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Chapter 2
Evenaftermonthsofmeetings – even after moving heaven and earth to get Council permission for his presence at my birthday celebration – it was still odd to see Agenor in the familiar space of the Wanderer’s Wing, Oleander wrapped around his shoulders, his silk shirt folding in all the right places. He stood browsing through some traveller’s notebook when Beyla faded Creon and me into the light-drenched meeting room. Thorir, who had picked him up from the Golden Court for the occasion, was nowhere to be seen. In all likeliness, he had quickly returned to the castle to keep an eye on the other alves posted there.
‘Morning, Em.’ Agenor’s smile was tired but genuine, a glimmer of softness that made me feel unsure of where to look. It slid off his face the moment he turned to Creon, though, who wasn’t granted more than a terse nod by way of greeting.
‘Morning,’ I said. ‘How are the ships?’
The ships were the Mother’s Moon fleet, which had shown up around the Golden Court in the dead of night some three weeks ago and laid siege to the island. No new allies had managed to reach the castle since, which we suspected was the main intention of that silent guard; as both Creon and Agenor had predicted, the fleet hadn't made an attempt to attack the castle directly.
Yet.
‘Peaceful as always,’ Agenor said, shrugging as if a dozen warships locking him in were nothing of concern. ‘The main challenge is to keep our alves from attacking them. What have you been up to these weeks?’
‘Training. Reading.’Breaking bindings– but he’d hear all about that in a few minutes, and there was no reason to give the surprise away. The sheer inconceivability of my plans might be their best advantage. ‘Nothing out of the ordinary.’
He looked like he was about to say something, but at that moment Naxi fluttered into the room in a storm of powdery pink and high-pitched exclamations, and he stepped past me with just a brief squeeze to my shoulder. Lyn and Tared appeared a moment later, accompanied by Cas, a gawky, freckled phoenix male in the early twenties of his current life. From their glances in my direction, I suspected they’d been discussing me, but Tared’s quick grin and Lyn’s bright greeting betrayed nothing of the reason.
My blood ran cold. Was there anything I’d failed to take into account?
With most of the Underground’s unofficial government within hearing distance, this seemed a terrible moment to ask. I swallowed my roaring nerves and sat down next to Creon at the map table. He lounged in his chair with that carefully crafted air of indifference he always pulled up whenever I dragged him into a room with Tared or Agenor – a sense of lazy invincibility that rendered all scornful looks and sharp remarks useless in advance.
Valeska slipped into the room, purple hair swirling around the nymph’s small antlers. Nenya followed half a minute later, looking stiffer than usual in her black lace-and-leather corset. There was a suspicious gleam in Creon’s eyes as he followed her path to the table, a focus suggesting her rigid shoulders were symptoms of a larger problem – but before I could ask, Naxi swatted the fuzzy sleeve of her sweater at him and hissed, ‘Shields!’
Creon rolled his eyes, and she laughed out loud, patting him patronisingly on the crown of his head. As if a little lamb was giggling at a sleek black panther, except that there was little lamb-like about the flash of sharp teeth in her smile.
‘Can’t start slacking,’ she said brightly and then added in a lower voice, ‘but yes, she is terribly upset about something.’
I glanced back at Nenya, who did not so much look upset as quietly furious, glaring at the map-covered walls with an unwavering determination. Behind her, Lyn turned away from her urgent whispering to Tared and Cas to meet my gaze. A lack of demon powers clearly hadn't stopped her from noticing the same thing.
‘Shall we get started?’ she said out loud, interrupting Valeska and Agenor’s polite conversation beside the bookshelves.
Nenya jolted up, as if shaken awake. ‘Aren’t we waiting for Edored?’
Quite to my satisfaction, Edored had been absent at breakfast, and even Tared didn’t sound suspicious when he grumbled something about honey mead and not going to risk his neck to wake half-drunk cousins. Nenya, however, looked thoroughly displeased at that explanation, her bright red lips so tight I could see the shapes of her fangs behind them.
‘Do you have unpleasant news?’ Lyn said, painfully cautious.
‘Quite.’
The rest of the company quickly took their seats at that – Naxi and Valeska at Creon’s side, Agenor and Beyla next to me, Lyn, Cas, and Tared on the other side of the table.
Nenya threw a last glance at the door, as if Edored might unexpectedly show up after all, and then said, ‘I came back from Ubrit last night.’
One of the islands inhabited by remote vampire communities, and one of the few whose ruler had immediately agreed to join the fight against the empire, concerns for safety and retributions be damned. But the next thing Nenya said was a hoarse, ‘The king is having doubts after all.’
Frozen silence was her only answer.
‘I wasn’t even planning to meet with him,’ she said, closing her eyes as she sagged into her chair. ‘But I visited a few other islands in the past three days, as you requested, and all of them were suddenly far more hesitant to pledge their support than a week ago. So I wondered …’
‘Has the Mother been meddling?’ Lyn said, her face more frown than freckle.
‘No. Bakaru.’
The others stiffened collectively around the table – hell, evenAgenorstiffened. Bakaru. A name I’d never heard before … but it fell from Nenya’s lips like a curse.
‘Who?’ I said, feeling annoyingly young.
‘His Majesty, Bakaru Sefistrim, King of Kings and theoretical ruler of all remaining vampire domains.’ Nenya didn’t look me in the eye. ‘Also, as it so happens, my giver.’
