He stood to lose the most.
Yveun felt like a man before a god as he approached Coletta. She stood, washed in night, like the Divine Patron under which she was born—Lady Soph, the Destroyer. He hated admitting he had erred. But if he was to swallow his pride, he would do it before Coletta and no one else. He would drink the bitter poison of her words, to save himself from anything else she might concoct.
“Did you know that the most deadly flowers are oftentimes the most delicate?” Her tone had shifted. It had taken a softer note. There was danger in the quiet.
“I would believe it.”
“They are beautiful, Soph Pearls, the most delicate of all. When the tiny white flowers finally lose all their petals, the smallest fruit forms. And in this is a toxin that can slay even a Dragon with some magic in their gut.”
She smiled, revealing her gray, abused gums. Worn from years of her work, from years of experimenting with flavors. From working up tolerances and immunities. From breaking down her body out of reverence for her Lady. From the belief that to create, one must first destroy.
Coletta held out the glass she had been holding. The wine sloshed, airing with the very darkness itself. The stem of the glass dripped between her fingertips like a moonbeam.
Yveun met her eyes. Coletta changed nothing in her stance. She was as still as silence personified. As ever-present as death itself.
He reached for the glass, showing no fear. He took it from her fingers and he drank. The alcohol burned lightly, cutting the sweetness of the wine. It was a jam profile, sweetened with fruit and aged in light wood. He savored the flavors, holding them on his palette, searching for anything he might have missed, before swallowing.
“Do you like it?” Coletta asked.
“It is the same wine we drank today,” he observed.
“It is,” she affirmed. Yveun waited patiently for her to impart the importance of having him try something he’d consumed all day. He waited for the spark of magic of his stomach churning against poison. “This is a specialty for this side of Ruana, a favorite among House Xin. So loved that it does not even make shipments out of this corner of Nova.”
“I was not aware.”
“I know you were not.” Coletta shot him a glare from the corners of her eyes, conveying her lack of appreciation for his interruption. If such a look had come from anyone else, Yveun would have killed them on the spot. “Because you have become drunk on power, and are operating under half measures.”
Something indeed churned in his gut, but it wasn’t poison. No, anger at the truth his life-mate was lying before him tore at his insides. He had become drunk on power, on the idea that he was an invincible force and his rule was as inevitable as the sun rising. And tonight, that would change. There was something already brewing in the air.
Yveun took another long sip. “But you knew.”
“I knew.” She smiled into the blackness. “I knew, and I knew where the wineries are. I learned of each of the storerooms where the vintage is kept.”
“It would be a shame if someone tampered with the brew.”
Far on the streets below, the first cry cut through the night.
“Such a shame.” Coletta took back the wine, helping herself to another long sip. “For the flavor is right.”
More screams as Dragons fell, convulsing on the stone streets that sprawled out beneath them. A symphony of agony his Coletta had produced sang to them with all the beauty of a full orchestra.
Yveun wrapped a hand around her hip and smiled into the night alongside her. It was going to be a much shorter Court than he was accustomed to.
“There has been word from the whisperers to Loom.”
“What did they say?” Yveun asked over a particularly high-pitched cry.
“Two messengers arrived to the Harvesters’ Guild. They came to sow seeds of dissent from the Alchemists. They are seeking to rise against you. A rebellion has formed.”
Yveun cursed under his breath. It was hardly a surprise. An annoyance, the persistence of Fenthri. At least, that was how he’d always viewed it. And that had been the problem. He had treated the men and women in the gray world below like children, poor helpless creatures in squalor, in need of his guiding light.
After all he’d done, they still stood against him.
“What did the Guild do?”
“The Vicar Harvester took their meeting. It was one of their Masters who alerted the guild’s Dragon whisperer to Nova of it.”
“Without order from the Vicar?” Yveun clarified.
Coletta affirmed it with a small nod.
There was only one reason for the Vicar Harvester not to immediately come to him, not to immediately take the rebels’ treasonous heads: they were entertaining the notion. Or they were trying to hide it. It didn’t matter which to Yveun; both were equally unforgivable.
The Harvesters had been a loyal guild. From the beginning, they had followed his laws when he had shown them the error of their ways. They had remained in communication. But the Fenthri were fickle creatures. They tried to fit multiple lifetimes in what was not even one-fourth of his.
“I have taken enough half measures upon Loom.” This was what happened when one tried to leave room for the foolishness known as kindness. He had tried to be kind to Loom, and this was how the Fenthri repaid him.
Delight rose in his mate. Coletta’s magic shifted to a pleased pulse that hummed against his palm. It was a wonderful physical sensation to the auditory wonders of the world falling apart around him. It encouraged him to be one step more vicious, to be wholly committed.
“The guilds on Loom are bold anew. Squashing their last rebellion was not enough, because from its ashes the Fenthri rose again. Attempting peace by allowing them their guild cultures, to allow them to teach, was far too generous. They forget too quickly, and for that, they need a firm hand.”
There would be no more exceptions. No more half measures. The tree had rotted; he would no longer pick through the fruit. He would cut it down at the base, burn out the roots. He would till the soil and plant again.
“The world below is broken beyond repair. It must be destroyed and rebuilt.”
“Lady Soph and Lord Rok,” Coletta referred to both of their Divine patrons with a toast, continuing to pass the glass back and forth between them.
“Tell the whisperer that all Dragons loyal to me are to be pulled from the guilds. They will be moved to New Dortam, where my Riders will shuttle them back to Nova. Then, the Riders will remain on Loom and take over the Revolvers—and their weapons.” The plan took shape with vicious precision. “The Harvesters are to be made an example. It will show all of Loom that I am their King, that they thrive by my will and that they will die by it too. If even the most willing and loyal guild could not resist entertaining treasons against me, they and the rest will know none are safe, from the tallest of their mountains to the deepest of oceans. The land below is mine, and they will know it in every unbroken scream.”