“Let’s open the missives. Box first,” I command, voice clipped. There’s a time for friendship, and there’s a time for war. And right now? It’s the latter.
Rowan slides the box across the smooth oak table, and steps back, pressing into the wall like he’s not here.
I palm a small dagger from my belt, sliding the blade between the planks that seal the box. It splinters open at one corner, and the reek of tart, metallic blood floods my senses, along with the stench of rotting flesh. I eye Therion, and his lips are already sealed in a thin line.This is not good.
I spring the opposite corner open?—
A lump of gray hair, caked in dried blood. I blink. And then I see it for what it is.
A head.
Eldric’s fucking head.
Tankards go still.
Groans of stomachs souring fill the space.
Shock rents the air.
I push the box away, throwing my hand over my nose and mouth to quell the sharp, sudden rise of bile in my throat.
A fly lands on the gray fringe; no one swats it.
“Those fucking Caelorian bastards,” Merrik growls, slamming his fist into the table with a viciousness that rattles the tankards and decanters.
“What does the fucking missive say?” Therion grits out, lethal calm stilling his body.
I gesture to Rowan to remove the box, and he stifles a retch that rises unbidden in his throat as he clambers for the box.
I slice carefully through Queen Maireth’s seal with my dagger—desperate to temper the violence that calls to me in the marrow of my fucking bones.
Eldric advised my father, and his father before him.
Eldric was family.
And hurting my family doesn’t go unpunished.
I unfold the parchment to see the elegant, cursive handwriting of Queen Maireth that sits in direct opposition to her blunt, brutal, calculated execution.
Prince Kael,
One thing I have learned as Queen of Caeloria—the wealthiest lands in the known realms—is that if you want a job done properly, you should do it yourself. If you want my alliance, you should’ve come for it. Thalmyr did, and his respect has been rewarded with the promise of my army and weapons. Zerynthia will be lost to history, just like Dravara. Your altruism is noble but short-sighted. First, we must conquer.
Goodbye,
Queen Maireth of Caeloria
I pass the missive around, dragging my hands through my hair and clenching my jaw. We needed Caeloria’s army. We needed their numbers. My father never liked Maireth—he thought her an oppressive leader who hid behind her opulence, and had her people in a gilded cage. He could never understand Caeloria’s wealth. Could never understand how their coffers were overflowing on low-yield minerals and materials, and dismal exports. Their weapons are advanced, but they don’t trade them.
He also knew that Maireth planned one of two things; keep The Decay to suppress the resources here, or lift The Decay and take the lands for herself.
She never made a play at us, but he knew she was only biding her time until the prophecy was enacted.
If Caeloria are allied with Dravara, it’s because they’re coming for our fucking land.
They want our threvenar to control the narrative, our zarethite to arm the conquest, our gems to fund it, and our fields to feed it.
They’d control the realms.
