by Eva Chase
That was my answer then.
“No,” I said, my heart thumping a little harder as I said the word. “We can’t enter a new alliance already on the verge of burning their homes to the ground.”
“Aaron,” my sister said, but I cut her off with a shake of my head.
“Serenity watched her own mother die at the fae’s hands,” I said. “She’s still willing to give them a chance despite that. If she can be that generous, so can we.”
Ren
The clearing where I’d met the fae monarch before looked so much smaller from high above. The little pink flowers nearly blended into the green of the grass.
There was no sign of the monarch or any other fae yet. My nostrils didn’t pick up any scent that worried me, only the green smells of the wilderness with a faint floral sweetness.
I swept over the trees, the leaves rustling in my wake, and landed in the middle of the field. With a shake, my dragon’s body constricted back into my human form. I’d dropped the leather bag I’d brought with me on the ground beside me. I pulled the dress I’d packed over my head and left the crystal tablets inside the bag. If I had to shift again to make a quick exit, I wanted to be able to grab my cargo quickly with my dragon talons.
It was only a minute or two before the towering but spindly fae woman with her crown of living vine strode from the woods at the other end of the field. No delegation accompanied her this time.
I drew in a breath, testing the breeze. A cloying smell had trickled into the air, more than I could attribute to just her. I suspected she’d brought company but left them behind in the forest when she’d seen I was alone.
Well, fair enough. I couldn’t blame her for being cautious. The fact that she was coming out here to meet me without any guards at her side, when I could transform into a dragon in a matter of seconds, was a gesture of trust in itself.
She stopped a few paces from me, shoulders back and head high. I’d almost forgotten those eyes, large and stark like black diamonds against her pale skin. The silver blond waves of her hair seemed to clothe her almost as much as her thin but elegant dress.
I supposed I looked a lot less elegant than I had before, with my hair wind-rumpled and this dress I’d picked for ease of changing rather than for looks. But I wasn’t here to try to impress her this time. I just wanted her to listen.
“Thank you for coming,” I said. “I know you didn’t have to.”
The monarch acknowledged my comment with a slow blink. “I assume you wouldn’t make such an urgent request without good reason. Only a fool avoids information they might need.”
Okay, so she wasn’t any warmer in personality than she’d been last time, but I hadn’t expected anything else.
“You know the vampires have been attacking us,” I said. “They’ve said they want to wipe out shifters completely. They’ve been killing my kin in the cruelest ways, innocent people who’ve done nothing to them.”
Her jaw tightened. “I have heard of this.”
I couldn’t read her expression. “You’re not on their side, are you? I know we’ve had our conflicts, I know you’ve been willing to look the other way when your people have acted against us—but you don’t agree with outright slaughter like this, do you?”
I couldn’t mistake the twist of her lips and the flicker in her eyes now. It was horror. “Absolutely not,” she said sharply. “We will protect our own as we need to, but senseless killing is completely abhorrent. The vampires are abhorrent. We have been willing to keep our peace with them only as they offer the same to us.”
That was a step in the right direction. “And do you really think you can trust them to leave you in peace if you let them exterminate us without saying a peep? Once they’ve eliminated the shifters, what’s to stop them from coming after you next?”
“That is a matter I have given much thought.”
But had she drawn any conclusions? She obviously didn’t want to make this conversation at all easy for me.
I bent to pick up my bag. “I think both our peoples will be better off if we can set aside our grievances with each other at least long enough to push back this threat. But I’m not coming just to ask you to offer help. I wanted to offer you something first. I want you to be able to see how relations between shifters and fae have looked through our eyes.”
I pulled out the crystals. The monarch’s eyes widened.
“My dragon shifter ancestors recorded pieces of our history into these tablets,” I said. “Some of it relating to the fae. So that we could each learn from what’s happened before. That’s what I’ve tried to do. And I don’t like being near-enemies with you when I know it could be different. No one has ever seen these before except the dragon shifters. But I think you deserve to.”
I handed the more recent record to her. She looked down at the etchings. “What is this one?”
“A dragon shifter’s account of the first major falling out between our people,” I said. “Can you activate it?”
“I think…” She traced her long fingers over the image and nodded. Her eyes slid shut. A glow streamed up from the crystal, brightening the shimmer of her skin.
Did I light up like that when I was accessing those records, or was that only because of her magic?
She must have been able to absorb the account faster than I did. After just a few minutes, her eyelids stuttered open. A purplish flush had colored her cheeks. She thrust the tablet back into my hands.
“That isn’t how it happened at all. Your dragon shifter then refused to even bring the responsible shifters with her so our monarch could talk to them directly. She wouldn’t accept any compromise. And this talk about stealing your fire—we have never wanted to steal anything from you.”
“Hey,” I said, raising my hands. “I didn’t think everything she said was completely accurate. I just wanted you to know what all the dragon shifters before me have had to go by. That’s how that moment seemed to them. It’s easier to blame the other person, isn’t it?”
