Chapter 2
LUTHER
“Remember Diem’s orders,” I told Sorae. “Keep Teller safe.”
She snorted in agreement.
Teller jumped to his feet. “I’m coming with you.”
“Teller . . .”
“If my mother is in danger, I’m not staying here.”
It was the one argument I couldn’t deny, not after I’d lost my own mother because I failed to protect her. “Do you have a weapon?”
He pulled a blade from his boot. It was small, but it was the dark grey of Fortosian steel—good enough to draw Descended blood.
“Keep behind me,” I warned.
As we made our way back, I palmed the compass in my pocket. Though I’d brushed off Teller’s worries, they had dug up a terror I’d been trying hard to keep buried.
The figure, clothed in white.
A blade, black and glittering.
Diem’s body, collapsing to the ground.
Voices taunted in the back of my mind: perhaps there’s a different reason the compass cannot find her.
I yanked my hand back and curled it around the Sword of Corbois’s jeweled hilt instead, sliding it free of its scabbard. If I couldn’t get to Diem, at least I could get to one of the people who put her there.
At camp, a quick skim confirmed the Crown had not yet arrived. With no way to sense Descended magic, the mortals were oblivious, going about their day as normal.
“Grab your weapons,” I shouted. “Archers, to the trees.”
The mortals glanced at me, confused, then at each other. I’d never dared to issue them orders before.
“Don’t just stand there,” Teller said, layering his voice with a commanding bite that could just as easily have come from his father. “He said grab your weapons!”
With a mortal endorsement, the Guardians jumped into action. They swarmed the campsite, scurrying up trees and nocking arrows, while others corralled the children out of sight. A dark-skinned, darker-eyed woman marched out from a row of tents. “Who called a warning?”
“I did,” I answered. “There’s a Crown nearby.”
Her gaze narrowed. Cordellia was the leader of the Arboros rebel cell. Even with Auralie speaking in my favor, she’d never warmed to me.
“How do you know?” she asked.
I bristled. I didn’t even tell Descended when I could sense another’s power, let alone mortals who fantasized about slitting my throat.
“It doesn’t matter,” Auralie cut in as she joined us. “If Luther says to prepare, we prepare.”
I stiffened in surprise at her support. So did most of the Guardians, including Cordellia. As head of the Guardians, Auralie was the one person here who outranked her.
Cordellia gave an awkward nod and turned to the others. “Get to your stations. I want bombs ready to light, and the ballista loaded with—”
“That won’t be necessary.”
The voice floated from the forest like wind whistling through the leaves. It sounded delicate—harmless. But much like the petite blond it belonged to, first impressions could be deceiving.
And deadly.
The woman sauntered into view, her Crown of ever-blooming flowers marking her as the Arboros Queen, accompanied by two burly guards and a woman laden with blades.
I raised my sword. Her soldiers edged closer, hands twitching as a shimmering shield formed around their Queen. I answered with my own curtain of glittering blue at my back to keep the mortals beyond their magic’s reach.
Myself, I left exposed. For a Descended, it was as good as a middle finger. A taunt: I’m stronger than you, and I’m not afraid to prove it.
The Arboros Queen lifted her chin. “You must be the famous Prince of Lumnos.” Her emerald eyes skated over me. “A great many people are looking for you.”
“Woe to those who find me,” I rumbled back. “Especially those bearing Crowns.”
Her lips thinned. “I have no fight with you, Prince, nor with anyone here. I come to deliver a message.”
My godhood scratched at my chest, sharing my urge to inflict some bloody vengeance. I stepped forward. “I have a message for you, too.”
Auralie grabbed my arm to stop me. “What do you want, Mireille?”
My head snapped toward her. Mireille? Auralie and the Arboros Queen were on a first-name basis?
Mireille pulled a small slip of paper from the neckline of her dress, a shift crafted of woven banana leaves and trimmed with sprigs of fragrant honeysuckle that I could smell across the clearing.
She gave it to the woman at her side, who prowled toward me with hand extended.
She, too, left her shield down—a challenge matched by the scowl on her face.
Diem would love her.
The thought speared my heart clean through.
