Chapter 5
KAELERON
The war room was loud around me as I studied the three-dimensional map in the centre of it, charting the positions of our forces and those of the Evening Star Court.
I blocked out the discussion happening between Rhyn and Fallow as the brothers moved the white wooden pieces that represented the legions they had dispatched to the north of the Forgotten Wastes, close to the mountainous border with the Winter Court.
The new pieces I held in my right hand felt too light, near useless, and I opened my fingers to look at them.
Scholars and scribes.
That was all the high king had offered us.
He was sending us his finest academics to study the portal rather than the soldiers we needed.
I glared at the little books Rhyn had carved for them, still able to see his smirk as he had slapped them down into my hand and declared they had received word from Ereborne.
My mood took a dangerous turn as I stared at them. What use were a contingent of bookish males to us? How were they going to help us keep the seelie out of the Wastes?
Rhyn’s gaze shifted to me as I slammed the small wooden book down near the portal.
“Temper,” Oberon murmured, mischief in his tone, and I lifted my eyes and pinned him with a warning look, because I knew exactly what he was going to say and I was not in the mood.
The bastard said it anyway.
With a dramatic sigh.
“If only you had some female company to help you blow off some steam. Say… a little wolven? Where is the delightful little creature?” Oberon made a big show of looking around the room.
“You know exactly where she is.” I bared fangs at him and shifted two pieces—Jenavyr and Riordan’s legions—south, closer to our border.
If the high king wanted to send me scribes rather than soldiers, I would make sure they were sent back to him in pieces. I was damned if my forces were going to be responsible for babysitting them. They could defend themselves.
Around them, four seelie pieces had been placed, painted in blue and silver for the Evening Star Court.
The more seelie we killed, the more came through the portal.
We were losing too many soldiers in this battle while the enemy seemed to have an endless supply of them.
Rhyn and Fallow both looked from me to Oberon and back again.
Jenavyr approached Oberon, her look darker than midnight, her silver eyes bright as she gripped his arm hard, digging her nails into it through his black tunic jacket. “Maybe you would be more use over here, helping us go through the reports.”
She dragged him away with her.
And was intercepted by Rhyn.
He smiled broadly at her as he caught her arm and draped it over his, turning her back towards the table as Oberon obediently went to the table where stacks of reports had been placed.
Riordan leaned against the wall near the table, leafing through one of the leather folders, his sapphire eyes fixed on the papers it contained, his black tunic and trousers making him almost blend into the stone at his back.
Malachi watched Rhyn and my sister, the reports he had been reading forgotten.
Rhyn gently patted her hand where he held it over his arm, resting on the sleeve of his pale blue tunic jacket. “It has been so long since we have seen each other and we have barely had a moment to talk. Have you decided which suitor you will wed yet?”
My sister stiffened and blanched a little, fingers tightening against his arm, and then she rallied, smiling politely and shaking her head, causing her fall of sleek black hair to brush the shoulders of her light, black leather armour. “No. Not yet.”
Rhyn smiled and gestured towards his brother. “Fallow’s offer is still on the table, and he is a much more suitable candidate these days. Leader of my legions. Second in command of the Winter Court. He even has a palace of his own now.”
The Winter King’s smile only grew as he leaned closer to her, oblivious to the discomfort of his brother as the male tried to distance himself. Rhyn did not let him get away. He seized Fallow’s arm and pulled the two of them together, making them bump into each other.
“Fallow would love to have you as his bride and the Winter Court would welcome you as a member of our legions.” Rhyn’s smile reached his eyes, brightening them, and while I could tell he was only teasing my sister and his brother, the way the two of them grew awkward and forced polite smiles at each other said they did not.
“When you are quite done torturing them, I would like to address the war currently creeping closer to my court.” I gestured to the map, providing enough of a distraction that Vyr managed to extricate herself from his hold and muttered some excuse about checking on her men in the infirmary before scurrying for the exit.
I sighed as my gaze tracked her hasty retreat.
“And now you have scared off my commander.”
Rhyn’s grin was unrepentant. “They both must marry at some point. Why not strengthen the alliance between our courts?”
