Page 6 of Crown of Darkness
I knew it was coming—my mother promised us war, after all—but after months of inactivity, there was a little kernel of me that hoped she might have come to her senses.
A foolish desire, for I know her best, after all. But it’s amazing what manner of hope you can conjure when you wish for something hard enough.
War.
It won’t just be two powerful kingdoms angling at each other. This will drag the entire Seelie Alliance into ruin.
Because I chose to love an enemy prince.
“Vi?” Thiago turns to me, and I blink out of the reverie.
“Yes?”
“You know your mother best. You know her forces. What do you think?”
“How many?” I ask, for the border lords—whilst fully aware of the danger they’re in—are barely loyal to Adaia. Once upon a time they belonged to the Kingdom of Evernight, and then there were long years where they sought to reign over themselves, until my mother slew their leader and brought them under her umbrella.
I’ve visited the border keeps, and while they don’t dare speak of freedom, I’ve heard the songs their bards play and seen the looks on their faces as they listen to “The Last Stand of Lord Balrogh.”
If they could rule themselves, they would.
“Twenty thousand,” Baylor tells me grimly. “They’re marching under Thornwood’s banners.”
Twenty thousand. “That’s the north and the west.” But only half my mother’s armies.
“Thornwood’s as tough as old boots,” Baylor says. “He won’t be easy to break.”
“That depends,” Eris mutters, “on whether he’s digging in and waiting for us to come to him or marching across the borders. If he comes for us, then we’ll crush him against the Firenze river.”
“We start staging at Eidyn,” Thiago says, using a golden rod to push little brass figures across the map toward the border. “But we don’t move. Let Queen Adaia make the first gambit.”
I pace around the table as they argue about the best course of action.
Three months. Why the three months?
Why would she wait that long?
My mother knew there was a possibility I might have regained my memories in time and chosen Thiago at the Queensmoot three months ago.
She came prepared to slaughter us all then and there, and when the choosing didn’t go her way, she murdered one of the fae queens of the Alliance and declared war on both my husband and Prince Kyrian of Stormlight.
She would have had her armies ready to march three months ago.
So why did she hesitate to send them west?
“There’s something we’re missing.”
“Vi?” Thiago holds up his hand and the room falls silent.
I tell them my theory.
“So you think the Asturian army on our ass is merely a distraction?” Eris asks, leaning forward in her chair. “For what?”
“I don’t know. It’s too obvious for my mother. Adaia knows her border lords are fickle. She knows the might of Evernight’s armies equals her own. She murdered the Queen of Ravenal, and with Ravenal at her heels, she can’t turn her entire focus upon us.”
Thalia’s lashes lower. “My little birds haven’t mentioned any disturbance from Ravenal.”
She’s not only Thiago’s right hand, she’s also his spymistress, though I only learned that fact two months ago.
