Six Matrons sit in a crescent arc before me, draped in robes that shimmer like oil-slicks, beautiful, but predatory. High Matron Serida leans forward, her lips painted the color of bruised roses.
“She is coming,” she says. “A Purna emissary. Or something like it.”
“Amelia Crow,” I reply, already aware.
“You should turn her away at the gate,” snaps Matron Hessa. “Their kind is desperate. Utterly reckless. They smell weakness and think we’ll offer them scraps.”
“She comes on her knees,” Serida says. “But with fire behind her eyes. And her name… Crow.”
They mean to provoke me, but I keep my composure.
“I’ve fought her bloodline before,” I say. “They don’t kneel easily.”
Garrick stands silent beside me, unreadable. The others wait for me to flinch. But I don’t, I never have.
“She comes for aid,” Serida continues. “To beg. And you, Zeidan, are not known for mercy.”
“No,” I say, measured. “But I am known for strategy.”
That catches them off guard.
“She is desperate,” I add. “If she’s willing to offer something of value, we may use that. I am thinking of offering her a bond.”
A sharp rustle of silks. Whispers rise like smoke. I have expected that.
“You’re joking,” Hessa hisses. “The bond? With her? With any of them?”
“I’ve studied the old rituals.”
“You’re courting disaster,” another Matron sneers. “You remember what happened the last time we let shadowblood mingle with sparkblood.”
I remember. The memory doesn’t flicker across my face. It never does. Not anymore.
“And what would you gain?” Serida asks again.
“A tie to the Wildspont. A door into Purna magic. Access to what they’re hiding.” I let a pause stretch. “And perhaps... a key to the curse that plagues them.”
“You would risk your bloodline for theirs?”
“I would risk a great deal for power. So would you.”
“You speak of power like it’s yours to gamble,” Hessa snaps. “You forget, your bloodline serves at the Matrons’ pleasure.”
I meet her gaze without blinking. “And yet it’s my blood the realm remembers when the wars end.”
Serida tilts her head, studying me like I’m a particularly unruly piece of strategy. “You are bold, Prince. Bold enough to make us nervous. But not bold enough, I think, to play this game without bleeding.”
I let silence answer. The kind that makes lesser men sweat. The Matrons may think they hold the reins, but they forget, Velcryn survives because I win wars. Not because they speak in riddles and gowns.
They fall quiet. Not with agreement, but calculation. They’re intrigued. And curiosity, here, is a blade I can use.
“Very well,” Serida says finally. “But do not expect our protection if the bond spirals beyond your control. You carry the risk. And the ruin.”
“Understood,” I say. But in truth, I’m already miles ahead of them.
Later,in the solitude of my war chamber, I pour over maps of Purna territory, tracing the spread of the blight they claim is unnatural. Garrick stands behind me, arms crossed.
“You don’t trust her,” he says.
