Chapter 51 #2
I have released Eslodel from their previous agreement to my predecessor. If you require further reparations for the breach, name them. If you require hostage or surety to ensure my good faith, name that too. Let us close the jaws of this trap on the men who set it, not our people.
I await your terms with the open hands of friendship,
Dimitrios
The Silver Wolf passageways had gone quiet—the kind of hush that came only when the fires had been banked, the younglings tucked in bed, and the weight of the mountain had settled over its people like a blanket.
Kai stepped into the Hearth Room just as Shadi passed a fold of parchment to Doli.
Her mothers sat alone at the fire, their silhouettes awash in amber light. The flames gilded both the hard lines and quiet curves of their faces.
A month ago, they’d have moved with ease and lightness.
But, with Tse’s absence, an unbearable weight pressed down on their shoulders. Grief reddened their eyes. They moved as if the air itself pushed against them.
Kai blinked away hot tears and cleared her throat.
Shadi’s spine snapped upright, and she blinked rapidly. “Daughter? Is everything all right?”
“Yes. I wanted to let you know that Steel Arrow has all the supplies stored, and White Spirit will begin dispersing them in the morning. I’ve assigned overnight guards.”
She wouldn’t risk any of Usti’s unnamed loyalists taking advantage of grief.
Kai stepped further into the room. “Is something the matter? Who has written?”
Shadi motioned to the hearth. Its high flame curled smoke through the silver snout of the carved wolf above the mantle.
Once Kai was comfortable, and Doli finished reading, Shadi revealed the contents of Dimitrios Vidalatos’s letter.
“Do you believe him?” Kai asked.
Shadi took back the parchment with a tired sigh. “How can I trust the words of a male I’ve never looked in the eye?”
Doli folded her hands. “And who’s to say what more has transpired since he penned this? For all we know, he has already been overthrown.”
“They’ll have put that murderous princess on the throne,” Shadi muttered.
If that were true, they wouldn’t know for weeks—maybe even months. By then, Perean would know just how fractured Yiria had become.
Shadi’s teeth flashed as she stared into the fire. “As for Titos… He was always a villain. His involvement does not surprise me. And if this heir speaks true, Soterra has invited a war.”
“We need to sail to Perean,” Doli said, though her expression soured at the thought.
“We can’t leave our people like this.” Shadi scrubbed her palms across her face. “Our survival has to take priority.”
Kai heard their concerns while also listening to that tap tap tap in the back of her mind. A memory. Drakaa’s own words from long ago.
“Several lines of fate are converging,” she’d said. “A great battle is on the horizon, and our people will play an essential part. You, especially, as your mother’s heir.”
“I’ll go,” Kai heard herself say as if from a great distance.
The war could be with Soterra, Perean, or someone else entirely. But one thing was certain: she had to be the one to lead it.
“I’ll stand before these kings and learn the truth,” she said. “And I will do so with legions of our warriors at my back—enough to remind them who they should fear.”
With the Unseen now an active clan, Kai could leave them to tend to their people should the need arise.
Shadi squeezed Kai’s hand, gaze fierce and full of fire. “You do this, you show the world who you are without question. You leave our lands as First Daughter, heir to the Matriarchy.”
The role she’d rejected for much of her life. But now she understood something she hadn’t before. With or without a title, she was meant to protect this mountain and these people, and she would do it to her dying breath.
“I do so gladly,” Kai said.
Doli’s hand joined Shadi’s atop Kai’s. “Take your wife and husband with you. Let them also see you at your full strength.”
Tears filled Shadi’s eyes. She turned toward her wife, her other half.
Kai then understood the depth of their loss. These females, whose strength and wisdom knew no bounds, felt weak. Fractured. Broken parts of a whole that would never feel solid again.
On a shaky breath, Shadi nodded. “You leave in one week’s time.”
Aweek later, Kai stood on the docks, the frozen sea wind stinging her cheeks.
