Chapter 30 #2
Idallia has brought me her family, and it’s a gift I didn’t know I wanted or needed.
Fyrestar will stick to my wing with composed strength and wisdom, ever sensing what Idallia needs even before she does.
Rimblaze will swing between moments of maturity and spurts of youthful dauntlessness that still need a firm word and heavy look to rein in.
And Embersol will fly circles around us, her sharp little beak piercing the sky like an arrow, and her fluffy yellow head crest leaving a trail of sparks on the wind.
Sudden heat sears my eyes. Embersol has been calling me Dad lately. I can’t help encouraging her.
My heart grows impossibly bigger, my chest tighter.
I exhale unsteadily. I haven’t had a family in so long that I forgot what it was like—or what I’d wished it was like.
I never had siblings, and frankly, I didn’t like my parents much.
Now I have Idallia and her phoenixes, and I want to spend every waking hour with them and keep them all tucked safely under my wings.
But that feels frighteningly impossible. There’s no peace until Rannigan Bloodthief is off my doorstep. And there’s no peace when I know the end of my happiness could very well be my own damn fault.
* * *
Inside the meeting room, the arguing is incessant and always on the edge of violence. My head pounds, and all I want is to leave this big round cavern with its big round table and its five totally different people who will never get along. I want to walk away and go back to Idallia.
The irony is, she should be here.
Even if I tell her the truth the very next time I see her, it’ll be too late for this year’s Council. Too late for her to help me and Torridaig as I always intended her to. Too late for her to decide if she even wants to.
The chasm in the pit of my stomach widens. It’s going to swallow me whole soon.
The Were King steeples his fingers, listening to the Vampire King complain.
This week, we’ve already negotiated updated prices for the metals, fabrics, and wood products coming out of Torridaig, increased efforts on the Were King’s part to control the kidnapping fanatics in his kingdom, harsher penalties on any fae caught using their glamour magic on people instead of paying for what they need, and sharing of the southern lake waters near Glarraden via new aqueducts.
The increasingly dry agricultural plains of northern Ruthinock will receive irrigation and, in return, Torridaig will receive first pick of the human sorcerers willing to leave home.
It’s a better deal for Ruthinock. They’ll still have water, even as magic fades.
What’s left is the fucking Vampire King and his completely illegal blood raids.
Rannigan tries to paint everything as my fault, inventing utter bullshit left and right in a way he’s never dared before.
No one feels even a shiver of Cealastra’s light, which just spurs him on.
After hours of this, the Human Queen barely listens to his tirades anymore.
The Were King already knows his vote—it’s always the same because he’s more scared of Rannigan than he is of me.
The little Fae Queen tries to make herself as small as possible in her great, big chair.
The fierce dispute barely concerns her. She’s got my whole kingdom between her and Rannigan.
“My people are in his dungeon.” Rannigan jabs a sharp-nailed, permanently bloodstained finger at me. “I demand justice.”
“And what would your justice look like?” I ask, seething.
“Blood debt,” he immediately answers.
I laugh in his face. I’m not giving him people to eat. Not mine or anyone else’s. “I do have vampires in my dungeon. Because his raiders”—I jab a finger back at him—“were stealing my people straight from my towns.”
“And mine,” the Human Queen launches from across the table in a hard voice.
Her eyes narrow. Isabella Varlo is my kind of ally.
Quiet and still until she can punch someone in the throat with only a few words.
“I demand justice for all the humans you’ve dragged into your blood markets and sold to your vampire horde. ”
Rannigan stands, slamming both hands on the table.
The Fae Queen squeaks and makes herself even smaller.
The Were King leans back. Isabella holds her ground.
“My justice is a life for a life,” Rannigan grinds out, ignoring us both like we never even spoke.
“Between you, you’ve killed a hundred vampires in the last weeks.
I want a hundred of yours now. And I want dragon shifters, not weakling humans.
” Rannigan swings a blistering look at Isabella.
She stares back at him with a lifetime of hatred in her eyes.
“So, you admit to sending at least a hundred raiders into our sovereign territories in the last weeks?” I say smoothly.
His shoulders stiffen. “You crossed the border and took prisoners. I have witnesses.”
“Where are your witnesses?” I ask with lethal impatience. “Oh wait, I have mine.”
I stride to the door and open it. I gave orders to bring up the Bloodwold prisoners earlier. They’re lined up against the wall outside, and I pull the first one from the guards holding his chains and shut the door.
Shoving him in front of me to show him to the Council, I demand, “Where did I capture you?”
The vampire sees Rannigan and flinches. He knows he’s dead either way and lies through his fangs.
“You crossed the border.” He jerks his head at me and then turns back to the table.
“I was minding my own business in Hellwood Forest when the Dragon King and his Elite Wing flew in and massacred the entire village.”
“Just as I said!” Rannigan cries in triumph. “I demand justice.”
I snort in disbelief. If I was known for massacres, that might be believable.
And where the fuck is Cealastra? The only reason the Ellonrift Council has ever functioned is because she doesn’t let lies pass or violence erupt between rulers in the meeting room.
There are stars out the window, but there’s not even a hint of divine light hitting the table or any of us here.
