10. Battle Lines Drawn | Wilder
The gates of the Wilds groaned open, iron screeching against stone. Wilder rode through first, jaw clenched so tightly his teeth ached.
He had never brought Lyra through these streets—had never shown her the lantern-lit alleys or the twisting roots that buckled the ancient cobblestone roads. He had wanted her to see this place and choose it as her home.
Now it felt like betrayal.
The sky hung low and colorless, clouds smothering the stars until the city glowed a dull silver.
A storm was coming.
He felt the pressure behind his eyes and in the way his magic writhed beneath his skin.
“Let’s just discuss this one more time,” Maelys begged, her voice tight. “We are not going to ask?—”
“No.” Wilder shook his head. “I’m ordering him to declare war.”
Otto winced, and his face twisted into a ghastly grimace. Ridge shared a look with Maelys.
It wasn’t hard to see that they thought this was a terrible idea. But there was no way around it.
If he were going to bring her back, he needed his father to declare war.
Baelwyn ambled beside him and took in the city sights with a morose expression.
Otto cleared his throat. “I see that it?—”
Wilder urged his horse on, stopping Otto from finishing his sentence. Wilder didn’t know what he would say to the man who sired him, didn’t know how he would react upon seeing his face, but Wilder knew it would be some degree of fury.
“Wilder,” Maelys called as she led her horse around a large barrel of ale. “You can’t just go in there with no plan.”
Ridge ducked beneath a low-hanging tavern sign. “I agree with Maelys. We should know at the very least. Lyra would?—”
Wilder swallowed. Lyra would tell him he was being reckless. That rage was not a strategy.
But Lyra wasn’t here. She was in Atlantis, facing unknown horrors.
“She is running out of time,” Wilder ground out.
“Lyra is fine,” Otto answered, bringing his mount up beside Wilder’s. “She was brought before the council, and she?—”
“She what?” Wilder and Baelwyn asked in unison.
Otto beamed and shook his head. The beads tied in his hair clacked together and twined with his laugh. “She’s unleashing her anger on Drystan’s treachery.”
Maelys and Ridge laughed together, but Wilder let out a shallow sigh.
“Will she be okay?” Baelwyn asked.
He didn’t share the same kind of relief as Wilder. In fact, Baelwyn gripped his reins with an iron fist, if the white knuckles were any indication.
“Yes,” Otto said. “For now.”
Wilder’s brow furrowed as he chewed on that thought.
Cruel men did not admire defiance unless they believed they could break it.
The palace loomed ahead, its living towers rising from the earth like trees.
Wilder shoved the thought aside. He could not afford distraction—not tonight.
“So we’re doing this?” Ridge asked one more time. “We’re just going in with no plan?”
It reminded Wilder of Lyra asking the same on their tour of the kingdom.
“Sometimes the plan is no plan,” Wilder said, repeating his words once more.
Maelys rolled her eyes and pushed her hair out of her eye as she brushed her thigh against Ridge. His frown tugged the corner of his mouth down, and he sucked his lips into his mouth.
Wilder knew he was doing his best to keep his thoughts inside. But Otto’s eyes swirled with smoke.
“Keep it to yourself, Otto.”
His face paled as if he had seen a ghost, and his mouth opened and closed as if he were fighting for breath.
“Wilder, listen to me?—”
“Not now,” Wilder snapped.
“Maelys,” Otto began, turning pleading eyes to her.
“I can’t force him to listen,” she said with a sigh. “I can’t force him to even speak to us.”
Fresh-baked bread wafted out of the open windows of the bakery, and the blacksmith’s quarters smelled of iron and coals.
Wilder focused on his surroundings, on the place that had once felt like home, that had been as much a part of him as the briars on his head.
It didn’t feel that way now that she wasn’t within the city walls, that she wasn’t even on the same soil as him.
The upper district had always smelled cleaner than the lower district. Another of the wrongs on the long list of things he needs to right. Lyra had poured salt in that wound when she had been here.
If tonight went the way he thought it would, that problem would soon be his to solve. All the problems in this kingdom would be his.
That was a weight Wilder struggled to hold.
He wanted only to save her.
Everything else could wait.
Wilder flexed a hand and used his magic to blow the scents away. If he could use his magic to clear her from his mind, he would, if only for a moment’s reprieve.
A servant opened the castle doors as they approached, and Wilder slid from his mount. He didn’t even wait for the stable boy before he bounded up the steps, taking them two at a time.
The throne room was alive.
“Father!” Wilder’s voice boomed over the chatter of the milling crowd.
Creatures of all shapes and sizes were in attendance at tonight’s feast. Pixies fluttered around the chandeliers and landed on the towering trees. Their iridescent wings cast tiny rainbows upon the leaves that mimicked flowers.
Trolls lumbered about, blending in with the moss that draped from branches as they found their way to their seats.
Elves with moonlight-colored skin and elegant, rich robes seemed to float about, while others were draped in nothing but jewels and cobwebs.
The nobility were in attendance.
Wilder couldn’t work out if that was helpful for his plan or not.
“Wilder,” Queen Aine crooned from beside the High King.
Her ornate silver gown resembled sunlight upon the ocean and matched the circlet around her brow.
“We didn’t expect you back so soon!” Her gaze raked across the four of them before darting to the door.
It was then she took in their raggedy travel clothes and the shadows under their eyes. “Where is the princess?”
A pathway opened up before them as the crowd parted, and he strode towards the dais.
Fire burned in his eyes as he looked upon the man who had given him life.