Auralie shot me a stern look, a silent command to stand down, and I grudgingly obeyed. She walked forward and plucked the paper from the woman’s hand, then spun on her heel, giving the women her back—her own show of no fear.
Auralie silently read the note, then looked up.
“In all our time working together, Mireille, I didn’t realize you thought so little of my intelligence.
” She crumpled the paper and tossed it to the ground.
“If the Crowns wish to meet, it’s certainly not to discuss peace. This is an invitation to an ambush.”
“The meeting was my idea, Auralie,” Mireille said. “We are desperate. Hundreds are dying.”
“Hundreds of Descended are dying. The mortals have been dying for centuries. The Crowns had no interest then.”
“Not all of us,” Mireille said archly. “You know I’ve been working toward peace for years. I’m as dismayed as you that it took this long for the others to hear me, but they are indeed now listening. Are you really going to throw that away?”
“Why should I trust you? You locked my daughter on an island prison.”
Blood drained from her face. “You know about that?” She shook her head. “That—that was Sophos’s plan. There was nothing I could do!”
“Nothing? Swear to me, on your mortal father’s name, that you had no hand in what happened to my daughter.”
Guilt flitted over her features. Her voice turned quiet. “You must understand . . . I have a realm to protect, Auralie. I could not sacrifice it for one girl.”
“That is my Queen you speak of,” I growled.
“I did what I could. I got the Guardians safely off the island, didn’t I? And I’ve returned to Coeur?le every week to leave Diem supplies.”
“Are you sure she got them?” Teller asked. “Were the supplies gone each time you went back?”
Mireille hesitated, then sighed. “No. They were never touched.” She hurried on. “But I will keep sending her more until this dreadful ordeal is over.”
Teller looked at me, eyes round. It was a look I had seen a thousand times before—from half-mortal children and their parents, from mortals facing their execution, from my own family when they found themselves on the wrong side of a more powerful Descended.
The look of a terrified person who had placed their last chance at hope in my hands.
“It means nothing,” I said to him. “Diem wouldn’t trust anything that came from a Crown.” My eyes slid back to the Arboros Queen. “Neither should we.”
“Come to the meeting, Auralie,” Mireille urged. “This is your chance to make whatever demands you wish.”
“And if I demand my daughter’s freedom?” she asked.
“That, they will not give—not until the war is over. They fear her too much.”
I’m the one they should fear, I thought darkly.
Auralie shrugged. “Then my answer is no.”
Cordellia balked. It was barely noticeable, no more than a tensing of muscles, a slight turn of her head. I might not have noticed, had I not spent the past month watching the two women present a united front to keep the rebels from splitting any more than they already had.
“Auralie,” Cordellia whispered.
“Leave, Mireille,” Auralie said loudly.
The Queen’s mouth fell open. “I’m offering you a chance to save your people.”
“All I need to do to save my people is wait for Ophiucae to finish what he’s started.”
Murmurs of agreement rose from the mortals behind us.
Mireille gaped at me. “You’re fine with this, Prince? The slaughter of your people—your family?”
Fury danced like fire in my bones. “The savior they need is on that island. If any harm befalls my family because of it, you and the Crowns will repay it in blood.”
She rolled her shoulders back, feigning disinterest in my threat, but she couldn’t hide the color leeching from her cheeks. She turned to Cordellia. “Dell, we’ve been allies for years. I helped you many times, at great personal risk.”
“You have,” Cordellia agreed tightly.
“Have I not earned your trust? Think about what’s best for your people. All the lives that could be saved.”
“Auralie is our leader.”
Her tone was unconvincing. The Arboros Queen’s eyes took on a determined glint at the sign of a crack in our ranks.
“A leader does not place anything above her people—even her own family. If Auralie will not be the leader the mortals need . . .” She picked up the discarded invitation, then held it out to Cordellia. “ . . . perhaps you will.”
Auralie and Cordellia exchanged a lingering look so burdened with unsaid words, even the air felt heavier.
Cordellia snatched the letter and tucked it in her belt. “We’ll discuss it.”
“It’s time for you to go, Mireille,” Auralie said frostily. “Tell the Crowns if they have any more invitations like these, they best deliver them by hawk. The next messenger you send won’t leave here alive.”