Chapter Twenty-Two #3
Alaric slowly slides his arm along the back of her chair and tugs her closer. His voice is inaudible, but whatever he whispers in her ear makes some of the tension bleed out of her stiff shoulders.
Vaughn reaches under the table and produces a fresh bottle, twice the size of the last. “I always bring reinforcements.”
“You are my favorite sibling.” She manages a smile, but it lacks the saucy self-confidence I am accustomed to seeing.
“His fixation only grew as we got older,” Soren continues. The glass in his hand is gripped so tightly, I think it is in danger of shattering. “As we matured into adults, he made it clear he felt things for his stepsister that were…Not the way a brother should feel for his sister.”
“That’s putting it politely,” Vaughn says gruffly. “He attacked her. He came close to rap—”
“He tried,” Arwen snarls. Her face is furious, but her eyes hold a weak sheen of silver. For the first time, I feel a trace of her maegic swell in the air—not nearly as strong as Soren’s, but there all the same. “I stabbed him through the hand before he could do more than tear my nightgown.”
My stomach turns to lead. All my previous assumptions about the bad blood between Efnysien and his siblings pales in comparison to this. Suddenly the gin in my glass does not feel strong enough to endure the rest of this evening.
“I banished him,” Soren says bluntly. “He has not been welcome in Hylios—in any part of Ll?r—in the hundred years since.”
“You should have killed him,” Penn puts in, face twisting with wrath. “Then, we would not be here now, discussing how best to dispatch him.”
“I wanted to rip his head from his shoulders, trust me.” Soren bares his teeth in a bitter grin. “I was convinced to spare him by some of our other siblings—”
“Bloody sirens,” Vaughn hisses.
“—whose pleas for mercy momentarily stayed my hand.” Soren’s jaw is tight as he goes on.
“A mistake I have taken pains to rectify many times over the years, all without success. Most recently, following the events at Fyremas, after which I spent two months giving fruitless chase across blood-soaked stretches of mortal territory, only to be brought up short again and again by an impenetrable barrier of black sand.” His eyes shift to Penn.
“Which effectively brings us to the present. Your grand plans for revenge.”
Penn’s lip curls in distaste. “Do not patronize me, nymph.”
“Tell me, fire salamander,” he shoots back, the barb making both his siblings smirk.
“Do you think I have been merely sitting on my hands these past decades, too lazy to seek out someone who attempted to hurt my sister? Do you think he still breathes because I have been too busy to bother strangling the air from his lungs?”
Penn does not respond except to take a sip of his gin.
“No,” Soren answers for him, leaning back in his seat. “I have tried many times to infiltrate that dark desert. It cannot be done.”
“I do not accept that.”
“Whether or not you accept reality does nothing to alter it.”
“And what would you have me do?” Penn’s words thrum with rage. “Allow another century to pass, hoping the matter resolves itself?”
“No. I would counsel temperance,” Soren counters. “Do not rush into the Husk Desert on a fool’s mission with visions of victory clouding your sense of reason. Instead, wait for Efnysien to poke his head out from the sand again. When he does, we will be ready to hack it off.”
“That could take another decade.” Penn’s outrage is thick. “Just because you are too cowardly to try again—”
“Call me a coward all you like. You think your idiocy makes you brave? It doesn’t.
It makes you dead. Fodder for the black sands, where you will stumble into an abyss pit or be picked clean by the arachnidae or consumed by the wraiths long before you even glimpse the gothic spires of the Symmetria Keep. ”
The candles on the table burn brighter as Penn’s fury erupts. His jaw is clenched tight, attempting to lock down his anger. It flows down the bond despite his efforts. I wonder if Soren can sense it, too; if he realizes just how close this discussion is to igniting.
“I will march south with or without your aid,” Penn says, nostrils flaring on a harsh exhale. “With it, we remain as we are now. Allies. Without it…”
“You would risk the treaty between Ll?r and Dyved over this half-baked quest for vengeance?” Soren’s tone drips with derision.
