Page 5 of Empire of Death
“I’m gonna head down to the port. Ask all the sailors if they know anything about these assholes. Ships made of gold…that’s pretty distinctive.” He patted me on the shoulder before he walked off. “Night, sis. Or should I say…Your Highness.” He turned around to face me, walking backward, and with a smile that was nothing but playful, he gave a bow.
I chuckled. “Shut up.”
He laughed too and then continued on his way.
I watched him go until he returned to the castle.
Wrath appeared right before me, his cape blowing in the breeze, eyes contemplative.
I turned to look at him, a man half a foot taller than me, his chest at my eye level. I knew he had something to say, so I patiently waited for him to say it.
“Once you’re fused, our relationship will no longer be a secret.”
I’d expected him to say something about my brother’s character, to compliment the way I’d handled the fight, so it took me a second to process what he’d actually said.
“Your emotions will be deeply linked, so he’ll feel what you feel. He’ll know your heart and the fact that someone occupies it.”
It was presumptuous for him to assume, but he wasn’t wrong. My heart beat for a man who died nearly four hundred years ago. I made love to a ghost, a man I could only have in secret and never under the open sky. He couldn’t father my children, not when he didn’t have seed to sow in my womb. It would be impossible to explain to Zehemoth why I had a man in my life that he’d never seen in the flesh.
“It’s your decision—but I wanted you to be aware of the ramifications.”
3
LILY
Now that I was Queen of the Southern Isles, I couldn’t stay in my villa anymore. I needed to be close to the soldiers who guarded the castle, to be insulated by the stone that had survived for centuries, even after the attack in the courtyard decades ago. I needed to be easily accessible to everyone at a moment’s notice if the enemy was spotted approaching our shores.
I occupied one of the guest suites, one with an en-suite bathroom and a spacious balcony with a marvelous view of the sea on a clear day. A large four-poster king-size bed was in the bedroom along with a grand fireplace, and the suite had a seating area, a dining room, and another bathroom for guests. But it didn’t have a kitchen, not when the servants were supposed to bring me whatever I requested at all hours of the day.
That seemed unnecessary.
I hadn’t slept in nearly two days, and I should have been exhausted, but I sat on the edge of the bed in my armor and stared at the seating area in the next room, eyeing the dark rugon the hardwood floor and another fireplace that hadn’t been touched in a long time.
My heart was so heavy I couldn’t breathe. The person’s advice I most wanted was unreachable, and his incapacitation was the very reason I was in this position in the first place. I wanted to ask him what to do, but it was up to me to figure it out, to prepare for war when the only battle I’d seen had happened just days ago.
As if he could feel my sorrow, Wrath appeared beside me, dressed in nothing but his trousers, like it was any other night. He looked ahead for a while, gazing at the same seating room, before he turned to look at me directly.
Then his hand slowly reached for mine, avoiding the sharpness of my vambraces, gliding over the sleekness of the dragon scales donated by Khazmuda, and then his fingers slid into mine before he interlocked them tightly.
I pressed my cheek into his hard shoulder and closed my eyes, feeling the sting of tears as they began to pool. I wanted to sit in the privacy of my bedroom and have an ugly cry, to grieve for my father who bore a wound that might never heal.
“It’s okay.” Wrath couldn’t see my face, but he must have felt the way my breathing changed. Noticed the way my breaths were strained and uneven. His lips brushed my hairline, and he placed a gentle kiss there. “It’s okay,Xivin.”
I pulled away and looked at him through the mist in my eyes. I wanted to grieve for what I’d lost, but I had work to do. “Tell me everything you know about the Barbarians.” I forced in a deep breath to cleanse the moisture from my lungs because that was how the tears had pierced me.
His expression didn’t change, but his eyes hardened momentarily. Silence lingered for a while before he found his answer. “Weather patterns are usually predictable, but nothing stays the same forever. Their homeland was struck by a winter that never abated. They implored their king to leave before their reserves were consumed, but he didn’t listen. A lot of people died, and those who survived resorted to cannibalism.”
A painful sense of terror shot through me, along with disgust…and even pity.
“Hence, their name. Their kingdom was once a flourishing acropolis of wealth and elitism. But golden ships and diamonds and jewels won’t save anyone from famine. Those who survived are mostly from the military. The ones who didn’t hesitate to eat their own kind. They’ve lost their humanity and now believe in savagery and brutality exclusively. They seek a new acropolis to build their empire—and I hate to say that the Southern Isles is exactly what they’re looking for. A moderate climate with rich soil and the greatest jewel of all…dragons.”
I had to defeat men who had already survived the worst hardships. Men who didn’t trust the governance of kings, men who believed every circumstance was eat or be eaten. I suspected diplomacy would get me nowhere with those men.
“You’ll need your allies to win this war. The Northern Isles will answer your call for aid because they’re loyal to your father. You’ll also need to turn to the east, to ask the Empire Colonies to fight with you. If they conquer all three of you, they’ll have control over the entirety of the Great Sea. You’ll also need to proposition the Brigandine Empire, the faction of pirates that visit Skull Island under a banner of peace. They’re a smaller colony of fighters but still loyal to your father because he allowsthem to continue their business as long as they adhere to his laws.”
“We have dragons, but you don’t think that will be enough?” I asked warily.
He was quiet for a while. “I believe arrogance is the same as complacency.”
