“After weeks of planning, you tell us it can’t be done?” Sara demanded, clearly outraged.
“No,” Nathaniel snapped. “These weeks of planning have made it clear how it must be done. We cannot destroy the vampires, but we can destroy their empire, thoroughly enough that Silver’s line can step forward and eliminate any opportunity for Midnight to rebuild.”
“You mean to destroy the property instead of the owners,” Kral said. “Will that work?”
“It will work as long as someone else steps in to control Jeshickah and her kin while they are weak,” Jager answered. “We’ll make sure that happens.”
Predictably, Sara was the one who raised her voice to object. “When you say ‘property’ you don’t just mean buildings. You’re talking about slaves. You’re talking about killing hundreds of people, some our own flesh and blood.”
“They used to be,” Nathaniel echoed. “Now they’re not.”
“We saw that demonstration,” Averill said quietly. “Any of our kin would be willing to give their lives if it means ending this empire. But what happens after that? Is this new leadership any better?”
All eyes turned to Jager, my own included. Would he assure us all that his line would be wise and generous leaders?
Instead, he laughed. “There is absolutely nothing I can say to you that you will trust. So what’s the point?” Lila whispered something to him, and he sighed. “Fine. If it helps, I’ll tell you this. I’ve been a slave. I don’t approve. One of my line was once a shapeshifter. She says we should let them be. One of us used to be a witch. She…honestly, she doesn’t care what we do with you, but we have no reason to exterminate you and no desire to subjugate you. And though my friend here is not of my line,” he added, looking at Lila, “I value her highly, and she speaks quite fiercely on your behalf. Does that help?”
Averill and Sara exchanged a heavy look, and dropped their objections. I considered pressing for more information, but what else was there to ask? If he was being honest, we would all be much better off after Silver’s line took over. If he was lying, there was no way for me to force the truth from him.
“Even if Silver’s line says they can help control their kind afterward,” Sara argued reasonably, “surely it would be more direct to just cut the head off the snake—Mistress Jeshickah.”
Nathaniel exchanged a look with the robed figure, who nodded. “Jeshickah keeps the hunters who have tried that as her personal pets,” Nathaniel said. “You may yet encounter some when they fight to protect their mistress. Protecting us from their magic is part of what I need you for in this fight. And if you did succeed,” he continued, “you would shortly thereafter find yourself experiencing pain beyond the scope of your imagination, at the hands either of Jeshickah’s kin, or the true immortals who protect her. Silver’s line might not want to exterminate your kind, but if you cross Jeshickah’s allies, they will destroy every last man, woman, and child of your bloodline. Starting with your daughter…Elisabeth, right?”
Sara reached over her shoulder for a knife, and suddenly the forest was a sea of weapons. I stepped back into the deeper shadows of the forest, hoping my power would keep me and Vance unnoticed if this meeting turned bloody. The only people who did not draw steel—aside from myself—were Jager, Alejandra, the sakkri, and Keyi. Keyi didn’t know how to fight. The others’ expressions said clearly that they needed no weapons to defend themselves.
Before Sara’s blade had even cleared its sheath, Shevaun was on her, deflecting her arm. Averill moved to defend her fellow witch; all Adjila did was reach out and touch her arm, but I heard Averill scream.
Chaos. I stopped trying to track what was going on. Had Nathaniel anticipated this? Did he have a plan to stop it? I looked up and caught his gaze an instant before Keyi stepped forward, shouting, “Enough!”
Her voice rang through the forest, sending a pulse of power through the web Nathaniel had wrapped us all in. The sakkri’s magic caused her voice to echo in a more familiar language.
All around me, I saw combatants hesitate.
“One doesn’t need to be native to this land to understand we are mostly enemies, or at the best, neutral toward each other,” Keyi said. “That gives us plenty of room to bicker like children, as doubtless you have done since Midnight first rose, as doubtless you have done over the years as Midnight enslaved your loved ones. I have been told that Midnight encourages such conflict to ensure none can successfully stand against them. We can continue to fight now if you wish—or we can stop stalling and cast our lots. Ahnmik declares that Midnight must fall. Are we in agreement?”
