Page 6 of Phoenix Falling
He didn’t answer, merely snarled my way.
“That won’t get you out of it. I need you strong, especially now. Feed.” When he remained silent, staring into the mirror, I hardened my voice. “That’s an order.”
He gave me a jerk of his chin in acknowledgment.
Turning my attention back to the mirror, I sighed. “This night will change everything.”
“It will. It should.” Basile squared his shoulders. “But we do not do this lightly. The people should be allowed to fight for their destiny, not be blindsided when fate puts them on their ass.”
As he had been. As all of the Warrior’s Council had been when Arik had first contacted us about the female he’d rescued from the Anigma general, Maddox.
“Will the king speak against you?” Basile asked.
“I do not believe so.” My father was no longer the leader he’d once been. Since my defiance of him all those weeks ago, he had become quieter, looked older. I feared what would happen after tonight’s meeting. How much further would he decline? It was unheard of for an Archai king to step down from the throne. Of course, Solomon had been king for fifteen hundred years; only a select few remembered a time before his reign, so what other kings did was irrelevant. At one time the thought of my father stepping down would never have entered my mind. Now, though…now I questioned what the future held in almost every area of my life, so speculating about my king was simply par for the course.
We didn’t speak as I straightened my sword at my hip, then turned for the door. Basile shadowed me down the corridor toward what was known as the Arena, the biggest room in the clan’s lair. Built inside one of the largest undiscovered cave systems in the Deep South, the lair contained nearly 300 miles of passageways situated north of Nashville that had been modified to suit our needs. The acreage above us was owned by a private corporation established by the Archai, given over to a substantial nature preserve to guarantee the sanctity of the land. Near the heart of the lair was a massive chamber nearly five stories high and large enough to hold every member of the clan in one place.
Entering from one side, I could see the king standing on the stone dais in the center of the Arena. Purple robes flowed around his figure, and his eyes flashed silver when they trained on me and noticed my lack of color. I held his stare without wavering.
The crowds parted, murmurs tracking my progress across the room. Tension rose. If it had not been obvious from the fact that I and not my father had called this meeting, it was now becoming clear that something was seriously wrong, something my people would be told tonight.
On the dais I approached my king. I had not bowed to him since the day Arik had contacted us; I did not do so now. Standing before him, I lowered my head only. “Father.”
Notking.I’d destroyed that construct months ago.
He refused to speak. I didn’t wait. Turning to face the largest Archai clan in the world, I let my gaze trail over the thousand shifters and psychs standing before me, staring up at me, fear and trust bleeding into their eyes. “My people.”
The warriors among the crowd slapped their fists against their hearts, a sign of solidarity, of respect. Of service, not to me but to our people. The rest waited, a hush falling over the room that even the rare child seemed subdued by.
“I come before you tonight with the weight of the future on my shoulders,” I began, my voice echoing over the multitudes in the room. “You know that our brother, Thomas, was killed recently by what you were told were rare Anigma shifters. I’m here to tell you that they were neither rare nor rogue; they were part of a contingent of the Anigma army, which has returned in full force to threaten our world.”
Whispers erupted around the room.
“Tonight you will learn the full story. Tonight we will face the magnitude of what lies before us, together, and decide as one how we will proceed.”
Standing at the front of the room, just below my feet, our eldest shifter, Roman, turned his faded gray eyes to Solomon. “Our king, what say you?”
Solomon did not meet the shifter’s wizened gaze. Instead he whipped around, amethyst robes rising in a flurry, and strode from the dais. No one spoke until the doors leading out of the chamber closed behind him.
And then a thousand pairs of eyes turned on me. Refusing to bend beneath the weight of my decisions, I began.
“Almost three months ago we were notified when a woman believed to be human was attacked by a squad of Anigma soldiers. She was, in fact, Archai, a psych, and the shifters intentionally triggered her to see if her gifts could be used by them. It has since been revealed that this has happened repeatedly, not only here but in other locations, as the Anigma attempt to discover psychs they then hold as weapons in the war they intend to launch against us.”
Horror flitted across the faces of those in front of me, quickly turning to anger. Our females were honored not only for their psychic gifts but for their rarity. The idea of triggering a female by force, of imprisoning her was horrific. Archai tradition deemed that males never drank from a female not their own, and never an untriggered one—a protection against the abuse of our women and their revered powers.
“As you know, our female numbers were decimated during the Great War over 1200 years ago. To protect them, many of our psychs were hidden away in what was believed to be a secure location. That cavern, much like this one”—I raised my arms to encompass the Arena—“collapsed in what we believe was an act of sabotage, and our psych numbers were devastated. It appears that now, somehow, there are untriggered psychs hidden among humans, and the Anigma are finding them.”
“How?” Roman asked.
I bowed my head to the elder in respect. “We are uncertain, but the Warrior’s Council is pursuing various means to see how the females are being discovered and attempt to find them before the Anigma do.”
“What happened to the psych?”
The question came from my right. I turned to find a second elder, Cyra, the oldest female of all except Lyris in our clan. “She has mated a warrior who is not a member of our clan.” Of course, Arik wasn’t a member of any clan, but I refused to open that can of worms. No one would accept leaving a precious psych without the protection of a clan. “However, during a subsequent battle, we were able to recover a small group of psychs from the Anigma contingent located here in Nashville. They have been brought here, to our lair—”
Noise erupted as clan members reacted—wonder, anger, surprise, excitement. I raised my hands for calm. “The females were in rough shape due to their treatment. One, a young girl of only ten years, was in a coma for many weeks but has since recovered with the assistance of our Aomai.”
Grim, clothed in his customary black robes, moved to the side of the dais. Raising his voice above the din, he spoke from behind the traditional hood that hid all but his mouth and chin. “Due to the mental and physical state of the psychs, we felt it best to keep them isolated for a time to aid in their recovery. They will soon be allowed to enter the clan if they desire.”
