“You may have forgotten, but Cadet Max is the first-year who snuffed out the dragon fire at the Sorting.”Why does she keep pulling me into the spotlight?“We haven’t tested the extent of her power. We haven’t catalogued what she is. Forged, old bloodline, something else entirely.” Her gaze snagged on me the way a pin snags a butterfly. “We need our best experts to evaluate Cadet Morning…”
“Cadet Max Morning is classified,” Nikolai interrupted. “And she’s off limits. No one touches her. No one corners her. No one interrogates her. And no one fucking tests her.”
Warmth moved through my chest. He was protecting me, just as he’d said he would.
“And no one looks at her wrong,” Caspian added, his voice dropping to something that was almost a threat, and suddenly I was very aware of how sealed and crowded this room was, and how inconvenient it was to be this wet in a war room.
Fuck. Not now. Absolutely not now.
“That settles it.” Aelindor’s tone closed the matter like a door. “All heirs are in agreement on the matter of Cadet Max Morning. She won’t be treated as a first-year cadet, even if she lives among them. She answers to no one but us. Anyone who harms her dies.” He paused. “She isn’t just an asset or a matter of national security. She’s personally important to Caspian, Nikolai, Drakken, and me.”
My mask cracked. I hadn’t expected that, and from the weight that settled over the room, neither had anyone else. Every officer nodded. No questions. Just orders received and loyalty given.
At the edge of my vision, Lady Vaelith’s composure slipped. A flash of hurt, there and gone. She hadn’t expected it either, and somehow, I knew Aelindor had never said anything like it in front of his officers before. Not for her.
He didn’t look at her. He nodded at Nikolai.
“You’ve been summoned because we’re calling the first Tri-Crown Accord in the history of the Zodiac Covenant.” Nikolai picked up the thread seamlessly. “We’ll formally invite both New Columbia and the Haven to the capital. The agenda centers on the escalating mutant threat and the Pallid Court’s experiments.”
My heart slammed against my ribs.
If the Collector came here, Aelindor could compel him to bring Missy as a precondition of the invitation—demand her return as the price of a seat at the table. No covert extraction across hostile ground. No breach. The Collector would walk Missy through our gate, and I’d have my sister back in my arms.
I swallowed. It wouldn’t be that easy. Politics never was.
I looked at Aelindor, needing more. He was already watching me, but his expression gave nothing away. I was beginning to understand that I could only read him when we were alone.
Lady Vaelith leaned close and whispered into his ear. I looked away before I did something I’d regret, like lunge across the table and squeeze her throat. I fixed my gaze on Nikolai instead, and the moment his crimson eyes found mine, something in me settled. The violent image faded.
A second later, a darker realization landed.
This was what falling for the heirs did to a woman. And was I? Falling? I wasn’t supposed to. I was a miner first. I ran on logic and survival math. I didn’t do emotions. And I definitely hadn’t almost attacked a Fae noblewoman in the middle of a military briefing over a man who wasn’t even mine.
Shit.If I fell any harder, what exactly was I going to do with myself?
“We have no diplomatic relationship with either kingdom,” Commander Marco said. “We’ve been at war with the Pallid Court. New Columbia has stayed neutral for decades. And the Collector runs the Haven like a personal estate. Our intelsuggests he’s been working with the White Witch in secret. That’s how her forces were able to flood in through the south border. The neutrality is a smokescreen.” He looked around the table. “So why would any of them walk into our capital on our invitation?”
Several officers nodded, doubt written on their faces.
I’d been reading everything Frost could get me on all four kingdoms, and I’d studied the Haven hardest. Xander the Collector—the Saint, to his followers—ran a southern kingdom built on the appearance of faith and the reality of hoarding. Rare objects. Rare people.
New Columbia was different. Former federal government, pushed north into frozen territory when the White Witch seized the center. Mostly human, with a deep institutional suspicion of magic and supernaturals. They loathed the White Witch as much as the Covenant did, but that didn’t make them allies. They were simply pointing in the same direction.
The New Columbia invitation was window dressing. The real target was the Collector.
“New Columbia will come,” Lady Vaelith said, and every eye in the room moved to her. She was quite the beauty. I’d give her that. But Aelindor was still watching me. “Every kingdom has spies in our territory, and recent events have traveled fast: the demon emergence, the new mutant attacks. We don’t yet know whether word of our heirs entering the DarkVeil has spread. And there’s been a rumor circulating the continent for months: that the lost heir of two Zodiac Houses has finally surfaced. Competing claims, as always—false heirs, planted stories, manufactured noise. Some of it may be the White Witch’s own design. But the rumor now places the lost heir within the walls of the Zodiac Covenant.” She let that land. “Our neighbors can’t wait to visit. An open invitation to our capital is also an intelligence opportunity New Columbia won’t pass up.”
“Which means inviting them in is exactly the security risk we should be avoiding,” General Ashcroft said. Two other generals nodded their agreements.
“We have a covert operation that depends on their attendance,” Aelindor said.
My heart kicked up. The heirs were men of their word; I’d known that. What I’d feared was that the weight of the war would tip the scales, and rescuing Missy would get pushed from priority to contingency.
Now Aelindor had announced it officially in front of his entire senior command. Xander needed to be here. The plan was moving forward.
I shouldn’t have doubted him just because Lady Vaelith showed up.
Does that mean you can stomach it,the demon surfaced, its voice smooth as a blade through silk,even if the Fae heir is fucking that pretty Fae?