22. Myelas
MYELAS
“We’ll be ready to march in ten days,” one of the elves below, a general, said to the false queen, Valnea.
I hid in the shadow of a column, on the second-floor balcony overlooking the massive round hall where the elves made their war plans.
It had taken me a little over a day to shadow-step across the capital and get inside the palace.
My ability to be next-to-invisible in shadows, jumping from one shaded place to another, was invaluable.
No one knew I was here, and no alarms had been raised.
There were sensors all over the palace to warn of someone using magic, but my ability was innate, not magical in nature.
I still took every precaution, hiding in little-used areas, keeping to the shadows the entire time, since my ability wasn’t perfect. But it had gotten me this far, overlooking the queen and her advisors as they discussed their plans to assault Veilblood Academy.
“We’ll have twelve wings of dragons, and four of sylphim for aerial assault,” another general said.
That was eighty thousand warriors in the air alone!
The first man spoke again. “We’ll have ten legions of elves, assuming the seventh and ninth legions make it back from the wilds in time to march.”
That was another fifty-thousand men, all elves, the strongest fighting force in all of the three realms.
The same man continued, “And we’ll have five hundred dryads assigned to each legion to use tree-teleportation, moving each legion nearly instantaneously to the campus. We’ve picked five locations where we’ll come out, hopefully surprising this upstart’s forces.”
That was extremely useful to know. Though where, exactly, would be better.
But then the general in question pointed to a map of the campus and mentioned the five locations in detail.
Perfect. It looked like they planned to have three legions come out on the south end of campus, along the tree-lined cliff over the ocean.
We wouldn’t likely expect an attack from that side.
Two legions each would come in from the east and west. A legion of “dummy” soldiers — cannon fodder shifters — would attack from the north as a distraction, engaging our forces while the others sneaked up behind us and slaughtered us.
The last three legions would be stationed around the queen herself, also in the north.
It was a good plan; too bad I knew about it.
Now I just had to survive long enough to tell someone.
There was a little more talk of strategy after that, but it was mostly how they’d go about finding or luring out our commanders and Izzy, so they could be dealt with. They did not expect Izzy to be on the front lines.
The meeting broke up, and I instantly shadow-stepped away, to a shadowed corner of the royal suite.
I’d already scouted the suite and had seven different shadows I could jump to if need be.
When I hadn’t found Valnea here previously, that’s when I’d begun scouting the rest of the palace and overheard some servants talking about the meeting I’d just witnessed.
I waited for Valnea to return, masking myself in shadows, pulling them around me like a blanket.
This would make it difficult to sense my life force or spirit.
That was my one worry. Elves had power over creation, life itself.
And the strongest elves could sense all living beings around them.
Valnea certainly could do so… the question was: would she even think she needed to while safe within her own rooms?
While I waited, my thoughts slipped back to my last conversation with Izzy. Her words still haunted me.
There is only one reason I’d ever consider breaking our bond, and that is if you asked me to.
I want you in my life. Period.
How many times do I have to say it?
Apparently a few more. Some part of me still couldn’t quite believe I was worthy of her. And she’d been right to say that was on me. I had a deeply ingrained belief that I wasn’t worthy of anything or anyone.
And yet… here I was, unseen in the capital, in the palace, spying on the queen, doing perhaps the most important thing for Izzy and the rebellion. I had to be worthy of something to be here, doing this, didn’t I?
Though, that niggling little voice of doubt whispered that I was only here because I was expendable, unimportant. If I was caught, no one would miss me.
Even though I had tangible proof that that wasn’t the case — that Izzy would very much miss me if our bond was broken — the voice persisted.
In my head I was starting to see the value I had to Izzy, to Safir, to others. I was starting to truly feel my strength and capabilities. And yet, in my heart, I still felt like nothing. Not all the time, but enough to make me wonder what it would take to get past this persistent negative belief.
Footsteps approached and I pulled the shadows tighter around me.
Five dragons entered first. They spread out and did a visual inspection of the room.
It seemed the false queen was paranoid. I leaped around from shadow to shadow, avoiding the five dragons as they searched every corner, never noticing me.
Dragons were strong in spirit and if they hadn’t noticed me, I had to assume my shadows kept even my spirit concealed.
They gave the all-clear, and Valnea entered.
She gave one cursory glance around — never even looking in my direction — then dismissed the dragons.
She was alone.
I didn’t move, barely breathed. I didn’t know what, if anything I might get from the queen while she was alone, but I hoped for something. And I was rewarded.
Valnea began muttering to herself, her ramblings slowly getting louder.
She let out a strange child-like giggle and spoke loud enough for me to hear as she paced frenetically around her suite.
“Yes, yes, yes, all coming together, all together. They’ll pay. They’ll all pay. They’ll die and I’ll live. Yes, perfect. Yes.”
I’d known, in theory, that Valnea wasn’t all there, but hearing her ramblings for myself was extremely disconcerting. How did everyone not know she was insane? She must have some awareness of it herself and have hidden it from others.
“First I crush this half-breed, yes, easy prey, squashed, like a bug.” She pressed her foot down into the floor as if stepping on a particularly offensive insect. “Easy enough. She has no chance. Not against my armies. No, no, no!” Another manic giggle.
She didn’t think we’d put up much of a fight. She didn’t know Izzy, and that ignorance, matched with her arrogance, might be her downfall. I hoped.
“Then, while the elves are recovering, the titans attack, crush them all, kill them all. One. By. One.” She punctuated the last words with three vicious stabbing motions.
“Then the dwarves and undines retaliate and kill the titans while they’re still weak.
Then the dragons and sylphim kill the dwarves.
Yes, yes, yes! Undines can rot beneath the waves, they don’t matter. ”
By the spirits!
She wasn’t just insane, she truly believed she could play these races against each other like puppets. And the sad part was, it might work. All you needed was the right push at the right time.
If the dwarves and undines knew any of this…
And that’s when it hit me. We had to tell them.
I had to get this information back to Safir and the others.
I didn’t know if the dwarves would believe a secondhand report, but…
they had to. They’d help us if they only knew the true depths of Valnea’s plotting and treachery against those she should be protecting.
Another giggle interrupted my thoughts.
“Yes, yes, yes, all together. Slay the nymphs, squish the shifters.” She made a shivering motion as if we shifters were disgusting bugs that she both feared and hated.
“Then free Urval from the pyrkai and take all those pretty incubi as my pets. Yes, yes yes.” She had a way of running those three “yesses” together, each pitched a little higher, making her sound truly unhinged.
“All will be mine. No rivals, only servants. All together.”
I shook my head. The fact that she didn’t even see the hobgoblins and pixies as a threat, as anything other than what they currently were, administrators and servants, was debasing.
I waited to see if there was more, and there was, but it was all some repetition of what she’d already said, rambled into one long diatribe of madness.
I couldn’t wait any longer, I shadow-stepped away.
There might be more information I could glean here, but I already had their war plans and Valnea’s true intentions. I needed to get back to the others. I jumped from shadow to shadow, out of the palace, out of the capital, to where I was to meet my dragon when she returned.
I still had more than a day to wait for my extraction time, but I hid well, keeping to the shadows of the forest outside the capital.
I prayed I could get this information back to our forces.
If everyone knew how insane Valnea was… they’d have to join us.
Then we’d have a fighting chance against the elven armies.