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I cast a startled look at him.
His gaze met mine and rather than answering, he stepped back into the shadows. “See you there, princess.”
He vanished.
* * *
We wingedour way across the isle to the band of land between prey and predator territory that had been unused. Caldren had been leading his rebels out there while Jaik led bands of predators to cut down the Scourge as they rioted across the land and supervised the slow destruction of the tunnels. The landscape looked different than it had before, with lines of caved-in ground where the grass had crumbled into the earth. We didn’t see any Scourge.
One of Caldren’s spies waited for us a mile down the road from the nearest small city, Nary. He was a sharp faced fox shifter.
“Joachim’s been recruiting predators,” he warned us. “He’s trying to lead them to overthrow Jaik.”
We followed him to the arena outside the city. Joachim had taken over the arena, and it was packed. The sight of so many shifters listening to Joachim made me sick.
“The prey dared to attack Rylow,” Joachim called to them, his voice whipped up by magic so that it seemed to sweep around the stadium with all the force of the wind. “Our capital city! And our would-be king wasn’t there to defend it.”
Some of the audience booed at the thought. The fox shifter muttered, “Some of them followed him here from Rylow.”
Fuck. While we’d been trying to undo the Scourge curse and protect our people, Joachim had been digging in his talons.
“The prey have tasted blood and turned on us,” Joachim warned. “We have done everything for them. We’ve kept them safe from the Scourge. But now… they want to trample us underfoot and destroy the legacy that belongs to our children!”
Lynx rubbed his hand across his face.
“And our would-be king? Jaik? He’s not putting down their rebellion, because he’s working with Caldren! He claims he wants peace… but at what cost? At the cost of our children being enslaved by the prey?”
Branok started toward him with a look on his face, and I gripped his wrist.
Joachim wasn’t our biggest problem.
As Joachim was speaking, a swarm of others emerged from the woods.
“The prey shifters,” Lynx said, and swore. “That’s Anix in the lead. He led the rebellion against Rylow and survived, lucky for him and unlucky for us.”
The predators and prey were about to meet, and all of them seemed armed and ready.
Joachim saw them from the corner of his eye and used their presence to keep whipping up the crowd, convincing them that the prey shifters were coming to destroy everything the predators had worked for, to burn their cities and tear down the Academy and the castles brick by brick. Plenty of predators who had never set foot in a castle in their lives were rioting, ready to get into the fight.
“Branok, I know how much you want to go in there and get Joachim, but we’ve got to stop this fight,” I told him. “Once there’s bloodshed on both sides, I don’t know how we ever put the Kingdom back to right.”
Arren shook his head. “I always admire your idealism, Honor. I don’t think there’s any putting this kingdom back to rights.”
The prey swept toward the predators in a deadly wave, and Joachim called on the predators to stand their ground and raise their weapons. They quickly formed into their own attack formation.
“We have to stop this,” I said urgently. “Then we get Joachim.”
But I didn’t knowhow.It’s easier to whip people in a fury and make them hate each other than to calm those tensions and help them find common ground. We all loved our kingdom. How was it possible it had become so broken? I started toward the crowd, not sure what I would do, and my men cursed and moved with me.
We ran into the center of the battle, blocking the two sides from each other. They all pulled up abruptly, looking at us in confusion. Joachim, in the distance, looked at us as if he despised us, then transformed into his even-more enormous deep blue dragon form. His eerie ice colored eyes locked with mine.
Joachim would come for me. I raised a hand in greeting. I’d like to meet him in battle, very much.
Then Joachim let out a roar, and the predators screamed in response, then raced forward. Most of them were already shifting, but the prey stayed in their mortal forms, drawing swords and bows.
The two sides leapt at each other, streaming around us. Joachim was forgotten as we tried to force the predators and prey apart.
Chaos was everywhere. Ebba, wherever he was, must have been delighted. A wolf shifter crashed into two prey shifters, knocking them to the ground and ripping out their throats. He raised his bloody muzzle just in time to catch an arrow through the chest.
