“We need your help,” I force out through gritted teeth.
“And I will not give it freely.” Raising his chin, he gives me a look pulsing with challenge as he pushes up his sleeve to reveal the dragon steel bracelet. “So if you want my help, you’re going to have to enslave me with this.”
I almost do it. Because Goddess damn it, we need him. Having someone with shield magic on our side would significantly increase our chances of winning this war. But I can feel all the other clan leaders narrow their eyes at me. The sudden suspicion in the air is so thick that I could have cut it with a knife.
And I know, without a doubt, that if I force Severin to help us, we will lose the other clan leaders.
So while I wish I could say that my decision was based on my outstanding conscience and morals, it was most certainly not. I’m too angry to have morals and too exhausted to care about myconscience. My decision is based solely on pure strategy. We need the other clan leaders, and Rin Tanaka in particular, more than we need Severin.
“This choice you’re making,” I say, holding Severin’s gaze. “It’s the wrong choice.”
“Perhaps,” he replies, his chin still held high. “But that still doesn’t change the fact that everyone has the right to make their own choices.”
Memories from my past suddenly hit me with the force of a gut punch. Memories from when I lived in the Seelie Court and was never allowed to make any choices at all. I couldn’t choose where to live or what to do for work or even when to eat. Everything was decided for me by the dragon shifters. And I hated every second of it.
“Yeah.” A long sigh escapes me, and the anger fizzles out. “I guess they do.”
Severin blinks in surprise.
Dragging a tired hand through my hair, I start towards him while Orion tells the guard at the door to fetch Hana and Grey. Without another word, I just grab Severin’s wrist and pry the dragon steel off him. He lets out a deep sigh of relief. The anger clears from his eyes as he gives me a slow nod in acknowledgement of a promise kept.
I just squeeze the piece of dragon steel hard as I walk over to stand next to Draven instead. He slides a comforting hand down my arm.
Frustration twists inside me as I watch Grey open a portal.
Severin Godblessed takes one last look at all of us. “Azaroth’s will.”
Then he and Hana step through the portal.
I flex my fingers around the piece of dragon steel while Hana opens the pocket reality and Severin disappears back to his peaceful pacifist island. Protected by a pocket reality and ludicrous ideas about Azaroth’s will. I know that letting him go isthe right move. We need the other clan leaders more. But I still wish we could’ve hadboth.
“So,” Orion begins after Grey and Hana have returned and then been dismissed again. “Now that the coward has left us, shall we get down to business?”
“He was not a coward,” Ejnare says, his eyebrows drawn down in a scowl. “His culture is simply different from yours.”
“Oh, I’m aware. But two things can be true at the same time.”
“This is?—”
The Dryad Queen sucks in a gasp.
It’s a rasping sound that explodes out of her lungs with enough force to echo across the garden.
We all whirl towards her right as she throws her head back and her arms out wide. The vines that make up her hair stream out both behind her and to her sides, and her dress, also made of vines and leaves and twigs, grows down into the grass underneath her. With her mouth still open, she stares up at the sky with an otherworldly expression on her face while a low and sharp hissing sound fills the air.
It’s such a terrifying sight that Diana, Rin, and Ejnare, who have never seen this happen before, stumble back across the grass.
Fear courses through my body as well. I know that she is only communicating with the other dryads through their hive mind, but there is still something so primal about it that it’s impossible not to feel awe. This being is older than all the rest of us put together. She is part of the very fabric of this world. And her terrifying power is a testament to that.
I jump as she suddenly snaps her head back down, and then another wave of fear crashes over me when I take in the expression on her features.
True terror lines her ancient face.
“Jessina Iceheart has reached the Seelie Court,” she presses out.
“But she can’t get through the wards,” I reply hesitantly.
“No. She can’t get through, so she is destroying the land outside the wards instead.” That awful terror pulses in her brown eyes as she stares at us all. “Our homeland. The place with our home trees that we showed you. It’s there.”
