“Silence.”
He doesn’t have to yell for his voice to rip through the tumult.
Some sit, others continue to stand, our combined attention on the decapitated head. Swallowing thickly, I notice the stark difference to the Vruks that haunt me in my sleep ...
This one has a long, shaggy coat.
“Why is it so ...fluffy?” someone asks, pointing an unsteady finger.
“Almost all the Vruks I’ve been encountering over the past few years have the same thick winter coat, no matter what time of the year it is,” Zali responds, gaze falling on me. A small line appears between her brows, and then she’s rolling the frozen head back into the sack.
I try to avoid looking at the dark smear on the table as Zali treads to the edge of the room and lets the head thunk to the ground, swiping her hands on her pants. “These days, Fryst is almost entirely frozen all year round. Based on the evidence, it appears these mutts are growing in strength and numbers in the Deep North before venturing over the alps.”
My stomach threatens to turn inside out.
More whispers spill from tight lips and bared teeth.
“What does that mean?” someone asks from the other side of the table.
“One of two things,” Zali states. “Either Fryst is overrun by Vruks, to the point where they’re running out of food and spilling across the mountains in search of fresh game ... or High Master Vadon is purposely breeding and feeding the mutts, then setting them free by the border and letting them do his dirty work.”
The room goes so silent you could hear my needle drop. I can feel the weight of a thousand thoughts settling upon my shoulders; can see it in the many pairs of wide-open eyes—some staring at the High Mistress of Rouste, others at the empty space before them.
“Neither option is ideal,” Zali tacks on, her honey eyes lacking their usual warmth. “If the Vruks keep growing in numbers, strength, and cunning ... then bunkers may no longer be enough.”
“They’re not enoughnow!” the thistly man yells, spittle flying, and a number of people mutter their agreement. “We’re cowering when we should be fighting!”
“We should bepreparing,” Zali corrects with a raised voice that silences the room. “Rhordyn recently sent a scouting ship down the River Norse, and there’s now a gate larger than this castle barring the border entry.”
Eyes widen and gasps spill. I try to look equally shocked, as if I’m not a cloistered hermit who has a limited sense of the world beyond my Safety Line.
“We don’t want to be caught unprepared if those gates crack open and something nefarious spills out,” she continues. “A territory war on anyone’s terms but our own could shrink our borders, decimate our populations, and set us backcenturies. Nobody wants that, and nobody wants to continue living in fear of Vruks tearing through our villages and ripping apart our loved ones.”
People nod, eyes turning cold and grim, while I try not to wither under the darting glances that dare to pick at me: the living reminder of just such an attack.
“So, the question is ...” Zali pulls a tawny badge off her lapel and throws it at the table. It comes to a halt next to the rusted grate—only a few inches away from tumbling through one of the holes into the unknown abyss. “Do we sit back while our smaller villages are plucked off one by one? While our people are taken or left mauled in a field, and we’re forced to feed liquid bane to anyone left alive but wounded? Or do we unite, combine our assets, strengthen our walls, and prepare to not only defend what’s ours, but to stake the problem in the heart and ensure the thriving future of our lands?”
The grip on my thigh tightens.
Rhordyn tosses a black badge on the table—one stamped with his lone-sword sigil—and murmurs follow.
A stout man with red hair and a crooked spine stands with the help of two younger males wearing the same rusty-colored garb. Years are etched around eyes that regard the High Mistress of Rouste with tenderness, and he tosses his own tawny badge on the table. “My region is small, and I have limited resources since a pack of mutts tore through my village a month ago, but I’m happy to honor this pledge if it comes to it.”
I glance at Zali, noting her smile that looks more sad than happy.
Badges add to the growing pile, and I find myself avoiding the source of a heated audit branding my face from across the table.
Rhordyn’s like a rock beside me. I’m not even sure he’s breathing as that pile grows and grows ... until there’s nobody left but the Bahari male who wears the sun for skin.
My gaze finally lifts, breath catching when our stares collide, and I swelter from the scorch of his narrowed focus. I can’t breathe under the force of which it’s branding me, but I refuse to let that show.
He clears his throat and slips his leg off the arm of his chair before leaning forward. Seconds drip by, but they feel like minutes before his eyes flick to Rhordyn. “I request a private audience.”
The words are deep, husky bolts that echo through the room suffering in otherwise stark silence, striking me over and over again.
I look sideways, hear Rhordyn grind his teeth, and something heavy lands in my stomach ...
“Fine.”