The eye of her bird-shaped constellation looks weaker than ever, and the primordial star seems to flicker before my eyes.
My gut clenches. I’d held out hope that she’d return, that she was still watching, and that my attempts to do the right thing would somehow balance out Rannigan’s constant crimes. No more. I’m done. If killing is how I get results, then I’ll kill.
“This one lied. Let’s try again.” I open the door so the other captives see everything and incinerate the one I hold with one focused firebreath. I’m the only dragon shifter in the world who can breathe fire without shifting, just like I can form wings or a tail or talons. “Next,” I snarl.
The vampire’s agonized scream still echoes in the room. Bones and bloody muck dirty my floor. Marissa Turin leans over in her chair and retches. I grab the next vampire in line and haul him inside.
“This is coercion!” Rannigan hisses. “Violence to get what he wants.”
I wrap my hands around the vampire’s shoulders, my heavy touch creeping toward his throat. “Where did I capture you?” I ask in a dangerously soft voice.
He trembles, because I’m suddenly the scariest beast in Ellonrift again.
“Draywood,” he chokes out. “We set fire to Draywood and took people for the blood markets. Humans and dragon shifters.”
“Draywood is within my border,” I say, searing a hard look toward the people around the Council table.
“Lies!” Rannigan spits.
“Cealastra knows the truth,” I shoot back, still hoping against hope that her starlight will fall on me right now, definitively marking my words as truth and revealing Rannigan as the liar he is.
The Vampire King sits again, throws his head back, and laughs.
It starts out slowly and builds until worry and anger coat my insides in a layer of ice.
“Cealastra is gone. Can’t you tell? That’s the light of a dead star still reaching us.
There’s no one there, and when the light finally fades, magic will die in Ellonrift. ”
Deep in my twisting belly, I know it’s true.
We’ve been at this argument for hours, nearly coming to blade-point more times than I can count, and Cealastra has been nothing but silent.
I’m more certain than ever that Rannigan either killed her or drove her away when he murdered a whole family she painstakingly created from her own starlight, then viciously turned his forefather’s kingdom into the blood pit it is now.
Rannigan cut down Cealastra at the same time he cut down my friend, his wife, and all but one of their children. And now the Star of Ellonrift is gone.
The Fae Queen starts quietly crying in her chair. Her people will be the first to die out unless a population that conceives children as infrequently as dragon shifters suddenly starts reproducing like rabbits. Magic is their survival.
I inhale deeply. The goddess is gone, and I have no reason to play by the rules. I open my mouth and coat Rannigan Bloodthief in flames.
He doesn’t burn.
Rannigan chuckles, the sound making me want to tear out his throat. My fangs ache to sink into his flesh and rip, but he gets a sword between us fast. “Do you really think I wouldn’t protect myself? Come now, Bale. Everyone knows you’re a bleeding heart, but now we know you’re stupid too.”
My nostrils still flame as I stare at him. “So what does it come to?” I ask bitingly. “We fight to the death and the winner takes three kingdoms?”
Rannigan’s cold laughter betrays a hint of nervousness.
One-on-one, he knows I’d decimate him, magically protected or not.
“We’re at the Ellonrift Council for a reason.
Let’s put it to a vote. I win, and you hand over a hundred dragon shifters.
They’ll feed my people for years. We don’t raid your kingdom, but if we did, raids would… lessen with the bounty you’d give.”
Never. Not a chance. “And if I win?” I ask with so much rage that I can barely keep my inner fire from seeping out, let alone the shadow of my dragon. My dragon wants to grow into a hard, dark monster and rip this despot’s head from his neck.
“You can keep the sunblood, and I won’t try to take her back.”
My blood goes hot, then cold. I stand unnaturally still. Take her back? Does he know who Idallia is? Really is?
The Were King thumps the hilt of his dagger on the table, denting the wood. “Do you agree to the terms?” he asks me.
My teeth clamp together so tightly that my jaw hurts. I nod, but it’s a lie. I will never turn over my people, and I will never let Rannigan have Idallia. But I can lie with impunity now, just like Rannigan.
“Then let’s vote,” the Were King says. “Who supports the Dragon King?” Isabella, Marissa, and I lift our hands. “And who supports the Vampire King?” The Were King lifts a hand, and Rannigan lifts two.
“Fanghaven vote. My poor wife couldn’t be here.” He smirks at me, and rage erupts in my chest. I should’ve killed him centuries ago.
Our hands fall, the votes cast. It’s a tie, and we all wait a few tight breaths, but Cealastra doesn’t intervene. If I’d played my cards differently, the way I’d always intended, the vote would have been mine.
“Where does this leave us?” Isabella asks.
“A fight to the death is still on the table.” I narrow my eyes at my enemy. “Unless you’re too much of a coward.”
Rannigan stands. Something in his eyes, his tiny smile, scrapes deep furrows of worry through me.
“Your war room seems like a fitting place for a final confrontation. Say your prayers to your dead goddess, gather whoever you want, and meet me there. We’ll need witnesses.
” He looks around the table. The others all nod.
“The war room,” I growl.
And so ends what I assume is the final Ellonrift Council. From now on, we either maintain our alliances without any star to guide us, or go to war.