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“What happened?” Tove asked.
Elrick pointed at his face. “He took my sight. They scratched my other eye and believed both to be lost; I admit I faked the loss of the other.”
“You thought quick,” Tove said with appreciation. She sat for a moment and then looked at him. “I can’t believe you saw it,” Tove said almost to herself. “Why would they keep you alive?”
“I don’t know,” Elrick said gravely. “But I think the fact I come from a free pack did me a favour. They wouldn’t know.”
“Know what?” Tove asked him in confusion.
“I saw him, and Irecognisedhim,” Elrick said with a gleam in his eye. “I know who he is.”
Tove looked at him in astonishment. “Elrick,” she gasped as she gripped her notebook. “Who?”
Elrick leaned forward and whispered the name in her ear.
Marcus looked between Leonid and Cord and wasn’t sure what to believe as they spoke. “Tell me again,” Marcus said as he scratched his ear.
“The Castor has told you twice,” Leonid said with a condemning look.
“I know, I just do not think I can believe what he said to me, so you’re going to have to repeat the complete and utter madness, and tell me again.”
Cord looked at Marcus and then scowled at Lucas. “You’re the Mentor, why would you run and get him?” he said sullenly.
“Because it sounds very much like you are planning on killing Leonid Novikov,” Marcus snapped. “And Lucas knows you need more than him to make you hear reason.”
Cord sighed as he crossed the room and looked out towards the mountain. “The spell that the Made have literally condemned themselves with requires three things to save them. Mountain Ash, the true death of a Made, and me.” Cord pointed at the bark on the table. “I have the tree, I have me and”—he looked at Leonid—“I have the only Vampyre not sentenced to death under the mountain.”
“So you wish to sentence him to death outside of the mountain?” Marcus argued heatedly. He looked at Cord wearing his black Sentinel fatigues, his red robes tossed carelessly over a chair. His hair was too long and hung in his eyes. Marcus had been one of the opponents for Cord’s Trials, so he knew the Castor had physical strength unlike so many of his Cast. He knew he was quick-witted and dangerously clever, and as he met the steely grey gaze of the bearer of the Mark of Velvore, he knew as well as anyone, that Cord was reckless. “You cannot, and I seriously cannot emphasise this enough, give Leonid the true death,” Marcus said slowly and clearly.
“Do I not get a say?” Leonid asked with a small smile as he watched the three males bicker amongst themselves.
“No,” Marcus retorted angrily. “You seem to have lost your mind, and I cannot look your daughter in the eye when she learns what has happened, and say with all honesty that you were of sound mind.”
Leonid remained silent, but Cord stopped pacing. “Harrian’s wrath, my little tiger will not like this,” he said thoughtfully. He shared a look with Leonid. “Still, she understands duty.”
“She does,” Leonid murmured as he looked at Marcus. “She is an Akrhyn who knows her duty very well.”
Marcus fought the eye roll. He was Alpha of all Lycans, and he did not roll his eyes like an adolescent male who had been reprimanded by his peers. “Can wepleasejust talk this through, one more time?” he asked instead.
“There is no blood source left,” Leonid said softly. “Even when I was there, the supply was rationed. There is no one left to feed from. The older Made will persevere and survive, the younger and the more indulgent are starving. As I sit here, they are starving. They cannot get out. They cannot feed. There is nothing for them but death.”
“Kateryna cast the spell,” Marcus bit out angrily. “She had been calling the Made back for many months. I cannot believe that she did not have stock for her faithful.”
“She did not know the power of the spell,” Leonid argued. “How could she? It has never been performed, and she did not know her Court held traitors. Traitors who encouraged the spell, who have been fortifying the mountain not to defend it as she thinks, but to lead them all to death.”
“It’s so risky though,” Marcus mused. “To kill you and hope it was enough to lift the spell. If it was needed, then why haven’t they sacrificed any other Made in the time you have been gone?” he asked as he looked around the room. “They must know it hasn’t worked.”
“Because I amhere,” Cord explained as if speaking to a child. “The spell is not countered unless I am the one who casts it.”
“And they would not know that?” Lucas asked. “They have made all these moves, got everything in order, and no Made has recognised the key ingredient?”
Cord snorted as he resumed pacing. “The mountain could be littered with dead Made, and no one would know.”
“This is…” Marcus stopped and rubbed his face in consternation. “Madness.”
“Marcus.” Leonid’s soft command in his voice had the Lycan raise his head. “I am prepared to do this. For the Court, for the war, for my wife. You will need the Made when the final battle comes.”
Marcus sat with his hand over his mouth as he held the stare of his old teacher, years of training together, their fallout, his resentment of the male when he lost his family, all of it rushed through his mind. “I’m sorry, I can’t.” Marcus stood. “I just cannot let you sign away your life on the hunch you are the only Made not in the Court.”
