Chapter 8 Dark Times are Coming
Dark Times are Coming
Nikhail missed the days when working was enjoyable and brought him a sense of peace. Right now, sitting in a boardroom and watching the film being projected on the wall, he felt anything but calm.
“Chancellor Rose and the Representative scum who answer to her have ruled over the Republic of Balance for far too long.” The speaker, a cloaked man who appeared as though he’d stepped straight out of the Four Kingdoms, gripped the wooden pulpit in front of him. “We cannot let this stand any longer!”
The film wobbled as the person recording the speech clapped in time with others before it steadied once more.
From this angle, Nikhail could tell that the speaker stood in front of a gathered assembly, but he couldn’t make out any faces in the crowd.
Earlier, he’d attempted to run facial recognition software on the attendees, but the dark shadows constantly sweeping through the room had rendered the technology futile.
“The Republic is no longer balanced, and it’s all the Chancellor’s fault!” The speaker pounded a fist on the table. “She is the reason we are in pain, the reason we are suffering. It’s because of her that our families are going hungry. That our children are starving.”
The more he spoke, the louder his voice became. He was reaching a fever pitch as he moved out from behind the pulpit and stepped towards the camera.
“The Chancellor, the Representative filth, and their families are a gods-damned plague upon our land. Once, we were blessed by the gods, but now they are angry. Their displeasure is evident everywhere we look. The lack of unity in this land is proof enough of that.”
The speaker paused, and someone in the crowd asked, “So what can be done?”
A smirk crept across the speaker’s face, and a shiver swept down Nikhail’s spine.
“I’m glad you asked,” he said. “It is our duty, both to ourselves and to the gods who watch over this continent, to rectify the situation. We cannot let things stand as they are. First, we will—”
“Turn it off.” The command, cold and powerful and barely more than a whisper, came from behind Nikhail. “I’ve seen enough.”
Nikhail reached over and pressed a button on his laptop. The projection froze.
The cloaked man’s hand was raised, and even the shadows couldn’t hide the hateful sneer on his lips. There was a wrongness about the speaker that had Nikhail’s magic churning in his veins. A warning.
“So this is their new leader.” A chair creaked, and nearly silent footsteps rounded the table.
Nikhail looked to his left, where Chancellor Ignatia Rose was coming to stand beside him.
Had she been human, she would’ve died in the blast that tore her house apart.
As it was, she was still recovering. Her skin had an unnatural grey tinge, abrasions covered her face, and dark purple bruises had formed under her eyes.
The Chancellor’s right leg was in a cast that reached her thigh, and even the stylish navy-blue suit and matching blouse she wore couldn’t hide that she’d been attacked.
The Chancellor’s remaining injuries were a reminder of Nikhail’s purpose. The meeting with Arlo had shown him how bad things were with the rebels, and Nikhail had been forced to change his plans once again.
Even though he yearned to go to River’s side, circumstances had compelled him to remain at the office and work long hours, trying to uncover information on the rebels and their purpose.
He couldn’t get the Chancellor’s earlier warning out of his mind. That maybe the Black Night wasn’t working alone. Maybe they had people inside the military who were feeding them information. Making it easier for them to disrupt the Republic’s day-to-day operation.
If that was the case, no one could be trusted.
The potential of an informant made it difficult for Nikhail to outsource work to his team. He trusted them, but trust only went so far. He didn’t want to inadvertently provide the rebels with information that could help them harm River, so he’d been working twelve- to eighteen-hour days.
The long hours and his extra workload didn’t bother him. Not if it meant they could extinguish the threat against the Representatives. Not because doing so would keep the Chancellor safe—she was low on his list of priorities—but for River.
For now, Nikhail was resigning himself to communicating with his water fae through texts.
River hadn’t seen his messages yet, but he would keep sending them.
Even if she never replied, even if she never spoke to him again, he’d still work to protect her.
He would do so until he drew his last breath because she was his.
There would be no one else for Nikhail. Not now that he’d had a taste of what it meant to be with River. She was it for him.
Nikhail stood. “Yes, ma’am. As far as we can tell, this is the leader who took charge of the rebels after the Reunion.”