“If you do that, you weaken the united front of the Northlands. You open us all up to attacks from more than Frostlanders and Reavers and Cimmerian monsters. The mortal kings are ever grasping. Their invasion will be swift and brutal.”
A ripple of unease moves around the table.
“How long do you think we will last against another uprising from the Midlands?” Soren asks, head shaking. “How do you think your citizens will fare, facing a second Cull?”
Penn’s breaths are labored with the effort to remain in control. “There is no threat of that if you make the right choice. If you march with me to the south, a united front.”
Soren’s eyes edge with silver as they narrow on Penn. “And if you fail? What then? What of Caeldera when your corpse desiccates beneath the gray sun of the Southlands?”
“Then I suppose it will not matter our alliance is broken, for I will no longer be around to enforce it,” Penn says coldly.
His gaze flickers to me for a heartbeat, simmering with flames.
“I wonder if that is not the outcome you are hoping for regardless. It seems you move with haste to fill whatever roles I vacate.”
Absolute silence descends.
Soren shatters it after what seems a lifetime. “If you are fool enough to let treasure slip through your fingers, you cannot blame another for picking it up, brushing it off, and making it shine again.”
The conversation has somehow skewed off course. The air has grown even more tense than when they were discussing their precarious treaty.
“Maybe we should retire for the night,” Alaric puts in, a much-needed voice of reason. “It’s getting late and we seem to have reached a momentary impasse. We will all have another chance to speak again after tomorrow’s wedding festivities.”
“It wouldn’t be a proper party without some discussion of bloodshed.” Vaughn chuckles at the prospect.
“So long as there is no actual bloodshed,” I murmur.
Mabon cracks a smile—his first since his arrival in Hylios.
Jac grunts his agreement. “I’m with the big man. Let’s reconvene after the wedding.”
“Why after? I can discuss attack strategies in a gown just as well as I can in my flight leathers” is Arwen’s low input.
“After,” Alaric says firmly, looking around the table. “I plan to enjoy my wedding night with my bride, if you don’t mind.”
Jac and Vaughn both grin.
I suppress a smile of my own as Arwen shoves her husband-to-be, noting there is no force at all behind the blow.
Finally, it is down to Soren and Penn. The two of them stare at each other from opposite sides of the table.
“After the wedding,” Soren says finally. “We will revisit this with fresh eyes.”
And cooler tempers, I hope.
Penn nods tightly. “Fine.”
With that, the war council disperses. Alaric and Arwen go first, his arm looped low around her waist, his mouth at her ear. Vaughn is on their heels. Soren hesitates a beat, eyes flashing over to me for a lingering look I cannot quite decipher, before he follows them off the terrace into the dark.
Jac’s gaze darts between Penn and me before he vaults to his feet.
“We’ll just…go track down Farley and Cadogan.
They said something about visiting those pleasure clubs the Paexyrian ladies were talking about earlier.
That one, Yara, seems like a handful. Two redheads in one place can’t be left unattended for long. ”
Visions of Yara and Farley move through my mind.
Gods, what a pair.
Mabon does not move.
“Mabon,” Jac mutters pointedly.
“What?” The stocky soldier’s dark brows shoot up his forehead. “I’m here to stand guard over our king, not indulge myself. I have no interest in whatever goes on in those clubs.”
Jac looks like he wants to reach out and throttle the man. “Yes,” he hisses. “You do.”
“I do not.”
“You do. You said so yourself, just a few moments ago.”
Mabon scoffs. “I said no such thing.”
Jac’s stare sharpens to daggers. “Man, for the love of the gods—”
“Mabon,” Penn interjects lowly. “Give us a moment, would you?”
Mabon is instantly on his feet, realization dawning quickly. There is a sheepish look on his typically self-assured face. “Right. The pleasure clubs sound…intriguing. Let’s go, Jac.”
The two men vanish so fast, you’d think they were under enemy fire.
Leaving me alone with Penn.