Dark Skye (49 page)

Oh, it’s on.
“My loyalties lie with Thronos,” Lanthe declared. “I’ll do everything within my power to protect him and his interests.” —
By the way, Cadmus is an asshole.—

—We are in agreement.—

“So the sorceress says now.”

Blue light began to swirl around her just as Thronos snapped, “Your queen has spoken, and you will not doubt her.”

Cadmus choked out a breath. “That’s not residual sorcery flowing from her. You left her empowered?” Others looked stunned by this as well. “When I’ve felt
her
very sorcery compelling me against my will?”

What was this tool talking about? —
When has he felt my sorcery?—

—He was with me in Louisiana when we ambushed you last year. Jasen as well.—

Oops.

Cadmus pounded his fist on the table. “She must be disempowered to walk freely in our realm. It’s the law!”

In an eerily calm voice, Thronos said, “Obviously I just
changed
that law, General Cadmus. Get up to speed.”

When Cadmus looked like he was about to go off, Jasen hastily said, “We have burdened our regents with much unwelcome news.” He turned to them. “Your new apartments in the Hall have been readied.”

Thronos hesitated, so she said: —
Cadmus will get what’s coming to him. But for right now, Thronos, our army of two needs to regroup
off
the battlefield.—

With a kingly air, he stood. “I’ve much to think about. We’ll reconvene later.”

As she and Thronos walked from the assembly room, again hand in hand, the knights lined the aisle, lifting their wings above it like an arc of swords. Even Cadmus.

She might enjoy Thronos’s wings; didn’t mean she could tolerate anyone else’s.

—Easy, Lanthe.—

She held her breath until she’d gotten out from under those jagged flares and glinting talons. . . .

The adjoining royal residence was built on a higher protrusion of rock, a wide stairwell leading to it. Inside, there were more roofless rooms and they were larger, but the space was still fairly bare.

As Thronos showed her around, his thoughts obviously preoccupied, she removed her gauntlets, settling in.
Home sweet home.

He escorted her to a balcony, stopping just short of it. “From this height, you can see all the way to the edge of the island. I don’t want you to be afraid.”

“I’m not scared when you’re around.” At the risk of sounding mushy . . . sustaining a fear of heights was difficult when she knew he would always catch her.

He led her to the railing, then draped a protective arm around her shoulders.

In the distance, the blindingly blue sky was dotted with other islands, each with its own city. Below them, a thunderstorm hovered, lightning flashing.

The sight was remarkable, but she and Thronos had work to do. She turned to survey his face. “I was proud of you in there.”

“For what reason could you possibly be proud?” He led her back inside, heading for a sitting area.

“Though you were repeatedly kicked in the ballbag, you didn’t look like it.”

“Thanks?”

“Perception is important. When Omort’s rule crumbled, it was because no one believed in him any longer. His powers were still intact, godlike even, but he lost his followers through his behavior, his lack of leadership. I can’t believe I’m telling you this, but . . . these Vrekeners need a strong king right now. They need you.”

He let out a breath. “I never wanted to be king.”

“I always dreamed of being a Vrekener queen.”

He raised a brow at that. “And what about now—can I look as though I’ve been repeatedly kicked in the ballbag?”

“With me, of course.”

He sank into a chair, rubbing his swollen leg. Then her upstanding Vrekener muttered, “Fuck.”

She pulled up a chair beside him, leaning in. “We’re going to get through this.”

“You were right all along. Things are not as I’d imagined them. I had this idea of black and white, and now I’m immersed in gray.”

“I regret that you lost your sibling”—best she could muster—“but you’ll make a great king.”

“I can’t believe Aristo is gone. I know he did evil things—he hurt
you
—yet I’m still conflicted. Just when I add one member to my family, I lose another.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “
Was
he the one who did those things to Queen Bettina?”

“She told me that she thought the group acted with impunity, as if they were outside of the normal Vrekener command. Who besides Aristo would dare such a thing?”

