“My liege, there’s more. The vampire stole your brother’s fire scythe.”
“This is a grievous loss, but there are three others.” And Thronos didn’t intend for the knights to use the scythes for sorcery harvesting in the future.
Because my word will be law.
“The vampire turned it over to Morgana. She perverted its purpose, using it to loose the powers from the vault. She has reclaimed them all.”
“She emptied the vault?” What else could she do with a scythe?
Jasen nodded. “She sent some of the powers out into the ether to reach their original possessors. We know this because a few of the Sorceri here received theirs.”
Melanthe asked, “Where are they?”
“They fled. As far as we can tell, one of them reclaimed a teleportation ability. The rest left with him.”
Fled. So they had been as miserable as Melanthe had said, escaping at the first opportunity.
Thronos gazed at her. —You were right. About everything.—
Lanthe didn’t necessarily want to be right, now that she’d signed on for life above the clouds. Nor was she pleased about being queen of the Vrekeners.
Queen of any other faction? Sure, why not!
But these people?
Another male rose to speak, another knight. Melanthe didn’t like the looks of him. He was waxy-skinned with light hair and eyes. He had one of the beefier builds among the males. Where the other Vrekeners struck her as still-waters-run-deep types, this guy seemed smarmy—like some of the Sorceri courtiers she’d known.
“My liege, four factions of the Lore have declared war on us. If we count the Sorceri’s age-old declaration, that brings the total to five.”
Just weeks ago, Lanthe would’ve been heartened by this development. Now she was part of the us.
Even when Thronos was faced with this news, his shoulders remained squared. And she wanted to kiss him for it. “Tell me, Cadmus.”
“The rage demons, the House of Witches, the Dacians, and not unexpectedly the Deathly Ones.” Though conveying distressing news, Cadmus sounded almost thrilled.
Did war turn him on?
Thronos’s eyes narrowed. “What do we know about these enemies?”
“Not as much as we’d like, my liege,” Jasen answered. Lanthe supposed that Vrekener wasn’t too bad. Compared to Cadmus, Jasen struck her as a levelheaded font of reason. “The Dacians live in a secreted realm, but they have very recently begun opening up communications with outside factions. Their newly crowned king is Lothaire, the Enemy of Old.”
Lothaire? Like a bad penny!
Thronos turned to her. “You know him.”
“I do. If we can deliver a missive to him, I will try to establish a dialogue.”
Thronos told her, “We have a station on the ground, with messengers awaiting.”
“Good. I don’t know why he would declare war. It seems random.”
Jasen answered, “The new king of the Deathly Ones is a Dacian royal. We believe Lothaire is backing his relative.”
“I expected the rage demons to declare war,” Thronos said. Because of me. “Now it becomes clear why the Deathly Ones and the Dacians have. But what of the House of Witches? Are they not in the Vertas alliance? The House has always maintained an uneasy truce with the Vrekeners, no matter how closely their faction is related to the Sorceri.”
Historically, witches and Sorceri hadn’t been chummy. Unlike Lanthe and Carrow.
Cadmus shrugged. “We don’t know why they call us enemy.”
Lanthe did. She’d bet Carrow had survived the island and was still trying to get Lanthe’s back. I knew I liked that witch.
Cadmus said, “It’s my recommendation that we strike back against the vampire who stole into our kingdom, sending Vrekener might to crush the Deathly Ones. If the Dacians want a war, we can give them a reckoning.”
Thronos intoned, “You’re quick to want war for a kingdom in flux.”
Cadmus’s lips thinned. “King Aristo was given no death rites—because the vampire made a gift of your brother’s head to the princess in that sick demon tournament,” he said, again seeming to relish delivering the gruesome news.
Lanthe squeezed Thronos’s hand. He had to be freaking inside, but he appeared undaunted.
Turning to Cadmus, she said, “You want to crush the Deathly Ones? Those demons garner strength with each kill they make. In other words, they get more powerful as a war drags on. Plus, their kingdom is specifically warded against Vrekeners. As for the Dacians, they’re fairly much supervampires, with unearthly might and cunning. Lothaire alone is millennia old.” And immortals grew stronger with age.
“The Sorceri seek to war with us,” Cadmus said, addressing Thronos as if Lanthe hadn’t even spoken. “Yet now we have one of them as queen? How can we be sure where her loyalties lie?”
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 ass**le.—
—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.
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.”