Chapter 31

Iwaited for everyone to take their seats and wipe away their tears, especially Anaria, whose emotions I sensed as keenly as my own.

My love was too quiet, even now that the crown had changed hands, as if a terrible weight still lay upon her shoulders.

But this was more than that. Down to her very essence, Anaria was exhausted.

Afraid, though she'd never openly admit it, hiding behind clever sayings and bright, arrogant grins. But I saw her. A brilliant puzzle, one I wanted so badly to solve.

And that bit about trading healing for the crown…My eyes slid over to Tavion, his eyes in slits as he studied her, lips clamped in a tight, angry line. Whatever was going on between them had something to do with that trade.

All I wanted was to get Anaria alone, hold her in my arms, soothe her rattled nerves, and make sure there wasn't a scratch on her, especially now that I'd discovered she been thrown off a fucking parapet.

If Tristan hadn't torn that witch apart, I would have.

Raziel and Dane slipped in through the door, taking up positions beside Tristan and Simon. Raz gave me an imperceptible shake of his head. No, we didn't find Solomon. I ground my teeth together.

Anaria was not safe until that bastard was locked up.

The exchange of power had been easy, but this was the tricky part of today's meeting, and Tavion pushed his chair out in case he had to move quickly.

I cleared my throat and waited for the whispering to die down. "I hope by now you know Adele's scheming did not extend to her daughter, nor the rest of us. However, her betrayal forces us to make a request, my priestess."

Vesper's expression turned grim as she motioned for me to continue.

"We cannot take Adele where we are going. Frankly, we don't trust her, and we cannot afford to look over our shoulders or, worse, have her undermine us. We would…Anaria would like to request sanctuary for her mother here at Stormfall. Not imprisonment, per se, but somewhere she could live safely without bars on the windows and doors."

Anaria took a shaky breath, and I had to stop myself from cradling her in my arms as she told them how she'd freed her mother from the Tempeste dungeons and everything that came after.

"You can understand why I don't want Adele to see the inside of a prison cell again," she said softly. "I wondered if…perhaps you could find something for her to do here, something to occupy her mind and give her a sense of purpose."

Vesper and Bella held another of those silent conversations before Bella dipped her head. "We will find something constructive to keep her busy and we will not lock her up." Then her face took on the same hard expression as her mother's. "However, if she does not follow our laws, she will be punished according to our customs."

"I understand." Anaria's voice shook so badly I had to clench my hands to keep myself from reaching for her. Sometimes I wondered if freeing Adele was the biggest mistake we'd ever made.

"We finally have a chance to build something better." Bella's voice turned softer. "Witches are not cruel by nature. But scheming for power is how Vireena's corruption began, with small, quiet steps that led to terrible fates for all of us. We cannot allow a repeat of those events, not when our new government is so fragile."

"We expect Adele to earn her place within this coven and to follow your laws," I said quietly, brushing my hand down Anaria's arm. "But if she breaks them, she will be prepared for the consequences."

Vesper tapped her finger three times, while Bella answered, "That is fair." Her pale brown eyes flickered over me, Anaria, and Tavion, then drifted to where Tristan, Simon, Zeph, and Torin were clustered in the corner.

"You spoke earlier of a threat. A war that is coming. Explain this threat."

"We are going after the Shadow King, but there is a bigger battle looming. Much like the rot that corrupted your coven, a sickness corrupts our world. If we do not stop the spread, we are all doomed."

Curiosity sparked in Bella's pale eyes as she leaned closer, "Where does this rot come from?"

Anaria mirrored her pose. "How much do you know about the beings we call the Old Gods?" I held my breath as the two females studied one another, like two sides of a coin.

"They are gone now. But they were once terrible and mighty." Bella shook her head. "They are mentioned in some of our older texts."

Beside me, Anaria tensed. "These stories are in your library? Written down in books?"

