AllFreeNovel
Share Us
All three of them had chosen me over their own king.
“He cannot die without taking us with him, Your Highness,” Kiar reminded him. “Please think.”
I could see the fury on Alhadya’s face. There was no way to end this peacefully unless they listened.
“I am the only person who knows where Tsuki’s stone is!” I shouted in frustration.
For the first time, Alhadya’s eyes turned to me with something other than ill intent. He was interested.
“And the stone is the only way to directly speak to the goddess Tsuki herself.”
Everyone stilled.
Bracken gave me a confused look over his shoulder.
“What are you saying?” he asked.
“I’m saying that I will take you all to the stone. We will retrieve it together. Then, we will ask Tsuki to remove our tether, together.”
The tension seemed to evaporate from Alhadya’s body and Kiar loosened, freeing him when Alhadya shoved at his coils.
“And what of the stone?” he demanded.
I stared into the black pools of his eyes and knew I could not bring myself to lie even in this moment.
“When we are free of the tether and our lives are no longer entwined, you will have to fight me for it.”
Clem let out a distressed noise next to me, but satisfaction filled Alhadya’s expression, and I knew I had won. This was the only course of action that made sense.
We could not remain one-but-not forever. I still wanted the nocs gone and Alhadya wanted the humans to be wiped out. We both wanted to win this war once and for all.
There was no way to make this end harmoniously.
I just had to watch him closely. Find his weaknesses and when Tsuki broke our bond, I would show Alhadya why I was called the number one noc killer.
Chapter 8
Kiar
Clem’s strange glow faded the moment Hadi agreed to Sun’s strange deal.
For Sun, this meant near-blindness, but we nocs thrived in the darkness.
Hadi stood back but did not help us to free our comrades. I didn’t expect him to. His entire existence had been on the throne. He wasn’t one to clean up his own messes. That had always been my task. Until Sun, I had always been level headed.
Until this moment, I had never cared about my role, but as I carefully tore Sun free from the tight, sticky ropes of his web, I did care. I didn’t like what he had done. And I did not know what to do with the conflicting feelings warring within me–that I should do as Hadi wished–and that Sun came first.
But no matter what had transpired between me and Sun, Hadi was my king. I was his advisor. I would simply have to continue to follow the roles we had been born into. What other choice did I have?
Clem made an anguished sound, and I looked over just as Bracken carefully extracted him. To my chagrin, I saw that one of his wings was torn.
Hearing his pain, Sun fought to be free, managing to stick his arms back into the ropes that I had just freed him from.
I grabbed him by the shoulders, holding him tightly until he turned to face me.
“Bracken has him. He will be fine.”
I felt the tension ease from Sun’s body, and he nodded but remained silent.