The monarch’s eyes were still glittering with anger. “I didn’t come here to be told—”
“Wait. Just wait. That isn’t the only thing I wanted you to see.” I fumbled for the second tablet and offered it to her. “This is the one that brought me here. This is the one that made me think we could do so much better.”
She frowned, but she accepted the tablet. With a graze of her fingers, the glow flowed up her arms again. I waited, my stomach clenched with anticipation, as the more hopeful piece of our history washed over her.
This time, when the visions were finished, she lowered the tablet more gently, still holding on to it. A shadow of sorrow crossed her face. “It’s hard to imagine,” she said.
“I know. But that’s how it was between us before. The power I hold inside me, your people and mine created together, for our mutual good. Because the fae once thought that what benefited the dragon shifters benefitted them as well. That we’d support each other.”
“But much has happened since then.”
I swallowed hard. “Yes. I heard some of the complaints one of the local fae leaders made, just from recent years. My kin have hurt your people. I hate that it happened, but I’m not going to deny it. Accidents will happen, but I think there must be ways to make sure they happen less. And to make sure we accept responsibility where it’s due.”
The monarch gazed at me for a long moment. She looked a little startled by my admission. “We have hurt your kind too,” she admitted quietly. “We have let resentment grow. I have let cruelties go unpunished. We should have been better than that.” She exhaled. “But it isn’t so easy to turn back time. The wrongs done have already been done. Trust already broken.”
“I know,” I said. “And I’m willing to talk through anything we need to talk through. I don’t expect that we’re going to trust each other immediately. I just want us to hear each other more, to start with. And I’m hoping you’ll help us defend ourselves from the vampires so we’re still around to
do that.”
“You want us to throw ourselves into the line of fire on your behalf?”
“No!” I said quickly. “I, er, was actually thinking it might be possible for you to help us without even extending yourselves all that much. What the previous dragon shifters said, about stealing our fire—the way we worked together in the past, combining our strengths… Is there some way you can use my fire?”
She hesitated. Then she inclined her head. “Yes. We can connect our magic to your spirit. Channel that power through our own. That is how your flames of truth were made, with the power of that dragon shifter before.”
I liked the sound of that. “How long can you hold onto that power? And from how far away?”
“For as long as you sustain it,” the monarch said. “And for a short time longer, depending on how much we’ve gathered. One of us would need to be with you, accepting it. But that one could pass the flames on to the rest of our kind wherever they might be.”
My heart skipped a beat. “So I could be in one place, and a bunch of you could be in other places, and we could rain down dragon fire on all those sets of vampires at the same time?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Yes. If we agreed to help you. If I thought it worth the risk.”
This was exactly what we needed. How could I convince her I meant everything I’d said?
The second the question passed through my mind, a memory swam up: my violet flames streaming down over the fae woman in front of me. Forcing her to admit the truth. My heart skipped again, in a much more nervous way, but I forced myself to speak.
“If you could borrow my regular fire, then you could also use my truth-seeking flames, couldn’t you?”
She considered me. “Yes.”
“Then use them on me like I did on you, before.” The corner of my mouth curled up in a slight smile. “It’s only fair, right?”
For the second time in this meeting, she stared at me as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. Then she collected herself. “You’ll need to shift back into your human form for me to question you.”
“Of course. Are you ready?”
She moved back a couple steps. I tugged off my dress, my pulse racing now. I was giving her the opportunity to ask me anything, and I’d have to answer honestly. Who knew what vulnerabilities I had that she might exploit, that I wasn’t prepared for?
But I was asking a lot from her people. I had to give in return. And this was the best I could offer.
I was dragon shifter of the shifter kin, and I would not be afraid.
I shifted as quickly as I comfortably could. As always, the flames of my twin fires tickled the back of my dragon throat. I reached toward the violet ones and let them flow down my throat.
I didn’t blast them at the monarch the way I had when she’d been trying to march away from me last time. Instead I let them drift down toward her gently. She’d already raised her hands as if to catch them. And that’s what she did. As the violet haze reached her hands, she seemed to ball it between her palms, collecting it.
After a moment, she nodded. I closed my mouth and shifted back, bracing myself for the interrogation.
The monarch’s shimmer flared brighter. She pushed her hands toward me, and the violet flames streamed from her grasp.
They shot up over me from foot to head with a tight, prickling pressure. Okay, this wasn’t being burned alive, but it was pretty far from pleasant. Something to keep in mind when I decided who to apply these flames to in the future.
I couldn’t move out of them, couldn’t convince my body to do anything except stand there, pinned. And to answer her questions as she asked them.
“Why have you come to me today?” she said.
My mouth opened automatically. The words spilled out, beyond my control. That was fine. I didn’t fight the process.
“Because I’m afraid the vampires will destroy my people, and I think working with the fae is our best chance of survival. And because I would like to form a new alliance, with more trust and friendship between us, if that’s possible.”
