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"Omegas," Ryze said flatly. "You expect us to believe you've been doing that, not because you want to go to war against us, but because you want to defend yourself and your court against the possibility the Court of Shadows and the Court of Dreams might reappear?"
"You can believe whatever you want to believe," Cavan said. "I've seen the signs and decided to be ready. If nothing else, those women deserved better than the humans would have given them."
Ryze shook his head in disbelief. "You didn't think to mention this to the rest of us?"
Cavan was still for a few moments. When he spoke, his voice was low and tight.
"I fuckingtried. None of you would listen. Not. One. You decided long ago I was the enemy. For reasons you've probably forgotten yourself. I wasn't going to sit idly by and let your apathy destroy us all. If I had to stand between them and the rest of Jorius by myself, so be it. At least someone would be doing something, rather than all of us sitting back and waiting to die."
Ryze did sit back then, in his chair. "If all of this is true—"
"It's true," Cavan said.
"If all of this is true," Ryze started again, "I think we have some talking to do. I'm not saying I believe you, but we all saw what happened today. Maybe it was an attack, maybe it was a warning. Maybe it was a flex. I don't think it was an accident. Unless they were aiming at the palace and missed. If you're the only one, as you say, who's been preparing for this, they're going to want you out of the way first."
"That's a distinct possibility, yes," Cavan said. "Which is another reason Harel is here. If we need to evacuate Garial, I need somewhere for my people to go."
"The Spring Court—" Wornar started.
"Is too close," Cavan said. "If Ryzellius was receptive?" He raised an eyebrow at Ryze in question.
"We'll take them, if it comes to an evacuation," Ryze said without hesitation. "Of course we will."
"It's easy to pretend to be magnanimous when you spent the last fifty years ignoring the warnings I've been trying to give you," Cavan said darkly. "But I appreciate it. I never intended to make my court a target. My only intention was to be ready."
Without thinking, I moved to sit beside him and put a hand on his arm. "I believe you," I told him. "We can do this. If we work together."
Ryze's eyes seemed fixated on my hand, but he nodded. "I think we should start at the beginning."
13
Khala
"Can you believe all of this?"
While the three High Lords—Harel joined the others an hour or two ago — and Wornar and Vayne talked, Tavian and I sat on the sofa and listened.
At some point, he put his arm around me. I nestled against him. Only Cavan gave us a look, which both of us ignored. I didn't know what was going on there and it didn't matter right now anyway. What did was the slight possibility they might actually agree on what to do about the potential threat.
Harel said he didn't believe a word of it, while at the same time looking cagey as fuck. After a while, I realised it was his default facial expression.
Ryze and Cavan both seemed to think the threat was real, but neither would agree to anything the other one said, even though they might have been about to suggest the same thing themselves.
Wornar seemed to find the whole thing amusing. At first, I thought he'd take Ryze's side, but then every so often he'd agree with Cavan.
"I'm starting to think that lightning strike, or whatever it was, was strategically designed to create exactly this chaos and animosity," I whispered.
"To be fair, the animosity's been there for a long time," Tavian said. "I get your point though. It was enough to make us wonder about whether or not something is coming. Not enough to prove it."
"What would it take to prove it? Thousands of heavily armed Fae attacking the city?" I shuddered at the thought.
"They'd still blame each other before they got around to responding." He made a face. "They've had a long time to piss each other off and finely hone their animosity towards each other. Even Ryze and Wornar, who get along better than the others, still have their moments. And then, sometimes when Wornar agrees with Ryze, Thiron overrules him. It's all a bunch of messy, political shit."
"We could be invaded and all they would do is sit around and argue?" That didn't sound like great leadership to me.
"Sooner or later, one of them would take a stand. Then the rest would have to, because they wouldn't want him to take all the glory. Their egos wouldn't let them sit by and do nothing."
"And how many people would be dead by then?" I asked.