The High King showed no surprise on his melancholy face. His crown of antlers tipped in greeting, but his eyes were lifeless.
“Where is Lyra?” Queen Aine asked again, her voice rising.
“Baelwyn!” King Oberon boomed a greeting, ignoring his wife’s questions. “We weren’t expecting a formal visit from the Mannereds.”
Baelwyn bowed. “High King,” he muttered, before turning to the left and bowing to someone Wilder had yet to notice. “Warick.”
Wilder ground his teeth, not taking his eyes off King Oberon. “Tell her.”
“Tell me what?” his mother volleyed, her head between her son and husband.
King Oberon sighed and pursed his lips as he gazed down at Wilder, not deigning to meet his wife’s eyes.
“What did you do?” Queen Aine asked, her eyes narrowing on her husband’s pursed lips.
“What was necessary,” King Oberon snapped.
“Necessary?” she asked, leaping from her chair in a graceful flourish. “What did you deem necessary?”
King Oberon glared at Wilder. “He needed motivation.” Oberon gestured at his son. “A common enemy.”
The air went razor-thin, and Queen Aine’s chest heaved. “You kidnapped a princess of the sea,” Aine said, disbelief sharpening her words, “to bring our son under your thumb?”
Murmurings swelled in the throne room, and with it the sharpness of irritation.
King Oberon inclined his head. “I corrected his course.”
“You call my kidnapping and torture a course correction?” Wilder asked, bewildered. “Is that because it had worked so well the first time you sought to deploy that tactic again?”
The throne room fell silent once more, but there was a rising scent in the air.
Wilder could smell the bloodlust like the tang of a poisonous plant.
But there was something subtle under that tangy current, something salty—sorrow.
Oberon’s eyes flashed with the promise of violence if Wilder continued.
“Nephew,” Warick’s voice was sharp. “Be careful about throwing around such accusations.”
“It’s not an accusation. King Oberon had me kidnapped and tortured by wulvers. Then he made a deal with a merman to kidnap a princess of Atlantis. And I want to know why. Surely it wasn’t only to bring me under your thumb?”
Aine staggered down a few steps, placing herself between Wilder and the High King.
“You broke him,” her voice was bitter, and her shoulders stiff.
“I shaped him,” Oberon replied. “As kings must.”
The High King gestured to a still-standing Wilder.
“That is treasonous,” Warick said loud enough for the entire throne room to hear.
Voices swelled in protest, as did the slamming of palms upon tables. Wilder cut his eyes to his uncle.
Warick stood, feet braced apart, a devious smirk quirking full lips.
Wilder favored his father’s brother more than his father. Warick’s hair was as dark as night, his eyes a few shades lighter than Wilder’s blue ones. They even dressed similarly in shades of black.
Wilder drew a breath and shook his head, returning his attention to the High King.
“Your plans have failed. Lyra has been seized by the sea before we could find a way to fulfill the bargain she made with you. Drystan intends to force her into marriage. I don’t care what you have done to me. I am only here to marshal our forces and bring her back.”
Queen Aine covered her mouth with her hands to keep from crying out.
The murmurings grew louder as discord took hold. Wilder’s revelations were bringing instability to the court.
The King’s actions and Wilder’s request could tear even the strongest alliances apart.
King Oberon chuckled. “Request denied.” He waved his hand in dismissal. “Return to the feast!” He ordered the room in an attempt to assuage the conflict.
No one obeyed.
Wilder took a small step forward. He felt, rather than saw, movement around the throne room.
Were people fleeing?
Readying for battle?
Or drawing closer to see the drama unfolding?
“I was not asking,” he said, brushing a hand against the pommel of his sword. “She will die there, and the bargain you forced her into will die with her.”
Gasps swelled through the crowd.
Lyra’s bargain had been unknown to all except a handful of elves.
King Oberon glared at him, his lip pulling back over his teeth. “I will not bleed our people for your infatuation.” The air grew warm near the dais as King Oberon’s frustration seeped into the air. “Atlantis and the Wilds are bound by balance. War shatters it.”
“That balance is built on sacrifice. Her sacrifice,” Wilder snarled. “That you bargained!”
King Oberon blinked. “She is exactly where she needs to be.” He gestured to all the nobility in the room. “But this obsession ends tonight. Is it companionship you desire?” Oberon raised a brow. “Pick anyone of the nobility to marry and be done with it.”
Fury speared through Wilder once more like a bolt of lightning from the crown of his head to the bottom of his feet.
“I love her.”
A murmur rippled through the room.
Queen Aine retreated another step down the stairs until she was standing beside Wilder.
“A mermaid?” Oberon sneered. “Choose an elf. Choose your own kingdom!”
“There is no one,” Wilder replied. “But her.”
Oberon stood. “Then you are no son of mine.”
A dark shadow fell upon the room, but not one of silence. People shouted their objections.
The king couldn’t formally renounce a title without council approval. Such a thing was just not done.
It had come down to this.
Wilder would challenge his father for the throne. He would take what he needed—not what he wanted—for her.
“High King—” Wilder reached for his sword at the same time another voice split the air.
“Your Majesty!” Warick called from the other side of the throne room. The king’s attention swiveled to his brother. “A council must be convened to discuss your offense against our kingdom!”
The scent of sorrow crept from behind Wilder.
It was sharp, and so full of anguish Wilder found himself swiveling to aid whoever it was coming from.
He found Otto standing behind him, sadness in his silver eyes as he reeled back.
Wilder didn’t have time to react, as Otto launched himself forward and punched Wilder right in the mouth.
Darkness swept in, claiming him.