Infinity

your aunt attacks us again.”

“But—” I started.

“If we wait,” he said, his voice even, “we leave ourselves open to another attack like the one last night. If we’re going to fight back, we have to strike now.”

I nodded.

“All we need is the final Council vote,” John said.

The Council of Nobles was allowed to cast a vote about whether or not they wanted to go to war. In the end it wouldn’t matter if they voted against me—I didn’t have to do what they said—but if they all voted no, then any of them could refuse me their troops. But, if I won by even a single vote, then all of them had to commit whether they liked it or not.

“People of Nerissette.” I stepped forward as Rhys stepped back, away from me. “My Council of Nobles.” I bowed my head toward the huddled mass of people in the center of the room.

“Woodsmen of the Leavenwald.” I nodded at my father. “Distinguished members of the Nymphiad, my friends on the Dragos Council, Melchiam—Rache of the Firas.” I stopped as they all stared at me. What was I supposed to do now? I mean, surely they didn’t need me to persuade them to keep us all alive? Did they?

“Vote.” I held my hands out to my sides. “All those in favor?”

“But shouldn’t we discuss—” one of the nobles began. I squinted and thought I recognized him as Thurston of Drazzletop, one of the minor lords of the Veldt.

“What do you want to talk about?” I asked as I clenched my hands into fists and put them on my hips. “Do I think Bavasama will continue to come over the mountains and burn your homes and kill your families until she has turned our world to ash? Yes. Do I think she won’t stop until she has eaten the entire world? Again—yes. There is nothing left to discuss. There is war, or there is waiting here for death. Now, vote.

“All those in favor of taking our army across the White Mountains to reclaim the kingdom of Bathune, imprison Bavasama, and burn the Palace of Night to the ground?” I asked.

“Aye.” The room seemed to shake with the echo of a hundred voices all screaming their answer together.

“All opposed say ‘nay,’” I said quietly.

“Nay,” Thurston of Drazzletop said, his voice clear and strong. “I am sick of war, Your Majesty. I am sick of fighting and dirt and death. I would go home to my books and the deer that live in my forests. I would live at peace with all who seek peace with me.”

“When we’re safe,” I said quietly, “I’ll be the first to join you in your search for peace. But not now. I choose peace today…”

Thurston bowed his head low before me. “When the time comes, Your Majesty, I will be happy to help you find the peace we both desire. Now, since everyone else has voted for war, I need to go and prepare my men.”

He turned his back on me and started toward the door, the room so silent that we could all hear the click of his shoes against the scarred marble floor. There was a creak as he pushed the door open and then a dull thump when he closed it behind him.

“Queen Allie?” Rhys asked. I looked over at him and my father who raised an eyebrow at me. “The Council of Nobles has voted in favor of war. Ninety-nine to one.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

Had I told Thurston of Drazzletop the truth? Was there some other option to save our world without an army? Without war? Was there a peaceful solution to our current situation, or was there only this? I couldn’t see a different way to handle my aunt, but maybe I didn’t want to look for one, either. All I knew was I couldn’t let any more people die.

“Okay?” Rhys asked. I locked eyes with my father once more before turning to Rhys.

“So what do we do?” Arianna asked. “What’s our strategy?”

“Our strategy?” I asked. “We march into Bathune, and we burn it to the ground. When we get to the Palace of Night, we drag my aunt outside, we take her prisoner, and then we turn her palace into dust. How’s that for strategy?”

“It certainly sends a message,” Rhys said.

“Yeah, the message that we aren’t going to let ourselves get kicked around anymore,” I said. “Tomorrow morning we march to war.”

Rhys turned back to the assembled mass and pulled his sword. All through the room, the men who wore swords did the same. Those that were carrying staffs beat them against the floor while the rest of the men and women present stomped their feet, a low, thumping sound like a heartbeat vibrating off the walls.

“To war!” Rhys yelled.

“To war!” the assembled nobles howled back as the chaos around me got louder, my people working themselves into a frenzy.

I stared at my father—the only other person in the room who was just standing there, watching as the world around us fell apart.

Chapter Thirteen

Early the next morning, I opened the door to the remains of the West Tower—the only one of the four towers on my palace that had managed to survive the earlier battles unscathed—and stared at the dusty room where I’d first entered Nerissette. I bit my lip as I stared at the black, withered vines that surrounded the wooden rafters above my head. They had been Mercedes’s first attempt at wielding her powers, and she’d overdone it a bit that day. She’d turned the Fate Maker’s tower into a garden with just a single touch. It had been amazing.

I stepped into the room and ran my hand over the mantelpiece, letting my fingers trail through the dust until they reached the spot where a skull sat. I picked the bones up and turned them over in my hands. “Who were you?”

Of course, it wasn’t going to answer. Even in Nerissette death was permanent. I set the skull back in its resting place and walked deeper into the room. In the corner was the table our classmates Heidi and Jesse had hid behind the first time Winston shifted into his dragon form. I ran my hand over it and sighed as I thought about the first two people I’d lost. I should have sent them back that very first day. I should have forced the Fate Maker to send them back home no matter what the cost had been. There hadn’t been a place for them here in Nerissette, and I should have made sure they got home safely.

I took a step forward and accidentally kicked something. I looked down and saw the Orb of Fate, still caked with dried blood from my first battle with the Fate Maker a year ago. I knelt down and picked it up, testing the weight in my hands.

The first time the Fate Maker had attacked me, I’d tried to use the Orb as a weapon. I’d smashed it against the wizard’s head and tried to escape. It hadn’t worked, and the glass ball had rolled under the table and been forgotten in the aftermath.

I wiped the sleeve of my shirt over the Orb and peered into it. “Show me what I desire most in the world,” I whispered. The glass ball began to hum.

The sphere was supposed to show people their fate, but Esmeralda had once told me it was all a trick. The sphere didn’t show you fate because fate was something you had to decide for yourself. What the ball showed you was the fate that you wanted so that you could act on it.

The ball clouded with blue smoke and then cleared. Inside of it pictures flickered, twisting around one another, and I moved my face closer to it, trying to see what it was that I wanted most in the world.

The first picture showed my mother, sitting on the Rose Throne with John of Leavenwald sitting beside her, crowns on both their heads. Right, Mom and John getting their happily ever after, that was a pretty obvious thing to want. The picture faded out and another took its place. This time I watched as Winston and I wandered through a grassy fields, our fingers linked together, and he leaned down to kiss me.

“I love you,” the Winston in the Orb whispered.

Okay, so happy family and a loving boyfriend—those were all no-brainers.