There was silence for long moments as the others reacted, some gratefully and some resentfully.
Alejandra spoke first. “I speak for the followers of Malinalxochitl and the Azteka: Midnight must fall.”
Next was Kral. “I and mine are with you.”
Sara and Averill exchanged glances, and finally Sara said, “I would rather a more…direct solution, but anything that will weaken Jeshickah’s empire must be done. We are with you.”
Nathaniel took over, and addressed each of the rest in turn.
“Shevaun?”
The vampiress grinned. “As ever, willing to fight.”
“Adjila?”
The witch wrapped an arm around Shevaun’s waist. “As my lady wishes.”
“Obsidian?”
I shivered when he looked at me, fighting to suppress the echoes and competing voices of all the possible futures, all waiting for our decision. I swallowed hard, and could only nod wordlessly.
“Lila?”
I saw the two witches tense again as the golden-haired vampire nodded. “I am with you.” Lila looked to Sara and Averill, and added sadly, “With my once-sisters.”
“Does this suit you?” Nathaniel asked of Jager, who nodded. Turning to the hooded figure, he added, “And you?” The cloaked figure also nodded, though the movement was hesitant. Apparently I wasn’t the only one wondering where this mob might go.
“And the Shantel?”
All eyes turned to the sakkri.
“We are with you.”
“You all know your assignments. I brought us together today to make sure we are all clear on our intentions, and to get any…unpleasant surprises out of the way. We have only five weeks left before the fall equinox, and much to do in that time. Any questions?” Nathaniel asked. He let several seconds pass in silence before saying, “Good. I will see you all back here at sunset, September the twenty-second.”
And on that night, if the ever-fickle Fate was on our side, we would destroy the world as we knew it.
“I’M RUNNING OUT OF TIME,” Lorelei hissed in a savage whisper that chilled Alasdair to the bone. “I tried, my daughter. I tried so hard. When you are queen, you will understand.”
Alasdair bit her lip, knowing it was useless to argue. It wasn’t the first time since this illness had come on that Lorelei had mistaken her for Miriam. Usually, she spoke as if Alasdair were still seven, instead of almost twenty. Occasionally, Lorelei forgot she had a second daughter at all.
“Yes, Mother,” Alasdair agreed, because the blazing golden eyes staring at her would allow nothing else.
“That…that’s good,” Lorelei said, nodding. Her grip relaxed, and Alasdair was able to pull away. “Run along, then. You’re late to your lessons.”
Alasdair left as slowly and politely as she could stand to, but it was still too quickly to be seemly. Fleeing that sickroom and returning to her own room wasn’t sufficient. Her heart was hammering in her chest and she knew if she didn’t get away, she would start screaming and never stop. Then the avian court would have two mad royal women instead of one.
She took to the sky. She had no destination, but every time she considered turning around the panic returned, so she kept flying. Eventually, hours past sundown, she ran out of solid earth and landed in a small port town that stank of salt water, ships’ cargo, and human sweat.
She changed into human f
orm in an empty alleyway. As soon as she stepped onto the street, she knew she was out of place, and in danger. Too many eyes fell on her, and most of them weren’t friendly…or were too friendly, in a predatory way she couldn’t help but understand. When she tried to return to her hawk form, though, her vision swirled. She was too exhausted to flee.
“You look lost, beautiful.”
She turned toward the new voice, which was kind and soothing and belonged to a man whose dark eyes were simultaneously gentle and intense. The brutes on the street, many of whom had moved toward her when she appeared in their midst, saw who had come to champion her and suddenly found other things to do.
—
“Anything?” Alejandra asked as I pulled out of the vision with a gasp.
I shook my head. I had tried to see the attack on Midnight, to help us anticipate otherwise unforeseen dangers, but my ever-unreliable power had found an image from the past instead. Alasdair’s words to Hara—You were put here by your enemies. I was put here by my own foolishness—had needled me since I first heard them.
