Chapter 45
Chapter
Forty-Five
Outside the gates, the Perean people stood like an army, cobbled together by fear and stubborn grit.
As their wall of bodies and weapons tightened, doubt wound through Dimitrios like creeping briar. He should have listened to Nikolas. Stayed behind the gates where he was safe.
Then, one man took that side-step. Then another. And another.
The crowd parted, granting him ample room to stand among them.
Dimitrios turned in place, meeting each sweat-slick face, absorbing the anger. The fear. But also…
Hope.
He met every gaze, unflinching. “Milonia Dardana speaks at great risk to herself and her father,” he began, his voice clear despite the pounding in his chest.
At the courtyard’s edge, Milonia stood with Caius at her feet. Her gaze lowered from his.
“Whether you believe her or not is up to you.”
He turned back to the crowd. Battled the tightness in his throat. Focused on his people, who were anxious for every scrap of information.
“I’m as surprised as you are by some of it,” he admitted.
“But not all. Here’s what I have known, and what I’ve already shared with the province lords: Titos Demakis and Leonidas Primakos were in league to damn my reputation through a variety of methods meant to shift control of our lands over to Soterra. Much of it done at your expense.”
Dimitrios paused. Let the truth land.
“You don’t have to take my word for it. I have it in writing.”
An older man with soot-stained fingers and a wide chest stepped forward. “If it’s in writing, and the lords knew about it, why haven’t they done something?”
Voices echoed the question.
Dimitrios lifted his hands. “That’s a fair question, Iason. One I wish I could answer. If you want my opinion… They have been reluctant to disparage Leonidas’s good name.”
A few heads nodded, tight and bitter.
“I understand their hesitancy,” Dimitrios said. “Even if I don’t like it. But now I ask you this: What would you have me do? I am a foreigner whose father was once the crown prince. I have been at the mercy of these same men for months.”
Silence stretched as the truth cut through their anger.
Dimitrios turned in a slow circle. “I don’t care about titles. Or how the lords cling to their comforts. They’ve chosen silence—we don’t have to.”
Heads bobbed, and spears pounded the earth.
Dimitrios lifted his voice further. “Soterran forces have crossed our borders. They are here, coming through the north pass. Right this very minute. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to fight.
Untitled. Crownless. Your equal. A man who has grown to love these lands.
And I stand among you, asking you to join me. Let us fight together as Pereans.”
It started small. A nod from a man with scarred hands. A boy tightening his grip on a spear. A woman lifting her chin.
Then it swelled.
Murmurs to shouts.
Weapons raised.
Voices rose like wind—louder, stronger—until hope rolled through the crowd like thunder.
Dimitrios faced the soldiers waiting in the courtyard. Nikolas stood among them, arms folded, brows furrowed.
“Decide now,” Dimitrios called. “You can be a Perean now”—he drew his sword, the steel glinting—“or Soterran tomorrow.”
These warriors belonged neither to Kai nor to Usti.
Yet she and the Stormguard stood ready, shoulder-to-shoulder at the chamber’s mouth, blades drawn, breath held.
The strangers moved with eerie precision, their formation tight and silent. Not Silver Wolf discipline. Something different. Sharper.
Their armor hugged close—black leather overlaid with dark steel plates, curved and glinting like dragon scales. Many were masked. Those who weren’t bore streaks of ash and dark blue pigment across their faces. Curved blades crossed their backs, and whips looped at their belts.
The murmuring crowd parted for them, unease rippling like wind through dry leaves.
At their head, Drakaa strode in silence, her long braid trailing down her back. Perched atop her shoulder, her pearlescent white beast coiled its tail around her neck.
The Eternal One stopped before Kai. Those mismatched eyes, brown and blue, gleamed in the firelight.
Kai fought the urge to fall at her feet, to weep.
They weren’t alone.
Not anymore.
“How did you know to come?” Kai asked, her voice barely more than a breath.
Drakaa smiled softly and squeezed Kai’s shoulder.
Then she straightened, her voice rising like a tide. “Kai Silver Wolf, you recently reminded me that if you fall, we fall. We, the Unseen, come to you today as Clan.”
And then, before the eyes of the mountain, Drakaa lowered to one knee.
The silence that fell was heavier than any war cry.
Behind her, the Unseen warriors dropped to one knee, heads bowed. Blades lowered.
Gasps shivered through the mountain.
Drakaa raised her chin. “Command us, First Daughter. We will follow.”
“Crownless king!”
Not a mocking rebuke.
A call to arms.
The Perean people roared in answer—fierce, united.
The hiss of steel filled the air. Blades drawn, not against him. For him.
