“You have the table, My Queen,” Killian said firmly.
Blinking slowly, I chewed on my lip, uncomfortable with the title. “Hecate is weak, but she’s trying to appear strong.”
“What makes you think that?” he asked.
“It’s what I would do if it were me. Appear strong when you are weak, and weak when you are strong. Sun Tzu, The Art of War. ‘In order to keep the appearance, one must use deception to prevent an enemy from knowing when one is wounded, or when one is at the precipice of great power’。 Hecate called many dark witches to her. Why would a goddess need them if she wasn’t weak?”
“You’re right, she’s just like him, brother. His mate even quotes from the same book he does.” Basilius smiled as Brander, Mateo, and Lore all made a sound of agreement. “Where am I and the other dragons supposed to be?”
Reaching for the wooden dragons on the board, I put his beside my queen piece and then the others around the citadel, out of sight.
“Am I not needed in dragon form? Or do you wish her to kill me?” he countered.
“When we first met, I thought you were Knox. You could be his twin, Basilius. She doesn’t know what happened to him, or that’s what I’m hoping. If we can make her think she saw him, then she won’t seek to figure out where he is.”
“Do you not think she’s the reason he isn’t waking?” Acheron asked, his turbulent, blue eyes studying my face.
“There hasn’t been anyone who has returned to themselves once the darkness has been forced out of them.” Exhaling the pain that saying it out loud caused, I continued in a confident tone. “Knox will be the first, if he comes through it. Unfortunately, there’s no way to know if there will be damage, or such until he wakes up.”
“If he wakes up?” Ronin asked, which caused nausea to churn in my stomach.
“Exactly, but right now, we should focus on the battle strategy. If I could figure out how to bring him out of whatever state he is, I’d have done it already. For now, we focus on taking Hecate down, which will buy us time to find a way to save him. If she’s the reason he isn’t coming out? Then putting her to ground will lessen the hold she has on him right now.”
“Okay,” Ronin agreed, his head tipping when I waited for him to acknowledge if I’d answered his question.
“He’ll be happy of your return, gentlemen,” I offered before looking at the faces around the table. “I’m worried about him too, but worrying doesn’t help us win. I’m going in there, and when I leave, it will be with both her crown and her head. Hecate has to be shown that if she comes for us, we’ll come back twice as hard. I promised her that I’d run to ground until she felt like a rat, burrowing in the gutter. When I made a threat, it wasn’t idle chit-chat anymore.”
“How do you plan to get everything into place without her knowing we’re there?” Esme asked, her eyes on Basilius. His were locked on her, naked heat simmering in their oceanic depths, so much like Knox’s.
“Using the water element, I’ll create a dense fog to provide cover. The citadel sits at the junction of several rivers flowing throughout the realms. Hecate used the rivers as a conduit, forcing each river to flow and carry the realm’s magic right to the major grid hidden beneath the ground within the courtyard of the citadel. Fog is a common occurrence there, according to Zyion. As well as Soraya and others who’ve frequented it before. It shouldn’t raise suspicions.”
“Can you make it thick enough to hide dragons?” Acheron asked, his brow forcing into a worried crease. “You’d have to be pretty damn powerful to make it thick enough for cover.”
“That’s not something we worry about with Aria, Acheron. Think of a delicate-looking flower, but one that holds enough power to take down an entire kingdom,” Brander muttered, which had the others laughing.
“I heard she’s quite the sight when she’s using magic. But I had to get her out of a situation because they took her down and nullified her magic.” Basilius had a point, but I would be employing a shield to protect us.
“That won’t happen again for some time,” Zyion stated, his eyes holding mine. Tipping my head, I silently thanked him.
“I will employ a shield, one created from magic. Once it’s placed, they’ll know we’re there. I should have just enough time to put it up, then call up the dead army. Everyone else will spread out within them. They won’t attack, nor will they fight during this battle. I have something else planned for them. The moment that they’ve finished with their purpose, I’ll begin destroying her grids. There’s one beneath the ground of the courtyard. That’s her main source of power. A smaller one lies at the fork of the river. Soraya, you’ll be disturbing it first. Then you’ll reach for my magic. I will connect, you’ll have less than five minutes to pass through a portal after connecting me with the grid. I’ll then destroy it and move to the one Esmeralda will be disrupting.”
“All we have to do is reach for you once it’s been disabled, then leave?” Soraya asked carefully.
“Yes, because I’m not merely disrupting it this time. I’m destroying it so that she no longer has use of her intricate web of stored magic. I don’t want to just hurt her. This time it’s personal to me. She went after Lore, who was used against Knox, who she then sicced on me. She hit us hard and she hit us where it hurt.”
Agreement went up around the table, which was sad. Considering she’d brought us down so low, and so effortlessly, was honestly terrifying. I wanted to make sure she didn’t try it again anytime soon. Inhaling a soothing breath at what I was about to admit, I let it out slowly.
“I want to bring down the entire citadel.”
All eyes swung to me, some with worry, some with wariness, but none with pride. Chances are, there were people inside who weren’t filled with darkness. There could be some inside who weren’t fully dark, as well. But if I intended to fight against a monster, then I had to become one.
“I know,” I whispered. “I know what you’re thinking, but if we do this, we have to be as cruelly savage as she is. We can continue fighting against her while holding the idea that we’re the good guys. But Knox once asked if war made monsters, or if they were born. I now know the answer. War creates them because, in order to rise from the ashes, we have to die first. It wasn’t about us at all, it was about what war creates out of pain. He also told me that this world needs a villain more than it does a hero. Do you want to throw a couple of soft hits, or do you want to fuck this bitch in her ass so hard that she can’t sit without feeling us in her guts?”
“Dayum,” Lore whispered and then smiled brightly. “I choose option two.”
“Same,” Killian concurred. The moment he did, the entire table slowly, begrudgingly agreed.
“What if there are children in there?” Esmeralda asked.
My eyes closed as I felt my stomach churning. “Then they die. I can’t separate a few to take out the many. If they’re in there, then she’s either already used them or she intends to. In short, they’re someone else’s death. I don’t want to murder children, but taking her down even for a little while saves many more. Their lives or the lives of the others. We can’t be judge, jury and executioner. We have to pick one.”