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He looks at me, and though he is afraid and angry and frustrated, I can see the admiration in his gaze. “You truly are the most remarkable woman on Earth,” he says, “Very well. You will join me. Petyr, have a bag packed for her. We leave in one hour.”
Petyr, the consummate professional, nods and says, “At once, Your Highness.”
An hour later, I am clinging to Aiden’s back as we sore away from Red Aerie. I look down at the place I’ve called home for the past fifteen months and wonder if I’ll ever see it again.
* * *
Aiden
“Lord’s Romanov and Ivanov have declared for the usurper, Your Highness,” Franklin tells me. “Baron Steinholz has declared neutrality, but there are reports of him supplying the Brantley’s with food and ammunition.”
I nod and say, “Thank you, Franklin. Please ask my generals to meet me in the war room in ten minutes.”
He bows and leaves the room. I stand and head to the window, staring out across the softly rippling waves of the North Atlantic.
The defections are not unexpected. The transfer of ammunition is. Thus far, the fighting has been hidden and consisted only of brief skirmishes. Up to this point, there’s been more maneuvering than actual combat. If Brantley is stockpiling ammunition, he intends to escalate the conflict and involve humans.
That’s very bad. It’s also very stupid on his part. Like we’ve said a thousand times, there’s a reason dragons avoid conflict with humans. There are billions of humans compared to a few thousand of us. The greatest of dragons can probably overcome an entire armored division of humans. The greatest of dragons could withstand perhaps one missile strike from a fighter jet.
This is the root of Brantley’s idiocy and the reason why my father spent so much of his energy keeping Lord Brantley under control. His foolishness doesn’t just endanger himself but all of dragonkind.
He is so certain that humans are little more than animals. He doesn’t realize what will happen to us—to all of us—if humans learn that we exist.
And I’ve given him an excuse to endanger everyone.
I sigh and head to the war room. Generals Horst, Fillmore, Cheng and Petrovic are already there. They stand and bow when I enter.
I wave away the formality and sit. I jump right into business. “Do we know how many weapons Lord Brantley has already?”
“We believe he can mobilize in as little as a fortnight,” Petrovic answers. “And when he does, he will have enough military might to penetrate to the Aerie.”
“And he’s not concerned with the collateral damage he might cause,” Horst adds. “Already, there have been hundreds of human deaths on the Romanian front.”
“Any dragon sightings?”
“None,” Horst replies, “yet.”
“Good,” I reply. “What is the current human news on the conflict?”
“A rebellion in Romania and scattered instances of right-wing hypernationalism in the Balkan states. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Except that humans are dying,” I reply.
Fillmore smiles sadly. “I’m afraid that isn’t out of the ordinary, Your Highness.”
His words don’t encourage me. “Can we disrupt their supply lines and put an end to the firefight without revealing ourselves?”
“His Majesty has already secured sanctions against the combatants,” Cheng replies, “although that doesn’t affect that Brantley is the power behind that combat. I believe we can disrupt the supply chain without revealing ourselves, but I fear that the time is fast approaching when we will have no choice but to engage in the fight as dragons.”
“Is he that dangerous?” I ask.
“To you, no,” Cheng answers. “Not yet. However, when Lord Brantley realizes the conflict isn’t going his way, he might decide to go for broke and attack with dragons. When he does that, we’ll have no choice but to respond in kind.”
“With all due respect,” Petrovic points out, “the conflictisgoing his way. There have been no decisive military actions, but politically, he enjoys a considerable amount of popular support. Whatever the consensus is regarding our relationship with humans, most do consider the severance of an engagement over a human woman to be a betrayal of our kind. At the moment, the majority of dragons stand with your father, Your Highness, but more and more turn to Brantley’s cause every day.”
I feel a touch of guilt at that, but only a touch. I understand the risks I am taking by maintaining my relationship with Brooke, and I understand the risks to others, but I didn’t initiate this conflict, and Brantley’s motivation for this war has nothing to do with prejudice. He’s only hiding behind that because he knows it’s a divisive subject.
“We need to strike first,” I say. “We need to take away his ability to maneuver and force him to fight—if he fights—on our terms. If we do that, I have no doubt he’ll sue for peace.”
