The Hyperion king sneered. “I wasn’t hiding, pup. I was planning precisely how I’d destroy you and everyone you hold dear. And then engulf your court into mine, while making the Apollyonfolk beg me to do so. That is, after witnessing how utterly unfit you are to protect them against a real threat. In the absence of your pathetic father, you have accrued an undeserved reputation. However, Antoniyzaroth was a male so cowed and weak that your more forceful tactics have caused the courts to believe you are a baleful ruler who is to be feared. Yet you andI know the truth, don’t we? On this day, I will personally bring the prophecy about you to fruition. Youwillbe the ruin of your court and wider kingdom, andIwill be the agent who delivers your extermination.”
“Do not speak of my father,” Malachi bit off.
Rishaud shrugged. “I suppose we shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. The great Celestials do not look kindly upon it. And I do not wish to anger Nyaxia, who reigns over the dead. The Celestials have, after all, blessed me with a beautiful wife and a child of portent. I am eager to take them into my household and preside over the child’s early rule as he unites Nimani and finally brings the last independent fae court under the Hyperion banner.”
The shadows swirling around Malachi thickened and grew ominously darker. “The Six Kingdoms may believe the zealotry you spin that makes them your puppets, but the Apollyonfolk never will. You’ve obviously grown senile in your exceedingly old age. Kadeesha is not your wife; you halted the ceremony. She is mine; we performedcompletedmarriage rites last night before a cleric, and I’ll tear your head from your body with my bare hands before I allow you to get your hands on her orourchild.”
A furious cry rang from Zahzah; it shook the ground beneath them. Terror leached the brown hue from Rishaud’s face a split second before his golden flames flared brighter and increased in intensity.
“Will your side violate this moment of parley, a rule as old as faekind, Apollyon King?” Rishaud called out loud enough for his voice to carry.
Kadeesha brushed the side of Zahzah’s slender neck. “Don’tattack him just yet,” she said softly. “There are customs we must follow.”
A snuff floated through her mind.I’m no fae. I’m not beholden to fae practices. And he threatens you.
Yes, but I’m your bonded flyer andIam beholden to fae customs. So is Malachi and there are clerics around. He and I must begin this battle the right way if we are to rule over Nimani once it’s done, Kadeesha projected back.Let me handle Rishaud. You can feast on Hyperion soldiers as they fall instead. Deal?
At once? Let this foolish meeting be done!
Give me a moment, Kadeesha answered back. First, she needed to ascertain something.
Kadeesha then asked Rishaud, “Where are the vassal monarchs?” According to custom, the lesser kings were supposed to march at Rishaud’s side against any enemy he formally declared war upon. Their armies were present, sure, but why weren’t they here before Malachi as well?
“Are you referring tothesemonarchs, my betrothed?” asked Rishaud. He extended his left hand and light pulsed from it. The severed heads of the four vassal kings appeared in a line in front of his feet. The jagged bloody stumps that had once been their necks made it plain their heads had been intentionally hacked off in a manner that delivered neither clean nor instant deaths.
Kadeesha didn’t dare take her eyes off the Hyperion king for longer than a breath. She only spared the dead monarchs a brief glance before she fixed her gaze on the threat that stood a few feet away.
Rishaud stared back and spat, “Any form of treason is unacceptable, but treason among my vassal kings is intolerable. Thus, I do nothavevassal monarchs any longer. There willhenceforth be only one monarch, and the sole sovereign power will be Nimani’s high king.
“The Six Kingdoms are no more.”
He gifted Kadeesha a sardonic smile behind the decree. “You were quite distressed at our wedding when you caused the slaughter of your court’s nobles. Are you interested in knowing that the lesser monarchs’ very unwise decision to let you and the seed you carry sway their allegiance resulted in identical slaughters among all of the remaining dominion courts?” The sick, sadistic bastard watched her closely as he asked, “Does that bother you, girl?”
No.Her chest constricted. She couldn’t imagine,didn’t want to imagine, the scale of death Rishaud had visited on the courts when turning his wrath upon them. She gritted her teeth, pushed her shoulders back, and lifted her chin, taking care to project as queenly an air as ever.
But of course it bothered her—she had a fuckingheart. It gutted her that her actions, her choices, her political maneuverings had resulted in a widespread massacre among folks who had nothing to do with any of it. Yet, she couldn’t show it. Rishaud would prey upon any such displayed remorse and pounce the second he gleaned a vulnerability. So she stiffened her spine, steeled herself against the knifing guilt, and executed one of Malachi’s careless shrugs flawlessly. “There is always a cost to war. There is usually an even greater cost to making a bid for power. If your head ends up beside the vassal kings in a burn pit when this is all over andIwear a high queen’s crown without needing to be attached toyou, then I am unbothered. My aim will have been accomplished andeverythingI’ve sacrificed will have been worth it.”
