Page 159 of The Forsaken Heir
“Ineligible? What do you mean?” Benedictus looked as though I’d told him the sky was green.
I did my best to keep my voice even and calm. “Because many of the dragon shifter households have no children. You might be aware of that fact, Lord Beatrix, since your son”—I waved toVincent, who sat in the corner with Rasp, as they’d arrived too late to get good seats—“was the last dragon born. My father and I have given orders that no household with less than one man will be called up for battle.”
Benedictus sputtered, glancing around as if looking for help from any of the other attendees. None—not even his own contingent of loyal friends—spoke up.
Finally, he said, “Your Highness, we are in a grave situation.Allavailable fighters must be brought to the battlefield should it come to that. You have to see that?—”
“What Isee,” I said, finally losing my temper, “is that our race is on the verge of extinction. Our numbers have been dwindling for centuries. Neither my father nor I want to go down in history as the men who damned our entire race all because we didn’t want to lose a fight.”
Benedictus, too enraged to control himself, rose from his seat, his face red with anger. “If this does go to active fighting and war, and we lose?—”
“Then we lose,” I said, letting the words echo around the room before continuing on in a more resigned voice. “We lose. Perhaps we can reconstitute our numbers afterward. In a few centuries, if we are lucky, we might turn things around and regain our footing. I am a realist, Benedictus,” I said, glaring at the nobleman. “Pragmatic to a fault, some might say. We will fight.Iwill fight. Your son will fight. All who are able to go to battle will fight, and we will lay our blood and tears on the field of battle. We will rain down fire and claw and fang upon our enemies, and we will not stop until all is lost. There will be no retreat, and I will do it happily for my people and my kingdom, but I will not shatter entire families and mates simplyto have more cannon fodder.” I pointed at the report in front of Octavius. “The men on that list are our best fighters. They know what they are doing. Undertrained and underprepared men will be of no use to us in battle. There will be no further discussion on this.”
Benedictus opened and closed his mouth several times, like a fish trying to breathe out of water. Without making a sound, he nodded once, a bitter but resigned look on his face.
“As you command, Your Highness,” he said, sitting back down.
Slowly—somewhat hesitantly—the conversations restarted, going into other needs for the coming fight. While they discussed, argued, and orchestrated among themselves, I glanced out the window at the sunny day outside. My own thoughts went down a dark path, though, opposing the bright light beyond the window.
The back-and-forth with Benedictus had reminded me exactly how close dragons were from vanishing from the world. I still had faith that we could find a way out of this without an apocalyptic outcome, but the threat of destruction grew nearer with each passing day. Whatever happened would most likely come to a head two weeks from now when the Hikshil met with Bastien.
“Highness?” Titus said, snapping me out of my internal thoughts.
I turned away from the window. “I’m sorry? Yes?”
“Apologies. Did you hear the question Lord Silvanus asked?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t.”
The large man sat across from me, his bald head gleamed, and his thick graying beard twitched as he smiled.
“I was asking what the plans are for after the war. For good or ill, we need to make preparations,” the man said.
“True,” Benedictus said, having regained his composure. “It’s as you say, Prince Aurelius, should we lose, then the remaining dragons must have somewhere to retreat to. Does anyone here believe Bastien Laurent will stomach any of our kind to remain anywhere near the Pacific Northwest? He’d want us at least a thousand miles away.”
There were grumbles of agreement around the table. The truth of the matter was that Bastien had proven himself to be fully unhinged and maniacal. None of us believed that he’d be content with a small-scale victory. He’d want the whole thing. He’d want us pushed off the entire continent if he could. He and his parents had always been greedy and power hungry. It was part of how they’d garnered as much support among their kind. Wolves had no royalty, only noble houses. That being said, the Laurents were almost de facto royalty with the amount of sway they held.
“As I said, I’m a realist,” I said. “That doesn’t mean I’m a pessimist. I still think we can win this and survive. If things go badly, we’ll retreat south. We can get out of the area quickly if need be. We have one thing going for us that the wolves don’t. We can fly.”
That eased some of the tension in the room as everyone chuckled.
I waved a hand. “Everyone dismissed. We can talk more later.”
The men and women rose and began to trickle out. Rasp and Vince stayed put, both of them looking uncomfortable and anxious. I waited until everyone had departed to speak.
“What’s wrong with you two?” I said.
Rasp gave a derisive snort. “This is all our fault.”
“Yeah,” Vince muttered. “We did this.”
“No, you didn’t,” I said.
“What?” Rasp said, twisting his face into a confused scowl. “I’m not sure if you noticed, butnoneof this would have happened if we hadn’t kidnapped Elle. This all started with that. We were dumbasses, and now we’ve ruined everything.”
“Total dumbasses,” Vince agreed. “We thought we were going to make things great, and we totally messed up.”
“Stop,” I said, my tone firm but friendly. “After seeing the kind of person Bastien is? This was coming no matter what. You guys didn’t start anything that wasn’t already coming. In fact, you may have helped us.”
