“Say what?” Lu asks.
Ryatt tosses his arms out in frustration. “Oh come on! It’s obvious! How can everyone be fine with the fact that there’s a damn good chance the entire kingdom is going to starve?” His fierce gaze snaps back to me. “Auren needs to go to the Conflux.”
Fury gropes beneath my skin. It pokes and pries, trying to wrest me open and ooze out onto the floor. I glare at my brother, feeling that fury charge the air of the room.
“How can you say that?” Lu demands. “We all know the trial is a joke.”
“Yeah,” Judd agrees. “If she shows up, it won’t be good.”
Ryatt shakes his head. “No, they just want a show. They need to put on a spectacle, slap Auren’s wrist, and send her on her way. They know they can’t push too hard and risk angering Slade, because he’ll rot their entire kingdoms to the core. All she has to do is show up, let them run their little power trip, and come back. Then there’s no risk of war, no risk of starvation—”
“Listen to me very fucking closely,” I snarl out, my voice low and deadly. “I’m not bringing Auren anywhere near them, and if you suggest that again, you and I are going to have a very big problem.”
The look he gives me is so piercing I can almost feel it stab through my skin. “I think you should at least consider it. With you there, they can’t do shit to her. You’re supposed to put the kingdom first. You’re supposed to protect your people.”
I see red.
“What do you think we’re talking about?” I demand. “That’s what I’m trying—”
“No,” he cuts me off. “You’re trying to protect Auren. You’re willing to let your people starve at her expense.”
“No one is going to starve,” I growl.
He lets out a scoff. “You don’t know that. Everyone in Fourth is going to be impacted. And the army doesn’t deserve this. They just marched on a frozen fucking kingdom for no reason. You dragged them across the Barrens twice, and now that they’re just getting back, you’re going to make them stay here at the overcrowded base or go off to become farmhands? It’s ridiculous, Slade, and you fucking know it.”
Lu looks between us. “Hey, I think we should all just relax—”
“Fuck that,” Ryatt says, erupting from his chair like spitting lava, his outburst making the others spring to their feet, their bodies tense as if they’re just waiting for a fight to break out between us.
Ryatt barbs a finger in my direction, ignoring them completely. “Your priorities have already changed. Your loyalties are in the wrong place. Be a fucking king and take care of your damned people like you promised you would!”
“I am.” My tone is smooth on the surface, but the sharp and jagged angles are below, steeping in barbed and boiling anger. “Which is why you will put your helmet on. You will gather the army. And you will carry out the orders as I’ve commanded you to.”
“Fuck you!” he bursts out, foot swinging back to smack into the chair, sending it flying across the room and crashing into the wall.
I don’t even flinch. The others watch on anxiously.
I get to my feet slowly.
Unfurled from my spot so I can brace my hands against the table top. So we’re leaning head to head, eye to furious eye.
“It must be so easy for you, brother,” I say quietly, fury an undercurrent dragging my enraged tone forward. “To throw your tantrums. To pass your judgments. So easy. You know why?”
His cheeks are snagged with red ire, mouth silent.
“Because you have never had to make hard decisions,” I tell him. “I have always been the one to do that. You just get to sit by with your outbursts and your righteous anger, and tell me what a shit job I’m doing at everything, while you haven’t ever had to carry the load that I carry. And that’s what you don’t get. You’ll never get it.”
His eyes flash, but his impatient anger will never win out against my enduring rage.
“I am not going to be blackmailed. I am not going to send Auren to be put on a stage for the world to rip her apart for their own political gain. I am not a dog to be called to heel, and if you ever question my motives for my kingdom again, then I won’t hesitate to put you in your place.”
His chest heaves. Eyes flared, fists curling at his sides like he’s going to leap across the table and throw the first punch.
I fucking hope he does.
“So you can stand there and spew whatever bullshit you want as my brother. But at the end of the day, I am also your fucking king, and you will do as I command.”
The silence between us is a sword.
Double ended, pointing in both directions between us. It hovers in the air, stabs against my skin, keeping us held beneath sharp tips and readying to pierce us both through. We’re both held motionless, waiting to see which of us is going to fall on it first, which of us is going to bleed.
My relationship with my brother has always been complicated. Since he went from an innocent boy to a man layered thick beneath mantles of resentment.
And I always take it.
I always fucking take his anger, his arguments. Because for the most part, I deserve it. I destroyed our mother’s mind. I’ve imprisoned her in a cave she can never leave. I’ve made him non-existent, stuck beneath a helmet to play a part as my double.
And my father killed his.
But when it comes to this, when it comes to her, I’m not going to fucking take it.
Because he’s right. My priorities have changed. And I will let the world corrode and crumble in order to protect her. But that doesn’t mean I won’t do everything I can to protect my people too.
For several moments, nobody in the room moves. I don’t think Lu is even breathing. We’re all waiting to see if he’s going to explode, to finally throw that fist he’s making and aim for my face.
But he doesn’t.
I’m not sure who’s more surprised.
Instead, he turns and stomps out of the room, letting the door slam shut behind him. The moment it’s closed, my tense shoulders immediately slacken, hands dropping away from the table.
“Well,” Judd says, breaking the awkward silence. “That didn’t go so well.”
Lu sighs. “You know how he is. He’s protective of the army.”
“We all are,” Os replies. “And the rest of the kingdom. Doesn’t mean he has to act like a little shit about it.”
She glances at the door. “He’ll come around.”
Os grunts.
“So...is anyone else feeling a little Wrathy?” Judd prompts as he rolls back on his heels with a grin. I appreciate the gesture—appreciate him trying to lighten the mood. “When you give Manu your answer, they’re probably going to have some retaliation planned,” he says to me. “Does that mean we get to go fuck shit up for the other kingdoms?”
“Absolutely.”
His grin widens. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
“While you go off to First Kingdom to make this deal, I need someone to be my eyes and ears in Sixth. I want to see what Queen Kaila is doing.”
“I can go,” Lu volunteers.
I give her a nod of thanks before my eyes track to Osrik. “Can you pull some of our best soldiers to watch the borders?”
“Of course.”
“The first sign of anyone approaching, I want to know about it,” I say.
“You gonna go all King Rot on their asses?” Judd asks, rubbing his hands together like the idea thrills him.
I give a slow nod. “If they push me, then that’s exactly what I’ll do.”
CHAPTER 55
AUREN
I’ve been practicing my magic.