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“Welcome, to the fourth and final Trial of the Moon!” Merden crowed, hopping down nimbly from the dragon’s back and fluffing her voluminous dark skirts. It was too much to ask that she fall on her face, evidently. The dragon folded its wings awkwardly and ducked its head, trying to appear smaller than it really was. My heart ached for whoever she’d managed to capture and blackmail.
It had to be that or strong blood magic, because dragons were not exactly pet material.
“She’s amazing,” Jillian breathed from a few feet away, her eyes shining with the kind of hero worship that made me want to vomit.
“She killed your brother,” Kas pointed out dryly, and Jillian whirled on him, black eyes blazing.
“The mist killed Janus! But of course, I’ll be perfectly happy to kill Merden myself when the time comes, inspirational or not. All Queens have their end, in the end,” she finished lamely. I groaned and turned my back on her.
Merden had already started another one of her dumbass speeches. “For this last demonstration that I am indeed powerful enough and deserving to rule over you as Queen of Saori Sang, I’m inviting every vampire man, woman, child, commoner, royal, and half breed into the Sans Cesse Mountains to reclaim a piece of our history that has been lost for too long! Come to the Vault and attend my Golden Coronation, which will be held at the conclusion of the Trials of the Moon. I will return the Ancient Magic to all of you, and we will grow stronger as a people than ever before. Today marks a new beginning for the vampires!”
I glanced at Blaise, who was trying not to laugh. “She’s fucking delusional.”
Blaise lost it and had to hide her face in her sleeve. “Somebody’s been reading her own propaganda instead of the history books,” she managed after a moment.
I caught a glimpse of Luca and Vento several feet away, and they looked just as disgusted. Merden was blatantly lying, as usual, but I worried how many vampires in the crowd either believed her bullshit or were simply frightened enough to go along with it.
Kas leaned in again. “So, my takeaway is that we all have to hike back up that fucking mountain just to participate, while she rides up on the back of a dragon.”
A deep sigh wracked my chest as I imagined all of these poor vampires figuring out how they would survive such a journey, up a harsh, icy mountainside with gobbelins around every tree. They would try, though. The false promise of the Ancient Magic would be an irresistible lure.
“She’s clearing the city,” Blaise said, pointing out a sinister motivation I hadn’t thought of. “She’s abandoning Saori Sang to the gobbelins like a lost cause.”
“Fuck me,” Kas murmured.
Rush had been a silent statue through all of this, but now he laid a hand on my shoulder. “She will die in those mountains. And I will bury her bones with vines like your ancestors beneath the Vault.”
I shivered at the rage in his voice, but it wasn’t hitting fear. “You’re so hot right now,” I whispered to him, jolting a dazzling smile onto his lips as his turquoise and gold eyes sparked with a different kind of promise.
Vento caught my eye across the few people separating us. “The wolves will stay and guard your city from gobbelin attack,” he said, his voice strong and clear enough for many of the surrounding vampires to hear. Merden was too busy bragging about the Vault’s amenities, but I sensed a mix of relief and anxiety in the nearby crowd.
So I turned a slow circle, looking at as many faces as I could and knowing my words would spread, hopefully casting doubt on Merden’s claim. “Saori Sang will always be your home. Once the Trials are finished, we will return here and rebuild the city as it once was. The Ancient Magic will be returned to you when this is over, but only if Merden does not win the Trials. Our history books tell the truth - as a usurper of the throne, she cannot claim the magic - only if she won the Trials and birthed a child couldthatvampire access our lost power!”
Too many of them just didn’t have the education to know that Merden wouldn’t be allowed to claim our ancestral magic, even if she won the Trials. Grand-mère had explained to me long ago how part of the fail-safe built into the Original Sisters’ plan was that anyone who took the crown by force could only claim the magic for their descendants, not themselves.
Only once Merden had a child of her own could she pass down the ability to call the Ancient Magic, and then that child would have to reach maturity and inherit the throne.
My people had been waiting long enough, and the commoners among them didn’t deserve to be tricked by her false promises just because they hadn’t been given a noble’s education.
“The Trial begins in two days’ time! Join me in the mountains, and see what wonders I am capable of,” Merden offered, stepping back into the saddle on the dragon’s back and yanking at the chains around its neck. As she rose into the sky, our attention was drawn to a flock of three more dragons, soaring in a line ahead of Merden.
My jaw dropped and the crowd exploded into excitement as the dragons opened their huge snouts, loosing streams of fire down onto the snow and ice, all the way up the mountainside, burning trees and shrubs whole as they went.
Within minutes, a charred path had been cleared, and there were way too many citizens cheering on the destruction.
“That’s one way to impress people and lure them up to the Vault all in one go,” Blaise murmured, and I could only nod.
This was not looking good.
CHAPTER TWENTY
KANA
Rush turned to me as soon as the crowds had begun to disperse. “I know you won’t like it, love, but I think you need to bring Cade to the Vault.”
I narrowed my eyes, definitely not liking the idea. “Is this something you recommend as my official prophet?”
“He’s one of your weapons. I haven’t had a vision to support it, but you need your weapons,” he insisted.
