“Are the Fey truly that powerful?” Maverick asked.
Alvere smiled. “They are one of our best kept secrets. Though, in truth, they are not of Vauphan at all. Yet, they have… decided we are their allies, and we’ve tried to maintain that relationship. We had a brief war with them when we tried to move north and settle the forests and hills there. It did not go well for us, even though we probably outnumbered the Fey ten to one. We quickly ceded the lands back to them and apologized, trying to make them allies. That was over two hundred years ago. It took some time, but they have become… friends of Vauphan.
It was only then I recalled how similar he was to Midnight… who was half-Fey.
“Are you—” I blurted before stopping myself.
Alvere smiled, and sighed. “It seems my secret is out,” he said softly. “I am half-Fey, yes. My Mother was Fey. I’ve… never met her. She may even be among those fighting with us, but I wouldn’t know, even if I saw her.” He seemed a bit sad, and I couldn’t blame him. To have never known his mother… Though in truth, I had known my birth mother, but she’d still died when I was very young and now, I only had fleeting memories of her.
Maverick cleared his throat. “Ah… yes, we suspected as much,” he said with a sidelong glance at me. “We have a mutual friend who is also half-Fey and the resemblance to you is… fascinating.”
“I said nothing to them,” Fin said hands up in defense.
“But you are all keen of eye and quick of intellect. I can see that now.” Alvere sighed. “I hope I can trust you all with this secret. Not even my own people know. Only my family knew, my mother and father, and they’re both gone now.”
“Yes, we will tell no one.” Maverick eyed everyone just to make sure the message was clear. I nodded.
Maverick sighed in the way he had a habit of doing, like the world itself was weighing upon his shoulders. “So,” he said slowly, summing up. “Currently the tides favor Vauphan, six thousand to five thousand regular army, with your Fey versus our True-Bonded.”
Alvere nodded.
“Cavalry?” Maverick asked.
Alvere nodded more, sitting forward. “As you know, Elista has never favored cavalry. From what we can tell, the Panthers have about five-hundred light cavalry; more like mobile infantry.” Maverick nodded to that. “Vauphan has found a good use for Cavalry, though it is hard to outfit and train them. We have a thousand heavy cavalry.”
“That’s another thing in your favor then,” Maverick said. Those armored horses could trample five times their numbers. We could win this battle tomorrow, if we wanted.”
Alvere’s smile was grim. “As has been our thought as well, the trouble is… we cannot be certain of our losses. Which means we’d be a diminished force, trying to fortify when the larger numbers of Elistans arrived fresh. There are just too many unknowns.”
“What about those ships that sailed for Elista to save you?” Maverick asked. “You sent that army north, didn’t you? If so, I would have thought you’d have more men here?”
Alvere sighed. “Some of them returned to the capital and some, roughly five hundred, are here, supporting our forces, but most are still out on ships patrolling our coast. We can’t risk an invasion by sea across Dyren’s Bay. If the Elistans managed to get a force on land behind us…”
Maverick nodded understanding. “Too bad, we could use those men here.” He seemed to mull things over for a moment before nodding to himself. “Let’s see if we can’t clarify a few things for you,” Maverick said. “Legs, Amber, tomorrow you’re scouting. Get as deep as you can into the Elistan camp, find out who’s there and what’s going on. Are they preparing for an offensive or digging in to defend? My guess would be the latter, but let’s get some solid information for the prince.”
“That would be appreciated, thank you,” Alvere said. “I will have some dinner brought, then we can all rest, yes?”
With nods all around, it was decided.
We ate in silence for the most part. Alvere and Maverick stayed up to talk, but with a potentially long day ahead of me, I wanted to get to bed early.
The next day I was up early and found that Alvere wasn’t in bed with me. When I went out into the common area of his pavilion he was sleeping on a long divan. The others weren’t awake yet, so I sat next to him and shook him softly to wake him.
He smiled drowsily up at me. “Legs?”
“You didn’t come to bed last night.”
“We hadn’t had a chance to talk. We left things a bit… uncertain last time and I didn’t want to presume, even though you chose my room.”
What a gentleman.
I leaned down and kissed his forehead. “Then let’s talk—” Though at that exact moment Maverick came out from his room. “—later before we sleep separately again, yes?”
He smiled, an eager liveliness coming to him as he seemed to realize what I was saying. “Yes,” he breathed.
The others were up quickly and we all shared a warm breakfast before Amber and I were off to scout.
Chapter 18
