Chapter 30

30

I peered down into the ravine that I didn’t dare enter.

Red smoke filled it yesterday, and the sluggish swirling medium hadn’t budged overnight, nor as I’d lingered here.

“The other supernaturals are here, High Esteemed,” Barrow told me quietly.

I nodded. “Please bring them up.” They might be able to glean something unique from the red smoke.

As I had. The sight made my demon furious and fearful. The smoke made her want to stake a claim and also sprint from the possibility of another cage. That’s how I knew the smoke was his. In the same way I could understand and speak in the demon tongue, I knew that demons emitted a smoke display prior to violent intent. This display was the equivalent of a war dance on the brink of battle, and a warning that we should fear what came next.

I felt the chilling presence of Kyros and Basilia behind me and smelled the earthy scent of Andie and Sascha there too. The Vissimo stood on my right, and the Luthers on my left. Wild didn’t like not being here, but he and Delta were swamped while rearranging lines and talking with Sage about shifts in strategy too.

“Your advisor told us of the development,” the Vissimo prince said in his cold voice. “All four ravines are this way?”

“Yes. We’ve sealed the chamber containing the fifth gate. The room is filled with red smoke too.”

“This will make defense harder,” Andie muttered.

We had four ravines to guard now, not just four gates. We’d pulled our sentries farther away, which meant less warning. The red smoke was a visual cover for the demons too. “The best course will be to push the demon king back to his realm once we’ve discovered what we can. And a way to safely manage that,” I told them.

Sascha asked, “What have your magus found so far?”

I glanced at the four-affinity teams working up and down the ravine ledges, each trying to sense something from the red smoke. “The smoke is poisonous to touch and ulcerates the skin. There’s an element of the past in the demon king’s power. His magic is not just of him. Something ancient clings to this smoke.”

“What do you mean?” Basilia glanced at me.

“Magus magic is inherited from our ancestors and divided amongst living relatives of that line. There’s potential that demon magic is passed in a similar way, or there’s something more unique about the demon king to explore. He has access to something ancient that has infused or augmented his magic.”

“Father will be intrigued by this theory,” the crown prince mused. He peered into the smoke. “There is shifting beneath the surface. Shapes I cannot make out.”

“I smell decay and individual scents,” Sascha said.

Andie hummed. “As do I. A lot of them. Too many to pick out.”

The demons were gathering in the ravine?

Basilia bent down and tossed a rock over the edge. All of us looked at her, but she listened hard after.

She looked at Kyros after a minute. “The rock never landed.”

“So is there a protective force over the smoke other than the poison that hurts us,” I pondered aloud.

Sascha cocked his head. “Or did the rock go elsewhere?”

“Elsewhere like the demon realm.” Andie followed his train of thought.

Kyros straightened. “The demon king has expanded his realm into the ravine, not simply taken up space in ours.”

Shit. That hadn’t occurred to me. If Sascha was right, we had a few patches of demon realm in our knolls.

“This is market research, for sure,” the princess put in. “For us too. So, shall we start planning? I have a mani-pedi with Tommy this evening.”

The surrounding magus had listened to every word we’d said, and they seemed impressed by what the other supernaturals had put together. If they knew what a mani-pedi was, they may be less impressed.

I led the others down the alpine slope, sending a jet of magic at Basilia’s high heels when I noticed them.

She winked at me after.

“Who’s Tommy?” I asked.

“My bestie. You’ll meet her soon enough. She wants your cousin to do the drink magic on her.”

Drink magic. “I’m sure that can be arranged.”

We gathered in the advisory chamber, and I took my authority while the others spread out in the available seats.

Wild entered the chamber in a burst and swooped to kiss my cheek. “My love.”

“Anything new?”

“We’ve placed groups at key points along each ravine. Our numbers are more spread out, which is an obvious disadvantage. Alarms are being set along the ravines and below the surfaces as well as surrounding your quarters on all sides. We’ve set a range of masking spells in case any demons in the ravine are attempting to gather intel.”

Good. “We have suspicions that the demons have expanded their realm into the ravines and my quarters.”

“I agree,” he surprised me by saying.

Wild took the seat on my right.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I fear you entering the smoke as I fear you entering the demon realm.”

Kyros and Sascha both riveted their focus on him.

“You can’t follow her there?” Sascha asked.

He and Kyros both looked at their mates after.

Wild shook his head. “I suspect not. I’m not willing to test the theory.”

New tension rippled through the males in the room.

“Any updates from your territories?” I asked the other supernaturals.

Kyros was the only one who hadn’t sat. “The gates remain closed. No more have been found. Defenses have been formed at the sites. Are you able to set alarms on our gates and key them to alert us of any change?”

“We can. And we can ensure that the alarms reach the rest of us too.” I looked at the Luthers.

“No change for us either. You were right. This is where the demon king plans to begin,” Andie said. “What about here? Anything else new?”

Coven business was coven business, and yet I did feel these supernaturals should know somewhat of the difficulties within the coven. “There’s dissent from a group within our caves that worsens with outside influence from another coven who would see a leader of their choice on our authority. Also from the effects of the demon magic to some degree. I must tread carefully until the internal threat is managed or I fear we will be too divided or distracted to fight as we should.”

