“I see.”
I rolled my eyes.
“What he means, is that you need allies closer to home. Allies who have also suffered under the Overlord’s rule and might be willing to forgive some sins of the past. Do you have someone that the people can rally behind? A leader or king of some sort?”
Davos huffed at me, impatient. His eyes ran up and down my body, the corner of his lip curling in a sneer.
“And who are you?”
I pushed back the urge to show him the business end of my claws and threw out a hand to stop an already growling Benedict. I glanced around, noting that nearly everyone was watching our interaction. What happened next, what was said here, whatever it was would be important. Symbols had meaning. Drakens are hope.
“Who are we, I think you mean?” I shot a glance at Benedict, and he blinked twice, not wanting us to show our hand just yet.
“We are your best shot allies. I suggest you start telling us everything.”
Kieran and Benedict stood on either side of me, lending credence to my words. Davos paled, then his face went red.
“And why should we trust you? Twenty slaves are a low price to pay for access to the entire rebel underground! You could be working for Severn! He’s been trying to find our hiding spot for years! Unless you are Aldurian royalty then—"
Benedict took a step forward, and Davos automatically leaned back.
“I can assure you we have come straight from Severn—he sent an entire pack of vampyres and lykos at us near the base of the mountain. We escaped into the river and made it here. If Severn is happy to see us again, it’s so he can separate our heads from our necks.”
I thought that would be enough for Davos, but to our confusion the humans around us cried out in terror, and Davos went white again.
“What? He’s likely followed you! You will lead him straight to us! We must evacuate immediately!”
People started running, gathering possessions and shouting. Children were crying, confused at the sudden tangible taste of terror on the air.
“NO! That’s not true, that can’t be right!”
“It sounds like you got in easily. Too easily!” Davos turned on his heel and left us, and I whipped around to Benedict.
“That’s not true, is it?”
Benedict and Kieran shared a look.
“It’s not impossible.”
I paced on the spot, running my hands through my hair. “Well...we can’t possibly take everyone to Lyoness, the wards—”
“Wren, we cannot simply hide everyone away on an island. That’s not a solution.”
Benedict’s voice was soft, and that’s what stopped me.
“Sometimes you can’t save everyone.”
I was reminded of Georg’s Supa, and the accusations he’d laid at Benedict’s feet. I jerked away from Benedict’s hand, my voice full of anger.
“You know a lot about abandoning people, wouldn’t you?”
He gaped after me, but I was done with him. The past was not a guarantee of the future. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. I wouldn’t allow it to be.
“Everyone stop.”
I didn’t do it consciously, but my voice rang through the cavern, my voice magicks coating my words with authority and power. Men and women alike froze, dropping what they were doing to turn and stare. I didn’t care if Benedict said it wasn’t time, these people needed to understand. Before I could do it, Benedict stepped forward onto the stone’s edge, where everyone could see him. He shot me a haunted look, then shifted into his draken form.
For a moment, there was no sound—just shocked silence. Then Becca fell to her knees, her hands held up in a gesture of an answered prayer. Her happy sobs broke the tension, and soon everyone was rushing back, but in joy instead of fear. Their voices became a cacophony of sound, but the same words were repeated over and over.
“The draken is here! The draken has returned! We are saved!”
Glancing at Kieran, I still didn’t understand what one draken could possibly hope to do against the demon hordes, but it wasn’t about that, was it?
A draken means that there is still hope.
That’s what they needed, wasn’t it? We needed to cause a disturbance—something loud, and something showy, to let the humans know the drakens had returned, and there was hope. Perhaps with the Overlord’s eye turned on Cantrada, Meruse and Astrid could get more answers and find their witches.
Davos pushed his way to us, his eyes comically wide with shock. I laughed, then his face turned sour.
“You’re all drakens, aren’t you?”
Kieran stepped between us, not liking his tone.
“The female is with us.”
Davos’s face turned ugly. “I’d heard rumors of a human sacrifice to the drakens.”
Kieran narrowed his eyes, getting in the man’s face.
“How fortuitous then that we are not as dead as you all thought we were.” Sweat beaded at the top of Davos’s forehead, even as he managed a tight grin.
“Yes, how fortuitous indeed.”
We met with a few of the other rebel leaders out in the open, so the others could see us planning—doing something.
“Now that we have showed our hand to you, we must strike quickly before word gets out of our arrival.”
Benedict surveyed the small group before us, his gaze serious. Davos had done hasty introductions, but it hadn’t kept these men and women from openly staring. I didn’t blame them, but it was getting annoying. I sat on Benedict’s left, and Kieran on his right. Stale bread with a weak soup was passed around, each of us clutching small bowels that had seen better days.
“You do eat…normal food, don’t you? Or is it only blood?”
Kieran growled, but I ignored Davos.
“We should evacuate as many people as we can before we make our move. Then, they cannot be retaliated against.”
Zara was a woman after my own heart. She was covered in leather armor from head to toe, her flaming red hair braided in a tight crown around her head. Her hand continually rested along the base of a long, thin rapier at her waist. Meruse would love her. Zara
