Chapter One #2
Kadeesha held her gaze, impressing the importance of the undertaking upon her, and Leisha sobered, nodding firmly.
Kadeesha, Leisha, and Samira all knew the chief reason the Nkita, the all-female squadron of Kongamato Flyers that Kadeesha led, had taken this mission on.
Yes, she and her sisters had pledged an unswerving vow to be protectors of their lands and their people.
However, they had a crucial secondary reason—to thwart the damnable impending wedding that Kadeesha had been unable to convince her father to put off any longer.
But Kadeesha had always been stubborn and a fighter, and she didn’t plan to give herself over to the confines of marriage without one final maneuver to escape it.
Her father didn’t know about the Apollyon soldiers watching his palace.
It was information that Kadeesha and her Nkita had gathered on their own.
Not even her father’s great spymaster had discerned this latest threat yet.
The way Kadeesha figured it, if she wiped the enemy camp out, brought her father their heads, and revealed the full plot behind their presence, then her father would finally see her value and decide, hopefully, that she was worth more to him as a squadron general than being married off to even their future high king.
She stole a brief moment to pray to Aiyah, the Celestial goddess of fortune and luck, that her plan wasn’t chock-full of misplaced optimism.
Then Kadeesha raised her right fist in the air.
She allowed it to glow with the incandescent purple of aether, the fifth element that bound the classical four—stone, wind, water, and fire—together, as well as everything else living and nonliving under the heavens.
She formed the aether she’d manifested into a swiftly spinning ball that floated in front of her—then let it fly at the campsite.
Upon impact with the ground, it washed everything visible in blinding purple light.
When the light dimmed, violet fires blazed among the trees, swallowing up tents, engulfing the bodies of Apollyon soldiers.
Upon her signal to attack, the rest of her Nkita emitted war shrieks, their kongamatos roared, and Kadeesha and her squadron descended upon the unfortunate survivors of her aether bomb.
Her sisters enjoyed the rush of a battle easily won, and their kongamatos ate well.
SHE CHOSE TO wear lilac. Her father would’ve liked her to wear either violet, the symbolic color of the Aether Court, or gold, the color of her betrothed’s heraldry.
Instead, Kadeesha clothed herself in a gown that was the hue of the leathers that the Nkita wore when they flew.
She did, however, concede to unbraiding her hair and letting a dressmaid sweep her coils into an elegant updo befitting of formal ceremonies.
Father will have to live with getting his way on only one of the two matters, she mused as she strode through a pair of mammoth bronze doors made of prized koppa wood and into Sylas’s expansive throne room—just an hour ahead of when her future husband was due to arrive.
Sylas Mercier, king of the Aether fae, in resplendent robes of violet, sat atop a bronze koppa throne with polished amethyst columns for legs.
As a fae male who’d lived for 552 years and had grown in power each cycle around the sun, Sylas looked every inch a king who oozed power.
As he should, since he’d enjoyed monarch status for over two-thirds of his life.
Her father wasn’t a cruel king, per se. But he ruled their court firmly, swiftly dealt out punishment to those who displeased him, and aptly rewarded those who proved useful.
It was that last trait that Kadeesha was banking on as she raised a severed Apollyon head in the air.
Samira and six fellow Nkita did the same with the other heads of the slain enemy soldiers whose bodies hadn’t been incinerated completely by Kadeesha’s fire.
Sylas startled at the sight. When he recovered, curiosity twinkled in his dark amber eyes that were identical to Kadeesha’s. His lips curved with amusement. “Your betrothed is due to arrive in this very room before the hour is up. What is this here? Some grisly wedding present you’ve concocted?”
On a different day, Kadeesha would’ve chuckled.
Her father knew his daughter well. And if she’d actually desired to wed the male who would supposedly become the first high king in many millennia, she might just be delivering the heads for the exact purpose Sylas guessed at.
Instead, Kadeesha bowed low. When she straightened, she told her father, “These are Apollyon soldiers who’d made camp along the easternmost edges of Koppawald Forest. The entire party has been eliminated, except for three males Leisha presently has chained in the dungeons.
