NOVEL NEXT 12.3 Will of the Gods
Bastion ate with an infectious delirium, gulping beer from his mug between mouthfuls of hot bread, butter, and melting cheese. Val could not prevent her own grin as she watched him. The three of them were sequestered in Dorius' guest rooms. Gustave had sent word that his men were going to attempt their kidnapping of the Second tonight, and Val was certain that their meeting was to discuss their final plans for the next few days.
With Dorius now operating openly under his cousin, word had been sent to the Phoenix to order their return from Barth, but the Company was likely at least two days out, which left their small party still navigating on their own.
Already quick negotiations had been completed with the Vigil to use High Haven for a summit, and Sylus had his own men apparently leave with the message of invitation earlier that afternoon. While it was weeks until the date set, it was still a rushed timeline with the speed of travel across the Pentarchy. In only a few short days they would lay the foundation to avert war, but objecting too vocally to the summit would have alerted Sylus to their betrayal, so Dorius had been deep in thought on how to reuse the event for his own purposes.
"You would think you are half starved?" commented Dorius, he did not turn his gaze from the letter in his hands that contained Elias' handwriting.
"I was half starved! Raw meat is not the diet for a man."
"You were not a man at the time."
Bastian leveled his knife at Dorius, "That is how you lose retainers, mocking them like that. I am just glad to taste a flavor other than blood again."
Ja'to and Ka'name hovered near the doorway on a relaxed guard, both seeming at ease with a familiar duty. Dorius had accepted them without question, and they needed only the barest order from Val to take diligently to their new duties.
"Has the Vigil tracked you down yet?" asked Dorius, continuing his reading.
"They will. I have no doubt they will," sneered Bastian, and he finished draining his mug with a smack of his lips.
"What did the Vigil want?" asked Val, passing him a cup instead with some water from across the desk.
"Apparently the Watcher 'touched me', makes me a Vigilant now. I don't know what use they think they will get of me. I have no desire to read and write in their libraries all day, solving petty problems that take a million books to untangle," replied Bastian with a harrumph of distaste.
"It might do you some good to quietly read for while," commented Dorius snidely.
"Yeah yeah. I still have not confirmed whether or not I am staying as your retainer."
Dorius lowered his letter and turned towards them, "Are you?"
There was a sudden pause, and Bastian lowered his knife to gently prod at the pat of butter on his plate, seemingly caught off guard by the sincere question. Val leaned forward on her hand and cocked her head slightly, some of the beads tied to her braids and horns rattling in the quiet between them.
"I'm not certain you could fulfill your ambitions without me..?" said Bastian in reply after a moment.
"No. I am certain no other has such an effective spy as you could be," replied Dorius, his voice a carefully controlled neutral tone.
"Enough I might get a raise?" asked Bastian with a sudden sarcastic curl to the edge of his mouth.
"Maybe?" Dorius could not help his own smile.
"I might stay a little longer then, if you get Anette to send me a new contract to consider."
Just as Dorius opened his mouth to reply, Lee'to entered with a tray in her hands containing fresh beer and a folded note. She dropped the tray demurely before Dorius and retreated to sit at the side of both new guards. Dorius instead took the distraction to return to finishing the letter from Elias he had been reading.
Bastian leant back over his chair and plucked both the folded note and beer, opening the note one handed as he sipped his new mug. As his eyes darted, he furrowed his brows, then held the note for Dorius, who plucked it from his hands without looking.
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Val took the moment of quiet to serve herself one of the buttered rolls from Bastian's plate.
"We come then to the final details of our plan," said Dorius as he read the folded letter. With a sweep of his robes, he stood and placed down both the note and the letter from Elias on the table between them. "Once, many weeks ago now, Elias warned me that the risks would only grow as I tested the boundaries of my ambition. It seems we will now put that to its greatest test - and I hope to emerge with you both still alive at the end of the next day. For by this time tomorrow, we will have averted a war!"
"The mage is here," said Bastian to Val, dipping his chin towards the new note that had arrived, "Gustave sent word they are preparing now to storm the Second."
