Infinity

forward. “The army is not the way to solve this. We have angered the Pleiades by rejecting the will of Fate. We must make amends. We must make offerings and beg for their forgiveness.”

“I intend to make amends. I mean to make amends to every person who gave their lives to keep us safe. Everyone who died today.” I narrowed my eyes at her before turning to look at all the other people in the room, my knees knocking together even though I was sitting down. What if they refused to fight? What if they wanted to surrender instead? What if they wanted to go back to letting the wizards run their lives for them?

Stop, I reminded myself. You’re the queen of this land. You are the Golden Rose of Nerissette, Queen Alicia, First of Her Name. That makes you responsible for these people—all of them. You’re the royal version of a parent, and like Mom always used to say, “Sometimes as your mom I get to ask what you think, but sometimes I have to tell you what to do, and then it’s just going to have to be my way, whether you like it or not.”

Today was going to be one of those days where they were going to have to do things my way—even if none of them—or even I—liked where it was going to take us.

“Forget the dead. How are we going to make amends to Fate when you’ve locked her own wizard inside the terrors of the Bleak?” a man shouted from somewhere in the middle of the crowd. “How will we rectify our mistakes?”

“You’re worried about how I’m going to explain to Fate that we’ve got a war going on?” I looked around the room, scanning the faces of the nobles who were stunned by what they saw as blasphemy against the creature they stubbornly still believed ruled their lives. Once I reached them, I let my eyes linger on Mercedes and Kitsuna, two of my closest friend who their make-believe deity “Fate” had not been kind to.

“Allie,” Winston said, his voice filled with warning.

“I’m not,” I said, my voice flat. “I’m not explaining myself to anyone. Especially some made up fairy-tale witch.”

Another voice called out, “Then what will we do?”

“Lord Sullivan is going to build Nerissette an army, and we’re going to take it over the mountains to fight. Then, when we’re done, no one, and I mean absolutely no one, will ever attack our homes and our families again.

“That is how we’re going to honor those who have died and how we’re going to please the stars. Not by begging for mercy or making sacrifices but by making sure that the sacrifices that have already been made are the last. No more men in this country will die from invaders trying to take our land. Not while I’m queen.”

“The will of the Pleiades—” someone shouted.

“Isn’t my problem. If your gods don’t like the fact that we’re going to save ourselves, then they can come down out of the sky and defend us themselves. They can stop letting people die for no good reason because, you know what?”

I watched as they all froze and stared at me, mouths open. Apparently, no one had ever seen a Golden Rose at the end of her rope before. Too bad. It was time they learned what a ticked-off queen looked like.

“I’m sick of waiting around and watching good people die while we wait for the Pleiades to give us a sign that it’s okay to quit getting the crap kicked out of us by every bully who can put together an army.”

“Your Majesty,” Lady Arianna said, her eyes wide with astonishment. “That’s—”

“Tomorrow, I’ll be appointing a regent to handle the day-to-day running of Nerissette, and then you and I will be joining Lord Sullivan and the Crown Prince as we take an army to go visit the neighbors. Let them see what an invasion feels like for once. Anyone got a problem with that?”

The room was silent as everyone stared at me, still stunned.

“Good. War Council dismissed.” I stood up and looked around once more before stomping down the steps and leaving. Let the rest of them figure out how they were going to deal with the stars and Fate and all the stupid superstitions that kept getting my people into these predicaments.

I hurried across the hall and into the library, closing the door behind me and locking it before I sank down in one of the comfy wingback chairs near the fireplace, my head in my hands.

Chapter Eight

“Would you like to talk about it?”

I looked up to find John had appeared next to one of the bookcases, and I grimaced. “How did you get in here? The door is locked.”

“There’s a hidden door in the back corridor—the painting of the man in the blue armor who’s riding the gold dragon. It comes out here.”

“Great.” I waved my hand at him and sighed before turning back to the empty fireplace. “Make sure you lock it behind you when you go.”

“Allie.”

“John.” I rolled my eyes at him. How could he not be getting that I really didn’t want to talk right then?

“You could try calling me Dad,” he said.

I looked up at him, glaring. He had not actually just suggested that, had he? The guy had been part of my life less than three months, and suddenly he wanted to be “Dad” like nothing had ever happened? He wanted me to call him Dad after I’d been dumped in foster care for years? I mean, sure, I’d gotten lucky with Gran Mosely, but that didn’t change the fact I’d been alone, with a mother in a coma, while he was off running around the woods like an overgrown leprechaun. What sort of mushrooms had he been eating?

“Or not.” He held his hands up as he moved to sit in the chair across from mine. “But I’d really like to talk to you about what happened tonight.”

“What about it?”

“You can’t discount the Pleiades. The people here believe—”

“You’re telling me that the people here believe that it’s the design of some invisible goddess for us to get the crap kicked out of us by everyone we meet? They believe that people are dead because Fate decided she was having a bad day?”

“Allie—”

“No, John. You know what? This idea of Fate as a goddess? It sucks.”

“People here believe she’s real. You may not believe it but they—”

“Well, if they’re right and I’m wrong, then Fate sucks and I’m sick of dealing with her brand of crazy, and you should be, too. From now on, Nerissette decides its own future.”

He tried to take my hand in his.

“No.” I pulled back from him. “You don’t get to do that. That’s not something you have earned the right to do. For all you talk about us being family and being worried about me like you were today, you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to sit here and pretend you care.”

“I know that things between us are strained right now, Alicia, but I am your father.”

“No, you’re not.” I stood up and stormed over to the other side of the library, grabbing books off the shelves and tossing them on one of the tables. “You lost that right a long time ago, and any chance you had of getting that relationship back ended when you took off on me for almost a year.”

“I know you’re upset with me, but I did what I had to do. Besides Allie, I loved—”

“No!” I grabbed a heavy green book and turned on my heel, flinging it at him like a baseball. “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear about how you loved Mom! You left us there—alone.”

“Alicia, I never meant—”

“My name is Allie! Not Alicia. No one calls me Alicia. No one ever has and don’t tell me what you meant to do. What you meant doesn’t matter. We were trapped there, and then I lost Mom, and we were alone. You left us there alone. You abandoned us. You abandoned me.”

“I would have come for you and your mother if—”

“If what?” I threw my hands up. “If you weren’t too busy getting bullied by the Fate Maker?”

“One of these days, I would have—”