Chapter 36
Iawoke in Arlo’s arms. We had fallen asleep naked and spent. But supper was nearing, and I needed to attend Hylos’s war council to evaluate his next moves.
I got up, brushed and braided my hair, and changed into a luscious evergreen dress that reminded me of spring. Tenderness between my thighs forced me to look back to the bed, where Arlo still slept perfectly, his back turned to me, the striations of muscle in his strong, magnificent body visible.
The urge to wake him throbbed through me. To kiss him and ensure that before wasn’t a dream. But he needed rest. Maybe there would be time to share beds and soft whispers when we escaped. If we escaped.
I walked out the door, and Nixie was there.
“Oh, Elowyn. Hello,” she said, still clearly hurt from my words the other day.
I thought of what Raylik said. That Nixie truly didn’t want anyone to be harmed. It was true. I knew that. None of them wanted this war besides their leader and his lover.
“I’m sorry for what I said the other day. It wasn’t fair for me to blame you for what happened,” I said.
“It’s fine. I know you were deeply hurt. I understand,” she said, offering me a small smile.
“Are you headed to Hylos’s study for the council? He called us all to attend. I’m heading that way too. Want to walk together?” I asked, lifting up my arm to loop into hers as we had many times before, like friends.
She smiled, taking it. “I’d like that.”
We took a few steps, then she scrunched her nose as if she smelled something foul.
“Oh my Guardians, you didn’t?” she practically squealed, pink eyebrows raised.
“Didn’t what?” I asked, confused.
“Nothing. Nothing at all!” she answered too quickly, trying to continue walking.
I planted my feet. “No, tell me.”
“I haven’t told you this yet because I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable, but sirens, we can—well, we can scent certain things.”
“Scent things? Like what? Does my breath smell or something?” I breathed into my palm and sniffed to check.
“Well, we can scent just one thing. Love, in all its forms. Lust, emotion, but especially …” She sheepishly averted her eyes.
“I don’t understand.”
“Elowyn, you absolutely reek of sex and if you do not bathe, we’ll be stuck listening to Morvyn make a slew of crass jokes all evening.”
After scrubbing every inch of my body and passing a sniff test from Nixie, we walked to Hylos’s study.
I couldn’t believe she didn’t tell me they could smell arousal and sex.
She explained that it was a part of their mating habits and the sense heightened more with every day that neared the full moon.
Mortified, I thought back to every interaction and wondered if Morvyn’s hunches about my feelings for Arlo were more than just that. I could feel my cheeks burn red when we turned into the study.
In the study, amid stacks of books, half-eaten meals, and the buzz of siren magic holding small figures in swirls upon the map, were Lumina and Hylos. Nixie and I shuffled in. Raylik and Morvyn were behind us.
“Good, you’re here. Lumina has found a portion of Oakhaven that’s essentially uninhabited, and apparently underdeveloped.” Hylos looked up at me as he brushed a tendril of blue hair out of his face. Dark-blue crescent moons hung under his eyes. He looked like he hadn’t slept since we last spoke.
I tried to ignore the fact that he didn’t even ask how I or Arlo were doing, but it stung.
“Elowyn, what do you know of Thornley?” he asked, not looking up to speak to me.
Thornley Forest, craft archers’ bow, forever a strong wooded home for the Guardian of all, Terragos, grant us your gifts, father of all land. The nursery rhyme rambled through my mind.
“I’ve heard of it,” I answered.
“And?” Hylos asked.
Lumina held her breath as she looked at her leader, frustration pursing her lips.
“It’s heavily wooded. Few people. And it’s freezing fucking cold.” Thornley was the northernmost point of Oakhaven and likely snowed in at this time of year. What did Hylos want with that area?
Calypstra lurked in, dressed in a black silk dress that rippled against her pallid skin, the neckline plunging deep toward her navel. Her head snapped toward me, eyes wide and unblinking. A mixture of anger and pure disgust boiled on her face.
“Cal, good, you’re here. I was explaining the plan we discussed last night,” Hylos said, not noticing the visceral reaction she was having at my mere presence.
