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“But why would they want her?” Asher asked. “How would they even know who she is?”
I explained the story. “After I took her to the outpost, she escaped. I went after her, but the Teeth found her first. They attacked us, and we killed them all except for Klaus, who got away.”
“That doesn’t explain why they would want her,” Commander Dawson said. “However beautiful she may be doesn’t make her worth bloodshed with the Runes.”
“She told me Klaus suspected she’s from the top of the cliffs,” I said. “He said she didn’t look like a Rune or anything else down here.”
Commander Dawson stiffened, his fingers gently closing into a fist.
Asher was still too, like he understood exactly what that meant.
Mother addressed what we were all thinking. “If he knows she’s from the top of the cliffs, that means there’s a way up, and she knows how to get there.”
I nodded in agreement.
“They know our history, so if she’s in our company, that means she’s probably someone important,” Queen Rolfe continued. “And that’s why they attacked us, and probably why they’ll attack us again.”
“They’ll assume she was taken to HeartHolme,” Commander Dawson said. “If she’s important, she wouldn’t stay at the outpost.”
“True,” Mother said. “That means we need to be prepared for war.”
The tension in the room was palpable, heavy like a cloud, fog in our lungs.
“If that cunt hadn’t run away, we wouldn’t be dealing with this.” She turned her stare on me, as if I were somehow to blame.
“You would have done the same thing—”
“You should have killed Klaus.” She wasn’t my mother right now. She was a queen desperate to protect her people and her agenda. “You let him get away.”
“I didn’t let him get away. He overpowered me, and when Ivory came to my aid, he took off.”
“Then you should have hunted him down.” Her eyes were blue flames.
“Ivory rescued you?” Commander Dawson asked. “If you were the person she was running from, why didn’t she leave you to your fate?”
I kept my gaze on my mother. “Because she has a heart.” I could see straight through a lie, smell bullshit from a league away, and I knew every word out of Ivory’s mouth was the truth. I knew she cared about what happened to my family. I knew she cared about me. I knew she cared about the animals she helped.
Mother held my look for a long time with an angry stare. It wasn’t clear what pissed her off more—the fact that I allowed Klaus to escape or that I defended Ivory’s character. I was definitely on her shit list right now.
She withdrew her stare. “We have a few options. We prepare for a war that might arrive on our doorstep. We hit the Teeth now while they don’t expect it. Or we give them Ivory and avoid bloodshed altogether.”
“The last one isn’t an option,” I said. “We need her.”
“But what about when we don’t?” She kept her eyes on Commander Dawson. “She gives us what we need, and then we throw her to the wolves.”
My heart hadn’t pounded like that in a long time. A really long time. “I told her I wouldn’t kill her if she helped me.”
“And you would be keeping that promise.” She turned to me. “She’ll be alive when we hand her to the Teeth. She may not be alive much longer after that, but…” She gave a shrug, the situation inconsequential.
I could actually feel my chest vibrate with every beat of my heart. It was fear—and I hadn’t felt fear since I was a child. “If we hand her to the Teeth, we can’t use her against Delacroix.”
“If she’s successful in your mission, we don’t need her against Delacroix,” she countered. “We can do the rest ourselves.”
“If you hand her over to the Teeth, she’ll tell them everything if she thinks it’ll spare her life, and then we’ll have competition on top of the cliffs. That would be a mistake.”
“And it would be a mistake to go to war with the Teeth when Necrosis can strike at any moment.” Now her voice rose when it hardly ever did. She could command a room with silence. She never needed to yell to maintain control. “We can’t take on all three at once. We need to eliminate one—and this is the best way to do it.”
I walked down the cobblestone streets at dusk, the torches already lit to prepare for the imminent darkness. The streets turned empty, and the windows of the pubs and eateries started to glow with activity.
I approached the door to the Golden Horse and stepped inside.
The bar was already occupied with its regulars, enjoying the fresh-brewed ale with a bowl of stew and a side of bread. I made eye contact with a couple people I recognized and made my way to the petite figure in front of the dart board.
