And Dax didn’t wait.
The general tossed his prince an ax—wincing with the throw and clutching his scarred gut—and Rebel lunged. The wolf knocked Nassik onto his ass, and Barrett—with a vengeance I rarely saw in the prince—brought the ax down on the councilman’s arm, slicing off a hand.
His wail was lost among the fight.
Immediately, I looked for Celissia, but she only glared at her father with a stare that matched Barrett’s. There was no love in that look, not from the girl who had been nothing more than a pawn to the man who fathered her.
Welcome to the club.
We were denting their numbers, at least half of the fae on the floor now. Perhaps because we were on our land, so close to the source of the Angels, but luck seemed to be on our side.
I tossed my sword between my hands and jumped back into the fray.
Ophelia was still pacing in front of the statue, Tolek an all-seeing guard before her, his own breaths labored. She and Ritalia lobbied comments across the cavern, each trying to get the other to be honest or see reason.
“I don’t want you as my enemy,” Ophelia finally shouted. “I don’t want to work against you.”
“Then listen to me,” she demanded, voice laced with the contempt of someone who was used to being obeyed.
“I can’t trust you! Don’t you understand?” Ophelia shook her head, rolling Xenique’s orb in her palm. “I don’twantyou as an enemy, but we tried to work with you—we made a bargain, and you went around it.”
The queen tutted. “That is your fault for not being more careful.”
“Wrong fucking thing to say,” I grunted beneath my breath as I lunged toward my opponent.
“A true ally would not argue whose fault it is,” Ophelia yelled.
“What do you know of allies?” Ritalia spat. “Your kind has never.”
Ophelia spread her arms wide. “Look around, Ritalia! Everything you see here is an alliance.” She gestured to Barrett and Vale, Erista and even Lancaster and Mora. “They are our allies! But I do not think you are.”
In light of everything Ophelia said, the queen still retained her cool command, announcing, “A true queen does not stoop to find allies. She collects them like prizes.”
To do her bidding, no doubt.
Ritalia switched her approach. “We do not need to be allies, Revered Alabath. We do not need to stand arm in arm on a battlefield. Simply hand over the emblems. Let me remove them from this land where they are so near their locks and take them where no Chosen will ever find them again. I will not walk on your shores for all my rule if you do this.”
Ophelia took a deep breath, calm washing over her. “And what about the rest of it? What about the power wrecking our world? The storms and the creatures waking?”
“What of it?”
I ducked around the fae female before me and lured her toward the steps, where Jezebel had another spirit puppet surging forward.
“The land is dying,” Ophelia said sadly. “The creatures are mutinous. This is only the beginning of the effects of the godly prison unraveling. How do you propose we fight it?”
Jezzie’s fae rammed a blade through the thigh of my own, and they both fell, blood mixing on the rocky floor.
“If we do away with the emblems, the known gods as you call them will bless us,” Ritalia said.
Again, I scoffed. So idealistic.
Sparing a glance at Ophelia, that same doubt flashed behind her expression as she studied the emblem in one hand.
And the queen—she saw the warring gleam in Ophelia’s eye. Saw that her words hadn’t been enough. That not even Lancaster’s bargain or melting Ophelia’s weapons was going to stop her. It only fueled her, giving her less of a reason to trust Ritalia, and more of a hope to fight our way out of this.
The ancient queen of the fae had overplayed her hand—had created an enemy in Ophelia the moment she instructed her hunter to manipulate Tolek, sealed that fate in melting Starfire and Angelborn before her—and no pretty ideals of bountiful gods could stop a stubborn Alabath.
And the switch in Ritalia’s understanding was like a lightning strike, a bolt of realization that drew her arm back.
