Page 96 of Of Blood and Banes (The Arterian #2)
AN APPETITE
D aeja and I catch up to the rest of the group outside of the dreary, gray-washed city of Millton.
I’ve reread my father’s journal entries multiple times during the daylight, unable to pinpoint exactly what he was telling me.
When we meet up with the group in the outskirts of Millton, Melaina looks to be anything but positive as she heads in our direction.
“You didn’t find him…did you?” she mutters.
I shake my head, hugging my arms closer to my chest as a cutting wind picks up and blasts me nearly sideways before it disappears.
Melaina sighs and stops a few steps away. “We haven’t had much luck, either. The council refuses any meetings with us about the King’s letter. They’re saying they need time to deliberate without our outside interference.”
“We don’t have a few days.”
“I know. Which is why I informed them of the deadline the King gave and stressed we need soldiers. And we need them now.”
“And that didn’t change their minds?”
She breaks our eye contact, already preparing me for what I suspect.
“No. They’re still deliberating. But they offered us to stay while they decide.
The vote must be unanimous. Some of them already side with us, but others need a bit of convincing.
Many don’t feel the need to risk the lives of so many soldiers for someone as…
I’m sorry, I swear these are their words not mine… dispensable as Cole.”
I clench my teeth. “How long is it supposed to take until we get a decision? By the time they finish their ‘deliberating’ we might not have any time left in the King’s three-week deadline.”
She sighs and asks sincerely, “What do you propose, then?”
“No news from the dragon riders, I presume?”
She shakes her head.
I scan the skies like it’ll tell me something I’m not thinking of. The bright sunlight causes me to squint. I dip my head and run a hand through my hair as I squeeze my eyes shut. “Gods-fucking-damnit…I don’t know…”
“Hey…” She jolts forward and grabs my forearm. “Listen, it’s okay if you don’t know what to do. But maybe you sleep on it.”
“That’s just a waste of time,” I growl, pulling out of her grasp.
She holds up her hands to me. “I’d argue a strategic plan from a well-rested mind is better than a last-minute, reactionary one.
One night. That’s all I’m asking. I can work with Archie on some ideas while you rest. Even if you only take tonight to rest on it, you will still have enough time to fly back if you have to. ”
“She’s got a point. And your eye bags are looking real bad,” Daeja chirps from behind me.
I throw her a quick glare before deciding against jokingly chucking my father’s journal at her.
“What?” Daeja chuckles. “You’re not your best when you’re exhausted. And you’ve hardly slept over the last few days of travel. Plus, you’ve pulled and gone to The White.”
“Fine…” I grumble, dragging my attention back to Melaina. “One night.”
“Kill her!” a haggard old woman screams, pointing her crooked finger at me from the sidewalk.
“End this now, coward!” another middle-aged man calls from the other side of the street as Melaina walks me and Daeja through Millton.
More shouts of protest and disgust rise from around us, melting into a chorus of anger the farther we get into Millton. Something hits me on the side of the jaw before it splatters to the ground.
A…fucking tomato?
I turn to the direction from which it came and this time a handful of rocks the size of coins hits me square in the chest. Daeja swivels, her wings flaring out to the side that envelopes the entire width of the street, and roars with a fury that sends crowds scattering like frantic ants.
Melaina removes her cloak and wraps it over me, then pulls the hood up over my head and tucks me down in between her and Daeja.
“Keep your head down!” she whispers. “Some of these people will kill you to end the King!”
“But I’m wearing my gloves?—”
“I know! But word is getting out of what you look like, and it’s hard to miss the massive black dragon.” She ushers me quicker to the northern part of town. “And now that my father is gone, with no one yet appointed to rule the Dragon Lands? Things will only get worse…”
Worse. I don’t like the sound of that.
The next morning, after a night of tossing and turning, I wake to a knock from Melaina.
When I open the door, I recognize the defeat on her face.
While the council of the Dragon Lands still won’t meet with us, they’ve granted us private, guarded use of the community hall.
They feed us breakfast, and while the others eat around me, I can’t find my appetite.
I pull out my father’s journal and the one page Melaina shared with me from Queen Elara’s journal.
“Aren’t you going to eat, Kat?” Archie asks from across the table, his eyebrows pinched in worry.
I shake my head. My mind is the only thing hungry. Staring at the pages, I examine each letter. What did my father mean? What’s in his journal and the page excerpt from Queen Elara’s isn’t new information…what am I not reading that he needs me to know?
I set the excerpt from Queen Elara’s down next to my father’s journal and stare at the language I do know. The prophecy.
The one son, chosen to lead them all.
Wasn’t a son but a maid.
Until binds of death did that grave deed bade.
In death, blood is shed. But from blood there is life.
Restored by air and night to end all strife.
