Finlay splayed his hands over the documents. “What are those?” I questioned.
“War plans,” Finlay replied. “I snuck into the palace and managed to find their council room. They left documents. I created copies before I replaced the originals and left.”
“You could’ve been killed,” Ethan said dryly. He was used to Finlay’s risky behavior, though he was definitely tired of putting up with it.
“I saw an opportunity,” Finlay replied. “We’d never get another chance to obtain these documents.”
“Are you sure the documents are real, and not falsified by Gabby to mislead us? She’d pull a stunt like that,” I asked.
“Gabby and Droga don’t think you’re alive,” Finlay pointed out. “After reviewing them, I’m certain this is their actual plan moving forward.”
“And what do they say?” Delmare questioned.
Finlay’s tone became darker. “Droga plans to invade Octavia Falls the day after the Spring Equinox. Once he’s conquered the witches, he plans to divide his forces in order to overtake the merfolk and the elementals before he moves on to the vampires, and then the angels. He’ll take over each supernatural race one by one, adding to his ranks until all the other races are overwhelmed.”
“It’s a bold strategy,” Amantha said. “But if he can use the Crystals to force the other races to join his army, eventually, the rest of the world will have to succumb.”
“He has to overtake them all first,” Ethan said.
“And he could, with those monsters he’s creating with the Crystals,” Finlay said. “The witches' defenses are weak. Their coven is still recovering from political upheaval from the Burning Times in the months prior. It’d be easiest to overtake them first before moving on to others.”
“The Burning Times?” I questioned.
“We figured out what was going on in the Miriamic Coven while you were gone,” Ethan explained. “The witches were divided, and were killing their own. They executed so many of their own kind that defending themselves from outside invaders at a time like this would be difficult.”
“And Droga knows that. Which means we have to stop him before he launches an attack,” Amantha said.
“That doesn’t make sense. His invasion day is after the portal to Edinmyre would already close, and the fae would all be dead by then. He’d have no army,” Arthur argued.
“How do you know the portal will close by then? We never got a date from Milonna,” I asked.
“By the wording of your prophecy,” Arthur stated. “And there shall be a sorceress who is above all Marked. She will be written as destined and cursed, for there is not one who is as strong as she, nor one who is so damned. Realms shall bow to her will, but never shall she escape her cruel fate. She will be known as the Worldweaver. She who holds the power of the Arcanea will be their final end, for when the wolf howls, the Worldweaver who rules over reality itself will surrender her magic and die.”
Silence rang out, and Arthur said, “By my interpretation, the prophecy speaks of the Arcanea’s final end, which means the closing of the portal. This will be at the same time my sister is prophesied to die. We know that’s supposed to happen this year; before the first of the snow melts at the end of her fourth winter in Malovia. Winter ends on March twentieth, on the Spring Equinox. The portal’s going to close on that day, once winter is over.”
Lucien leaned forward, rubbing his chin. “You must be right, my son. The portal to Edinmyrewillclose on the Spring Equinox. Droga wouldn’t have chosen the day afterward to invade the Miriamic Coven unless it was significant. He’s waiting for something— for Emma’s prophecy to be over, so he has certainty that there will be no more opposition from her.”
“But the Spring Equinox is only a few days away!” Amantha said with woe.
Fear overtook me. We had so little time to stop this.
Not only that… I had so little time left to live. I was petrified at the thought of what I was going to face. Ethan sensed my anxiety and took my hand, supporting me through our bond.
“That still leaves him with no army,” I said. “If the portal to Edinmyre closes on the Spring Equinox, we all turn to dust, and Droga rules over a pile of ashes. I don’t see the purpose of him working on building this grand army if it’s all going to shit the day before he plans to invade.”
“He has to have some sort of plot,” Arthur said.
“Maybe it involves the Crystals. He could unite them, and save the fae so his army could go on,” Amantha hypothesized.
“That doesn’t make sense. He would’ve done that by now, and we know for a fact he doesn’t want to let those Crystals go. Uniting them to save the portal would mean destroying them, and he wants to keep his filthy hands on them,” I argued.
“He must be holding off for some reason,” Amantha murmured. “But what could it be?”
“Whatever it is, the portal closing isn’t going to stop him,” Finlay said. “He’s going to go through with this invasion, one way or another. That’ll plummet the world into another Great Supernatural War.”
We couldn’t let that happen. We had to get Droga’s attention elsewhere, before he started another international crisis. The entire magical community was at stake.
“There’s more at risk. Soon, Droga will learn that Emma is still alive,” Ethan said. “He’ll use the Crystals to attempt to find her again, and now that she’s not lost in a time portal, he’ll be able to find her here. We have days, at most, before he shows up at the estate with a full army.”