Over in the corner, Zephryn lifted his head, his dark gaze pinned on the curly haired witch who continued. "All our histories are all written down, going back to before the Great Fall. We kept careful records up until three centuries ago when Vireena came to power. She did not"—Bella's lip curled up in a sneer—"deem the library a worthy cause and had the doors boarded shut."

Interesting. I caught Tristan's narrowed gaze across the room. Interesting that three centuries ago Torin and the Oracle struck a bargain to reclaim the magic, and this coven—Anaria's bloodline—came under the rule of a monster.

There were no coincidences in life.

Only purpose.

I didn't know what Anaria was after, not exactly. She'd barely had time to catch me up on her almost murder before we were in here, handing back power and crowns and forging alliances, as if our time was running out.

But my lover was clever, and I trusted whatever information she was searching for in this library was important.

"May I see your library?" Anaria's fingers dug into the flesh above her knees, and I set my hand over hers, feeling her trembling through every bone in my body. "I have some questions that must be answered, and I believe…we believe those answers could be here."

"This has to do with the coming war?" a young, pretty witch in a bright yellow dress asked gruffly. "Or the rot that is corrupting the world?"

"Both," Anaria said vaguely. "The war and the corruption stem from the same source." She swallowed. "But that battle comes after we've killed the Shadow King and freed Solarys."

Someone else scoffed. "You speak of killing him as if you can stroll into Solarys and strike his head from his shoulders. Serpens has a mighty army, the largest ever assembled." She looked us over, a touch of scorn on her lips. "You have nothing except yourselves."

I refrained from pointing out we had a dragon and a wyvern, along with the most powerful female in the entire world, but Anaria laid her hand on my arm. "I admit, I was hoping for an alliance when I came here even though only half your blood flows in my veins. And you are right. We have nothing except ourselves. But even so, we will fight to free Solarys."

I'd never been as proud of Anaria as when she said, "And if we have to give all of ourselves to liberate the people there, then so be it. When I was a slave, I swore I'd fight for everyone trapped in servitude. Now that I have power that is what I intend to do."

I opened my mouth to point out that she'd freed these witches as well when Zephryn, of all people, swung his feet down off the chair and shoved to his impressive height. His lazy smile raked over the room, leaving everyone shifting uncomfortably in their seats.

Anaria might be the most powerful in the room, but the dragon shifter was the biggest predator.

"True, we have no army. But there is enough gold in Darkhold to fund the biggest army ever amassed in the history of this godsforsaken world." The dragon shifter dipped his head to Anaria. "You want to kill Serpens and take back Solarys? I will give you enough gold to do so."

"Or we assassinate him," Raz muttered from the back of the room. When everyone turned in disbelief, the bastard just shrugged. "What? No armies going to war, no innocents dying for his cause. Or ours."

"You're suggesting we go into Solarys and get close enough to the Shadow King—and we'd have to get pretty fucking close—and stick a knife in his heart?" I shook my head. "You are certifiable."

"Well, preferably between his third and fifth rib, but yes, that is what I'm suggesting."

"And who would do the honors?"

"I've killed over two hundred people for that monster because of that fucking collar." Raz shrugged again, even more casually this time, and every eye in the room fell on the line around his throat. "What's one more?"

"How much gold is at Darkhold?" Anaria asked instead. "And doesn't it belong to someone?"

"There is nothing left of my kingdom, and if the gold can do some good, it would be better to free an enslaved kingdom than rot under a mountain of rock." Zephryn managed a faint smile. "Yes, I know, that is not very dragon-like thinking, but it is how a king thinks. I would like to propose a formal alliance, Anaria of Caladrius. Between the Kingdom of Darkhold and you."

Everyone in the room was sitting upright, their eyes ping-ponging between Anaria and the dragon shifter sucking up all the air in the room.

"I'm not sure what I could offer you in return, Zephryn," Anaria murmured softly.

"You have the will to change the world. And that, alone, is worth every ounce of gold beneath Darkhold."