She’s extracting the precise reason they were ordered by their king to scout our palace.
” Kadeesha had fervently wanted to hand her father that information at the same time as the heads, but Leisha had sent word while Kadeesha had been dressing for the Receiving that her playthings were proving stubborn.
It was a character flaw they’d regret soon.
Sylas swept a narrowed gaze along the severed heads, no longer in merry spirits.
He raised a hand that was limned in purple fire moments before the eight heads that Kadeesha and her Nkita held were consumed by aether flame until there was nothing left.
That the aether flames never once singed Kadeesha nor the other women was a testament to his power and control over the element.
When the heads were nonexistent, leaving not even ash behind, the purple flames vanished.
Kadeesha looked around and noted Sylas had cleaned up the blood the heads had dripped on the ivory sunstone floors too.
Perhaps she might’ve thought about carrying this gift to her father in a tidier way.
“My archnobles and chancellors will be arriving any moment,” Sylas commented.
“I will not have them arrive to such a sight right before Rishaud is due. They’ll be beside themselves.
” There was a censure to Sylas’s tone Kadeesha hadn’t predicted he’d display.
Her father wasn’t a ruler who let capricious nobles dictate how he operated.
The Hyperion liege’s approaching visit must’ve really had him on edge.
Kadeesha bowed low. “I am sorry, Father. Forgive me for the oversight.”
As she straightened, Sylas nodded, granting absolution. Then, he turned to his guard captain who stood on the dais to the right of the king’s throne. “Go help Leisha in the dungeons,” her father instructed Ramuriel, a man who’d served him for the three hundred–odd years he’d been the Aether king.
“Leisha has all of the assistance she needs from her Nkita sisters,” Kadeesha informed her father, sure to sound properly deferential.
He scowled. “So you may think.”
“My sister is extraordinary at what she does,” Kadeesha asserted.
Her father only grunted. But that was his way—he was a traditional man with outdated thinking who didn’t truly believe women belonged, or could excel, in places customarily dominated by males.
“At least you were careful not to get blood on your gown,” her father said.
“Though your chosen color is off-putting.” He gave her and the gown a pointed look.
“Really, Kadeesha, gold would’ve suited the occasion better and pleased your husband-to-be. ”
And now they’d arrived at the important topic: She didn’t give a fuck about pleasing any future husband.
She knew better than to phrase it like that, though.
She dug her nails into her palms, using the small pain to keep cool.
“About that …” she began slowly, taking her time to measure the best words.
This was her last chance, the final moment she’d be able to steal alone with her father before her betrothed arrived and the whirlwind wedding festivities started.
If she didn’t convince Sylas to call the whole thing off now, she never would.
Kadeesha calmed her racing heart; she locked her emotions down tight because Sylas would automatically dismiss her plea as the ravings of an irrational woman if she spoke too passionately.
“I do not wish to be married,” Kadeesha expressed calmly.
“And I’d hoped that me bringing your attention to this threat against the court—and what I surmise is part of a plot against your life, a plot that I might add escaped your own spymaster’s notice—will prove my value to you and this court.
I am worth more than some daughter whose only benefit lies in being sold off for political advantage.
If you void my betrothal contract, you will not regret it, for you will eternally have a capable general loyal to you—and only you—and who wholly serves your interests while protecting your welfare and this kingdom’s welfare with my Nkita squadron. ”
Her father’s face gave nothing away when she finished. He studied her stoically, settling back against his throne. “We have had this discussion before, daughter,” said Sylas.
“We have, Your Majesty,” Kadeesha replied deferentially. “However—”
He sliced a hand through the air. “No. We will not rehash things. Nor will I change your course. I’ve given you freedoms beyond what most noblewomen would have prior to marriage.
I’ve let you bond with a kongamato and build and lead a squadron in hopes that it might tame your strong spirit.
And I’ve allowed you to delay this union for a significant amount of time; when you turned of age on your twentieth birthday, you should have married then.
Those concessions, I believe, are a more than fair share of doting in exchange for the duty you must now fulfill. ”
He leaned forward, placing his elbows on the amethyst arms of his throne and bringing his hands together in a tent right below his goatee.