Page 52 of Lord of Ruin (The Age of Blood #2)
Chapter Thirty
Isaac
G iven the nature of the recent raid and the tension that mounted on the streets, Isaac had graciously offered his little safe harbor as a meeting point.
There would be no more sneaking to the Fox Den, no hidden back-room strategies, no help for those who needed it, no more slipping pamphlets through and into the hands of the workers, distributing them ever outward like the ever-expanding ripples in a pond.
In one night, all of that had been taken from them.
All that and more.
Isaac crumpled the letter that Samuel had sent them, full of explanations and warnings.
The threat to Celeste, the horrid fate awaiting Monique, the casual cruelty of the Guard’s widespread arrests, just because they could.
The only warning he could give, caught up in his position as a Councillor, but it was still enough to get them started.
He brought over a pot of tea and a carafe of coffee for Maia and Alaric, who had cozied up on the chaise lounge, leaning into each other as they whispered.
Isaac did not interrupt them, he could tell that it wasn’t planning, it was comfort between two old friends when the cracks in their foundation were starting to show.
He placed the refreshments in front of them, Maia sending him a grateful look before he ducked back.
Still an outsider, despite it all.
The clock ticked past midnight, and Isaac stared out the window, wondering when Anton would return.
He had gone to find Celeste, to move her to another one of their safe houses, just in case Monique broke under the weight of what the Guard would do to her.
Torture, Isaac was sure, even if they wouldn’t call it that.
They would dress it up in trappings of justice and fairness, prices paid for crimes committed.
If she did break, he wouldn’t blame her. He was just thankful that they were able to save Celeste first.
The downstairs door whooshed open, a soft sound that Isaac knew the others didn’t register. But he heard it anyway, as well as the rapid beat of Anton’s heart as he climbed the stairs. It wasn’t fear, no, that had a slightly different beat—this was something more. It was fury, pure and unalloyed.
This was going to be a long night.
“She’s safe,” Anton said, bypassing introductions completely. “At least for now.”
The wires around Isaac’s heart unwrapped, relief hitting him like a crashing wave that nearly took him to his knees. If anything had happened to her because of him, he wasn’t sure if he would be able to forgive himself.
“That’s good,” he breathed, and Anton gave him a little nod. A moment of solidarity, understanding burning between them as strong as any bridge built of magic—no, stronger. This wasn’t magic, but something they had built themselves, true and powerful.
Perhaps he wasn’t as much of an outsider as he feared.
Anton shrugged out of his cloak and scarf, gloves discarded as he shed the trappings of winter. From there, he made a direct line for the carafe, filling his cup with so much cream and sugar that Isaac wasn’t sure it could technically be called coffee anymore.
Alaric wrinkled his nose in clear distaste, and Anton just threw him a rude hand gesture. “Fuck off, I’m tired.”
“We all are,” Maia said, her hand landing on Alaric’s thigh as she leaned forward. “But we need to plan.”
Slumping into the couch, Anton let out a small sigh, digging his nails into the cheap lining, plucking at worn threads listlessly. “I know, I just need—”
“A moment to breathe?” Alaric offered.
“Yeah, that.”
Isaac looked around the room as the silence grew thick, taking in their tired and defeated faces.
The very air tasted of despair, a cloying weight that threatened to drag them under, and that primal beast within him thrashed at its cage, sensing vulnerable quarry.
It would be so easy, they wouldn’t even fight back…
Isaac shot to his feet, using the movement to hide the way he flinched away from himself.
All the eyes in the room turned to him, waiting for an explanation, but Isaac had no explanation for it, no lies to couch the too uncomfortable truth.
Instead, he reached for the first thing he could think of, the only way forward from this mess.
What he needed to do—what they needed to do.
“We need to take this to the King.”
Alaric arched an eyebrow, and for a moment Isaac nearly forgot that he was Unblooded.
There was an imperious kind of nobility in his demeanor, despite the lack of power in his blood.
Perhaps it was the only way he could move in a world that would see him disinherited for an accident of birth, but it still chilled Isaac to the core.
It reminded him so much of Shan.