However, for all of the willpower she put behind making the callous words convincing, Rishaud passed her a doubtfullook. Then, he pinned his focus on Malachi. “I do not negotiate with females, even if theythinkthey’ve attained some level of power by donning a foreign crown,” he said like the prick he was. Then, loud enough to make sure his voice would be carried back to the front lines of the Apollyon army, he declared, “I will restate my terms to avoid a formal war in person: I’ll have my wife backandyour head, Apollyon King, or I will continue to burn your lands and all of your folk to the ground.” He motioned behind him to raging flames and thick clouds of smoke that could be seen on the horizon. “This is but a demonstration of the utter ruin I will wreak if my terms are not met. Are you so prideful that three lives are not worth the cost of sparing the lives of thousands more that you are responsible for, Apollyon King?”
Malachi manifested two void scimitars in his hands, and, loud enough so thatbotharmies could hear, said, “That tactic won’t work here. As Apollyonfolk, we are all prideful and we have always prized our independence above anything else. I can speak for the whole of my court and kingdom when I say we would rather perish and be shepherded into Nyaxia’s Mist Isles than willingly bow to an outsider who is thoroughly unfit to claim the honor of wearing an Apollyon crown.”
“And how am I unfit?” Rishaud asked, amused.
“There are many reasons. However, the chief one is you’ve never been brave enough to face an Apollyon monarch and fight them one on one for the right to lord over the Apollyon-folk, as is our way. You call my father a weak king, but you hid behind the Cleric’s Rebellion and instigated his assassination instead of directly clashing with him in battle. I am assuming that is because you knew you would lose. Just as you will this day. The army at your back and the attacks you have designedto sow panic and chaos will not sway the odds in your favor,Old King.
“I reject your terms to avoid war, if that wasn’t already clear. You will die on this battlefield. I will have my vengeance for my parents and yours will join the heads of the other lesser kings that you’ve laid at my feet.” He leveled both scimitars dead center at Rishaud’s chest. “Before I kill you, I’ll thank you for carrying out that task, by the way. I’d promisedmy wife, my high queen that I have exchanged vows and blood with, that I’d spare the vassal monarchs and be a tad more civil than I have a reputation for being.”
The golden fire rippling around Rishaud flared brighter. Its scalding brilliance competed with the sun itself in intensity. “She is nothing of the sort to you,” Rishaud hissed. “She is mine. The great Celestials have ordained it and high clerics have foreseen their will.Iam chosen by the great Celestials to be high king of Nimani. The Apollyon Courtwillbow.” Yet for all his righteousness, Rishaud seethed, perhaps understanding that maybe that wasn’t the case anymore.
Malachi scoffed. Again, he made sure the front lines of both armies heard him when he said, “My wife and child you keep mentioning, they’re another reason you’re unfit to rule. According to your own fervent beliefs, whomever Kadeesha marries and sires a son with has been anointed by the Celestials to rule over the whole of Nimani. Whatever you surmised before, the interpretation whereyouare meant to be that high king no longer applies.” Malachi’s smile was blade sharp when he added, “I’d think the exceedingly rare event of conception, especially how it happened so swiftly, would not have occurred if it defied the Celestials’ vision for Nimani’s future. Thus, you stand here claiming the will of the Celestials while ignoring all the signsof the Celestials. Yes, northern lives may be lost, but so will the lives of many, many southern fae whom you’ve marched to war over nothing except willful blindness alone!”
After Malachi stated what was incredibly hard to ignore, Kadeesha studied the soldiers gathered behind Rishaud. Many of the faces she could see held expressions from uncertainty to reticence. A few even were contorted in dismay, pointing to just how terrifyingly cunning Malachi was. While Malachi’s speech wouldn’t keep the battle from happening, it did begin to lay the groundwork for the southern fae to readily kneel to him after the battle—at least those who were left. There’d be staggering casualties on both sides. Yet, their best strategy to lessen the carnage didn’t change with the vassal kings being dead.
Which was why Kadeesha said, as loudly as Malachi had spoken, “The prophecy was always about me and me alone. It specifically saysIwill become high queen of a united Nimani andmyfirstborn son will inherit the mantle. The prophecy names no specific male as a high king who’d rule beside me whatsoever!” Kadeesha paused and waited for the new perspective to sink in. She then continued, adding, “However, if the Celestials have blessed me with a child of dual royal blood, that can only mean this babewillbe a boy, and Malachi, the prophesied child’s father,isthe monarch the Celestials have themselves crowned to rule as Nimani’s high king.” When she next surveyed the reaction of Rishaud’s own high cleric, she caught a flicker of doubt there too.
Rishaud must have felt the shift as well, because undiluted fury burned hot in his gaze. “I’ve just decided to keep you alive past the coming battle,” he told Malachi. “At least for a time. I will capture you, instead of killing you straightaway, pup. I will make you watch as your court kneels at my feet and then I willmake you watch as I thoroughly break yourso-called wifeand force her into submission as well. Perhaps I’ll even extend your torment so you live long enough to see your seed be born and grow up enough to kneel before me too.”
Shadows writhed along Malachi’s entire form by the time Rishaud was finished, and the air around them was more frigid than when they’d stood atop the Yunnas. Kadeesha understood the sentiment. She might’ve been resistant to all-out war, but she did want blood. Rishaud’s specifically. “This day will be the last day you make any reference to breaking me,” she promised the southern king. Afterward, she asked the witnesses, “Tell me, clerics, has there been sufficient bowing to propriety to satisfy a parley? The Hyperion king delivered his terms for peace. We’ve rejected them. Are we done here?”
