Chapter Twenty-Six
Ember
“What the fuck do you want?” I spat as I entered the portal room, glaring at Albright, fighting to restrain my fire as it gathered in my eyes.
The man standing in the center of the room was my opposite.
He turned slowly at my entrance, his eyes tranquil seas of azure.
Every inch of movement was smooth and planned.
His face, wider than mine, less angular, but still ruggedly handsome, broke open into a broad smile that didn’t reach the rest of his face.
It was all fake. Every fucking bit of it.
Albright was a fire dragon, and his fire burned as bright as anyone else’s.
He insisted on maintaining this facade of control and inner peace as if that somehow made him fitter to rule.
In my eyes, all it did was make him a liar, and people should never accept a liar as their prince.
So I didn’t bother to hide my hatred and disgust at his “regal” persona as he saw it. I let him know I could see right through him to the piece of trash at its core.
“Hello, Ember.” Even his fucking voice was a modulated thing, designed to emulate what he claimed was “nobility.” He spoke slowly, enunciating every letter and syllable, speaking to everyone as if they were a child for not doing the same.
“Speak your piece, and then get out.”
“Is that any way to treat one of your kin?” Albright asked innocently as if he wasn’t trying to split our realm in half with his actions. “Besides, since when is Casa Infernum off limits? It’s open to anyone from Fire, is it not?”
I stared at him. It had absolutely nothing to do with the Fire Estates on Earth, and we both knew it, so I wouldn’t bother dignifying him with an answer.
Just like I didn’t bother showering. I saw his eyes briefly flick over my appearance, followed by the recognition of the insult.
A smug grin tugged at the corners of my mouth, but I didn’t let it go further.
Albright slowly nodded. His hair was cut short, revealing the onset of gray streaks. As my father’s youngest brother, he was only twenty years older than me, which put him in his early fifties, and at that point, there was no hiding the fact that he was aging. So he’d decided to embrace it.
He thought it made him look more mature and worthy of rule.
As if you had to be old to be a good ruler.
What utter nonsense. Oftentimes, they were the most unfit, not because of their age but because their rule would be short, meaning their policies were not forward enough looking.
Not to mention, that meant more frequent turnover, which meant instability.
All of which could give rise to more occurrences of some power-hungry upstart trying to take over.
No, Albright was not fit to rule. But he was nearly powerful enough to take it, and I had to be careful not to alienate anyone else loyal to me. Otherwise, I risked him gaining whatever strength I lost.
“Very well,” Albright said. “We can dispense with the pleasantries.”
“Then tell me what the fuck you want,” I growled.
“Isn’t that obvious? I want the Throne to the Fire Princedom,” Albright said. “I thought even you would know that by now, dear Ember. Or has it not sunk in through your uncannily thick skull?”
There was part of the real Albright. I grinned as his facade cracked slightly.
“It’s not yours,” I said as I would to a misbehaving child or pet. “You can’t have it.”
The veins in his forehead momentarily popped as Albright struggled to control himself.
He disguised it by reaching up and running a hand through his beard, also shot through with silver.
He wore the same martial uniform I usually preferred, though his buttons were different.
Unlike the orange-red, the traditional coloring of the Fire Realm, he wore a simple black.
It was a small change but instantly noticeable, and it threw me to see him disrespect the throne so casually.
“I have an excellent claim to the throne, and you know it,” Albright said, spreading his hands wide like he was some sort of diplomat.
I snorted.
“Now, now, don’t be dismissive. You know it’s true. It’s almost a more logical claim than your own, Ember.”
That time I tilted my head back and barked with laughter, the sharp peals ringing off the circular walls of the portal room.
“You’re growing delusional, Uncle Albright,” I said.
“There are, by my last count, four people between you and the throne. All of whom have claims that are vastly less tainted than your own.”
“But you don’t have what I have,” Albright pointed out, letting my insult slide off him.
“What’s that? A track record of trying to gloss over our past as if it never happened, like some sort of human politician?”
He bared his perfectly white teeth in a snarl. “No, Ember. A mate.”
There were a thousand ways I could tear that argument apart, but I stuck with the most basic and pertinent of them. “You haven’t gone through the Test,” I pointed out.
