Chapter 19 #2
“Speaking of partnerships,” I pick up, sliding my gaze from Diana to Lavendera, who has just been eating quietly at the edge of the table. “You know what the partnership between fae and dragon shifters is, right?”
For a few more seconds, she just continues eating while her pink and purple eyes remain out of focus. Then she blinks hard and forces her presence back to the front of the mind she shares with the Mother Dryad. Turning her head, she meets my gaze and simply replies, “Yes.”
Hope surges inside me. “So what is it?”
“It’s a bond formed between one fae and one dragon shifter.”
“Like a mate bond?”
“No. A mate bond is permanent and predestined. Very intimate. This kind of bond, we called it a union bond, can be formed between any fae and dragon shifter at any time. Either person can also end the bond at any time. And then reform it again, if they want to. The dragon shifter needs to be in dragon form, though.”
Anticipation crackles through me. “So you can teach us how to do it?”
“I can.” She slides her gaze over all of us. “But I won’t. Not until you get me the Soul of Trees.”
Isera narrows her eyes. “This partnership is supposed to make both us and the dragon shifters stronger. We might need it in order to get you the Soul of Trees.”
“You might. But I’m still not going to tell you.”
Several people at the table groan. Me included. It feels like we’re talking to a moody teenager. Not the six-thousand-year-old daughter of the last Seelie Queen.
“Lavendera,” I begin. “We’re going to need all the advantages we can get.”
“You don’t understand,” she snaps back. Anger and desperation flash across her beautiful face for a second. “This is my only leverage. Without it, I can’t be certain that you will prioritize finding the Soul of Trees.”
“We’ve already promised that we will help you.”
“Well, forgive me if I don’t trust you.” She shoots me a sharp look, but there is deep hurt in her eyes too. “I’ve already been betrayed once by people who were supposed to be my friends.”
I’m about to snap back that she has already betrayed me once too, but then I remember what she told us in that forest outside Frostfell. How her friends traded her to the Icehearts in exchange for their own lives.
Slowly closing my mouth again, I study Lavendera.
Really look at her. Yes, she might be acting like a moody teenager.
But in some ways, I suppose she still is.
She was nineteen years old when the Icehearts captured her and forced an immortal dryad into her head.
That must have affected her development a lot.
“Why did you never use the dragon steel on the Icehearts?” Orion suddenly asks into the now uncomfortable silence.
He doesn’t look uncomfortable, though. He looks the way he always does.
Like he’s scheming something. “You’ve been handling the dragon steel, putting it inside other dragon shifters.
Why didn’t you just touch the Icehearts with it and force them to tell you where the Soul of Trees is that way? ”
“Do you really think they ever let me anywhere near them while I was holding it?” She scoffs.
“And besides, if I had tried to attack and force it on them, I would only have one shot. If I failed, that would ensure that they never, ever gave me the Soul of Trees.” She shoots him a pointed look.
“Why can’t you just find where they hid it in their memories? ”
He heaves a deep sigh, as if he is getting tired of answering questions like this. “I cannot read minds. I can only see bad memories.”
“So look through those to see if you can find it.”
“There are six thousand years’ worth of memories. It would take too long to go through them all. I would need to know exactly what it looks like so that I can rapidly flip through the memories to search only for that.”
The chair scrapes against the floor as she abruptly shoots to her feet. Striding over to one of the bookcases, she pulls out a scroll and a cluster of pens in different colors. Then she sits down and, without a word, starts sketching something.
We all exchange a glance. Well, everyone except the Dryad Queen, who is only watching Lavendera.
“Regardless,” I pick up, and look at the others while she continues drawing. “We’ll have to search for the Soul of Trees later. First, we need to finish what we started with the Gold Clan.”
“She’s right,” Orion says with a grim nod. “They could come here to destroy the wards around my court at any time. So we need to hurry.”
Bracing my forearms on the table, I lean forward and look from face to face. “We can’t take on both of them at the same time. What we need is to force them to split up.”
Galen arches an eyebrow at me. “And how do we do that? Also, can someone fill us in on what happened with the Gold Clan?”
Everyone who was not there raises their eyebrows as I explain what happened after the Icehearts took us and the situation with the Gold Clan.
“Wow,” Galen says when I finish. “That’s—”
“Done,” Lavendera interrupts. Paper rustles as she yanks it up from the table and passes it to the left so that we can give it to Orion. “This is what the Soul of Trees looks like.”
I glance down at the incredibly detailed sketch, which shows an entire forest as well as the round object I assume is the Soul of Trees, as I take it before giving it to Draven, who hands it to Orion.
“This is…” I begin, genuinely stunned by the quality of her drawing, “incredible.”
A small smile touches her lips. “Thanks. I used to love drawing, before…” She trails off before finishing with a soft, “Everything.”
“So, back to the Gold Clan thing,” Galen prompts from the other side of the table.
“Right, yes.” I shift my gaze to him. “So now, we just need to—”
Footsteps pound in the corridor outside.
All ten of us leap to our feet and whirl around before the person has even reached the door.
A second later, Grey skids into the war council room. His wide eyes immediately lock on Orion. “Your Majesty.”
Apprehension washes through me, and I somehow already know what he’s going to say.
“The Icehearts are flying towards our wards with a host of silver dragons. And Hana. And Severin Godblessed.”