Chapter 20 #2
With the secret of the dragons exposed, Madan and Whelan decided that flying where they were visible was no longer an issue.
As such, they flew straight over Central Province on their journey to the western side of the Keonis Mountains.
If anyone saw them, he couldn’t tell, nor would he care if they had.
What would they do? Send soldiers after them?
Good. Let Valenul be confused about where to put their forces. It opened up Eastwood for the invasion that would be happening within nights.
After successfully convincing Ehrun’s eastern troops to march out and rendezvous with Azriel, led by Ahn and Ygret, Madan felt considerably more confident as they landed at the location of the western troops.
Things were going well, after all, and while he still couldn’t stomach looking at Ehrun for longer than a few seconds, he was grateful the bastard was doing all he could to make amends.
Not that Madan could ever fully forgive him.
“You forgave Azriel,” Brutis pointed out as Madan swung down from his back to yet another massive crowd of hostile dhemons.
Following suit from Oria, Whelan cast the massive gray dragon a glare. “I haven’t.”
Madan sighed. Of course he hadn’t. Though Whelan continued to respect Azriel and follow the orders given, he had yet to acknowledge Azriel’s lack of self-control the night he’d tried to kill Madan.
Not that Madan blamed Whelan. Had the roles been reversed, he probably wouldn’t have had the same restraint as his partner.
After all, he’d stabbed Azriel and left him for dead for far less.
“Can we please just get through this without bringing that up?” Madan looked to Ehrun, who’d already begun his speech to the gathered dhemons.
“If he hadn’t tried to kill you,” Whelan grumbled back, “then this would be a non-issue.”
A flash of a memory whipped through Madan’s mind—one that didn’t belong to him.
In fact, it was an image of him pinned to the ground with Azriel above him, hand wrapped around his throat.
Along with it came a wave of gut-wrenching, vomit-inducing fear and panic.
It punched Madan so hard in the gut that he had to focus not to double over from the pain of it all.
“If I ever forgive him for trying to take you from me,” Whelan continued, “then he is fortunate, indeed. I’m only still here for you.”
Didn’t Madan know it? Whelan had asked for them to leave once before. Only once, but it stuck out in his mind nonetheless. Particularly since Madan had seriously considered it.
But he couldn’t leave Azriel. Not after everything they’d been through. Not after knowing just how much his brother was fighting a darkness he couldn’t control. Not after seeing how much Ehrun had changed once the ritual had been forced upon him.
“I know,” he acknowledged after a long moment of silence between them.
With that, they refocused on the task at hand: helping Ehrun convince the dhemons before them to join.
The previous camp had been so successful that he hadn’t needed to call on the blood oaths he’d collected from all of his followers.
This camp, however, appeared far less inclined to follow a half-dhemon King.
“We have the dragons,” one dhemon was saying from the midst of the crowd. “I say we raze the Valley and start over.”
A pained expression pulled Ehrun’s face taut. “Killing innocents is not the answer.”
“You are not the King we swore an oath to,” said another.
“King Ehrun would call for the blood of them all,” called a third. “They kill our people like cattle. Let us return the favor!”
Madan stepped in beside him. “We are trying to minimize casualties on both sides so we can start an era of peace.”
“Fuck you, leech!”
“Who let a vampire speak for them?”
“Kill him!” The cry had the crowd surging forward.
In an instant, Whelan stood before him, sword in hand. He hoisted the blade and snarled, “Try to touch him and you’ll have no need for the ritual, for I’ll deliver you to Keon myself.”
Several sneered back responses that Madan couldn’t make out over the sudden ringing in his ears from the dump of adrenaline. This wasn’t what he’d expected when they landed. He took a step back and ran smack into something—someone.
Looking up, he found Ehrun standing behind him with a familiar rage etched into his features. But for once, the hate kindling there wasn’t directed at Madan. It was shot straight out at the dhemons who were now beginning to clamor forth.
“Enough!” the mighty dhemon roared, bringing the mob to a halt as the oaths woven into their blood seized control.
All at once, the dhemons froze, their bodies responding to the command even as their faces contorted with fury at having been stopped.
Ehrun put a heavy hand on Madan’s shoulder and addressed them again, continuing to use the same commanding tone.
“Each of you is here because you and I once believed the same thing: vampires are a plague to the Valley and should be eradicated.”
A quiet murmur of agreement. They had gathered under Ehrun’s banner while seeking precisely that confirmation.