“You believe him capable of such an act?”

“If you’d seen him as my sister and I have . . .”

Thronos shut his eyes. “Did Cadmus speak the truth about my brother’s ultimate fate?”

She hesitated, then said, “It’s likely. The Deathly Ones are a warrior breed. If the vampire was trying to impress them, that would be just the way. Plus, he was probably venting some serious rage. The vampire’s young Bride was . . . savaged.”

Thronos opened his eyes. “How did Aristo become like that? Your brother was destined to become evil, but mine seems to have rushed headlong toward it.”

She had no answer for him. He didn’t seem to expect one.

He motioned for her to come to him; she gladly went into his arms, sitting on his lap. “I’m the last of my line, Melanthe.”

“After last night, there’s a chance—slim to none, but still a chance—
that you aren’t.” Lanthe’s overwrought biological clock gave a sigh of hope.

Thronos stared at her with eyes gone silver. Kind of like he loved her. Then he said, “How am I to fix all that my brother’s broken?”

“We’ve
got
this. My sister is very good friends with Bettina. We can extend an offer of peace to the Deathly Ones. You might have to apologize on behalf of your brother.”

“That won’t be a problem. I’m bloody eager to.”

“Normally, it wouldn’t be easy to get her to the table. She kind of became a shut-in after her attack. If you even utter the word
Vrekener,
she runs away, sobbing and stuff.”

“My gods.”

“But there’s an upside. Bettina’s not only a gold fanatic like me, she’s a gold
smith.
She would do just about anything for this.” Lanthe held up the silisk medallion. “So we’ll offer it as a present to celebrate peace between our factions. Depending on how much sway she has over her new king, this could be a lock.”

“You told me earlier that the necklace is your favorite. You’d give up your most treasured gold for the Vrekeners? For this kingdom?”

She made a scoffing sound. “Not in a million years. But I’d give it up for you. Because that’s what we do—we save each other’s asses.” She let that sink in. “So by neutralizing the Deathly Ones, we’ll be taking care of the Dacians as well. As for the House of Witches, I think that’s all Carrow. The good news is that she survived the island. The bad news is that the last she saw of us wasn’t . . . ideal.” When Thronos had been dragging Lanthe down a tunnel as she’d spat and cussed.

Thronos winced at the memory. “Lanthe, I—”

“Look, you can make that up to me by biting your tongue when you first meet my sister. For now, we can’t worry about anything other than getting this kingdom out of the crosshairs. I’ll write to Carrow and explain to her that I’m with you voluntarily. Same with the rage demons. The only reason Rydstrom declared war is that he doesn’t know I’m in Skye Hall of my own volition.” She frowned. “Did I really just say that?”

“So you’re to be my ambassador queen?” Thronos curled his finger under her chin. “I don’t want you to have to fight my battles.”

She leveled her gaze on his. “We are
partners.
We’ll be
co
-ruling this joint, and we’ll play to our strengths. I’m pretty good at stuff like this. Nïx said that I was to shine in this realm. So just let the sorceress do like she do.”

He exhaled a long breath. “Then I’m heartened. And grateful for my co-ruler.”

“But there’s one faction that I can’t guarantee. My own. If Morgana drained the powers from the vault, she will have kept the choice ones. She was already a force in the Lore before, so I can only imagine how dangerous she’s become.”

In the past, Morgana had been impossible to reason with. Her ego was so colossal, it outstripped even Sabine’s. And now that Morgana’s adversary Dorada had risen, who knew how the queen would react about anything?

“I can extend an olive branch,” Lanthe said, “letting her know that Skye Hall is under new management, and that fifty percent of the royals here are Sorceri. But I make no promises. She’s about as predictable as Emberine. Thronos, she could strike down everyone here with a snap of her fingers.”

“Assuming she can find us.”

