Page 63 of ColdIron
My jaw clenched so hard I had to fight not to grind my teeth at the heir who was more than a brother to me. The one who’d saved me and mentored me since I was an orphaned kid with scales and rage and nothing else.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Aelindor,” I drawled. “He’s in my academy. I won’t allow the corruption to spread. One bad seed spoils the entire operation. He’s already doing it, starting from the very top.”
Caspian and Nikolai traded a dark look that said I was a jerk.
“What do you plan to do to Max, then?” Nikolai asked in his soft, dangerous voice. “Since you’ve already made up your mind about him.”
“Whatever it takes.” I let the words fall like rocks. “Until I’m certain he poses no threat.”
Aelindor closed his eyes. Inhaled. When he opened them, they glowed silver-blue—the Fae’s true light surfacing through the mask of composure.
“I can tolerate almost everything you do, Drakken,” he said, and his voice had never been this cold. “But Max is off-limits. He asked to be a soldier, so we enrolled him. If you don’t want him in your elite school, I’ll remove him myself.”
A pause.
“But hear me clearly. Harm Max, and this alliance between the four of us is over.”
Silence struck the room like a detonation.
Shock registered first, a cold blow to the center of my chest. Then hurt sank into my bones like sharpened ice. Aelindor had never threatened to shatter the alliance. Not during the worst years of the war. Not when we’d buried warriors by the hundreds. Not when we’d disagreed so violently that Caspian and Nikolai had drawn weapons on each other.
Never.
But one warlock had changed everything.
“I see.” I forced my voice to remain steady through the wreckage. “The warlock really got to you, Aelindor. He’s an even bigger threat than I thought.”
“Don’t you get it?” Aelindor pinched the bridge of his nose and raised his voice—rare enough to make all threeof us flinch. “If you cost us Max, it won’t be me who breaks the alliance. It’ll be your hands that destroy the Zodiac Covenant. You’re so blinded by hatred that you can’t see past his bloodline, even if it is tied to the White Witch, as you insist.”
He held my gaze. The silver-blue in his eyes burned brighter.
“I’ve been waiting for you to catch up, Drakken. You feel the same pull toward Max. The same draw. Just like the rest of us.” His voice dropped. “But I have to spell it out before you ruin our only chance at forming the pact with the heir of the last two Zodiac Houses and thus cost us the final war.”
I stared at him. My lungs locked. For three full heartbeats, I couldn’t draw air. The dragon inside me went utterly still, frozen in a way I’d never felt.
“What are you talking about?” I heard myself say.
“Have you considered,” Aelindor offered, each word deliberate and loaded, “that Max might be one of us? The final piece of the Fourfold Vow?”
All three of them stared at me, holding their breath, waiting for my response as if I were a cornered wild beast. As if what I said next would determine whether we stood together or broke apart.
I sucked in a breath. It was no secret that the Fourfold Vow prophecy consumed the Fae heir. He’d been studying it, chasing it, for decades, holding on to hope the way a drowning man clutches driftwood. Finding the lost heir from two Zodiac Houses was his obsession. His reason for living through centuries of war that destroyed his home.
He was desperate. They all were. I was too.
But Max the warlock was the answer? The final fucking piece?
That was seriously fucked-up thinking.
But widening the rift between us wouldn’t serve me or the alliance. So I needed to choose my words diplomatically.
“Prophecy is a double-edged sword, Aelindor. It might be more productive to focus on practical matters, like expanding our forces, securing resources, strengthening the borders. There’s so much to do and so little time.”
I ran a hand over my cropped hair, remembering the way Max’s midnight eyes had stared back at me. Unflinching. No one could hold my alpha stare except the other heirs. But that scrawny warlock had stood his ground like he’d been born to it. I didn’t like thinking about him, but he occupied my head rent-free.
“That boy witch can’t be it,” I decided. “We can’t afford to be confused.”
I scanned their faces—disappointment in every line. They thought I was being my usual arrogant, bullheaded self. I needed to shift tactics. Speak their language instead of digging into an unpopular position and losing their support entirely.