Val shifted, a sudden cold flash of nerves gripping her heart, "I am called?"
"Yes, but wait a moment, I would have you both agree with the full details of this plan," said Dorius, taking a shaking breath. "If something goes wrong, we will have to adapt on the fly as best we can. I want my objectives clearly known to both of you if that is the case."
He turned and grabbed a writing brush from his desk, dipping the tip in ink, and began to sketch as he spoke on the back of the folded note. "Val - your objective is to prevent the death of the Second, no matter what the cost. Tonight, you, Gustave and his men, and the mage will storm the camp of the Second and capture him alive. We will hold him here at the Chapel, with the agreement of the Vigilants. My understanding is that Gustave plans to question him then kill and dispose of him, you will prevent this from happening, no matter the price you must pay."
Bastian raised his eyebrows, "No matter the price?" He cast Val a nervous glance.
She refused to meet his eyes, and resolutely looked at the picture Dorius was drawing instead.
"I will remain here at the protection of Ja'to and Ka'name. Bastian, you will ensure that Val is not caught off guard. If the mage must be fought, Val is the only one capable of doing it."
"We will have a problem then," said Val suddenly, "We must avoid magic at all costs. The Dragon is unstable, we saw her kill Whitesmoke on the way down from the mountain. I do not wish to summon her here and test her mood since we left."
Dorius' mouth almost dropped in horror, his rings clinking as he drew his hands away from the table and together, "She killed the winged stallion?"
Val nodded, "It was at a great distance, but there can be no mistaking it. She caught him from the sky and tore him in two."
"Then you must not let them make the first move. You must strike first."
Bastian drew back, his lip curled in disgust, "You are ordering her to slaughter men before they turn on us?"
Dorius stiffened, "This was inevitable the moment you advised me to make a false bargain with Sylus. If betrayal must be, let us come out on top."
"This is not like you…" muttered Bastian, but tellingly he did not outright object to the plan.
"This has been a natural inevitability for me the day I choose to follow my Mother's legacy. And now my Father's too. I am the Cinereal Dragon Prince. I was called here by the weave and I have stood before my ancestor, the Dragon God. I have sent Company men to their deaths, and I will do so again with many more lives. You counselled me to harden my heart to this fact did you not?"
"Yes, but not like this?" spluttered Bastian.
"Then what other way? Sylus was right, this is war. And war we will avert!"
"How can you be so certain?" asked Val, watching as his pen finished a clumsy approximation of a four-horned dragon sigil.
"Because what else has this journey been for but this moment? This is the Watcher's will!" declared Dorius, placing down his pen. The ink of his drawing seemed black except for where the wet surface caught the light, flashing a dark purple.
"We will take the Ivory Snake, for they are Citrine no longer, into our safe custody. And we will co-opt the assembling of the Pentarchy for our own declaration. A Dragon God has awoken, a God who is my ancestor! I have asked Elias to research and create for me the legal framework for Ambilineal descent - freeing a male Second to have children that may inherit his throne and I will use my own identity and relation to the Dragon God as proof that this is a new and modern way for our people, approved by the Watcher. In doing so we will preserve the Pentarchy and the Peace, and buy my freedom to be Cinereal no longer."
"And if they do not accept your plan? If it does not work?" replied Bastian, eyebrows raised with shock at this declaration.
"It must. It will. What other interpretation is there of the fact that I now have two mages, human and Fae, and a winged horse, and the alliance of our oldest institution, the Vigil? At every point in this journey when I might have stumbled, the weave has charted us a path." Dorius' voice shook with absolute certainty at his words. "It is time for new things and modern times."
Val felt her heart swell, glancing at Bastian who was almost stunned silent by this unexpected conviction from their childhood friend. A younger brother and forgotten Prince no longer. No more gambits in shadows and drawn out games of consolidating power, it seemed he was taking stepping into the light with a natural clarity of purpose Val had never seen from him.
The Fae had always served the Dragon Throne. He was right, she was always meant to be here at his side. There could be no other path but this one. Today she would kill in his name, and the price would be worth the future it bought! She was proud of the young leader he was growing into.