But Nixie marked it immediately. She stepped to my side swiftly, as if to protect me. Raylik, not far from her, was watching, on edge himself.
I only stared back defiantly at Calypstra.
The room fell silent, everyone feeling the tension.
“What’s the matter? Why are you all so quiet?” Hylos said, looking up from the map.
Morvyn swirled his chalice nonchalantly. “I’m assuming everyone is just now smelling the sex Elowyn reeks of.”
“That is disgusting.” Hylos shook his head. “We have far more important things to discuss. Like war strategy.”
Calypstra’s coal-lined eyes continued to stare daggers at me, as though she wanted to reach across the table and rip out my throat. What the fuck was her problem?
“So, is Thornley a good launching point then?” Hylos asked me.
“For what?” I asked.
“To take Oakhaven?”
Lumina huffed. “I said it was underpopulated. Never that it was a good route for a siege.”
My face contorted. “That would be a death sentence.” His forces would be cut off long before doing any damage.
“Guardian’s Watch, the capital, is here.
” I pointed to the city in the center of the map.
Where my father’s castle stood. “This is the only way to take all of Oakhaven. You would be miles away from it. Not to mention this route would have you all landlocked. Which, I don’t know if you’re aware, but water is kind of your whole thing.
It would be a mistake,” I said, holding back that the far better route would be through Gyldmare.
But even that path would be a death sentence.
“That’s exactly what a foreign adversary would say,” Calypstra drawled, still scowling and suffering under the weight of whatever my presence was doing to her.
“What would you have us do, Elowyn?” he said, clenching his jaw.
I looked to Lumina, desperate for a reprieve. She was out of answers too. Morvyn only sipped his drink while Nixie and Raylik eyed one another.
“Well? We don’t have all day, tell us, oh wise one,” Hylos urged. He wasn’t thinking straight, far too upset after the last attack that nearly took him.
“I’d suggest you slow down. Maybe listen to your council.” I looked around the table at his inner circle of friends.
“Slow down?” He laughed mirthlessly, then took the chalice from Morvyn’s hand and finished it.
“Sure, we can share …” Morvyn said, blinking.
That wouldn’t help either.
“I am no child; you do not need to lecture me like one,” Hylos snapped.
“You’re acting like one. You need to think clearly if you truly wish to attack Oakhaven,” I said. Even though it was the last thing I wanted, and I would do everything in my power to stop him, it was the truth.
“I am thinking clearly,” Hylos answered while pouring another drink.
“Is that what the drink is for? All that clear thinking you’re doing?” I rolled my eyes, then leaned over the map.
Hylos leaned in with me, filled drink in hand.
“Oakhaven has withstood hundreds of attacks. It’s an island, its ruler at its heart, surrounded by land and militias buffering it from outside assaults.
The only way I’ve heard of it being taken was Byllard the Suppressor, who simply had the sheer numbers to overtake the castle.
” I met his storm-blue eyes, “How many men do you have?”
“You dare ask him that? What, so you can run and tell your father the second you have a chance? Disloyal bitch,” Calypstra hissed.
“Shut the fuck up,” I sneered back at her. “I’m here because Hylos wants my counsel, and whatever issue you have with me you should leave at the door when you enter a royal meeting.”
Hylos rubbed a nervous thumb over the rim of the cup.
I continued, “I’ll assume the number is far less than the thousands of local militias Oakhaven has. Not to mention its great navy. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. Are you ready to send your people straight to their deaths?”
“I am ready to do what is necessary,” he said through gritted teeth. There was no reasoning with him. He was determined to do whatever it took to find his father. Even rushing into a war and sacrificing hundreds of sirens. That’s why I needed to take Arlo and get out of here.
“Thornley is a bad idea, Hylos,” was all I offered, then looked at his friends. “If you go there, you all will die.”
The room fell mortally silent as I kept to myself how Oakhaven had been taken repeatedly throughout history. How my forebears seized it and how those before them did so as well.
The best way to take down any kingdom was from within.