“Because you hold the key that will grant me access to the God-King,” Albright said. “Give it to me, and let us end this. I will take the Test with Tindy, and we can see what happens. If I pass, then you know the God-King has judged us fit to rule. If we fail … then you still have your chance.”
“Absolutely not,” I said, practically cackling at his insistence, as if he expected me to actually listen to him.
I resolutely did not reach up to clasp the necklace that always hung below my uniform, out of sight, though I suspected Albright knew where I kept the key.
“I have no intentions of ever letting you have it either.”
“Ember, Ember,” he said, clasping his hands behind his back.
“Come now, be reasonable. What the Fire Realm needs most are peace and prosperity. Those come best under a strong, secure rule. We need stability, like your father, my brother, gave us. Someone who can lead us forward for the next hundred years.”
“Odd of you to speak of stability,” I said. “Given what happened to Uncle Fern.”
Albright hissed, his eyes glowing for a moment as my point went home. “Fern died at his own hand,” he grated.
“Mmmm,” I said, nodding conspiratorially. “Of course he did, Albright. Of course. It was so nice of you to take in his widow, too. You must have truly comforted Tindy to the best of your ability.”
By that point, Albright was apoplectic with rage.
The veins from his forehead down through his neck were all popping out as his muscles contracted.
To my knowledge, nobody had ever called him out on the circumstances of his brother’s death and how Albright had taken Tindy, Fern’s widow, for his own mate.
There was no proof, but it certainly appeared to have been an orchestrated thing.
After all, everyone knew Albright had been in love with Tindy before she got together with Fern.
“You aren’t fit to rule, Albright,” I growled, my temper getting the better of me.
“Oh, and you think you can do a better job ruling than me?”
I sighed. “Yes, I do. Because, Albright, it’s not about ruling people.
It’s about leading them. The simple fact that you are here, trying to wrest the throne away from me, despite the line of succession being very clear, shows that.
You don’t care for the people and the realm.
You just want power, and everyone can see it. ”
“You are wrong,” Albright countered. “Rule is about strength. People respect that, and it’s what I will give them. Strength from the throne to them and, therefore, strength of the Fire Realm as a whole. The other realms will not think us weak.”
“Weak? Albright, we’ve been the strongest clan for three centuries now, at least. Nobody thinks of us as weak.
Besides, so what if they do? They aren’t going to do anything.
The borders are defined, the lands bound to a clan.
There is nothing they could gain from it.
You’re stirring up drama where there is none! ”
“None that you can see,” Albright said. “I, however, refuse to accept that the others are not plotting, trying to steal from us.”
“That’s because you think about what you would do. But not everyone is a power-hungry maniac like yourself!”
Albright sighed.
“Really?” I said. “You knew this is how it would happen. Why did you even bother coming here? I’m never going to submit to you, uncle.”
“For your father’s sake, I had to try,” he said with a wave of his hand, a gesture that could have a dozen meanings, from patronizing to faithful memory of my father.
“Get out,” I growled.
“It’s a shame, Ember. This could have been done so easily. It’s a shame you’re too hot-headed to see the way the wind is blowing the flames.”
“What are you going to do?” I challenged. “Murder me and make it look like an accident as you did with Fern?”
Fire burned in Albright’s eyes again, and he leaned forward like he wanted to take a step in my direction. I smiled wide. That would make things easier. If I could defeat him there and then, it should put his rebellion to rest.
“Goodbye, Ember,” he said instead before spinning on his toes and marching back through the rift.
I sighed heavily as the weight of the room abruptly lifted.
The door opened, and Pyre came in. I brushed past him without a word, too irritated to talk calmly.
I needed that cold shower, and soon. My skin was burning up from my fury as I walked through the hallways of Casa Infernum, my mind wandering.
The sound of soft humming reached my ears, a gentle tune of indiscriminate origin or design from its owner.
It reached my ears, threatening to warm my soul as I overheard what was clearly supposed to be a private moment.
I should have turned and walked away, giving the owner their secrets in that tune.
But I couldn’t.
“Shit,” I hissed, realizing that I’d come to the hallway outside of Dela’s rooms in my wanderings.
I stared at her door, breathing hard, fighting the temptation to go to her.