Chapter 19 #2
The force of his reaction made Imani curious. Lore was looking at Esa the way Kiran sometimes looked at her when danger entered the room—too personally, too immediately. She filed the comparison away before either Sprite noticed.
Esa smiled sweetly, all teeth, but her wings fluttered slightly, giving away her anger. “I’m leading it.”
Lore’s face remained a mask of cool composure, but his shoulders tightened almost imperceptibly.
“Not against Tanyl, you’re not,” he said, his voice flat. Then he added, “You’re asking for support on a plan that risks more than it secures. So why is it necessary?”
“You haven’t even heard the plan,” Esa spat.
“Don’t need to,” Lore hit back.
“It’s not your decision,” she nearly yelled, pointing at Gorrum. “It’s his.”
Lore’s gaze intensified, burning into the other Spite.
“You’re asking for support in removing Tanyl.
” Lore ran a hand through his hair. “That means entering hostile territory, confronting a sitting ruler, and betting that your little plan holds long enough to survive the aftermath. Any one of those can go wrong.”
“That’s every plan,” Esa returned.
“This one puts you at the center of it. You said it yourself, it does.”
“I’m her First Witch. Of course it does.”
The muscle in Lore’s jaw ticked.
“My job is to keep my queen alive and support her, including making sure the people she’s asking to trust her understand what she’s actually offering. Here, that means the Sprites too.”
At that, Lore moved into Esa’s space, shrinking it. “You don’t have to be at the center of this,” he said, his voice dropping without losing its edge. “There are other ways to be useful that don’t put you inside it.”
Esa didn’t move, her face staring up at his in defiance.
“I don’t give a shit,” she said through gritted teeth.
He moved to reach for her, then pulled his hands back and clenched them into fists. Imani watched the aborted gesture. Whatever history sat between them, Lore’s concern had stopped behaving like politics several minutes ago.
“You’re assuming your authority when she isn’t even queen,” Lore said, motioning to Imani.
“I’m creating an opportunity for her,” Esa said, and Imani smiled, unable to stop it.
Neither of them moved for a moment. Then, Lore’s shifted on his feet, breaking eye contact first, as if recalibrating. “I don’t need to know the details to know that there are already too many unstable pieces if it’s just you two here asking for our support,” Lore said.
“We want your support, but we don’t need it,” Esa said, her eyes darting once toward Imani before returning to him.
Lore rolled his eyes. “Spare me your dramatics, Esa.”
“She didn’t just contain the Lochheim slip,” Esa countered, her voice cutting through the tension. “She sealed it. Permanently.”
He blew out a deep breath.
“She did that,” Esa continued, “without the kind of support we would have provided. Without the backing this plan gives her.”
Lore’s wings flared. Then his gaze dropped briefly to the floor—just long enough to suggest thought, not concession.
Then—
“Explain it,” he demanded.
Esa plowed on. “It’s like I said, she sealed the slip in the Neshuin Sea,” she said, attempting to rein in her temper. “He can’t hold Essenheim if she takes the Drasil wand he’s been given. And if she can do that, this isn’t a risk without return. It’s a transfer of power to the rightful queen.”
The rigid set of Lore’s jaw softened into a more pensive, concerned expression.
“You’re still placing yourself in this… plan?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“And you won’t back out of it?”
“No.”
Lore pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. For a moment, no one moved. Then his hand fell, and he dipped his head in acknowledgment. “Then we’ll make sure the plan succeeds.”
Esa gave him a curt nod, then turned to the High Sentinel. Gorrum, who had not spoken since the exchange began, let the silence do what it needed to do for a few seconds.
“We’ll support it,” he said without ceremony.
Imani let out a deep breath while idly playing with the Drasil fastened to her hip.
They’d done it, though she suspected the alliance had been decided long before Gorrum’s words confirmed it. Almost as soon as Lore stepped into the atrium.
And the tension between him and Esa remained, thick in the space.
* * *
Two weeks of their three-week preparation window passed quickly.
By the time Ellisar’s forces finally marched into Galwell, only seven days remained before the Yule Ball in Stralas, and fewer still for everyone involved in the operation to finish preparations, travel to the capital, and take their places before the celebration began.
The alliance had spent those two weeks turning promises into something usable.
Sprite and Norn leaders exchanged routes, numbers, and intelligence while Imani and Esa remained in Galwell, working through the gaps that could still break the plan.
Now Ellisar had arrived with the army, marking the beginning of the final week.