Chapter 31
Osid
If you would have asked me a mere two days ago if I would ever be seen taking orders from General Ghoszi Lokbaatar, I would’ve laughed in your face, or stabbed you for your insolence.
But the day’s wonders never ceased. “You need to go to your people. Now. King Iltith of Bloodcry is leading an army to your fortress.”
“How do you know this?” I asked. Suspicion reared its ugly head. My scouts had mentioned that Lok had been seen coming from their territory a short time ago.
“He attempted to recruit me.” The general shrugged, then reached down to unhook his water skin and took a swig. “I turned them down, obviously.”
My brow arched. “Is it obvious?”
Lok smiled and clapped me on the shoulder. “You’d be dead if I hadn’t.”
A laugh escaped me. “I’ll let that slide today. So why are you telling me now?”
He nodded toward Blair, who was busying herself with singing praises over the human called Misty. “Your queen is a friend of my Stardust.”
“That can’t be the only reason.”
He exhaled a laugh and turned to watch the crowd. “For a man hard-pressed for allies, you sure do ask a lot of questions.”
“It’s a curse, really.” I leaned against the wall and tried to let the revelry distract me from the endless suspicions.
Lok rolled his eyes. “All right, don’t give yourself an aneurysm. Look at them, really look.”
I scanned the group, looking for anything of note.
A crowd had formed in the center of the courtyard.
Music blared as a Roamcrest danced in front of the green-haired woman.
He finished his performance with a backflip, and the crowd cheered.
He drank in the praise, raising his arms up like a conquering hero before he turned and dropped his jaw to the floor when the woman sank low and did some kind of ass-centric dance that had every last Sankado in the crowd slack-jawed.
“They’re happy,” Lok said finally.
“That’s certainly a word for it.”
The ex-king barked out a laugh. “I didn’t spend much time in King Iltith’s domain before I left, but even that brief visit was enough. He’s a cruel, ruthless man. So are you, but at the very least, you’re reasonable on your better days.” He paused, and the joking lilt in his voice faded.
“Those women are in the same position we were, torn away from everything we’ve ever known and dropped onto a foreign planet.
When we arrived at their island, to say tensions were bad between them and the Roamers would be an understatement.
Even with Gharok’s easygoing approach, most of them were too terrified to even step outside their enclosure.
Iltith will come in like an inferno and burn the tentative trust we’ve managed to build to cinders.
He won’t see them as his own people like you and I do.
He means to take control of the female enclosure and assign each of his closest guards one as a prize for their loyalty.
Most of these humans won’t survive that. ”
He cast me a sideways glance. “I was counting on you to defeat him, but then you went and got captured.”
So that was his game. Lead his Arrows and the Roamcrest to the females while the Dulba Empire acted as a shield against foreign invaders. I’d call it brilliant if it didn’t leave my people in the lurch.
“How does he even know about them?” I had no idea that humans even existed before Blair fell into my lap. I wasn’t sure how Lok had managed to find his mate, but I was positive it was well after we had seen him coming away from the Bloodcry territory.
He fixed me with a confused glance. “Do you really not know?”
At my blank stare, he continued. “Osid, the Biwban sent out envoys to each clan to give their leader a message about where to find the females and when the drawbridge to the female enclosure would lower. The location they gave is only half a day’s trek from Dulba.”
My mouth fell open.
“How did you not receive the message?”
“How would I know?” I asked, furious. “When was this sent out?”
Lok rubbed his chin. “A little over a month ago, I believe. I first heard it from the leader of the Roamcrest and thought he was just finally going mad. But I was flagged down while traveling in the swamp by King Iltith himself. He seemed convinced that the message was true and was gathering an army to come overthrow your position to wait for them. He’s already killed off the smaller clans in between yours and his.
Eventually I got curious enough to check for myself, but”—his face turned wistful—“then I spotted a star falling out of the sky and changed course.”
“Over a month ago,” I breathed. “That explains where all the raiders were coming from.”
Lok folded his arms over his chest. “As far as I’m aware, each of the envoys delivered the message directly to the leader of the clans they were dispatched to. So if you didn’t receive the message, who did?”
Hateful smoke seeped off my body in waves. “I think I know.”
It all made sense. That was why the attacks seemed endless. More than likely, the raiders weren’t just coming from the Bloodcry clan, but everywhere. We’d been intercepting potential suitors for the females for over a month, and I hadn’t even realized it. Though I supposed that was the point.
I had tasked Jivorn to send out scouts to investigate the rise in attacks, but not one of his men ever had anything to report.
I should have seen the signs when he reacted so strongly to Yengro offering to take up the search.
But the thought of trusting a Singing Arrow over one of my own men had been unthinkable.
No—that was the problem. I never saw any of them as my own. Like a fool, I let my paranoia guide me instead of seeing what was obvious to Blair from the start.
Lok waved the smoke from around his face.
“No time like the present, then. My scouts have reported the Bloodcry army moving down the mountain path toward the strait. My forces alone won’t be enough to stop them, and if we take the time to get you back to Dulba to rally yours, they’ll reach the bridge before we can cut them off.
Unless you know a shortcut?” He smirked.
“You do know this land better than I do.”
I studied him. “Are you volunteering for another fight? I thought you meant to hang up your spear.”
He pulled the weapon free of its holster and inspected the tip. “That was before I had mates and a future to protect. I set my armor down because I was tired of fighting an endless war. No matter how much blood we spilled, nothing ever changed. Nothing but waste, again and again.”
“The definition of insanity,” I muttered.
“Hmm.” Lok’s smile looked on the border of pain. “That’s a good way of putting it. You and I fighting each other? Insanity. But together—” He let the words hang, temptation bled into his voice. “We could rule the world.”
I scoffed. “You’d have me return your old title, then? I knew you’d never be content as a vassal.”
“Before, you said I would fight at your side, not kneel for you. Was that a lie?”
“No,” I said, and was surprised to find that I meant it. Hearing the general speak with such ambition in his voice filled me with something akin to relief. The thought of my greatest rival renouncing everything to herd yix until he was old and gray seemed like such a waste.
“Then why would I settle for the title of lord when I could give my Stardust an empire?” He nudged my shoulder, voice lowering.
“Be sensible, Osid. You’re brilliant at strategy, at playing the long game, but you don’t inspire men.
You command them through fear or calculation.
Meanwhile, my people would descend into a volcano if I asked. ”
I stiffened, but the truth of his words stung. He wasn’t wrong. Dulba’s strength had always been in its discipline; our warriors trained until they dropped, then got back up and did it again.
Despite the Rumbling each year, Thornward was a prime location for farmland and resources. We’d hung onto it so long by being ruthless in its defense. But the Arrows fought with fervor, with loyalty, in a way mine never had.
Lok pressed on. “A dyarchy. We split power, use each other’s strengths.
You handle the politics, the alliances, the scheming lords who’d stab us in the back.
I’ll keep the armies united, the people believing in something greater.
And when one of us oversteps—” He grinned. “Well, that’s what the other is for.”
The idea had merit. Lokbaatar was a king who understood people in a way I did not. Power alone was not enough. It had to be wielded with something I had never possessed: trust.
As horrible a notion as it was.
But the invaders were coming. And if we were to survive, I would have to do the one thing I had spent my life avoiding—gamble on someone else’s word.
I exhaled, slow. “A dyarchy, then.” My lips curled, though the admission cost me. “But if you betray me, Lok—”
He clapped a hand on my shoulder, laughing. “Then you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you were right all along.”
And damn him, I almost smiled.