Chapter 55
Allie
The Northern leaders might’ve been ready, but I was still caught somewhere between surprise and apprehension.
“Remember, without the blessing from the Warden of the Silence, they can lie.” Vylkor rushed to my side.
I forced myself to believe it was a good sign.
“With the right tools, anyone can lie in any situation,” Dax said. “You just have to twist the words right.”
“That’s what worries me,” I muttered as we neared the door to the room I’d first woken up in. The one where I’d faced Ryker, Silas, and my own weakness.
Now I’d face three of the most calculating leaders in Malhaven.
“That they’ll lie?”
I gulped. “That I can’t.”
My mind might’ve been feared throughout Malhaven, but not because it could come up with trickery.
“You don’t need to,” Dax said. “Use the truth, just make a show of it. Like we did at the rim.”
I nodded, trying to cling to that feeling I’d just remembered.
Grandpa Constantine had seen greatness in me–why couldn’t I? Still, after all this time.
“You go in there as The Huntress,” Dax went on, singing my praises beautifully. “Powerful. Unbothered. That’s who they heard stories about. That’s who brought down the side of the crater.”
“I had help,” I muttered.
“They don’t need to know that.” Dax tsked impatiently. “They’re expecting the fearsome First Daughter, not the righteous Allie.”
“I’m both.”
He huffed, exasperated. “Then be both, just use them wisely.”
As we stopped, I reached for the doorknob.
Nobody can stop you.
I froze, tongue twisting in my mouth with the last taste of the deer heart.
Nobody could stop me–unless I allowed it.
I pulled my hand back.
“What are you doing?” Vylkor asked. “They’re waiting.”
“Let them,” I said with a cold voice I didn’t fully recognize.
Dax nodded at me approvingly.
“You’re coming in with me,” I said.
He looked surprised, but didn’t argue. “Whatever you need.”
“Just follow my lead. We need to find out what they know and what they don’t, so we know where we stand.” I puffed up the furs on my shoulders. Being a leader also meant looking the part.
Dax was right.
They expected someone fearsome.
Why disappoint them?
Under Vylkor’s increasingly worried gaze–but, thankfully, silent one; the attack had mellowed his lack of faith in my abilities or had made him more wary of my power–I tamped down the stray hairs around my forehead like I tamped down my nerves.
Whispers resounded from behind the door, too low to make out. But they slowly morphed from curious to annoyed.
Then, and only then, did I nod at Dax. We squared our shoulders, sharp grins frozen on our faces, and finally entered, like the true Vegheara family they wanted to tear down.
Three palaver portals rose from three equally faded journal pages. So the one Ryker had given me for the wedding hadn’t been a slight. It was this crater’s normal.
This also meant the three Northern leaders weren’t in the same room.
Good. We could use that.
Every single detail could become an advantage if we used it correctly. Whatever my eyes missed, Dax’s would pick up with his honed skills.
“Huntress.” The oldest of them smiled, his perfectly white beard emphasizing those perfect teeth. But his dark eyes narrowed, calculating. That must have been Beren Greycrest, the Ashrift leader. “We were worried you were about to postpone our little gathering.”
I heard the venom beyond the smile. Five minutes of waiting had pricked his pride. Useful information.
To his left rose the palaver of a man swaddled in velvet and faded jewels, looking at me as if he’d stepped in something foul. Edrin Malrow, the greediest of them all, who’d led the Dustmarks straight into abject poverty.
On the right, a man draped in pristine dark leather that had never seen a battle gazed down his nose, trying to appear regal, and ending up conceited. Lioran Tideborne, the one so in love with his ancestry that he looked like he’d just stumbled off a pirate ship.
“Beren,” I said and stopped in front of the palavers, tall and hopefully unbothered. “I was wondering when you’d finally face me.”
Edrin’s already sour face soured further, his grimace exposing the tips of his decaying teeth. “Big words for a Clanless woman.”
That remark smarted more than I would ever let them see. “On the contrary. I hear many Clans are fighting over me.”
“You alive and you dead are very different things,” he sneered.
So they knew someone wanted me dead. If there had been any doubts the Northern Clans were involved with whoever Orion and Silas were working with, Edrin had fully dispelled them.
Dax shifted behind me softly. He’d caught it, too.
Now we knew which footing we were negotiating from.
“Let us not talk about death,” Beren intervened, none of his cheerful demeanor dented. “Let me be the first to welcome you into the family. A shame we didn’t get a chance to greet you properly.”
“Yes, I’m sure you’re all very excited to meet face to face,” I said. “I don’t think that will happen soon, sadly.”
“You and my nephew are so alike.” He chuckled. “You’re living in one of the richest lands in all of Malhaven. Be more optimistic.”