“That’s the hardest kind of threat tomanage,” Andie said. “When I was leading the tribe, they found out I’d become a Luther. Let’s just say they weren’t happy, my sister included.”

So that’s what happened between them.

My heart rose in my throat. “How did you bring the tribe around?”

“By showing them that I wasn’t—that Luthers weren’t—something to fear. That we were real, too, and held similar hopes and dreams and fears to them. That we could be one side and that the fighting could stop.”

My heart splattered on the floor. There went my hope of following a set of guidelines to tell the coven I was a demon. I didn’t think I’d have much success selling them on the hopes and dreams and fears of demons.

“This news affects you,” Kyros said to me.

He’d been listening to my heartbeat. “Unlike your games, ours was never won. I simply came into a fourth affinity, gained the position of leader, and the game ended as a result. Some are happy about that, and others are not. The issue will work out one way or another, but I wished you to know as coven allies that you could be dealing with another leader at some point.”

“Our alliance is with you,” the Vissimo prince said. “My father will not deal with just any magus. He sees potential in you. Much potential, I might add. I have never seen him treat someone as an equal before. You must hold great power.”

I dabbled. “I would not wish to place your father in that position. Hopefully the situation doesn’t come to that. For now, we must continue moving forward. We meet today to discuss how best to unite our forces and various strengths, weaknesses, and uniquities to battle demonkind. Shall we set our attention there now?”

Princess Basilia interlocked her hands on the stone table. “While King Julius is unwilling to provide you with details of individual Vissimo power levels, he is willing to provide you with numbers.”

“Which are?” Wild asked.

“Five hundred and seventy of our strongest will be at your disposal,” she answered. “The rest will remain behind to guard our gates and territory.”

Nearly six hundred. I hadn’t expected half that number. “We thank King Julius for his generosity.”

“We do not operate like your coven,” the prince told me. “We cannot. A Vissimo is not wired the same as a magus. My father is ruler, and those in his territory are his subjects. If he tells them to go to battle, they do. If someone in his clan rises against him, he crushes that Vissimo.”

I’d like to apply those rules to Frond, but I didn’t connect with that setup of complete power in general. Then again, Vissimo were wired differently to magus. I felt there was a need for disagreement. What I had to figure out was how to manage disagreement.

Sascha leaned back on his chair. “Our numbers are not so sizeable. We can offer you one hundred and twenty of our people. A lesser amount will remain behind with the sick and vulnerable and to guard the gates. We don’t have enough numbers to guard our gates well anyway, so what we ask is that, if the alarms you set go off, a small number of Vissimo and magus can split away with our Luthers to protect our lands.”

If we got split in two or three, then the demons did too. “I see no harm in that.”

“We’re also happy to provide you with the power levels of those in our pack and tribe,” Andie said. “If you ever misuse that information, then I hope you understand what you would lose.”

I dipped my head. “That is information that only I and Wild will know. You can be assured we are fully aware of the honor you bestow with such knowledge. In return, I will offer you the details of our magus. It’s only fair.”

“The details of your magus,” Kyros murmured. “Perhaps Father would reconsider if that’s on the table.”

Did I want King Julius to know the exact force he’d need to crush our coven? No.

“Training forces of this size will take thought,” Wild said. “I believe we’re best to initially work with groups of the most powerful fighters. They can take back what we figure out together to their respective territories to train the larger group.”

That made sense. “We’ll need to practice on a larger scale periodically.”

The Vissimo prince nodded. “That should take place outside of your territory. We can’t know the extent to which the demon king is able to spy on what we do here.”

True. “You each have a force in mind?” I asked the supernaturals.

Sascha and Andie looked at each other. A minute went by before she answered, “Yes. A group of ten including us.”

“My eight siblings will attend,” Kyros announced. “In addition to Basilia and myself.”

King Julius and Queen Titania had been busy.

“I suggest we rotate the location of trainings to limit the inconvenience to our rule,” Andie said. “It may be good for each of our peoples to see the others at work too. That held value for me in the past.”

I rested back. Decision and discussion just came easy with this group.

“And what of your mating?” Basilia asked me, glancing at Wild.

A quick look told me he was staring a hole in my forehead again.

“What about it?” I murmured.

“He’s got it bad,” Sascha said, smirking.

“I dohave it bad,” Wild admitted. “We’re at the final step.”

There was a communal ahh and dawning comprehension from the other supernaturals.

Andie was beaming. “The best step.”

“And most intense,” Basilia added. “Good luck with that.”

“You’ll be less vulnerable and will gain new power when the mating is complete,” Kyros stated.

By now, I respected that our mating ritual was linked to everything happening. I’d also woken this morning very curious about Wild’s insides and using them how and when I liked, so I wasn’t sure we could go much longer before completing the ritual even if we wanted to.

And I certainly didn’t want to wait much more than a second.

Wild took my hand. “We’ll receive the last gift when we’re meant to.”

The last gift.

I suppose it would be.