“Being reconnected to Keon has opened my mind to many things,” he said, “including the need for us to find peace with those we’ve fought for so long.
I do not pretend to speak for the God of the Underworld, but I’ve come to understand far more of what he desires from us than I ever believed possible.
“We must work together to eradicate one thing: the tyranny that runs rampant in Valenul.” Ehrun surveyed them. “In doing so, we may work together to lay the foundation for harmony as we have never known.”
From the center of the mob, a familiar voice called, “Will fighting for King Azriel the Crowe guarantee us a chance at the ritual to connect us to the Underworld?”
Ehrun’s hand dropped from Madan’s shoulder, and he stepped forward, brows drawn up. “Little bird?”
Pushing to the front, Sasja emerged from between a pair of brawny dhemons.
She took them in, nodding solemnly to Madan and Whelan, then Brutis and Oria.
Finally, her eyes landed on the Keon symbol tattooed on Ehrun’s cheek.
She smiled sadly and brushed her thumb over it.
“These bastards have a way of getting to us, don’t they? ”
Then she turned to the crowd. “Azriel the Crowe is the only reason I’m alive today. The only reason I’m not fighting or dying in the Algorathian Pits.”
Another murmur went through the tense crowd. No one moved and no one spoke openly against her.
“The vampire Ariadne Harlow,” Sasja continued, “is his bonded wife and all that stands between him and exactly what all of you wish to happen.”
Madan whipped his attention to her, muttering, “That is not helpful right now.”
Sasja ignored him. “But it is she who fights the hardest for all of us.”
“I’ve seen it myself,” Ehrun added. “She allowed herself to be taken by Loren Gard, Valenul’s previous General and new King, all so she could uncover the ritual that connected me to the Underworld. It was the daughter of Rhana’s murderer who gave me back my wife.”
“I will fight for Azriel the Crowe,” Sasja said, holding her head a little higher. “And if any of you believe yourselves to truly desire the return to our homelands, you will follow him into battle as well.”
It wasn’t until that moment that Madan remembered one key fact: Sasja’s father had been another Dhemon King, killed by the Crowe.
She held as much sway over many of these dhemons as Luce did over the lycans of L’Oden Forest—as much sway as Ehrun or Azriel or any other powerful clan leader.
They looked up to her. It underscored the importance of her words in that moment.
The dhemons whispered amongst themselves, then one by one, they began stamping their feet on the rocky ground. The beat was not unlike the one that had echoed through the great hall of Auhla when Azriel had been named King. It thrummed through Madan like a drum.
Yet only when the crowd had begun to disperse to pack up their camp and make for Central Province, where they would set up for battle against Loren, did Madan take his eyes off them to look to Sasja.
“What are you doing?” he asked, unable to shake the feeling of betrayal that she had told Ehrun their plans to find Anwenja, resulting in Kall’s death. “I though—”
“I’m sorry.” She did not look at him right away. When she did, her dark red eyes glittered in the moonlight. “I thought you’d go straight for the entry I pointed to on the map.”
Madan shook his head. “It was too close to Valenul for us to safely go.”
Beside them, Whelan and Ehrun watched. The former stood rigid, glaring at Sasja as though it’d been she who put the blade into their friend’s chest. The latter’s face blanched, knowing precisely where the conversation would turn at any moment.
“Did Kall not travel with you?” Sasja slid her attention between the three of them, her eyes catching on the collar around Ehrun’s neck.
Whelan cursed under his breath and directed his displeasure to the ground. Likewise, Madan looked up at Ehrun. This wasn’t his question to answer—not when the reason for Kall’s absence stood amongst them.
“No, little bird.” Ehrun’s throat bobbed behind the band of metal. “He’s dead.”
Pain lanced through Madan as Sasja’s expression fell to silent horror. She sucked in a sharp breath and bit her lip, hand splaying across her stomach as though the news made her as physically ill as it’d made all of them for so long.
“How did it happen?” she asked quietly.
“You were there,” Whelan said, his voice suddenly no longer filled with hate, but laced with quiet apprehension.
Sasja looked up. “What?”
“It was me,” Ehrun said before anyone else could speak. He grimaced and stepped forward to cup her face. There was a relationship there, deeper than one Madan understood, that connected them. Nonetheless, Sasja pulled out of reach as Ehrun continued, “I killed him, little bird. I’m sorry.”