I looked at the Winter King, and found Riordan glaring in the direction Vyr had gone, his gaze crimson and sharp, his lips nothing more than a thin line.
“Malachi, please find my sister and request that she return to the meeting.” I frowned as Malachi pushed off but Riordan shoved past him, heading for the door at a clipped pace. “Or Riordan can do it. It is not like I am king or anything. No one needs to listen to me.”
Rhyn chuckled and Oberon abandoned the reports and came back to the table.
“I do not think Fallow is a good fit for Jenavyr.” He moved pieces around the map, making a mess of them.
I huffed and summoned my shadows, twining fine threads of them around the wooden markers and putting them back into their places.
“When your opinion is wanted, I will ask you for it.” I frowned as he plucked another piece from the board and studied it before grinning as he set it down again.
In the wrong place.
“I am beginning to regret requesting your help, and that the Great Mother Lucia brought you to my court when I was in need of aid. I believe she may have done it to hinder rather than help, given how intent you are on infuriating me.” I shifted the piece back to its correct position with my shadows.
“If you would like me to spill your entrails across the floor, do continue.”
Oberon’s grin was fiendish, a wicked light entering his silver eyes as he reached for another piece.
Shadows lashed around his wrist and pinned it to his side as I growled, and the light in the room stuttered as darkness washed outwards from me.
“So tetchy today, old friend.” The prince held my gaze, his look unapologetic as he manipulated my shadows, turning them against me, using them to shift the pieces around the map. “I wonder what has put you in this black mood.”
“The war at my borders,” I grunted and wrestled against his hold over my shadows, trying to steal back control over them, but he was stronger, my power no match for the one he wielded while I was fatigued from fighting in the Wastes, and he easily broke my hold on them.
Making them his shadows.
“Really?” He flashed straight white teeth as he gathered not only the markers from the Forgotten Wastes, but ones from further afield, including some of the seelie ones, mixing them all together before him.
And then using my own shadows to move them into new positions one by one.
“Your mood has nothing to do with someone else?”
I looked at the shadows, at the pieces he moved, my eyes slowly widening as he formed letters with them.
S.
A.
P.
H.
On a vicious snarl, I unleashed my shadows, scattering the pieces and sending several flying across the war room.
One struck Rhyn in the centre of his forehead as he chuckled, hitting him with enough force that it left a red mark and he instantly fell silent.
Another two slammed into Oberon’s chest. Fallow ducked beneath a Winter Court marker that hit the wall at such speed that it chipped the black stone and shattered to dust. Malachi casually caught another before it could strike him in the face, not even taking his eyes off the report he was reading.
“Saph?” Rhyn looked at where the letters had been forming.
“Pick those up,” I barked at Oberon.
He flashed me another smirk, but did as I had ordered, still manipulating my shadows, gathering the markers with them and dumping them on the map before he let the shadows fade to nothing.
And just as I thought he would behave, he muttered low.
“Saphira. A little wolf. Kaeleron is quite besotted with her, as you can see.”
Rhyn looked at me, surprise washing across his far-too-handsome face. “Kaeleron has a lover? Where is she?”
“Gone back to the human world, according to Jenavyr.” Oberon pointed to my hand as I reached for one of the pieces, trying to shut him out and focus on what was more important—devising a battle plan.
“But see… he wears a moon ring. He tracks the little wolf even now. He is most likely pining for her. It is little wonder he is moodier than usual.”
Oberon clutched his chest, sorrow painted across his face.
I was tempted to hurl every marker on the table at it.
“My relationship with the wolf is not up for discussion.” I slammed several pieces down in the Forgotten Wastes. “If I am moody, it is because seelie are trying to settle on unseelie lands. That is all!”
The darkness that had gripped me the last few days had nothing to do with the little wolf.
Or the male who had taken her from my lands.
I cared not what they were doing.
I reached for another piece.
And froze as a strange sensation tugged at my chest.
I looked at Oberon as darkness coursed through my veins, as my skin paled to white and my fangs sharpened, and the tips of my fingers turned ashy black and my nails transformed into onyx claws.
But I did not get a chance to tell him to take command.
I disappeared.