Page 61 of Fate of Draga

Not with Nash the highest ranking Corinthian left while Kaita infiltrated Khara.

Not when Kaiden was a high-ranking Drakesthai prince. Somehow he’d gotten Serilda to agree – he and the Master Sealer convincing and cajoling her.

Despite her reveal regarding the rebel Neprijat, Sozav had been locked up in a private room with her queen’s guards and tech galore to keep him in. Bringing him to the meeting would have been asinine.

Adelina tugged at a curl and tilted her head, watching each motion in the mirror. She looked older. Not weary or worn, simply…older. Having seen so much in such a short time had made her wiser. Most rulers had not accomplished a fraction of what she’d managed in a few short months.

Her amethyst eyes were a tad darker than she remembered, but it could be the new makeup style as well. She’d taken to wearing her hair down with the cooler temperatures just to stay warm. It made her look different – yet kept some of her youth.

Sighing again, she removed the jewels from her neck, her ears, wrists, and finally the crown. All of them went into the velvet case waiting to be put away with the rest of her jewels. Only the bracelet Varan had made for her stayed.

The deep, blood-red dress she wore was made of sumptuous fabric that clung in all the right places until it hit her ankles and swept out onto the floor. The long sleeves covered her new marriage marks, and it kept her warm. The sweetheart neckline was more modest than she normally wore – but she’d needed them to take her seriously.

She was so disappointed.

It had been expected, but still…she was disappointed.

Her people had been the loudest protestors.

She’d seen their thoughts on their faces when she’d overruled them clear as day.

She’s too young.

Too inexperienced.

Our lives are in danger with her as our queen.

And if she was wrong about this gamble, they would be right.

No one, not even Varan, could truly understand the pressure she was under.

The only benefit to her risk thus far was the tech Sozav had shared. He’d shown them how to de-cloak the Neprijat ships. Sozav had spent hours with Ian and P’draic and Asher, telling them everything he knew. Everything from how they hid their system to the weapons they used and how their shields were built.

With this new information it would no longer take a worldbreaker to bring down a Neprijat warship. The demonstration for the councils had proven that well enough. The destruction had been absolute.

At least that had silenced most of the grumbling.

The scientists she’d asked to find solutions to her problems had been aflutter with this new information as they used it to confirm theories or scrap others. They thanked her for getting them all that data – they did not care where it came from.

To scientists the knowledge was provable or it was not. Nothing could hide from them or deceive. A few simple tests and they knew each piece of tech worked as Sozav had said – they could break it down and see how it operated, how each tiny piece functioned and what it did.

They were the only ones who’d been appreciative of what she’d accomplished.

All the others held grudges as if she too did not have something to hate the Neprijat for.

Adelina closed her eyes as the memory of the fires from her sister and father’s pyres filled her thoughts until she imagined she could feel the ash on her face, smell the smoke in the air, feel the moonlight shining down on her skin, and hear the song of mourning as her people joined them in their sorrow.

She remembered singing – alone – for Alpha, how she’d seen the first joining of her people and the Drakesthai as those winged warriors joined her song of mourning. Alpha’s death had done that.

He would not die for nothing. Her sister and father’s deaths would not be wasted if she could win this. And those babes who had perished in the bombings nearly a cycle ago would finally be avenged.

Adelina never wanted to have to walk the streets with wailing mothers begging her to find their children again. Even if they happened to have grey skin and black eyes.

Thankfully Sozav’s rebellion had been treading carefully for nearly a century now. Their communications system was simple, yet effective. The rebels aboard the horde ships would gather the innocents and those willing to fight for Adelina, to live under her rule.

Other rebels in the Khara System would take ships and pick up the escape pods.

It was a risk. The moment they moved, Kaita’s cover would be blown. So it had to wait until the beacon was lit. The second they got the signal she was ready, encrypted transmissions would be sent as her armada moved on Khara.

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