“I don’t have much of an appetite either…” Archie mumbles, pushing his food around on his plate with a fork.
“Since when?” Melaina asks, then takes a bite of an apple.
“What do you mean since when?”
Melaina laughs. “You’ve always had a good appetite.”
Archie gasps, insincere with his pained tone, “Is that supposed to be insulting?”
“No. It’s just you’ve always had a wide range of foods you enjoy.”
“Oh, yeah? Like what?”
“Remember the time you ate all those mussels?” Melaina prompts.
“Did you find it endearing?” Archie smirks, leaning back in his chair as he throws one arm over the back of hers.
She looses a bell-of-a-laugh that rips me out of my concentration. I grit my teeth, straining to block them out as I refocus back on the letters in front of me. “Can you guys keep it down? I’m trying to focus…”
In true Archie exuberance, he continues, “Ha! It was the mussels that got you to look my way, wasn’t it?”
“Archie!” I hiss a reminder to lower his voice.
He flexes his arm, his scarred bicep bumping up under his shirt. “But you meant these muscles, didn’t you?” he waggles an eyebrow at Melaina.
I freeze.
It couldn’t be…right? I look back down at the page, staring at the letters. Melaina’s words echo throughout my mind from a few days ago.
“What’s odd, though…is he said this wasn’t translating the same as the prophecy we all have known since we were children. Some of the words look similar but are different.”
“Give me a pen!” I shout and everyone turns to me in confusion. But I can’t take my eyes off the words, for the fear of losing my train of thought. “A pen! Hurry!”
Gavin races off and returns with a pen, Melaina and Archie watch me in confusion.
“The translation is wrong…” I explain as I search the page. I cross out words and replace them with other similar sounding ones.
The one son sun, chosen to lead them all.
Wasn’t a son sun but maid made.
Until binds of death did that grave deed bade.
In death, blood is shed. But from blood there is life.
Restored by air heir and night knight to end all strife.
Archie whispers, “What does it mean?”
Unable to drag my attention up from the page, I shake my head.
My thoughts buzz as all the pieces come together.
Cyrus had a son. And considering Cyrus was born of sun dragonblood…
it would have made his child a hybrid as well.
Granted, that child would likely have a more diluted bloodline.
But still magical all the same. Ancient whispers flutter around me.
Fire incarnate.
Flame in flesh.
Blood of power.
Brushing my fingers across my father’s journal, his voice echoes in my mind, “It’s something of a family heirloom. It was originally my father’s, but he died before he could write in it, and before I could meet him.”
I stop. Wait…
I tap my finger against the page as I wrestle my way through each tangled cord of thought. And despite the hushed whispers around me stilling to a silence, my mind roars.
If my father never met his father because he died…
why would my father have written a letter to Cyrus labeled as ‘sire ?’ Unless he meant it as a title of respect.
But then that would mean I’m not related to Cyrus.
And if I’m not…how could we have possibly made it through the invisible barrier at Vitalis?
Or unlocked the door into the royal tomb?
I glance down at the Blood Ring on my finger. Could it have been magically strong enough to negate the need for Cyrus’s bloodline to enter?
The entire room whirls into a blur of color, becoming a wash of varying shades of red.
All those nights back in Arterias where I dreamt of fire and blood resurface like a current screaming for my attention.
Until I pinpoint exactly where I’ve seen those shades of red—vibrant like any roaring fire, and rich like fresh blood.
Everything is drowned out by flashes of my memory played back in slow motion.
The wall of fire I saw back in Blackfell.
The figure behind it a shadow, until a man emerged from the other side.
His glowing amber eyes with slitted pupils burning with otherworldly wrath as the reflection of flames danced in his eyes.
Concealed raw power rolling off him in waves.
How inexplicably drawn I feel to him. His tousle of flame-red hair.
“He’s not even my father,” his voice echoes in the deepest roots of my mind.
Just as I begin to accept the truth that’s been in front of me all along—I’m overwhelmed.
Using my blood to pass through the Vitalis barrier and the tomb only worked because it wasn’t just my blood.
How my nightmares always disappeared when he was near.
How his eyes almost glowed amber, and the way they reflected flames so clearly.
How he roared in battle like he was more beast than he was man. That pulsing, drowning rage.
“Find Cole, and take her back to the Dragon Lands,” my mother’s voice calls in my memory.
The chants creep in around me, prickling my skin. Like the archaic collection of whispers recognize that I finally understand. After all this time.
Fire incarnate. Flame in flesh. Blood of power.
Fire incarnate. Flame in flesh. Blood of power.
Fire incarnate. Flame in flesh. Blood of power.
“What?” Melaina snaps me back to reality, her eyes searching every inch of my body as if it’ll give her a clue. “What is it?”
Finally, I look up at her. “I was never the chosen one…”
I swallow.
“It’s Cole.”