I didn’t want to know why she felt responsible. No one deserved what she had gone through. But the visions that might let me help ourselves and therefore help her refused to come.
“Sorry,” I said.
Alejandra nodded, undaunted by my failure. This wasn’t the first time I had attempted to spy into our future in the two weeks since we had started working together, and most of my efforts had been equally unhelpful. Alejandra had been equally nonplussed when the sakkri had explained that her visions did not come at will, and only showed futures that were inevitable; the upcoming weeks were still too uncertain for her to see them clearly.
“I’m starting to agree with Kadee about how irritating prophecy is, anyway,” Vance remarked, his gaze straying to where the young serpent was once again working with the Shantel hunters. It was clear that Vance wished he could join that group, but he had been lumped in with us magic users for planning the attack on Midnight.
“I have nearly completed the spell for the slaves,” Alejandra said, moving on in her ever-practical way. “It will cause the madness and violence Nathaniel wishes, but in order to use it precisely, it needs to be contained in a conscious vessel. Someone needs to carry the spell in their veins, to control how it is passed on, and to whom, and to trigger the final phase at the time of the attack.”
Her gaze had barely flickered to Vance before he said, “No.”
I opened my mouth to ask how dangerous the task would be, but Alejandra cut me off. “Surely you will not attempt to coerce a born bloodwitch whose blood has already once been used to incubate a poison without his consent?”
I didn’t need Alejandra to warn me from pressing the issue; it would never have occurred to me to put Vance in that position. Whoever triggered the riot was likely to die in it, either at the hands of the trainers who came to subdue the fighting or at the flames that would then devour the building.
“Could someone else carry the spell?” I asked. “I’m not a bloodwitch, but I have some power, and I have as much access to Midnight as Vance would.” And it would give me a reason to be inside so I could go for Alasdair.
“I’m…not sure if you could serve,” Alejandra answered. “Come here.”
When I obeyed, she held out a hand. I sighed before offering her my own, which she turned palm up. She drew a small obsidian blade, uttered an invocation under her breath, and then pierced the skin of my wrist just enough for a single drop of blood to bead on the surface.
Alejandra touched the blood, closed her eyes as she rubbed it between her fingertips, and then grimaced. She recoiled from me, and wiped her hand on a rag.
“No,” she said, swallowing thickly.
“What’s wrong with him?” Vance asked, concerned by Alejandra’s disgusted reaction.
She shook her head. “His power is…” She shuddered. “It isn’t compatible with ours. That is all.”
I wondered what it was that offended her. The madness of the falcons? Something about my white-viper heritage?
“Do you need a bloodwitch for this?” Vance asked reluctantly. Last time, it had been a Shantel poison he had brought into Midnight. Vance hadn’t known about the spell until it had already almost succeeded. I could imagine how he would feel now, being asked once more to act as a vessel for such power.
“I may be able to place the power inside a human,” Alejandra said, “as long as he or she is otherwise untouched by magic.”
“We won’t send you in there,” I assured Vance.
“I’ll go if it’s our only option,” he offered, his voice small.
“We will make sure it is not our only option,” Alejandra said.
May I have some of your time?
I jumped as the sakkri’s voice floated through my head. It wasn’t the first time she had done that, but it never got less unsettling. I excused myself from Vance and Alejandra, and walked to the sakkri’s tent.
The first thing I noticed once inside was an iron bowl full of a viscous fluid that pulsed as if alive. The hypnotic, glimmering light that emanated from it made my eyes water and fill with spots as if I were looking straight into the sun, and yet it took incredible effort to look away. When I did, cold sweat broke out on my brow.
“What is that?” I gasped.
“A distillation of heat and power,” she answered. “Shantel, Azteka, shm’Ahnmik, Macht. It needs to cure longer, but then we will hammer it into the weapons for the attack. Anything it hits will burn.”
