He gave me a somber glance. “You will stay at the gates, Kael.”
An order I could not contest, though I tried. “How many bodies must pile at your gate before you give me leave to end this?”
Alaric cast a shocked look my way. The other magisters and chancellors looked down, unable to witness me question their king. Normally, Selena would have spoken, eager to put a leash on the storm, but she was not here.
Evie, on the other hand, stood beside me, fidgeting. She wore fear like a bruise. Memories of Thorne’s militias striking the academy during the plague must still be fresh in her mind.
I wanted to hold her hand, to tell her this would soon be over and she would be safe, but my softness surprised me. And this was no place for such thoughts. My mind still drifted to how she hadwrithed beneath my touch, screamed my name within the walls of Drachenfels so loudly I forgot, for a heartbeat, the groans that haunted it. How she had seen the lightning, the storm that had remade me, and only kissed me more.
Lionel met my glance and hauled me back into the room. He leaned forward as if to tell me something vital.
“If I send you to burn these rioters to ash,” he said, “the whole city will bear witness to your wrath. Tomywrath. It will feed Thorne’s movement instead of crushing it. Von Brecht’s men are ordered to stand a parry, to protect themselves and the people as best they can. Let Thorne march into the courtyard, and then he will be dealt with.”
I saw it now. Lionel wanted Thorne’s rebellion crushed without turning my power into a spectacle. If I unleashed my storm, the city would see divine wrath, not justice, and Thorne’s followers, or what remains of them, would use it as proof that the Crown was tyrannical. Lionel couldn’t afford that.
He would trade a handful of lives and one night of blood for a story that left him clean.
So, he planned to let Thorne’s men breach the gates. Let them appear the aggressors. Then Alaric’s army would strike—decisive, controlled, righteous. The victory would read as human courage, not sorcery.
I despised the math, and I understood it. The political game I knew so well. I would stand at the gates and hold my breath until they asked me to let the sky fall. I would do as he commands. But the leash is thin, and ropes snap. Lionel was fighting two wars. One against Thorne’s army, one for the soul of the city. He knew he could win the first with my power, but only the second with restraint. And gods knew how accustomed I was to restraint.
I dipped my head in a short bow. The king gave a curt nod and dismissed us to our posts. Nightfall neared. The city already trembled.
“Your Highness,” Evie’s voice caught me. She bowed to the king. “There is something else I must tell you.”
Not now, Evie,I thought.
“It’s about what happened at Drachenfels Keep.”
Lionel’s eyes widened. Isolde and Elwin cocked their heads. Veyric, Isolde’s chancellor, clenched his jaw and fixed his stare on Evie. The king ordered everyone except us to leave and make ready.
Bramwell scratched his head, puzzled by Evie’s words and the order. Evie gripped his arm and kept her gaze on Lionel.
“Bramwell stays,” she said, flat and firm. She left no room for argument. “I’m done with secrets. I won’t keep any from him.” I could not help the small smile. My little doe, so righteous.
Lionel hesitated, then his face hardened. “Very well. What is it, Magister?” His voice trembled beneath the mask.
Evie looked around and met each of their eyes. She did not look at ease.
She cleared her throat. “The mountain is sick, Your Highness. A blight spreads from Drachenfels and corrupts the land as we speak. I came to learn of the… events that occurred there, and I think they lie at the root of it.”
The room chilled.
“It destroyed the Fae village in a single night,” she went on, “and it will come this way unless we stop it.”
Isolde, who had been silent until now, stepped forward. “Do not speak of Drachenfels, Magister. It is past, and in the past it shall remain.”
“The past you deny will come screaming into the present,” Evie said, raising her voice. “And all of you know what happened there. All of you were part of it. You are responsible to contain this before it comes for you.”
“How did you learn of Drachenfels?” Elwin asked, his gold-flecked eyes narrowing. He did not even flinch at the mention of the Fae village. High elves like him did not seem to grieve for distant wood-folk.
I knew Evie would reveal the breadth of her power, but now was not the hour. Some magi mocked seerlings. I would not let her face that now.
Also, she may not even be a seerling at all, but that was a mystery for another time.
“I told her,” I said before she could come forward. She gave me a grateful look with those beautiful dark brown eyes. “She was investigating a blight at the foot of the mountain. I knew she would find out, eventually.”
Shock carved Isolde’s face. “You have exposed the Court. That is treason. You could be hanged.”
