Page 35 of Crown of Wrath

Aric looks up at us and immediately stands. It’s surprising, almost as though he were trying to show us courtesy like his nobles most likely do for him. “Queen Maeve,” he says, his eyes focused on me. “Let me introduce you to the small council.” He rattles off their names, and I try to take them in, but I know I won’t be spending very much time with them, so they’re mostly forgotten. “This is Queen Maeve, the rightful ruler of Draenyth,” he tells the men and women seated around the table.

Most of them seem annoyed at the fact that I’m standing in front of them, and I can only guess it’s because I’m a woman or that I’m so much younger than them. Sometimes, it’s hard not displaying my power just to remind people of what Icoulddo. Then I remember what Vesta told me when I was growing up.They’re small thoughts by small people. Ignore them.

That’s the truth. Proving myself to them only gives them power. Let them think I’m weak. “King Aric, we would like anaudience. We were told you had things you wished to discuss with us.”

He glances at the people seated around the table and says, “Why not just discuss it with me and the small council at the same time? Sir Alistair Hawking is my Master of Defense, and he has read all the reports of the invasions in detail, while I’ve only seen the brief version.”

He nods to a man at the table who’s leaning back. Dark-haired and barely older than I am, he doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the senior men and women at the table. A long scar crosses his face, running from his left eyebrow all the way down to his chin, a grisly memory of a long ago battle. He slouches in his chair and smirks at me, not a bit of humbleness in him.

“Don’t mind his age,” Aric says immediately after I look at the young man. “He spent nearly his entire childhood in the field, and he’s unmatched in strategy. I trust him with thirty thousand soldier’s lives, and he has yet to let me down.”

“The young are daring,” Alistair says in a lighthearted voice. “And daringness wins battles the fearful would lose.”

Cole snorts beside me, a sound very unusual coming from him. “Power wins battles. Daringness only gets people killed.” I whirl on him, surprised at the response he gave the man.

Alistair smirks at Cole as if he were better than the Prince of Flames.The arrogance. Cole isn’t glaring at Alistair, but the derision is impossible to miss. I feel like I’m dealing with two petulant children who need to be dragged outside by the ear and thrown into a river. “That’s enough,” I growl to both of them, and I turn to Alistair. “What’s happened?”

Alistair grins at me like we were talking about an altercation in the marketplace and not the most important things that have happened in the last thirty years. “The Fae are going to war with all the human kingdoms, it seems. At least that’s what we’re considering this. What else would you call an army burning adozen villages to the ground? It’s not only our villages, mind you. They’re attacking everyone, and they’re not even taking anything. They massacre a village and burn everything down, including the temples inside them.”

I blink and this time, when I glance at Cole, he has none of the annoyance toward the young man he had before. He caught the mention just as much as I did. “Temples?” he asks.

“Yes,” Alistair responds, sitting up a little straighter. “Each of the villages had a major temple. This doesn’t seem to be a religious movement, as the Fae soldiers are indiscriminate in which temples they’re destroying. We didn’t think very much of it since most villages that close to Draenyth have a temple of some sort. The closer that people live to the Fae capital, the more afraid they are.”

I nod. “Temples, Cole. Gethin’s not going to war with humans. He’s hunting.”

Cole’s expressionless blue eyes don’t betray any of his emotions. Instead, he turns to Aric. “We need to see a map of all the villages that were attacked and all the ones that weren’t. It’s time that our protection extends beyond Stormhaven’s walls and encompasses your villages as well.”

Alistair huffs. “If that’s true, then we’re expecting Fae troops to attack a village with a temple to Veris about a hundred miles from here.”

I smile. We fought the Nothing for months on end. We fought and fought and barely got anywhere because the Nothing is an impossible to defeat entity. But Immortals? Oh, fighting them would be such a relief. The tiny battle that we had getting Casimir out made me feel so alive. The thought of getting to do even more makes my heart race.

For the first time since we ran from Draenyth that very first day, I feel like we aren’t flailing in the dark. We know whatGethin wants, and we want to keep him from getting it. That’s a goal—a workable goal.

Today just became so much better.

Chapter 17

The steel will fail.

The stone will crumble.

The shadows will fade.

The flame will keep the world alight.

It will find new stone.

It will bring back the shadows.

And it will remind the steel that it is stronger than it once believed.

~Calyr the Gold, Prophecies Forgotten

Maeve

I didn’t expect to end up a hundred miles away from Stormhaven on the edge of Sylvantia’s territory. I didn’t expect to be calling in my midnight armor or watching as Cole stretched in his gambeson.

The sounds of soldiers marching aren’t loud enough for a human to hear, but they’re impossible to ignore for Cole and me. The spear in my hands feels wrong. It’s heavier than anything made in Draenyth, but it’s the best option that Aric had. Six feet long and made of ash wood, it won’t stand up to prolonged battle. I’ll need to find another weapon soon enough.

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