Nearly two years ago, the Black Night attempted to force the Chancellor to give up her position in the government by kidnapping the men who had been involved in the Choosing, including Ryker, and holding them hostage.
While the water fae had made it out alive—thanks to Brynleigh—Edward Tormand, the Chancellor’s new son-in-law, hadn’t been so lucky. The rebels had murdered him on camera in an effort to force the Chancellor to resign on the spot.
Nikhail glanced at the Chancellor, wondering if mentioning the night of her son-in-law’s brutal murder would have an effect on her, but her face remained a blank slate.
He’d heard rumors of the woman’s iciness and how she’d become estranged from her daughter, Valentina, after the murder. It was one thing to hear whispers about the Chancellor’s cold-heartedness, and another to witness it in person.
“I see.” She stepped closer to the screen, leaning on her crutches.
Even injured, Ignatia Rose emanated power. She was a strong fire fae, descended from some of the most powerful fae that had ever lived. Her ancestors had held prominent positions in the Summer Court in the old fae lands before the Great Migration.
She extended her right hand towards the screen. The rings adorning her fingers glinted in the fluorescent office lights, and she traced the rebel leader’s shadowy face.
“Do you know his name?” she asked without turning around.
“Not yet, ma’am.” Nikhail stood tall, even though the Chancellor’s back was to him. “My team is working on it. They uncovered this video last night. The meeting took place two weeks prior to the attack on your home.”
“And it’s all like this?”
“Yes, ma’am. All two and half hours of it.”
One hundred and fifty minutes of rantings and ravings. The rebel leader blamed every single thing that had ever gone wrong in the Republic of Balance on the Representatives.
This was Nikhail’s fifth time watching the film, and he was fairly certain he could recite the speech from memory.
“I see.” The frosty words rang through the room, and Nikhail shivered.
For a woman whose magic was fire, the Chancellor embodied ice.
Several minutes passed in complete silence as the leader of the Republic of Balance stared at the screen. When she turned and met Nikhail’s gaze, there was no warmth there. No kindness.
“Find out everything you can about this footage. The source of the file. The people. Even the building itself. Get me something. These people think I’ve been a problem?” She sneered, and her gaze sparked with fury. “They haven’t seen anything yet.”
The Chancellor turned and swept out of the room—a feat for a woman on crutches—without waiting for a reply. It wasn’t until the door fell shut behind her that Nikhail sank into a chair. Adjusting his tie, he wiped a hand across his forehead.
“Yes, ma’am. Of course, ma’am,” he said to the empty conference room.
Unhooking his laptop from the projector, he got to work. If the Chancellor thought he was doing this for her, she was mistaken. Even if she hadn’t ordered him to do this, he’d still be here.
Every keystroke and search and moment that he worked was all for one person: River.
And for her, he would do anything.
Hours later, Nikhail sat at the same conference table. The remnants of the dinner he’d ordered in, a rice bowl topped with grilled chicken and sautéed vegetables, were littered around him. He’d barely tasted the food.
By his seventh rewatch of the video, his appetite had waned completely. He’d eaten out of obligation.
The problem was, even though the rebels’ methods were awful, they weren’t entirely off base.
At their foundation, their arguments made sense.
The way the Republic of Balance was currently set up, a pyramid with the Chancellor at the top, followed by the Representatives, created an unjust power imbalance.
It wasn’t right, having a few all-powerful leaders in a country that was home to millions. Representatives weren’t elected, and the people had no say in them. They inherited their positions.
When Tertia Waterborn gave up her spot as a Representative—or when she Faded—Ryker would become the next Representative of the Fae in the Central Region. This was how it had always been and, unless things changed, how it always would be.
That didn’t sit right with Nikhail. It never had, even before Laurie, his sister, had embarked on her mission to let everyone know exactly how awful the Representatives were.
But there was a difference between recognizing an inherent imbalance and being able to repair it. It was abundantly clear to Nikhail that the rebels were the wrong people to mend the country and clean up the mess it had become.
Their methods were dark, and violence was their weapon of choice. It was clear in listening to the video that they believed the only way forward would be to forcibly remove the Representatives from their positions. The Black Night was ready to do anything to make that happen.
The entire train of thought was problematic. How did the rebels not see that?