Page 188 of A Dagger of Ice and Intrigue
“You–you don’t think less of me?” I forced myself to ask.
I hated how my voice sounded. Like a youngling’s, waiting to be forgiven.
“Why in the underworld would I?”
“Because I caved.”
Finally, her eyes widened with understanding and I braced myself once more.
Then her face, which had been so deliciously irate only moments before, softened. She shrugged. “I would have done the same thing.”
“You wouldn’t have. You broke a wedding arch and risked your life to protect your people.”
“Yes. And your goal was to protectyourpeople without any bloodshed during a time when you were all hurting. Would you have felt better if you’d refused the Northern Clans and they would have attacked? You would have won, obviously, but at what cost?”
One I’d never even dared to calculate. My civilians’ lives couldn’t be quantified.
“I understand pride.Iam prideful.” That Vegheara chin of hers–that begged to be touched, tilted, and tantalized–rose high. “A good leader always thinks of others before themselves. That’s how I was raised and that’s what I believe in. Only weak men sacrifice their people on the battlefield to protect their pride. I would have had less respect for you than that waste of space Fabrian if you had done that.”
This woman.
This woman who could kneel the entire continent with the storm raging inside of her made me want to kneel because of the heart that stood at the center of it.
Principles were rare in the Clan world. Even rarer when someone upheld them even if they could lose something in the process.
It was humbling, in a bizarre way, to stand in front of another being who’d been through betrayals of her own, had lost her parents, her throne, and, for the briefest moment, her will. But she’d returned, blossoming once more, even as darkness clung to the edges of her energy.
I felt it.
I saw it.
Her gaze was colder and sharper.
Her movements as efficient, but more determined.
There was a tension in her shoulders, as if stubbornness to survive had raised her back from the depths and now kept her upright to finish what she had started.
She didn’t see it, not yet. But she would–the same way I had after I’d gathered myself up.
But I had years of solitude to lick my wounds and regroup.
Allie had months, if that.
The Serpents would attack, of that I had no doubt.
This war could plunge Malhaven into pure chaos, the likes of which the continent had never seen in millennia.
Even without a continental conflict, her Clan–because the Protectorate will always be hers, no matter which usurper stood on the throne–would oscillate, tilt, and crumble under Silas’ rule.
Optimistically, I gave it a few weeks.
The Huntress would need to rise once more, whether Allie wanted to believe it or not.
Because she was not the kind of leader who could stand by and watch injustice. Her own people would suffer.
The same civilians who hadn’t risen against Silas or cried in the streets for First Daughter’s return.
They might have turned their backs on her, but Allie wouldn’t do the same to them.
