shook his head, swiping the coded scrolls he’d written from between abandoned plates of breakfast. “Brethren, to me.”
The male and female warriors gathered in a flawless line, bodies at full attention and eyes on him.
“I don’t care how long it takes my father and brothers, or my uncle, to get themselves in order,” he said, handing each a roll of sealed parchment, “you do not leave without a response to this letter. Better yet, you convince them to come here so I may speak with them face to face.”
Digging through the pouch slung on his trousers, he retrieved the requisite tolls.
Portals were scattered everywhere throughout the realms, and all they required for travel was a small piece of wherever you wished to go.
The public ones were surrounded by stalls, merchants competing with one another and always claiming to have the best price.
Of course, they were raking in profits no matter what they charged, taking full advantage of anyone who’d lost or forgotten their own.
The private ones, in palaces and halls across the realms, required tolls that were a tad more specific—and they were not bestowed at random to just anyone.
Brand turned to the first messenger with an ivory chip from the Palace of Argoph’s pillars. “You are bound for my father, Emperor Alwyn, in the Weeping City.”
So it went, one by one, as Brand handed out the rest.
From one of Nakarat’s own scales, an iridescent, burnt ochre shard—to reach his oldest brother, Amun, in the Solyrealm of Arrajnekkat.
From Falwarren’s perpetual vines, a budding leaf—to reach his second brother, Vann, in the Tempusrealm of Kohamaia.
From the Chieftains themselves, tufts of black and tawny fur tied with wheat—to reach his uncle, Caius, in the Westrealm of Thodelebor.
From the exalted Elder Halls, a round-cut moonstone—to reach his youngest brother, Araxis, in the Evesong Realm of Nachthelliae.
And lastly, from the carvings of Lyriat’s snowy horns, every messenger was given a shaved curl of bone—to return directly back to the great hall, as quickly as possible.
“A written answer, or an Imperial on your arm—those are your only options for coming home. Do you understand your orders?”
“Yes, Highness,” they answered Brand in unison.
“Go.”
Without another word, they spun and filed through the portal on the far side of the hall.
One task taken care of. As for the rest of it, enough was enough.
“Take a moment to think, Lyriat,” Brand hissed, pushing his way between the still-seething king and his indignant brother. “Political or no, we all know Magnus didn’t do it. He is not your enemy.”
“Not yet, at least,” Mag growled. “It’s becoming more unsure by the minute.”
“That really isn’t helping.”
“Aye, alright. Damn it.” His brother’s cheeks puffed out, lids sliding closed. “I swear on my dearest mam’s own life that I had fuck all to do with this.”
Brand pressed a hand to Lyriat’s chest. “See? There isn’t a creature in all of Bordoroth who adores his mother as much as Magnus does ours. Calm. Come back.”
Being the Demon King meant that—when truly fucking pissed—Lyriat entered a far deeper berserker state than most others ever did. Brand had lost count of the number of times he’d had to do exactly this. Shite, it probably counted among his official duties as High Ambassador at this point.
Or maybe it was just what friends did, since Lyriat had done the same for him almost as often.
Lyriat blinked, sunlight glinting off of his fangs when he jerked and snarled, trying to shake the rage away.
“That’s it,” Brand said. “Easy does it.”
Lyriat reverted to his lesser self, stumbling as he released Mag and gripped Brand for support.
Fucking finally.
Magnus cranked his head side-to-side. “You actually think this was political?”
Between Baldrir’s condition and Brand’s sneaking suspicion that there was no possible way he’d made it through the portal on his own… Sisters save them, but there was little else it could be.
Dissent and rebellion were inevitable in a world as large as this one. Bordoroth had its fair share of criminals and cutthroats, or extremist factions that would rise up, intent on destroying the Empire and the peace it stood for.
Exactly the sort of thing he and his brothers were meant for.
With family at stake no matter where they turned, ensuring accord was as much a personal matter as it was a diplomatic one for those within the Imperial Line.
The Blessings bestowed upon them at birth and their place as High Ambassadors gave them alone the unique ability to uphold Imperial law and order and see to the welfare of their individual realms, all while possessing a true loyalty to both.
Some people really did not bloody like that.
Hedda and Faldir returned to their normal state with a pop of light, their faces twisted into mirrored, wary masks as Brand helped Lyriat to the nearest bench.
The king huffed, managing a bitter half-smile. “What other reason could anyone have for mutilating Baldrir in such a way, when his relation to me is well known?”
“Aye,” his brother whispered. “There is that.”
“And while I acknowledge it wasn’t you, specifically, it would be foolish to rule out the Westrealm entirely.”
Mag scrubbed a hand down his face, scratching his beard.
“No. Whatever happened to Baldrir, it wasn’t Thodelebor officially targeting Straelon.
Nothing about his condition suggests the Wolflords are responsible.
He’d be chewed half to death, not cut with a blade in perfect lines.
Aside from that”—He sat down opposite Lyriat, ticking off his fingers—“our uncle may as well be yours, the Chieftains are gentle and fair, and we depend on our symbiotic relationship with the Montrealm too greatly. It would only hurt them to violate you. Besides, those two are entirely too besotted with one another to bother with cross-realm political maneuverings. All Lycidas and Ursula want out of life is to fuck and feast and make merry.”
“Even villains want those things, Your Highness,” Faldir murmured. “It doesn’t absolve them.”
“I’m telling you, I would have known,” Mag argued. “And I sure as shite wouldn’t have let it happen, allegiance to Thodelebor or no. It wasn’t us.”
“Be that as it may, it was someone with an agenda. Until we know who it is, or what they want, we must be hypervigilant.” Hedda eyed Lyriat, her brow raised.
“Oh, fuck no,” Lyriat scoffed. “No you don’t.”
“We can, and we will. Won’t we, Brand?”
Brand let his head drop, having already been dreading this part of whatever conversation they ended up having. An enemy was targeting the Montrealm, Lyriat was its king, ergo…
“Hedda and Faldir will select a pool of twenty-four warriors, taken from my own First Legion. Four guards at once, rotating on a six-hour schedule. Two at your door and two in the chamber when you sleep.”
Lyriat sprang up, chest heaving. “I believe I just said fuck no. Or have all of your ears stopped working?”