“It was always going to come to this,” Isaac breathed, facing the truth he had tried to run from, time and again. The only way out was to finish what he had started, and he was not a man to leave something uncompleted. “There was no version of this where it could have gone any other way.”
The silence broke with a sigh. “Hate to say it, but he’s right.
” Anton leaned forward, pouring himself a second cup with the determination of a man who would do whatever he needed to get through this night.
“The Eternal Bastard wants to escalate this, well, let’s meet him blow for blow. Let’s give him a war.”
“We’re not ready,” Alaric began, cowardice seeping through, and Isaac couldn’t help the laugh.
He so hated being right.
“We’ll never be ready,” Isaac breathed, “but we can do things to level the playing field. Listen, if we let the King control this—and he will, trust me—we will always be on the back foot.”
If they let that happen, they would never win, and he didn’t have to say that part out loud. He could see them all coming to the same conclusion.
Alaric turned to Maia, searching for backup, but she was already shaking her head. “People are already getting hurt, Alaric, people are already dying. Good people, innocent people. And it won’t stop. No, we need to do more.”
It wasn’t the response he was hoping for, and he turned to Anton, who shot him down with a steely gaze. “You knew this was coming.”
“I thought we had more time,” Alaric pleaded, but Isaac stepped up, the truth like a burning coal on this tongue.
“I took that from you.” He spat it out like it was acid, but he wouldn’t deny his part in this.
The only way forward was to own it. “It was my actions, my killings, my destruction of the very institution that props up this nation of blood that spurred the King into action.” Everyone in this room knew it, but there was a difference between knowing and acknowledging, between recognition and adjustment.
And if they did not adjust, they were doomed.
What a fool he had been, driven by a rage and a guilt that, if it had been left unchecked, would have destroyed the nation he was trying to save.
He wanted Aeravin to burn, but he did not care about those who would die in the process—the very same Unblooded that he had wanted to save.
And now here he was, ready to become whatever he needed to be so that he could save them.
“I started this,” he admitted, “but if we are not careful, the King will end this. The raid on the Fox Den was not just strategic, it was designed to hurt. He couldn’t get to you, so he’ll hunt down everyone who ever gave you aid.
The King will rain down misery and destruction, because this despair, this hesitation, this fear—this is exactly what he wants. ”
Alaric slammed his fist down on the armrest, that fissure of frustration cracking into something dangerous. Even with his position in society so fragile, even with his place in the leadership of this ragtag group, Alaric was not a man who took kindly to being countered.
But Isaac’s sympathy could only go so far, and he would press on Alaric’s weak points until he snapped. “If you’re not brave enough to do what is necessary, then why the fuck are you even—”
“Enough,” Anton said, not loudly, but firmly, cutting through the tension with all the efficiency of a blade. “Fighting among ourselves does not help. Isaac, you have made your point. Alaric, I understand, I really do, but we need to plan our next moves.”
Alaric grumbled but leaned back in the chair with a sigh. Oh, he was still pissed, Isaac could taste that on the air, but he allowed the conversation to move on.
“We cannot fight the King or the Guard head-on,” Isaac continued, deliberately more composed than before.
“To do so would be suicide, even with the handful of Blood Workers we will be able to recruit to our cause. What we need are careful, tactical strikes. Disrupt their ability to use magic, to communicate, to lead.”
“Like you did with that Holland bitch?” Alaric asked, flinging Isaac’s cruelty back in his own face. It didn’t work; Holland had deserved every ounce of pain she had suffered for the way she had treated Samuel. “Heard it was a brutal affair.”
“Just so,” Isaac admitted, then looked to Anton.
They hadn’t told the others, yet, just what he was becoming, even though he was sure they had questions.
A man did not kill in the way that he did, and it was only a matter of time before the truth came out, one way or the other.
He just hoped it would be on his own terms.
Anton inclined his head, permission granted.
“And that is not all,” Isaac continued, even as fear wove around his heart, clenching like vines, piercing like thorns.
This was the real risk—the truth that could have him damned, the truth he had dared not share, up until this point.
It was just Samuel and Shan, Anton and Celeste, those carefully selected few who needed to know.
He prayed that they would be smart enough to understand its value, if nothing else. Even if they could never fully understand the thin line between man and beast that was the heart of what he was becoming.