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Kassam shrugs. "Because he needs her gone. And we cannot trust him. But we can keep him close. You know how to hold a snake, do you not?"
I bite back a laugh. "Of course not. I'm a bartender from Chicago. Why the heck would I need to know how to hold a snake?"
The god of the wild grins back at me. "If you grab them by the tail," he says, nudging one of my boots with his bare foot, "you might think you are safe because you are giving yourself enough distance, but you're also giving them enough room to attack." He moves forward and curls one hand around my throat. "But if you take them by the jaw, as close as possible to the fangs, you give them no room to strike. Understand?"
I think I do. We're keeping Seth as close as possible so we can control him. "If that's the case, then Margo should ride a griffin with me on attack day, don't you think? As extra security? It'll be the safest place for her." I flutter my lashes innocently. "And of course, if anything should happen to you because Seth betrays you, she can be griffin food."
"I like the way you think, my little light."
I don't. I'm actually sad that I have to put Margo's life on the line like that. But this is a desperate gambit, and there's no room for another betrayal. My heart has not only been stabbed, it's been hardened. If it gets Kassam through this, though, I won't care. All that matters is getting him back to where he belongs. He's waited long enough for his return.
46
Despite our scribes and their best efforts, no one leaves Hrit Svala.
"She will not let them go," Kassam says to me from atop griffin-back the next evening, as we circle the city over and over again, looking for trails of people abandoning the city, but there are none. "Either she has reassured them they are safe, or they are too afraid of her wrath to flee."
I hate it. I hate that everyone is staying, because I know innocents are bound to get hurt. We have two armies waiting at their doorstep, one full of wild animals, and the other of soldiers looking for a fight. I want to scream with frustration at the tiny plumes of smoke drifting up from the trees—cookfires from a thousand chimneys. We've warned them that they're on the verge of attack, and they've ignored us like we don't matter.
It makes me worry. Does the goddess Riekki know something that we don't? She's the goddess of knowledge, after all. Does she already know that we lose this and thus has told everyone to stay put? Or is this all a ploy to make us think twice?
"You are overthinking it, my Carly," Kassam says to me as the griffin circles around the city nestled in the trees once more. "You are assuming that these people mean something to her. They mean nothing to her, so she will keep them close and use them as a shield to protect herself. She thinks that as long as there are innocents in her city, there is a chance we will hold back."
"And is there a chance?" I ask, because I have to.
"No." Kassam's voice is flat. "We have warned them. If they stay, they know the consequences. They would rather stay than risk Riekki's wrath, so they will feel mine instead." He steers the griffin away from the deepest part of the forest city with a touch of his hand, flying us back toward the waiting army.
I hold tight onto his waist as the griffin wheels about, and try not to get upset. We did offer them a choice. We've done what we can, haven't we? Even so, I hate this. I hate that everyone is nestled down in their homes with two freaking armies camped at their doorstep, and no one seems to be moving. "So what do we do now?"
Kassam is quiet for a moment, then glances over his shoulder at me. "Normally I would not ask, but you are my wife, and I value your opinion. I can be swift but brutal, or I can take a slower approach that might cost more of my army's lives but might save humans…humans that did not choose to flee when given the choice, I remind you."
I'm almost afraid to ask what he means when he says “swift but brutal.” "Go on."
"If I am swift but brutal, I harness my magic and use everything I can against them. I wilt the trees so their homes tumble from the branches. I turn their livestock against them. I speak to the worms that live in their guts and demand that they chew their way out—"
"Okay, okay, I get it," I interrupt, shuddering.
