Chapter Thirty-Two #3
The turmoil swirled greater within her gaze.
But, again, she quashed it. “Then let there be a spark. While this is not something I want, the heinous amount of lives that may be lost otherwise is the issue of chief concern.” She paused, touched a hand to her belly, and then continued with “I have the beginnings of what will grow into a child of dual royal blood, just as the prophecy states. All that matters at the moment is that we can use it to get what we both seek. I can’t help but wonder if its timing and the interruption of my tea was by the great Celestials’ design so that it could be used for this very reason: avoiding a greater catastrophe. ”
He scowled at the begrudging pitch to her words.
Although he wasn’t sure why he was annoyed.
She was correct: Her pregnancy—the fact that he’d sired a bloody child—could significantly reshape the interpretation of the very prophecy they were trying to avoid by stripping Rishaud of the role—and future—he claimed he’d play in it.
It was just so hard to see past the blood that was the only path he envisioned.
“You and I, we have a valuable weapon to dramatically mitigate the coming carnage that a war with Rishaud will bring and has already wrought,” Kadeesha pressed on, then said aloud what he’d just been thinking.
“We can neuter Rishaud’s power by chipping away at its ultimate source: the sworn fealty and united armies of the Six Kingdoms. Think about how much stock each of the courts places in omens.
Fertility is rare among our kind, and two royal lines siring a child is even rarer.
Many among the Six Kingdoms could be easily coaxed to see what is growing inside me as some grand omen of a new age—one where you and I rule as high king and queen of all the lands, with our child of dual royal blood as heir to the Seven Kingdoms—ordained by the great Celestials themselves.
If you feed the lesser monarchs that grand design, plus promise them greater autonomy beyond what they have under Rishaud’s crushing rule, they will all shift their allegiances in a heartbeat.
Then, without the strength of the vassal dominions united behind him, Rishaud becomes only one king and one court you go to war with.
Thus, he becomes much more vulnerable and easier to kill. ”
“It’s a viable plan. A strong and shrewd one,” Nychelle spoke up. She looked Kadeesha over, impressed. His auntie didn’t dole out such praise often, nor with many individuals.
“It takes care of many issues at once,” Trystin contributed. “Particularly that of Rishaud and our nobles who are so eager for you to marry and produce an heir. Further, it gets you what you ultimately seek while, as Kadeesha said, assuaging casualties of a potentially drawn-out war.”
Malachi knew all this, rationally. But when it came to Rishaud, rationality wasn’t his primary concern.
Yet he filed their votes away even as he looked to his Cadre, because his auntie and cousin weren’t the only two individuals in the room who’d earned the right to be heard.
Shionne, Jakobi, Kiyun, and Dedrick—they’d all lost parents at the hands of the southern monarchs.
They had all sworn together as teenagers to slaughter each of the enemy monarchs.
Every last one of them. So he owed them a chance to have a voice.
“If I extract vows of fealty from those fuckers, I imagine they’ll ask for some assurance that they won’t be killed as soon as my business with Rishaud is concluded.
If I were in their positions, I’d force an oath of no harm in exchange for my aid.
If you aren’t all right with that deviation from our long-held plans—our vengeance—speak now and this consideration of Kadeesha’s proposal goes no further,” he said to his Cadre.
The temperature in the room plunged until skeins of ice coated the strategy table. Feeling it, he expected Shionne’s low growl to follow. However, she said nothing. Jakobi, Kiyun, and Dedrick were cloaked in a similar rage. Yet they, too, withheld expressing dissent. At least for the most part.
“What about Zayvier?” Jakobi gritted out. “He is incapable of having a voice here.”
“Zayvier is the best of us,” Shionne grumbled. “Besides the fact that he would side with whatever path his king wanted to pursue, the same as each of us always has, he’d care about minimizing the loss of lives, especially those on our side.”
“She is right,” Kiyun spat.
Dedrick laughed dryly. “This is rich. We do still get to massacre Hyperion nobles, yes?”
“If the answer is no, it’s where I draw the line,” Shionne said flatly.
Malachi gave her the look that statement deserved. “You know me better than that.”
Shionne sucked her teeth. “Just checking that you weren’t actually going soft on me.”
Malachi chuckled. “Not a fucking chance,” he assured Shionne.
Her gaze sliced to Kadeesha before returning to Malachi. “Glad to hear it.”
He then studied the Aether queen for a moment himself before saying, “Since the matter is settled, shall we move on to planning a pregnancy and impending wedding announcement that’ll draw the vassal monarchs’ interest? We can subsequently dispatch message runes behind it for a clandestine meeting.”
Kadeesha balked when he mentioned the wedding part of her grand scheme.
Malachi’s face settled into similar grim lines because having heard his own words spoken aloud was like a void blade to the lungs for him too.
Merely thinking about the rapidly approaching event he’d just agreed to left it difficult to breathe.
He’d already relinquished so much with this plan. To see his peace of mind lost as well … it was brutal.
And yet, he knew it was right. He knew it was the only way this would work. And he knew …
No, he didn’t know. But what he felt wasn’t exactly horror at the idea of marrying in mere days. It was something else, something he couldn’t put his finger on, and perhaps that was what scared him the most.