For the first time in months, Dimitrios knew where he stood. With the certainty that he was no longer alone.
One by one, soldiers dropped to their knees, armor and swords scraping against stone. His people followed, pledging themselves not to a crown, but to a cause.
Nikolas smirked, gaze sweeping the masses. Slowly, deliberately, he knelt. “We remain yours to command, Your Majesty.”
The words struck like a smith’s hammer against the molten metal of his spine. He let them forge him—hot, steady, final.
Dimitrios stepped forward, sword sheathed, hilt gripped tight. “Good,” he said. “Now get me a horse.”
He turned to the gates. To the storm rising in the north.
“We ride at once.”
“The remaining matriarchs must be found.” Kai’s voice rang into the stillness Drakaa had summoned with a single sentence.
First Daughter.
Command.
Lead.
She would be the daughter who rose above all the rest.
Kai Silver Wolf squared her shoulders—not as a warrior, but as heir to the mountain. “Protect our mothers and our people. Guard our clans with your lives.”
“Spread out.” Otekah barked orders to their few remaining warriors. “No one rests until the matriarchs are safe.”
On the other side of the chamber, Drakaa echoed the command, and her Unseen militia answered with a single, unified stomp. The sound struck the floor like a war drum.
Kai added one final command. “Leave no enemy breathing. Their lives are forfeit.”
They’d had their chance.
Warriors set off in several directions, boots thundering into the passageways.
Sword already in hand, Kai led the charge toward the mines, rage and grief hardening every step. Usti would be where he thought himself safest. She was certain of it.
He hadn’t killed Sitsi by his own hand, but he would answer for her death.
The gods owed her that much.
Two corridors in, the injured began to appear.
Healers supported coughing females, some bloodied, some burned. One limped with her arm wrapped in a hastily tied cloth. Another carried a child whose legs didn’t move. All were dust-covered, their faces pale, their eyes bright and wide in shock.
Kai grabbed a passing healer by the arm. “What’s happened?”
The female shook her head, eyes dazed. “The mines. There was some kind of blast. Supports gave way.”
Kai’s stomach twisted. The blast.
She’d done this.
More injured streamed down the corridor—so many. Too many.
Drakaa settled at Kai’s side. “Are there more down there?”
The healer nodded. “Yes. We’re trying to get them out before the tunnels collapse completely.”
We.
Healers.
Kai’s heart slammed against her ribs as she scanned the faces rushing past. “Where’s Fala?”
“She’s still down there.”
A groan echoed through the stone, followed by a long, low rumble from deep within the mountain’s belly.
The ground convulsed from sea to shore. Cannon fire cracked across the waves, one, two, three—
Thorne’s ships exploded in splintered plumes of hull and fire. Black smoke swallowed the blue horizon. They weren’t under enemy fire… They were turning on themselves. It was Castona Bay all over again, only worse. Bigger.
Bloodier.
Cannonballs shot through the hulls of their neighbors as well as up into their own decks. Mainsails cracked. Men jumped overboard.
Then, as if from a glittering dream, six familiar ships cut through the sea like arrows.
A laugh tore from Augustus’s chest.
The fleet.
His family.
Selene.
Thorne staggered back, sword lowering as he blinked at the chaos devouring his prized fleet. “No.” A whisper. Then a roar. “No!”
From its perch, the Vorash released a scream into the world and took flight, leaving behind a shower of black feathers.
Augustus raised his sword, his grin stretching wide. “Time’s up.” He met Thorne’s eyes. “She’s here.”
Thorne made to attack—
An elk cut between them. The force of the massive beast pushed Augustus back several steps. Another beast swept him from behind.
The herd was here.
The bulk of Sandstone Elk came on a cloud of sand, massive antlers slicing the air. Dozens, maybe hundreds of them. And behind, Little Gus continued the chase with short bursts of flame.
Thorne’s men scattered. They’d been brave before, murdering his family. They were running now, dropping weapons in their wake. One didn’t make it three steps before an elk’s hoof crushed his chest.
Mettius’s yell cut through the thunder. “Augustus!”
Augustus slid toward the weathered plank where his father lay, his mind working furiously over what to do next. Drag the man, plank and all, to safety, or pull the nail first, and carry him?
“Pull it out,” Mettius said, teeth gritted. “Do it fast.”
Augustus grabbed the exposed nail and yanked it free in one brutal motion.
Mettius roared.
Augustus hauled Mettius’s arm over his shoulder, lifted his dead weight, and half-stumbled to safety. The elk’s stampede spread wide and large, but there were a few things they avoided—like a cluster of jagged shipwreck boards wedged in the sand.