But Drustan was held captive. Mentally tortured by his own father, after surviving years of lethal torture in the Gravhune. He was in pain, and he was in danger. I didn’t like that. I couldn’t continue with the knowledge of Drustan in that state. The reasons why, I didn’t like and weren’t significant enough tovoice, but I knew that if we stormed Ilia’s estate, I would go out of my way to find Drustan and free him.
Caelena caught my gaze across the cavern with a knowing look in her eye.
It’s natural for you to feel drawn to him, Caelena spoke in my mind.
I know,I admitted, I don’t know what to do about it. But I am. I can’t find it in me to fight it right now.
Caelena dipped her chin and replied,Then don’t.
It took only a couple of hours to gather all the women who were willing to fight, which was more than I expected. They coordinated with each other, determining which children would be in the care of which mother, should the worst come to pass. I helped everyone load up on knives and weapons and helped other siren women pack away first aid supplies.
A woman was zipping up the pockets of her tactical pants when a handful of items fell out, so I knelt down next to her to pick them up.
“Here.” I handed her the gauze and tape, and a handful of tiny matchboxes.
“These won’t all fit.” She pocketed everything but three matchboxes, then looked at me and the jeans I wore. “You can take these.”
I wasn’t wearing tactical gear. Just jeans and boots, and a long-sleeved shirt. Audrey wanted to lyskift me back to our realm, and I told her to fuck off and let me join. She grumbled but accepted that I wouldn’t let her do what she was about to do alone.
“Thanks.” I pocketed the matchboxes. “What’s your name?”
“Martha.” She shook my hand after we both stood up. “And you are Vanessa.”
I grinned at her. “Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m honored to know you, Vanessa.” Martha gave me an appreciative smile before her eyes hardened. “I’ll do my best to protect you.”
I laughed at that, “I’ll be okay, don’t worry about me.”
Chapter 26
“Ilove how after everything we’ve been through…” I spoke as we strolled through the city of Lydhavn, “We plan to, quite literally, just walk up to the Shaw Estate.”
“We have the element of surprise on our side, and we need this to be as visible as possible,” Audrey replied with a grimace. “The Lyndoruun press needs to report it to the rest of Hyvenmere.”
“I know, and yet, it’s still just us walking up to Ilia’s castle, banging on his door, and demanding he stop being a dictator.”
“He won’t,” Caelena grimly replied from her place a step behind us.
She was right, and even though the reality of what we were about to do made nauseating nerves churn in my stomach, I also felt peace with our decision. Ilia wouldn’t just…stop. And while I admired Audrey’s determination to subdue him as ethically as possible, I was wholly prepared for the reality that he needed to cease breathing.
No man who had his mate murdered because she didn’t properly murder a child, like he told her to, was going to be reasonable. Like Audrey said, strolling through the streets like this alerted everyone to what we were up to, just like we wanted.After an hour of walking, sirens with cameras and boom-looking mics and badges that looked a lot like press identification, started to follow our march.
There were hundreds of siren women trained in hand-to-hand combat by Sergei and his men. I just hoped it would be enough.
The rest of the siren women and all the children stayed behind in the Fjellenheim Mountains, where Fergus and a handful of his men guarded them. We convinced Fergus to stay, so that the sirens involved can be the ones who dethrone their king. Liam, the only other non-siren besides myself, obviously would go wherever Audrey went.
We didn’t all march in one group. Instead, we entered the city of Lydhavn from various entry points. We needed the attention ofeveryoneif our rebellion was to generate the support needed to not only take down Ilia but also maintain a peaceful transition afterward.
“Keep your children indoors,” Caelena would occasionally call to pedestrians who stared wide-eyed at our group. They listened to her instructions without hesitation. Our rebellion started to get larger, our separate clusters merging into one as we made it to the main road that would lead us directly to Ilia Shaw.
A handful of Sergei’s soldiers accompanied us, less than two dozen, but the rest of our army were women. All dressed in various interpretations of siren militia. Everyone with a mask over their mouth, sending a clear message.
Ilia could try silencing these mothers, but the mothers were stronger. They had experienced more pain and suffering and paralyzing fear than Audrey and I had in a very long time.
My muscles were sore, but it was easy to ignore the pain.
If we failed, and Ilia and his men ended up killing us all, I took comfort in the fact that Fergus was already forming a planwith his men to get the rest of the refugees out of the mountains through the back tunnels, where a handful of ships were currently sailing from Vanyara to meet them. He assured us that his parents would remain unaware that they were missing a couple of ships from their fleet of thousands. The refugees were getting prepared for that reality as we walked, briefing their children on the logistics of traveling inside the mountains.
