Dreams of Fury: Descendants of the Fall Book IV by Hodges, Aaron (most important books to read .txt) 📗

you at least would remain loyal to my father’s cause,” she tisked softly, and Lukys leapt at the opportunity.

“Amina!” he bellowed, adding his Voice to his words. “Your treachery has been laid bare. Will you submit yourself to the judgement of the Sovereigns?”

Below, the queen’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “So it’s true then?” she said softly, though the words still carried to those above. “The Sovereigns have finally left the safety of their island. I did not think you had the courage.” Then her eyes narrowed, her lips thinning into a cruel smile. “But no, I see the truth, even from here. The eyes betray you, Tangata. It seems I find monsters everywhere I turn, these days.” She looked again at Nguyen. “I am disappointed, brother king. I did not think you so cowardly as to ally with the enemy.”

“The only enemy I see here waits outside these walls, Amina,” Nguyen’s reply came from Lukys’s right.

“Oh?” Amina asked wryly. “And where was the bold king of Gemaho when Calafe begged—”

“Don’t you dare speak about my people as though you care,” Erika snarled, stepping up on the crenulations. Light appeared in her hand as she ignited the gauntlet, though Amina must be far behind its range. “It was you who betrayed my father, who provoked him to attack the Tangata. You have been behind every death, every pain and loss my people have suffered this past decade.”

“Oh, they’re your people now are they, my good Archivist? And where were you while the Calafe suffered? While they fought desperately for their survival? When everyone else fled, whose soldiers fought alongside them? Who gave them shelter when their kingdom fell? Where were you, Archivist?”

Erika lowered her head, but she did not back down. “I failed the Calafe once,” she said softly, then looked up to meet the queen’s gaze again. “I will not do so again. I am an Archivist no longer—the Calafe have elected me their queen, at least until this war is done.”

“Queen is it?” Amina’s eyes narrowed as she appraised the group atop the walls again. “Bold claims you all make, but I see the truth. You are all little better than common thieves. Treachery will do you no good against my armies.”

“Your people stand with us now, Amina,” Lukys said, and Sophia stepped up beside him, granting him her strength.

“And her people are behind me,” the queen snapped. Lips drawing back in a sneer, she gestured to Erika and Nguyen. “Truly you must be desperate, to ally yourselves with such creatures. Is your hatred for me so great that you would see us all destroyed?

Nguyen stirred at that. “Everything I have done was for the survival of Gemaho.”

“And everything I have done is for the survival of our species!” Amina snarled. “But your treachery threatens to destroy everything I have worked towards, the union I have built.”

“Your union was built on lies and treachery,” Lukys said, and now Sophia spoke with him in unison, as the Sovereigns of old had done. There they hesitated, and Lukys glanced at his partner, knowing what they said next could tear their fragile alliance asunder. But there was no other choice, and looking again at the Flumeeren Queen, they continued: “Yet it is not too late to negotiate a true union.”

“What?”

Lukys did not look around as the cry came from Erika, instead keeping his gaze fixed on the queen. Amina’s eyes had narrowed at his words, but for the moment she said nothing. Erika, on the other hand, roiled with a burning rage.

Lukys could hardly blame her after everything the woman had done to the Calafe. But the crimes of the past could not change one, immutable fact.

Queen Amina commanded half the forces of humanity. Without her on their side, Maya and the Tangata would crush their piddling army without breaking a sweat.

“And who are you to speak of these matters, Sovereign?” Amina called from below, her gaze flickering to Nguyen. “Nguyen I can imagine, perhaps seeing reason, but the Archivist…” she trailed off as her eyes settled on Erika, and Lukys knew without turning what she saw. He could sense the rage bubbling from the former Archivist, a burning, scorching thing.

“No, the self-styled Queen of Calafe clearly does not consent to your idea,” Amina continued, eyes returning to the Sovereigns. “Who are any of you to think you could lead such an alliance? Not my dear Erika, who until yesterday fled all hint of responsibility. Surely not Nguyen, who abandoned the last alliance between our peoples, surrendering an entire kingdom to the enemy.” Her eyes settled on Lukys and Sophia. “And surely not the Sovereigns of Perfugia, who have hidden on their island for generations, who shirked their duties to the last alliance, no less than the coward king.”

She shook her head, as though to dismiss them all. “None of you are worthy. There is only one who has fought for all our peoples, only one who saw the threat that lurked in our mountains, who did what was necessary to unite humanity against the coming threat.”

Lukys gritted his teeth at the woman’s words. “Do not seek to present yourself as the saviour of humanity, Flumeeren Queen,” he growled. “You have never cared for the lives of those beneath you.” He shook his head. “And my predecessors might have shirked their responsibilities, but I have not. It wasn’t long ago that I served beneath your own general, fought in a war that you started, against a people that wanted only peace.”

“Monsters,” Amina replied coldly, her gaze flickering to Sophia before returning to Lukys. “Creatures from the dark, ruled by base emotion. They possess no civilisation, no civility. Just like our so-called-gods, they would have betrayed us in the end. There can be no peace with such creatures.”

A growl came from alongside Lukys as Sophia stirred. “Yet in the end, it was not my people who broke the peace,” she called back. “It was not the Tangata who sought bloodshed, who oversaw the