“What will you do if we join you in fighting the vampires?”
“Offer whatever power I can for you to use where I can’t be myself. And any other support you need to help us.”
“And after the fighting is over, if we’ve defeated the vampires?”
“I want to talk about how we can move forward. How to heal the damage we’ve done to each other in the past. How to adapt to the ways our world has changed together instead of clashing with each other so much.”
She paused. “Do you want revenge for your mother’s death?”
My eyes heated at the thought of Mom’s death, but the answer came immediately. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you already punished the fae who murdered her. And I understand why you felt threatened by us, enough that you hadn’t punished them before. And I know my kin have looked the other way when your kin have been killed by our carelessness. I’d rather find a way to move forward from all that. I think that’s what my mother would have wanted too.”
I hadn’t even realized that last part, but it was true. I might not have known Mom as a dragon shifter for very long, but she’d always taught me to see all sides of a problem, to remember that my perspective wasn’t the only one. To find ways to make something good out of any situation.
The monarch dropped her hands. The flames sputtered away into the air. I stumbled forward before catching my balance. A sweat had broken out on my forehead.
“Does that satisfy you?” I asked.
Her expression had gone unreadable again. “I asked everything I wanted to.”
“And what you did there, you could do the same with my burning flames, aiming them at the vampires.”
“Yes, as I said before.” She brushed her hands together. “But I haven’t said we will help you yet. Leave. I need time to think it through.”
My heart sank. “If you’re going to help, it’ll need to be soon. They’re coming at us again tonight.”
She fixed me with a hard look. “I need time,” she repeated. Then she turned and stalked away.
Chapter 19
Ren
I could tell the two figures in the avian estate’s hall were arguing before I could even hear them. Both of the middle-aged men stood with chests puffed and faces darkened.
Shit. With the threat of the vampires looming, the last thing we needed was to be fighting among ourselves. I hurried over.
“I told you, there isn’t enough space,” the guy in the guest bedroom doorway insisted.
“There are only four of you in there,” the other man said in a growl of a voice. “Your alpha said each room could take ten.”
“Why don’t you find one with your own kin?”
“There aren’t any other badger shifters here. My wife and I are the only ones.”
The two shifters jerked back from each other when they saw me coming up on them. The guy who already held the room—a hawk shifter, I gathered from his scent—looked about ready to swallow his tongue. Too bad I couldn’t make him actually do that.
“What seems to be the problem here?” I asked, setting my hands on my hips. “I think the instructions about the rooms were pretty clear.”
The hawk shifter ducked his head. “My apologies, dragon shifter. I just thought… There are still more rooms with openings… This fellow might be happier with shifters more like him.”
The badger shifter groaned. “This is the first room I’ve found that has space, and I’m tired of asking. I just want somewhere for my wife and I to rest. We traveled all day getting here. And we plan on helping defend your estate all night if we have to.”
“Okay,” I said. “We’re all tense because we’re all worried about tonight. I get it. But let’s try not to take it out on each other, all right?” My gaze settled on the hawk shifter. “If you don’t think you can share this room with anyone who’s not an avian shifter without squabbling, the f
our of you can come with me and I’ll find you spots in other rooms. It sounds as if this gentleman has been on his feet long enough.”
The hawk shifter looked from me to the badger shifter as he weighed his options. His expression turned chagrined. “We’ll appreciate your help in fighting off the vampires,” he said to the other guy. “Come on, get your rest.”
He didn’t sound exactly happy about it, but the offer was genuine enough that I stepped back. The badger shifter smiled and motioned to a woman who’d just come into the hallway.
More kin were already gathering around the guest bedroom doors all down the hall. The estate was packed, and the refugees from various shifter communities hadn’t stopped trickling in. Everyone had heard about the villages that had been decimated last night. No one wanted to risk being next to face that carnage.
We still hadn’t gotten any word from the fae.
Well, if they didn’t come through, we’d just have to make the best we could of the situation on our own. And that meant having a conversation I’d been dreading.
I continued out into the common rooms. Aaron was holding court with a few of his advisors and some of the newcomers. I caught his eye and tipped my head toward our private wing of the house. He nodded.
As he finished his conversation, I ducked out into the courtyard. Nate was showing a bunch of the young shifters the best way to quickly take down a vampire at close range. They copied his swipe through the air with their own hands. Marco was giving what looked like a stern talking-to to a couple of bobcat shifters who I was going to guess had been messing with the avian kin.
And West… I reached out through our bond and felt his presence near the wall at the side of the estate. At my gentle tug, I felt a tickle of acknowledgement. He was coming.
Marco had finished his dressing-down and was already strolling over. I gestured to Nate. “I need to talk to all of you.”
The bear shifter cuffed one of his young students lightly on the shoulder. “Keep practicing,” he told them, and ambled to join me.
