Chapter 77
Taevis Vaelor is a dick, and I don’t like him.
There’s no other way to put it. No, he didn’t send me straight to the gallows, but his blue eyes, which are so different from his son’s, hold enough disgust and loathing to tell me everything I need to know.
I’m the enemy, and I came waltzing into his home on his son’s arm.
As soon as we found him in the grand dining room with a few of his trusted advisors by his side, it became tense. He does not want me, the princess of the elves, anywhere near his home or his son.
Unfortunately for him, his son doesn’t care what his father says, and it doesn’t seem like he has much power over what he does.
Maybe he did once upon a time, but Daegan doesn’t let anyone tell him what to do.
He stands proudly at my side, defending me and refusing to hear any arguments against me staying.
Giving up on the subject, Taevis instead looks between Raef and Daegan with a completely different expression. “So, they really tried to ambush you outside the castle? What were you even doing back there?”
His father has missed so much of what’s happened.
Daegan hasn’t even been back here since he was imprisoned in Ellyar for nearly a year.
Raef and Rhydra came for a short time, but that was while Daegan was still locked up, before the elves attacked us in a bloody battle.
Did he even try to get his son free? Did he try to retaliate when his son and Raef were nearly slaughtered?
“I needed something that’s of high value and importance to me,” I say, speaking for the first time. I don’t know why I chose now.
Taevis barely glances my way, instead choosing to look scrutinizingly at Daegan.
“And then you exposed our well-kept secret, all for some sentimental trinket of a spoiled princess?”
“You know nothing about her,” Daegan replies in a deadly, cold voice. “Don’t speak of her that way in front of me. She’s done more for me than you know. For all of us. And they knew of our secret long before that. Since the day they messed up and took me prisoner. Took Elysande prisoner.”
The leader of the dragons finally loses his temper, slamming his fist onto the table, and I jump.
Daegan places a calming hand over mine.
“I don’t care what the reasoning was. We’ve kept the secret of our only remaining abilities between the dragons for a thousand years!”
I can see the temper and anger Daegan spoke of when he told me how his father treated him when he was growing up. He’s so much different from my father with how he expresses himself on the outside, but inside, I fear they may be similar.
“We would all be dead right now,” Daegan responds flatly.
His father shakes his head, placing it in his hands. “How many did you kill?” he asks.
“Hundreds.”
This seems to mollify him a little.
“And how many more do you estimate there are?”
Daegan shrugs. “It’s hard to say. They kept sending them in waves. During our travels we heard they were building up an army and even trying to recruit other species, but I cannot guess what the full number might be.”
Taevis begrudgingly glances at me as if it pains him, and asks, “What do you think? You’d have a better idea of the size. What’s your population? How many of them are capable of fighting? Of being recruited?”
I return his gaze with a plain expression and my shoulders held high. I’m on their side and I want him to know that, but I will not cower. “Thousands could be in their military. Maybe five or six thousand, plus whoever else he can convince to join him.”
“No one is fucking joining him,” Raef scoffs. “Well, except for a few sylocs, apparently.”
Taevis glances his way. “Don’t underestimate what their power will do to sway others. Some people simply want to be on what they believe to be the winning side, which they have been for a long, long time.”
“Well, we’re exposed now. Might as well show them what badasses we really are.” I stifle a laugh, because of course Raef would talk to the unofficial king of the dragons in the same casual way he does everyone else.
He simply raises an eyebrow at Raef before returning his gaze back to his son. Before he speaks again, an older male on his left with unkempt gray hair and a scowl leans in and speaks quietly in his ear. It takes a moment, and it leaves the large open chamber silent and tense as we all wait.
When he looks our way again, his expression is flat.
“Good job for taking out a few hundred of their troops.” He looks at Daegan and Raef, skipping over me.
“However, if there are thousands more, we need to be ready for an attack. We’ve been busy ourselves while you’ve been traipsing all over the continent... ”
My face heats with anger at his accusation.
How dare he sit there and act like Daegan was off gallivanting around for the fun of it when he was imprisoned, tortured, and beaten.
I hate him. Not quite as much as I hate my own father, but still.
It’s there. I can’t forget the marks he left on Daegan, the ones that were for training purposes.
Now is not the time, though. They’ve shifted to talking about preparing for battle, which means we’ll probably have to sneak around and keep our own mission—which is much more important to the big picture—a secret. It’s going to be tricky.
They talk a little more about battle strategy, with Taevis casting several spiteful glances my way, but Daegan refuses to let me leave his side, so he doesn’t have much choice.
“Oh,” Raef interjects as they’re wrapping up the discussion. “We learned something pretty useful.”
“You did,” Daegan says.
“Kezra and me, actually.”
“Who in the curses is Kezra?” Daegan’s father asks.
As if she’d been waiting this whole time for the perfect moment to make a dramatic entrance, Kezra emerges out of nowhere, sparkling gold trails streaming behind her and complementing the golden hues in the walls.
“I am, of course.” She does a small curtsy in the air. “Queen Kezra of the Westland fairies.”
Daegan’s father’s jaw drops a noticeable amount. The two males on either side of him look equally surprised.
“A fairy?” He asks with quiet surprise.
“That’s what I said,” Kezra quips back.
“And you’re on our side?”
“I’m on Everrynd’s side.”
“Which means—”
“The elves are not,” she snaps, cutting him off.
“So yes, I suppose you could say the dragons and fairies have found themselves on the same side once more.” Is she insinuating that the fairies fought with the dragons the last time?
“Though I can’t say I’m particularly fond of you,” she adds, looking at Taevis with a judgmental glare.
I really try hard not to react, but his father’s expression can only be described as flabbergasted.
I stifle a victorious smirk.
After the awkward exchange, Raef explains what he and Kezra discovered about his flames and her dust mixing, and Daegan’s father looks mildly impressed. He then asks her if she can report to the training grounds to try it on a much larger scale, to which she replies, “Absolutely not.”
We’ll just have to wait and see what happens if we ever need to use it. Hopefully we don’t. That trick on a much larger scale would be terrifying.
The dragons may have an abundance of fire power, but so do the elves.
Add water, terra, and verdancy on top of that, and it may sound like an advantage, but the sheer size and resiliency of the dragons cannot be ignored.
We’ll still need every edge we can get if they ever show up in Torrynth, though.
A horrible feeling deep in my core says it’s only a matter of time. And this time, it will be on a much larger scale.