“Perhaps I will.” I smiled back. “Once you stop attacking it.”
Powerful.
Unbothered.
The dark glint in Beren’s eyes sharpened.
To his side, Lioran cleared his throat. “You have no evidence.”
“The two hundred soldiers resting underneath the ice, clad in your Northern uniforms would beg to differ,” I said.
“Deserters. Insurgents.” Lioran waved a bored hand. “They acted on their own.”
My eyes narrowed.
They had the numbers, the weapons, the higher ground.
Why pretend?
Unless–
My heart thudded in my chest.
Unless they were scared of something.
The crater?
Me?
Whoever wanted to kill me?
“Did you send them properly to your gods?” I asked, trying to wring answers from three stone-faced men. “Did you mourn them?”
Lioran stuck his nose higher in the air, but said nothing.
“I’m confused, Huntress.” Beren arched his open palms. “I thought this was a negotiation, not an opportunity to fling around accusations.”
“If you didn’t attack, then what are we even negotiating?”
“Why, more access to the crater’s powers, of course,” Beren said. “I’m sure my nephew told you everything about how he caved under pressure and chose to appease instead of facing us.”
I sensed it, in the shadows crowding his gaze and the way his smile sharpened, that Beren thought he was revealing some great conspiracy that would permanently taint Ryker’s image for me.
The great warrior who’d chosen diplomacy instead of destruction.
Who’d cared more about protecting his people than his pride.
“Yes,” I said simply.
His smile flickered.
“That boy’s a coward.” Edrin spit on the ground. “A bane on the Greycrest name.”
“For someone you call cowardly, you sure love to claim your nephew,” I said.
A strange territorial impulse took over me.
Ryker wasn’t just his nephew.
He didn’t even use the Greycrest name.
Whatever semblance of family relations they had paled in comparison to the crater’s claim on Ryker.
My claim on him.
“Simply stating facts,” Beren said, voice now colder, but still masked. “He is my nephew and what he did is not, shall we say, becoming of the warrior he claims to be.”
My eyes narrowed further.
“Didn’t see any of you three facing me at the rim of the crater,” I said and looked at Dax over my shoulder. “Did we?”
“No, I would’ve remembered these faces,” Dax said with an eerie grin. “Glad I got the chance to sear them into my memory now. Who knows when we’ll bump into each other again. Accidentally, of course.”
“Boy, I will rip that tongue out of your throat,” Edrin said.
“Many have tried, none have succeeded. But I wish you luck in that particular murderous endeavor.”
“Edrin!” Beren hissed, even through his grinning lips. “Spirits are getting too heated, this is supposed to be a calm affair.”
“It’s hard to remain calm when you insult my future husband,” I said.
None of them needed to know things between Ryker and I were shaky.
It was the principle of the matter.
As far as they were concerned, Ryker and I were true allies. It’s what made us seem more powerful.
If they sensed discord, they would try to divide.
And beyond the logical, diplomatic arguments, I didn’t want anybody insulting Ryker.
Beren tilted his head, feigning hesitation. He did it well, too, licking his lips and looking down, almost embarrassed. If Ryker wouldn’t have warned me, perhaps I wouldn’t have seen through the display so easily.
“We’ve heard things aren’t as rosy between you two as you claim,” he said at last. “He’s a difficult man. Even harder to live with, I imagine. And leaving you, an outsider, in that horrific cold, alone to fend off an entire army while he’s off playing the hero…”
“You’re right,” I said. “That should give you pause.”
“Us?” A startled, arrogant laugh burst through Beren’s facade. He recovered a moment later, brows furrowing. “Yes, we’re quite concerned for you.”
“I can tell,” I said coldly. “Very gracious of you to send so many, many, many soldiers to check on my well-being. But, as you can tell, I’m in perfectly good shape.”
“Killer shape, one might say,” Dax said.
Beren hummed. “Yes, we have all heard about your spectacular abilities.”
“Shame you haven’t had the chance to witness them,” I said with more confidence than I felt.
But this was all about a show. “At least not yet.”
“Perhaps we will at the wedding.” His eyes glinted cruelly. “I hear these Protectorate events always come with surprises. On the cusp of destruction and yet you’re still the talk of the continent.”
My heart began to race faster.
Beren was walking a very tight line between flattery and trying to break that calm he invoked so much.
Another time, I might have taken the bait, my Clan pride wounded and wanting to wound back.
But I had too many people’s lives counting on my patience and composure.
“Told you everyone wants a piece of us,” I said.
Dax shook his head. “Can’t satisfy everyone, I’m afraid. There’s only so many of us carrying Dria Vegheara’s blood.”
We watched as Beren’s face tightened, his grin now as frozen as ours.