Her stomach had been fluttery all morning, and she couldn’t remember when she last ate a decent meal. But all her preparation was paying off. And while her hands demanded she do something…
There was no need.
Warriors filed up the planks to a fleet of ships in a steady rhythm. Oxbeasts bellowed against their handlers. Crates thudded into holds already filled with grain and steel.
Fala’s hand brushed hers on one side, fingertips cold and sure. “This is where it all begins.”
Kai released a pent-up breath, heart thudding. “Everything is going to change.”
Atsadi took her other hand and kissed her knuckles. “We’re with you to the end, beloved.”
And for once, fate didn’t feel like a trap. Kai believed him. She’d come through fear, anger, and grief to get here. Now, with Fala to one side and Atsadi to another, she had room for strength and resolve.
She had room to breathe.
To lead.
Together, they faced the horizon and whatever storm waited there.
Kai turned her face to the sea. She faced the future as Kai Silver Wolf of First Clan, heir to the Grand Matriarch of Yiria.
And the sharp edge of a union the world had never seen before.
Drakaa’s chambers lay in disarray, leathers and silks and weapons tossed aside while she crammed the barest necessities into a trunk. The fire smoldered in the brazier, half-forgotten, while she worked with hands too hurried for grace.
She hadn’t thought…
Never imagined…
The veins had been sighted in the lower tunnels. Jagged lines of gold gleamed through the rock where the collapse had ripped the mountain open.
No one knew what they were looking at.
But she did, and she couldn’t sit idle another day while the prison opened itself wide. She had to warn him, the king whose blood could undo everything they’d bled to build.
Anara shifted restlessly, white scales catching the firelight.
The dronsian’s eyes followed every movement, her tail lashing steadily against the stone floor, while her thoughts sparked like embers in the back of Drakaa’s mind.
Fragments of firelight, memory, regret. Questions she battled on lonely nights.
“He would want me to keep fighting,” Drakaa said, then whispered, “I have to keep fighting.”
Drakaa yanked open another cabinet and pulled out fur-lined leathers.
Her knuckles struck something cool, buried in the back.
Breath held, she tugged free a narrow chain half-buried beneath folded vellum.
A silver pendant swung at its end—a dragonfly, wings spread wide, tail curved mid-flight, suspended from the chain by one fragile wing.
Her heart skipped. The dragonfly stared back with silent, still eyes.
Anara climbed to her shoulder and peered down at the jewelry. Her nostrils flared, and a low rumble rose in her throat. Not threatened or uneasy.
Drakaa closed her fist around it before Anara began sharing memories she didn’t want. “No time for ghosts. Not right now.”
The door opened, and Soyala slipped inside, skin pale. She froze, black gaze scanning the room. “You’re leaving.”
“The ships will sail soon.” Drakaa snapped the trunk closed. “I need to be on one.”
“Is this about the prison?”
Drakaa nodded. “We’ve sat by watching this go on long enough. One of the stones has been compromised, and if Iraklis’s heir—”
“I’m aware of the consequen—” Soyala went still, and her head tipped back.
Drakaa pulled Anara down into her arms and waited with bated breath. The air prickled against her skin, electric, drawing her hair straight up off her arm. A sourceless wind whipped through the room, threatening the fire at the center.
Soyala’s chin lowered, and her eyes shone white. Her voice came raw, torn from a deep place, and resonated with that of many.
“A lover’s sacrifice, carved in blood, severs the soul in two. One fades into shadow. One bears the weight of both.”
The brazier flared, and Anara shivered.
But Drakaa heard him within those many voices and stepped closer to the seer under a godspell.
“My love,” she whispered, touching Soyala’s cheek. She sank deep into memory for another moment, when it was just her. Just him. No walls between them. His name stirred on her tongue, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it.
Soyala’s white eyes found hers, and with trembling fingertips, the seer stroked hair away from Drakaa’s face. “There can be no beginning without an end,” he said through the seer.
“I remember.”
“The lovers will come to you,” he said. “Tell them. The sacrifice comes either way. Make it count.”