I looked back to the cauldron of deadly magic and, even though it was exactly what we needed, I shuddered at the feel of it. “How did you get falcon power?”
“Lord Alain gave Keyi a talisman containing his blood and magic in order to mark her as his,” the sakkri answered. “We were able to tie the spell to the royal falcon line through that. But you are not needed for the fire spell. You have another use.”
I was strangely relieved. Maybe it was just falcon prejudice against mixing blood, but it felt wrong.
“What can I do for you?”
“Within these woods, I could conceal an entire world from the vampires, but once we leave here, I am weaker,” the sakkri said. “The riot will distract the vampires for a few minutes, but if we want to survive after that, we need to be well hidden. My efforts to create a spell that will work outside this forest have failed so far, so I am hoping your guild’s reputation for such power is not exaggerated.”
I had often helped hide my kin from angry serpiente guards, but it would be far harder to hide a force that was actively attacking.
“I’ll do anything I can, but it won’t hold long.”
“If we work together, hopefully we can extend both our powers.”
By the time the sakkri and I parted, it was well past sunset.
Kadee had already built up the campfire at the edge of Shantel land. When I went to find him, Vance was struggling to keep his eyes politely focused as Alejandra explained that there might be times when she could use his power to support her own if he let her. “But only if you feel comfortable with that. A bloodwitch must never draw his own blood, or let it be drawn, except with deliberate and holy purpose in mind.”
I think she lost him on the word “holy.” Vance knew his blood was too powerful to throw about carelessly, but he had no interest in the religious dogma that went with Alejandra’s magic. He responded eagerly when I quoted one of Alejandra’s maxims—You must maintain your body in order to respect your power—in order to free him to join us for dinner.
“Three weeks left,” Kadee sighed. “What did the sakkri want today?”
“Help with the illusion spells that will keep us all from getting killed,” I answered, rubbing my temples. My power wasn’t as repulsive to the sakkri as it was to Alejandra, but it was still difficult to mesh white viper and Shantel magics. Hopefully the next three weeks would be enough for us to find a balance and come up with something useful. “How was hunting?”
“Tracking, today,” Kadee answered idly. “I also learned a new way to prepare elk thistle.” Nathaniel wouldn’t let Kadee be directly involved in the attack on Midnight, but she was still able to help the Shantel stockpile supplies to distribute to the other shapeshifters after Midnight fell. “How are the serpiente doing?”
“Misha has guards patrolling the forest to detain anyone trying to flee to Midnight.” My magic refused to let me see the future, but I had been able to sneak peeks of the present, both in serpiente land and in Midnight.
I knew Gabriel remained restless and distracted, his absences from Midnight growing longer and more frequent; Ashley was terrified that he had lost interest, and would give in to Jaguar’s requests to buy her. Hara was alive and uncollared. Gabriel hadn’t completely ignored her, but seemed content to occasionally amuse himself with the cobra instead of focusing his attention on breaking her.
Vance fell back on his sleeping mat with a sigh. “Alejandra is going to ask Nathaniel if Aislinn can be trusted to carry the cuatlapololiztli spell.” At Kadee’s blank look, he said, “I think she is determined to teach me her language along with everything else. That’s what she calls the spell to make all the slaves start fighting the trainers.”
“Only the slaves in the north and east wings,” I said. “She won’t be able to get to the personal slaves.” I almost stopped there, but if I couldn’t trust these two, who could I trust? “And that’s for the best. I plan to get Alasdair out during the attack.”
Vance looked like he wanted to object, but Kadee spoke first, saying, “Good. That will give you an opportunity to get Hara out, too.”
I opened my mouth to say that probably wasn’t a good idea. Hara might not be completely broken, but did we will really want a traumatized, half-mad cobra out in the world? One look at Kadee, though, made it clear this question wasn’t up for debate. If I refused to save Hara—or at least try—Kadee would never forgive me.
In the end, I valued our family more than I valued my fear or dislike of the serpiente royal house.