Dreams of Gods & Monsters(32)
Author: Laini Taylor

There was no doubt that he was referring to his own escape and its consequences. The Wolf didn’t miss his meaning. “Indeed,” he said. “Let the past be our teacher. Killing is the only finality.” A glance at Karou, and he added with a very small smile, “And sometimes, not even that.”

It took the rest of them a second to realize that Beast’s Bane and the Wolf were in agreement, icy agreement though it was.

“It would be too uncertain,” Liraz said to Elyon. “And too unsatisfying.” They were simple words, and chilling. She had an uncle to kill, and she planned to enjoy it.

“Then what do you propose?” asked Elyon.

“We do what we do,” said Liraz. “We fight. Akiva destroys Jael’s portal so he can’t summon reinforcements. We take the thousand out there, and then we come home by the other portal, close it behind us, and deal with the rest of them here in Eretz.”

Elyon chewed on this. “Setting aside for the moment ‘the rest of them,’ and the impossible odds there, the thousand in the human world makes nearly three to one, their favor.”

“Three Dominion to one Misbegotten?” Liraz’s smile was like the love child of a shark and a scimitar. “I’ll take those odds. And don’t forget, we have something they don’t.”

“Which is?” inquired Elyon.

With a glance first to Akiva, Liraz turned to regard the chimaera. She didn’t speak; her look was resentful and reluctant, but its aim was clear: We have beasts, she might have said, her lip a subtle curl.

“No,” said Elyon at once. He looked to Briathos and Orit for support. “We’ve agreed not to kill them, that’s all, though we would have been within our rights to do it after they broke the truce—”

“We broke the truce, did we?” This from Ten. Haxaya, rather, who seemed to be enjoying the deceit, in a way only she could. Karou knew her true face. She’d been a friend, long ago, and her aspect wasn’t lupine, but vulpine, not so different than this, really—only sharper and more feral. Haxaya had claimed once that she was just a set of teeth with a body behind it, and the way she smiled Ten’s wolf jaws was like a taunt. I might eat you, she seemed to be thinking, most of the time, including now. “Then why is it our blood that stains the cavern floor?” she demanded.

“Because we’re quicker than you,” said Orit, all disdain. “As if you needed further proof of it.”

And with that, Ten was ready to launch herself over the table at her, teeth first and truce be damned. “Your archers are the ones who should answer for this, not us.”

“That was defense. The instant you showed hamsas, we were free of our promise.”

Really? Karou wanted to scream. Had they learned nothing? They were like children. Really freaking deadly children.

“Enough.” It wasn’t a scream, and it wasn’t Karou. Thiago’s snarl was ice and command, and it tore between the facing soldiers and set both sides rocking back on their heels. Ten dipped her head to her general.

Orit glared. She wasn’t beautiful like Liraz, like so many of the angels. Her features were ill-defined, her face full, and her nose had been broken some long time ago, smashed flat at the bridge by blunt force. “You decide what’s enough?” she asked Thiago. “I don’t think so.” She turned to her kin. “I thought we were in agreement that we wouldn’t proceed unless they proved their good faith. I don’t see good faith. I see beasts laughing in our faces.”

“No,” said Thiago. “You don’t.”

“Pray you never do,” added Lisseth helpfully.

Thiago continued as though she hadn’t spoken. “I said I would discipline any soldier or soldiers who defied my command, and I will. It’s not to appease you, and you won’t be audience to it.”

“Then how will we know?” demanded Orit.

“You’ll know,” was the Wolf’s reply, as heavy with threat as his earlier pronouncement to Karou, but without the tint of regret.

Elyon was not satisfied. To the others, he said, “We can’t trust them at our sides in battle. We can fight Jael without mixing battalions. They follow their command, and we our own. We keep apart.”

It was Liraz who, with a considering look at the chimaera, said, “Even one pair of hamsas in a battalion could weaken the Dominion and give us an edge.”

“Or weaken us,” argued Orit. “And blunt our edge.”

Karou had glanced at Akiva, and so she saw a spark light his eyes—the vividness of a sudden idea—and when he spoke up, cutting in abruptly, she expected him to give voice to it, whatever it was. But he said only, “Liraz is right, but so is Orit. It may be early yet to speak of mixing battalions. We’ll leave that question for now,” and as the talk moved deeper into the attack plan, Karou was left wondering: What was that spark? What was the idea?

She kept looking at him and wondering, and she had to admit she hoped it might be some way out of all this, because it was becoming clearer to her with every passing moment that, in one thing at least, the seraphim and chimaera were united. It was in their mutual unconcern, in the midst of their plotting, for the effect this attack would have on humans.

Karou tried to give voice to it as the war council wound on, but she couldn’t make her concerns register. Liraz, it seemed to her, pointedly talked over her each time, and if their interests had earlier met in that one loud no, they had now diverged radically. Liraz wanted Jael’s blood. She didn’t care who it spattered.

“Listen,” Karou said, urgent, when she sensed that their accord was becoming a settled thing. And it was a miracle that this council could find accord, but it felt like a bad miracle. “The instant we attack, we become part of Jael’s pageant. Angels in white attacked by angels in black? Never mind what humans will make of chimaera. They have a story for this, too, and in their story, the devil is an angel—”

“We don’t have to care what humans think of us,” said Liraz. “This is no pageant. It’s an ambush. We get in and we get out. Fast. If they try to help him, they become our enemy, too.” Her hands were flat on the stone of the table; she was ready to push off and launch herself right this instant. Oh, she was ready for a bloodbath.

“This prospective enemy that you appear to be taking lightly,” said Karou, “has.…” She wanted to say that they had assault rifles and rocket launchers and military aircraft. Small detail that the languages of Eretz couldn’t begin to communicate these things. “Weapons of mass destruction,” she said instead. That translated just fine.