“If the vampire breached these wards, what’s to stop him from teaching Morgana how to do the same? We already know the two were working together to some degree since he gave her the fire scythe. Morgana won’t stop until the vampire tells her everything.”

“Will she be so bent on reaching us?”

“I don’t mean to heap bad news upon bad news, but Bettina is her ward. One of the few people in existence that Morgana cares about. Now that Bettina’s married a Dacian royal vampire, I don’t see how your brother could have targeted a worse victim.” Aristo had screwed up, well, royally.

“What about your presence here? Will that not influence your queen?”

“I’m sure she thinks I’ve been abducted and brainwashed. Even if I convinced her I’m here by choice, I’m only one among her many subjects.
She and Sabine have a bond of sorts, but Morgana wouldn’t forgo any of her plans for Sabine—and definitely not for me.”

“Perhaps if I make amends to Bettina, it would lessen Morgana’s hostility?”

Lanthe shook her head. “It infuriates Morgana that this place is hidden, that she’s been unable to retaliate for all the harm done to her subjects. She’d love to strip the wards here completely, leaving the Territories defenseless. Imagine if she enlisted Portia and Emberine. These islands are made of rock. Portia could send them colliding like bumper cars. Emberine is packing the firepower—literally—of dozens of fire demons. She’d be lying in wait to burn anyone who thought to escape to the air.”

With Lanthe’s every word, Thronos grew more tense. She hated that, but she wouldn’t sugarcoat the problem.

Or hide the sheer magnitude of it.

“There are other Sorceri with powers just as catastrophic,” she said. “Morgana doesn’t even have to get them to sign on—she can simply control them. That’s her sorceress power: the ability to control others’ powers.”

“If they attacked in that manner, humans would be able to detect us,” he pointed out.

“Some Loreans don’t care.”

“What do you suggest?”

“The sorceress in me is wondering how all these Vrekeners can get scarce really quickly.”

“I don’t understand,” he said, the idea of fleeing completely foreign to a warrior like him.

“Do you have an evacuation plan in effect? Everybody, even the strongest species, needs a contingency, a plan B, a rabbit hole.” A harsh reality she’d learned by running from Vrekeners.
Fate is weird.
“Is there some place where these people could go?”

“When the Territories reside over Canada, there’s a remote forest we visit to hunt. A permanent fog bank cloaks the tops of the trees, so some have built cabins in the mist. It’s an outpost of sorts.”

“Perfect. Maybe we could head that way? Oh, and can you and your guys devise a security alarm of sorts? Like a first-warning system that would encompass all the islands?”

“I can see.”

“Okay.” She stood, cracking her knuckles. “We’ve got shit to do. I need pen and paper.”

“Parchment and quill?”

“How did I know you were going to say that?”

S
PLAT.

“Ugh!” Another inkblot on an official Vrekener queen document. Lanthe laid down her quill and examined her stained fingers. She looked like she’d been finger painting.

Occupational hazard, she supposed, now that she was pretty much the royal letter writer. For the last five days, her quill (because of course it
was
a quill) had been her sword.

Lanthe wasn’t saying she’d do murder for a Bic; but she wasn’t
not
saying that either.

Her first letter had been to Sabine. In it, she’d vowed to gold that things were well and that she was happy to have wed Thronos. She’d written that she was now a queen and included a plea to get Morgana to enter into talks with her.

Lanthe had known there was a risk in sounding like she adored it up here—everyone would think she’d been brainwashed—so she’d tried to sound as much like herself as possible.

She’d had that letter delivered immediately. Then she’d set about contacting all the factions who’d declared war on them.

To Carrow, she’d explained that Thronos had turned out to be a wonderful surprise.

Kind of like Malkom Slaine turned out for you, if I’m not mistaken? Do you remember how everyone in the prison cell disbelieved you’d wed him, but you refused to deny it? Though no one will believe I willingly married Thronos, I need you to. So, a couple of things, Crow: Say hi to Ruby, and please get the witches to back off.