“I just…” Drawing a thumb along the rim of the glass, I leaned back in the chair. I just needed to be occupied. If I weren’t, then my mind wandered to places it could not go. Places that had been hollowed out after the failed meeting with the Blood Queen. Cold and angry like a winter storm. And those holes inside me didn’t feel like me at all.
Or even like a mortal.
They reminded me of Isbeth.
Anger simmered in my gut. I welcomed it because it was far easier to deal with that than sorrow and helplessness. Isbeth was someone I had no problem thinking about. Not at all. She was all I could think about at times, especially in those silent, dark minutes of night when sleep evaded me.
No longer did I find it difficult to reconcile the kindness and gentleness she’d showered upon me with who she had been to him and countless others. A monster. I had come to terms with who she was. Isbeth may have conceived me through means that were most likely unconscionable, but she was no mother to me. Coralena was. Isbeth was nothing more than the Blood Queen. The enemy.
Feeling Kieran’s all-too-knowing stare upon me, I swallowed thickly. “I’m okay,” I said, before he could ask the question that often parted his lips.
Kieran said nothing as he watched me. He knew better. Just as he’d known better earlier, when that icy rage had manifested, rattling the table. However, he didn’t harp on it this time. He changed the subject. “Valyn and the other generals will be arriving any day now. He will approve of how we took Massene.”
I nodded. Valyn didn’t necessarily want war. Instead, he had seen it as something inevitable. Neither he nor any of the older Atlantians were willing to give the Ascended any more chances. Once they learned about what the Ascended here had done, it wouldn’t help change their minds regarding whether or not the vamprys could or wanted to change their ways or control their bloodlust. And it wouldn’t help if the Duke and Duchess Ravarel, those who ruled Oak Ambler, refused our demands.
Shoulders tightening, I stared into the glass of dark wine. Our demands had everything to do with going about war differently. It was why we’d taken Massene the way we had. I fully believed there were steps that could prevent unnecessary loss of life on both sides, especially since the mortals who fought for Solis most likely had no choice—unlike those who had picked up their swords and shields to defend Atlantia.
Some in cities like Massene and Oak Ambler would ultimately pay the price of a violent war, either with their livelihoods or their lives. And then there were the Ascended who were like…
I drew in a ragged breath, briefly squeezing my eyes shut before my mind could call forth an image of Ian—of how I’d last seen him. How he died replayed enough at night. I didn’t need to see it now.
But I believed there had to be Ascended who weren’t evil to their core. Who could be reasoned with.
So that was the basis of our planning. But we knew Oak Ambler wasn’t Massene.
Several days ago, we’d sent Duke and Duchess Ravarel an ultimatum: Agree to our demands or face a siege. Our demands were simple, but we weren’t counting on them to be reasonable and accept their fate.
And that was where Vonetta came in, along with Naill and Wren, the elder Rise Guard who’d witnessed what the Ascended here had been doing. Wren’s extended family—one he believed might be Descenters who supported Atlantia—lived in Oak Ambler. What they were doing, what our plans consisted of, came with huge risks.
However, the impending siege of Oak Ambler and all the ways it could fail in the most spectacular ways possible weren’t our only pressing concerns.
My thoughts found their way to another risk we’d undertaken: Our past plans to enter Oak Ambler ahead of when we were to meet with the Blood Queen. Somehow, she had known, either having simply been prepared for the possibility of us attempting to trick them or because someone had betrayed us. Other than those we trusted, only the Council of Elders had known about our plans. Did we have a traitor in our midst? Either someone we trusted or someone who had reached the upper echelons of power in Atlantia? Or was the simplest explanation the answer? That the Blood Crown had simply outsmarted us, and we’d underestimated them?
I didn’t know, but there was also the issue of the Unseen—the secretive, all-male organization that had once served the deities. Believing that I was the Harbinger of Death and Destruction that the prophecy warned of, they’d resurfaced once I entered Atlantia. They’d been behind the attack at the Chambers of Nyktos and so, so much more. And the threat the Unseen posed hadn’t ended with Alastir’s and Jansen’s deaths.