Page 84 of Flameborne: Fury
I didn’t want to leave her, even for a moment.
‘Please tell Akhane to encourage her to move her things. We’ll work out how to get her to and from the apartment without being seen. I can’t leave mymatein that dark little hovel.’
There was a beat before Kgosi answered.‘Akhane believes she’ll move. She senses no resistance. Only fear.’
I pressed my lips tightly over the curses that wanted to come, but kept walking, though my heels hit the stone more sharply than before.
Fear? Yes, there was fear. Far too much fear in my mate’s life. And a wound I hoped to help her heal.
But when? When would we find time for the safety and intimacy needed to look so deeply and vulnerably at her life when we had invaders on our doorstep, she was about to be trained for the Fang, and both she and her dragon were so inexperienced?
In the end, she wasn’t raised to Furyknight as quickly as I had been, but then, her start had been slow. So, while she’d barely had time to transition from being alone, to Chosen, to First, then Second Rank, as soon as we’d been sure she was Fang Wing, I’d known we had to get her trialed and raised—but that was when I thought we’d have time to settle her in as a Furyknight. Before we’d known there were invaders. Before I’d known she was my mate and would have to navigate all those extra complications.
Now?
Now, I wondered if I’d done the right thing raising her. How the hell was she supposed to balance all these conflicting secrets and duties? Even I was overwhelmed by the picture spinning in my head.
Her training would be twice as intense as a knight in the Flight or Flame wing, though most Furyknights weren’t aware of that. She needed more time than others, but would get less!
I allowed myself the muttered curses and frustration for a few more paces, but then I set it aside. There was nothing we could do about what had happened now. The time had come. She was mine.Andshe was Fang.Andwe had invaders on our borders and an impatient King.
I started to jog.
Please, God, have mercy. She’s only one woman.
32. Strategy
Need a visual? View a map of the territories in the opening pages of this book!
~ DONAVYN ~
“There’s no other conclusion that makes sense,” I snapped for the third time.“Oneof these sources is either lying or misinformed. The question is, which has been planted, and which is telling the truth?” I frowned down at the maps spread over the long, thick table in the Council Chambers. It showed all the major Kingdoms—Ashthorn to the north, Fyrehold between Ashthorn and the unclaimed lands that kept our borders separate. The tiny nation of Sierral nudged into the eastern border of Fyrehold, and Draeventhall swallowing that from the east.
The King stood at my right, his arms folded. Olve frowned darkly at my left, his finger still hooked over one of the reports we’d sorted into piles—each of the threethreadsas he’d named them, offering a different conclusion than the others.
Alexi and I had seen the reports diverge months earlier, but it started so subtly, we didn’t grow concerned for weeks. Yet, in the last couple of months there was no denying thatdifferent sources relaying the same events were drawing very,verydifferent conclusions. Too different to be accounted for by the vagaries of personalities in our spies, or simple political bias.
We all examined the map, frustrated.
It wasn’t uncommon for agents to send conflicting reports on specific events. Two men listening to the same conversation could walk away with very different deductions about what had been said, or what was meant by the same words.
But the tone and suppositions of these ongoing reports were consistent, and ran deeper than interpretation.
Alexi caught my eye, warning me to take care with my words. I gave him a barely perceptible nod and let my finger draw across the map, mentally reviewing everything we’d been told, and all the ways we may have been deceived.
At the top of the map, the Kingdom of Ashthorn possessed the land from coast to coast. At the bottom, our kingdom of Vosgaarde possessed all the land in the south and south-east. Our two nations were the strongest, and most powerful in the territories.
But pinned between us were three others: Fyrehold, the largest, and taking up most of the central-western landscape, had historically kept trade relations with both Vosgaarde and Ashthorn, while remaining politically neutral. Not as large or as powerful as either of us, the Kingdom gained in prosperity by maintaining peace and trading with both, allowing us a conduit to trade with each other, yet keep our distance.
To Fyrehold’s east, an arrow of land pointing all the way to the coast, was Draeventhall. Well positioned for the merchant ships that kept it prosperous, but too small to present any kind of military threat to the rest of us.
Land-locked between Fyrehold and Draeventhall was Sierral—a small, powerless land, rich in cattle and mineral resources, but without the military might to expand its borders. Sierral onlyremained a nation because its citizens were so uniquely skilled, none of the surrounding rulers wanted to disrupt their trade with a war.
A wedge of unclaimed land full of swamps and rocky plains, separated Vosgaarde from Fyrehold and the others, except near the coast, where Draeventhall shared our border.
Historically, the three nations at the center had continued to thrive by keeping both Vosgaarde and Ashthornhappy.Either of the larger nations was capable of overrunning Fyrehold—but keeping the nation peacefully between our borders served us both well. Because neither of us was able to bring a significant army to the other without overwhelming Fyrehold first—which would draw the attention and divert time and resources, allowing the preparation of the other—it removed the threat of an ambush war from the opposing, major power.
And so, for generations, Fyrehold, the largest of the three central nations, had remained politically neutral—yet quietly sympathetic to Vosgaarde.
