Page 56 of Ravaging Red
“You would wage war for her?” she asked.
He didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“And if we deny you your place among us? If we strip your name from these walls?”
“Then I will make a new name,” he said. “With blood. With vengeance. Withherbeside me.”
I had never loved him more than I did at that moment, yet my heart ached. Because they were still looking at me like I was a disease. I understood it though, I was a fracture in their order. And deep down, I knew they feared what I might become.
He turned to me and slid his hand into mine, reassuringly. In that moment, I had never felt safer than with him.
Still holding his hand, I stepped forward.
“I love him,” I said. The words echoed louder than I meant them to, bouncing off the dark stone.
Verrian laughed. It was a beautiful sound, but full of cruelty. “Love,” she said, rolling the word in her tongue as if she found it bitter. “How sweet. Such a soft, human word. And a weakness more than a strength.”
My fingers tightened around Rael’s.
“No,” I said, lifting my chin. “Love is strength. It’s what brought me here. It’s what has held him back when he could have torn this place apart. And I would do anything for him.”
Rael’s thumb brushed over my knuckles. “She is not wrong, I’ve come to realize that” he said, his voice low. “It’s not a weakness. It’s devotion. And that can be more dangerous than you realize.”
An uneasy shift moved through the council. Then Drayx spoke, his voice held a deep raspiness to it. “What if she’s right? What if love is not the weakness we assumed, but something older? Something that survived while the rest of us turned to power and fear?”
“No,” Verrian snapped, her gaze hardening. “That’s foolishness. Romanticism. If you start to believe in it, we will fail. This human has already brought death to our door.”
A chill skated down my spine and I knew what she meant. The creature. The thing that had chased me through the woods. She knew about it.
Verrian’s eyes narrowed. “There is darkness that hovers around you both. It stirs. It hungers. Are you prepared to face what you’ve unleashed?”
Rael stepped forward, pulling me slightly behind him, as he growled in threat. “We didn’t unleash anything. It was already here. Festering under your perfect order. My bond to her didn’t create that monster."
Rael’s voice deepened as he stepped forward again, his hand flexing protectively around mine. “Without my mark, that creature would have killed her. I felt its intent, the way it reached for her heart, attempting to tear apart our bond and steal her for himself. It feeds on broken connections and it is here to cause havoc.”
Verrian’s lips curled, disdain darkening her face. “And yet, by claiming her, you’ve tied something cold and bitter to stay in our realm. This human didn’t just come through the Veil, she brought darkness with her. I can still feel remnants of its envy on you both.”
Drayx stirred in his shadowed seat, his voice curling through the chamber. “You say it was envy. But envy cannot exist without desire, without the fire of love to contrast it. I have walked among humans. I’ve watched them love, grieve, cling to one another like flame to a wick. Love is a weakness, yes...but it is also a kind of power. One I have to say we’ve forgotten.”
Lysira’s laughter rang sharp. “Now you decide to be poetic?”
But Drayx ignored her. He sat forward, folding his long fingers together. “Perhaps mixing blood isn’t the greatest threat. Perhaps love itself, and the madness that comes with it, is what shakes this chamber.”
Verrian turned on him, fire flaring in her eyes. “You would defend this?”
“I would question it,” Drayx replied, unshaken. “And for once, I find myself aligned with something unfamiliar. Maybe it is time we remembered what it meant tofeel.”
The chamber fell into silence. The Council whispered amongst themselves, some in agreement, others voicing their disdain.
Verrian stepped back to the center. “It is reckless. Blasphemy! We will bring it to a vote. All those in favor of this connection…”
Verrian stayed standing, followed by Lysiria, the Drayx took a seat and slowly, one by one, the others followed. Varek, Ma’het, Krinn, all voted.
“The majority has spoken,” Drayx declared. “Rael may keep his bond. The human stays... for now.”
Verrian's eyes, once distant and calculated, now sharpened like blades. She stepped forward slowly, the hem of her violet robes whispering over the stone floor.
"The Council may have voted for you," she said, her voice low and seething, "but there will be a price."
