Page 61 of Our Vicious Oaths
It was just sohardto see past the blood that was the only path he envisioned.
“You and I, we have a valuable weapon to dramatically mitigate the coming carnage that a war with Rishaud will bring and has already wrought,” Kadeesha pressed on, then said aloud what he’d just been thinking. “We can neuter Rishaud’s power by chipping away at its ultimate source: the sworn fealty and united armies of the Six Kingdoms. Think about how much stock each of the courts places in omens. Fertility is rare among our kind, and two royal lines siring a child is even rarer. Many among the Six Kingdoms could be easily coaxed to see what is growing inside me as some grand omen of a new age—one where you and I rule as high king and queen ofallthe lands, with our child of dual royal blood as heir to theSeven Kingdoms—ordained by the great Celestials themselves. If you feed the lesser monarchs that grand design, plus promise them greater autonomy beyond what they have under Rishaud’s crushing rule, they will all shift their allegiances in a heartbeat. Then, without the strength of the vassal dominions united behind him, Rishaud becomes only one king and one court you go to war with. Thus, he becomes much more vulnerable and easier to kill.”
“It’s a viable plan. A strong and shrewd one,” Nychelle spoke up. She looked Kadeesha over, impressed. His auntie didn’t dole out such praise often, nor with many individuals.
“It takes care of many issues at once,” Trystin contributed. “Particularly that of Rishaudandour nobles who are so eager for you to marry and produce an heir. Further, it gets you what you ultimately seek while, as Kadeesha said, assuaging casualties of a potentially drawn-out war.”
Malachi knew all this, rationally. But when it came to Rishaud, rationality wasn’t his primary concern. Yet he filed their votes away even as he looked to his Cadre, because hisauntie and cousin weren’t the only two individuals in the room who’d earned the right to be heard. Shionne, Jakobi, Kiyun, and Dedrick—they’d all lost parents at the hands of the southern monarchs. They had all sworn together as teenagers to slaughter each of the enemy monarchs. Every last one of them. So he owed them a chance to have a voice.
“IfI extract vows of fealty from those fuckers, I imagine they’ll ask for some assurance that they won’t be killed as soon as my business with Rishaud is concluded. If I were in their positions, I’d force an oath of no harm in exchange for my aid. If you aren’t all right with that deviation from our long-held plans—ourvengeance—speak now and this consideration of Kadeesha’s proposal goes no further,” he said to his Cadre.
The temperature in the room plunged until skeins of ice coated the strategy table. Feeling it, he expected Shionne’s low growl to follow. However, she said nothing. Jakobi, Kiyun, and Dedrick were cloaked in a similar rage. Yet they, too, withheld expressing dissent. At least for the most part.
“What about Zayvier?” Jakobi gritted out. “He is incapable of having a voice here.”
“Zayvier is the best of us,” Shionne grumbled. “Besides the fact that he would side with whatever path his king wanted to pursue, the same as each of us always has, he’d care about minimizing the loss of lives, especially those on our side.”
“She is right,” Kiyun spat.
Dedrick laughed dryly. “This is rich. We do still get to massacre Hyperion nobles, yes?”
“If the answer is no, it’s where I draw the line,” Shionne said flatly.
Malachi gave her the look that statement deserved. “You know me better than that.”
Shionne sucked her teeth. “Just checking that you weren’t actually going soft on me.”
Malachi chuckled. “Not a fucking chance,” he assured Shionne.
Her gaze sliced to Kadeesha before returning to Malachi. “Glad to hear it.”
He then studied the Aether queen for a moment himself before saying, “Since the matter is settled, shall we move on to planning a pregnancy and impending wedding announcement that’ll draw the vassal monarchs’ interest? We can subsequently dispatch message runes behind it for a clandestine meeting.”
Kadeesha balked when he mentioned the wedding part of her grand scheme. Malachi’s face settled into similar grim lines because having heard his own words spoken aloud was like a void blade to the lungs for him too. Merely thinking about the rapidly approaching event he’d just agreed to left it difficult to breathe.
He’d already relinquished so much with this plan. To see his peace of mind lost as well … it was brutal.
And yet, he knew it was right. He knew it was the only way this would work. And he knew …
No, he didn’t know. But what he felt wasn’t exactly horror at the idea of marrying in mere days. It was something else, something he couldn’t put his finger on, and perhaps that was what scared him the most.
Chapter Thirty-Three
HOLDING A REVEL AFTER RISHAUD’S ATTACK WOULDbe gauche. So, she and Malachi took a different route to announce their news to his court. Malachi dispatched couriers carrying letters embossed with his royal seal to the cardinal bloodlines. As for the servants, who tended to spread gossip even swifter, Kadeesha made sure she informed her mother of her impending nuptials and the babe in front of the servants who were delivering Yashira’s morning tea. Yashira’s gleeful squeal that her daughter would be a high queen after all, and her grandchild would be heir to a mighty throne, was surely heard in every corner of the realm. Kadeesha waited until the servants had departed and the door shut behind them before she trampled on Yashira’s joy.
“The marriage won’t be real or last very long,” she told her mother before she got carried away.
The teacup Yashira had been raising to her lips clinked against the table she sat at. “What do you mean?” Kadeesha couldn’t decide if she pitied her mother’s exasperation, was worried about her mother’s sanity thinking this was anything but a sham, or was just thoroughly annoyed.
“Obviously, this isn’t some fairy-tale pairing,” she said as she took a seat across from Yashira. “Nor do I intend to stay chained to Malachi as his bloody wife. I’ve always had the same goal since I let myself be brought here. We may have struck a bargain that leaves the Aether Kingdom out of his desires to install himself as high king, but the babe I will now continue to bear changes things significantly. Malachi and I will never not be at odds going forward. The point of our marriage is to convince the vassal monarchs to defect from Rishaud and support Malachi and me as their recognized high king and queen, with our babe of dual royal blood as the exalted, Celestials-blessed heir to Malachi’s envisioned Seven Kingdoms.”
“Exactly!”
“But, Mother, I don’t want that future for myself. I only want to rule my own ancestral court. I don’t want to be some powermad despot who rids Nimani of Rishaud simply to duplicate—orexpand—his tyranny. And I don’t want any child I bear to be raised as an heir to a throne erected atop brutal tyranny and savagery.
“Consider this,” she continued. “Malachi didn’toncestop to consider the hemorrhaging of fae lives or how to staunch any tide of death. All he wants, all he can ultimately see, is his quest for revenge and power. He believes the way to ensure the continued sovereignty of his own kingdom is to crush others beneath his heel. Therefore, once he and I have used this impending marriage and child to procure the vassal monarchs’ backing so Malachi’s invasion is short-lived, and once Rishaud is dead, Malachi must then be … taken care of as well, as I’d always planned.”
The horror on Yashira’s face was evident. “But—”
