“So,” Kit said quickly to end the awkward silence and to move past the young Lightborn who she was still shocked even existed. She would have fought for Nick’s cause even without the Lightborn and the Shadowborn. “Are we here to talk strategy?”
Orlando took that as his cue and moved with Candra off the main part of the platform to a place behind Nick’s throne away from the others, still with Lea and William nearby. When they got there, he turned so that the sun was at his back and Candra was in his shadow, though he still had to hold her hand tightly and try not to let loose too much of his own power, thereby frying everyone around them, metal superconductors as they all were.
“We’re here to talk about victory by way of strategy, yes.” Sedovin said, ever the one to yank attention for himself whenever he could get it with a single flashy grin. “But I expect what we’ll actually hear is more talk of how we should all march directly on Geneva and burn the place to the ground, right, Prince Hothead?”
Balthazar suggested the approach before, but didn’t rise to the insult. “Losing Geneva altogether would send a clear message to every wolf in the world that the Council is through and broken. Including those wolves that still might fight for them elsewhere.”
Zara supported the decision to march on Geneva wholeheartedly, and Nick could feel it since she also believed that taking Geneva from the Council would prove the weakness of the old regime, but Nick wasn’t making a decision alone anymore. There were leaders from every element, and everyone needed to have their say.
Surprisingly, it was Veronica who spoke up next. “They’ll be expecting that we just show up en masse. Because they think us simple-minded enough to do it that way. Brute force.” She looked over at the Earthborn leaders, her eyes drifting across Sedovin and his mate as well before she continued. “While such force is necessary, obviously, they have that too. They have more of it, actually, from what my mother tells me.” That caused murmurs to ripple through the crowd, since no one really knew what that meant. “She’s a personal whore to Gregor Karalis, the Fireborn Councilor. He killed my father and took her so that even my father’s flames couldn’t be at peace.” She was putting out a lot of personal information, but everyone had their reasons for fighting against the old Council.
Nick hadn’t known that, but many things about Veronica made more sense with that revelation. To break the awkward silence that followed, Mitch spoke up, his legs crossed one over the other. His throne seemed to grow and change with every passing moment as the vines wrapped themselves around the wood and around his arms. He didn’t make eye contact with any of the other princes, and it appeared he was talking down to all of them because of it. “Lady Veronica is right. They want us to make things simpler for them. To put all our force in one place, away from the stronghold our new Ironborn friends have provided for us here. We need to bleed them. Weaken them. Make them fear us instead of looking down on us like the pests they consider us to be.”
Veronica sighed and avoided looking at her mate, since she didn’t know if he would be angry, amused or puzzled at the fact that his trophy mate had actually spoken up. “All of them have divided to protect their homelands. They’re waiting for us to move.”
Kit nodded after that statement, since she had been given the same information, but from one of the actual Council members herself. She didn’t want to reveal her close friend, so she kept that information private. “It’s true. They’re waiting for us to march so that they can trap us by coming at us from all sides.”
Zara knew that Teresa was a leak, but it wasn’t like the Council had given Teresa much information anyway. Not for a long time. How did these leaders know so much? Who else was giving them information? Zara touched the back of Nick’s chair very lightly with her fingertips. We don’t have a big enough force to split up. Not yet, anyway.
“If the Council has decided to split their forces, then so much the worse for them.” Nick finally spoke up, giving his own two cents on the matter.
Reston perked up at that. “You think we should attack them in their own homes?”
“I think they are a great deal more vulnerable alone than they are together. Just as we are all stronger together than alone.” Nick looked around at all the gathered faces one at a time. “Alone, we’re strong enough to survive, but that’s about all. We have here,” Nick gestured around the court, nodding especially at Orlando, Candra and Zara behind him, “gathered around us, a representative from every element. I can think of no other time in all of recorded history that such a thing has occurred, and certainly not under such peaceful circumstances. The Council’s combined forces have been their key to conquest for a long time, and ours, in that way at least, will be no different.”
Marina twirled her fingers around in her glass of water for a moment longer before she decided to join the conversation. “But even if we destroy one of them at their home, the rest of them will converge on us before we could move on to the next.”
“Not if we move fast enough.” Mitch said, still without making eye contact. “Or if we give them reason to think we’re going to attack, say, the Fireborn stronghold at Santorini, but then go after
