“And it has a great security system,” Michelle interjected. “And my parents are never there.”
Lethe looked from the harpy and Michelle to Vulott and me, weighing his options. Parnassia and Michelle offered an easy exit to a foreign land, a retreat to regroup. Vulott and I, on the other hand—what did we represent to him? Some notion of family? Of honor—however misguided? Strange to think that he would ever look at me and see anything in common with his insane father… but I supposed I should have been flattered.
His eyes ticked between us and his jaw set. “No,” he decided. “I want to stay. I want to fight. I want this castle—and I want this land. I want to give the ice dragons their own kingdom, finally. We cannot run again, or it will be another fifty years before we see another uprising. The fire dragons knew that. And this attack is just a play on our weaknesses! Let us prove them wrong!” he cried, looking to his father for support. “If we leave now, we will never return, except as second-class citizens again.”
I shielded my nose and coughed. My eyes were beginning to burn. What were they doing down there?
Vulott nodded thoughtfully, but then he opened his mouth. “Still, some portion of land on which to brood and plot is better than a charred husk; what have we won if we win this war? Nothing. They are willing to destroy even their own castle.”
“Because they banked on our superficiality and laziness driving us out!” Lethe said. “Let’s surprise them! Let’s—”
“I go with the bird-woman,” Vulott decided, interrupting his son. “The harpy is a like-minded creature. We will be safe among them. Besides.” Vulott brandished the astrolabe, giving it a disrespectful slap with his palm. “We have this. There is no true victory for the fire people. There never will be again. Even their queen is a slave.” He glanced over his shoulder at me and winked. Ugh.
“Yes, ‘Thundercliff’ is a great place,” Michelle piped. “I vote we go too! People will freak out that we are there. In a good way. But…” Her eyes shifted back to me and she coughed. “Let’s leave Nell behind,” she finished. “We’re not going to need her there. Trust me.”
Nell
I gaped at Michelle, strangely insulted. It seemed natural that, if there was going to be a sojourn to my hometown, I would be included in it. On the other hand, my husband would be here at this palace, and I wanted to be with him.
Voices filtered up to us from the ground floor. Male voices. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw that the ruined corridors were now abandoned. The fire dragons were in the castle. They were probably looking for us now—and I wasn’t the only one of us who had heard them. A silent exchange of eye contact passed around the circle, and Lethe stepped forward. “We’re not leaving her here,” he announced.
“Why not?” Michelle snapped. “Are you going to miss your little girlfriend too much?”
“We’re not leaving her here because she knows exactly where we’re going, and she is the queen of The Hearthlands, whether you want to admit it or not,” Lethe snapped back. “Can you leave some of this tactical decision-making to me? I’ve only been trained in the art of war my entire life, Michelle!” Flames crept up the downstairs banister. “We have to go now! Without any reinforcement whatsoever, should we choose to fight, we would lose. We need to depart—Thundercliff is as good a place as any, if not better—and regroup there. That’s my command as king, and as husband,” he said, pointing at her as he spoke.
Spines and scales in an icy blue rippled upward and outward from his fingertip, and his nails elongated and blackened, becoming tubular and reptilian. I had watched Theon shift up close a few times… I’d never really seen it happen to Lethe. One second he was, by all appearances, a slender pretty boy—but, in the next instant his jaw and nose elongated to form a snout, and his blue eyes enlarged, his skin dried, his hair receded, his proportions ballooned and lengthened to the chorus of popping tendons, reshaped bone. It didn’t take long at all before he was something else entirely, something which filled the hallway itself.
Lethe wordlessly nudged Michelle with his head, scooping her onto his neck, where she slid down until she reached his shoulders. He did the same to me, and I locked my arms around his neck, terrified of the flight which was to come. I didn’t even have a coat. I could only pray it would be so fast, my arms wouldn’t have the time to numb.
Vulott allowed the auburn harpy to cradle the astrolabe in her withered arms before he transformed into a large beast of silver hide and blackest eyes.