A muscle twitched in Tove’s jaw as his teeth ground together. Cole didn’t say a word, but his uncle was right, and his father knew it.
“It might not be the best idea to make an enemy out of them,” Brokk said.
His father grumbled something and paced over to the table. He grasped the chair at the end, his chair, and gazed down the table at his sons and Maverick.
“I’ll set them free tomorrow,” he relented. “Except for the vampire. He’ll stay in there until I say he can leave, and I don’t care if that’s three centuries from now.”
“They can’t fault you for that,” Cole said.
“No one gives a shit about the vampire,” Maverick muttered.
His father released the chair and pulled it back to sit on it. He waved a hand at the two chairs beside him. “Join me,” he commanded his sons.
Cole stepped away from the wall and walked down to sit at his father’s right side while Brokk took the chair on his left. Maverick sat a couple of chairs down from Brokk.
They had originally planned to have a full coalition meeting with the other immortals seeking to end the Lord’s tyranny. However, there was no reason for those members to remain in the palace once Tove commanded everyone to leave.
Maverick was family; it wouldn’t look odd if he remained, but it would look strange if the others did.
“I spoke with Talon,” his father said.
The warlock was a powerful asset to the coalition, but he was also the most cautious.
“He’s determined that we find someone who can sit on the throne before we try to destroy the Lord,” Tove continued. “He believes it won’t do us any good if we remove the maniac but have no one to replace him.”
“The throne and the power are going to rot whoever we replace him with,” Brokk said. “Just like it has the current Lord.”
Cole still remembered what the current Lord was like before he sat on the throne. He’d been a good man, a warlock who was chosen by the other immortals to take the place of the Lord before him.
Cole clearly remembered Andreas as a smiling warlock with hazel eyes and a boisterous laugh that once rebounded off the walls of the downstairs’ hall. He was one of the few immortals everyone liked, and now the throne had corrupted his mind and turned him into a madman who had unleashed hell upon the unsuspecting mortals.
“And each race of immortal wants it to be one of their own,” Maverick said.
“I don’t know why everyone is so willing to claim the next lunatic as one of theirs,” Cole muttered.
The idea behind the coalition was a good one. A few of the strongest leaders from different realms belonged to it, but unfortunately, the idea was better than the execution. They often spent more time bickering with each other than they did undermining the Lord’s control.
His brothers had known what they planned and hoped to accomplish, but five of them grew impatient with the lack of progress and broke off to join the rebels. Only two of them remained.
Cole didn’t fear that they would rat out the members of the coalition if they were caught. They may have stood on opposing sides of the war and had differing opinions on handling things, but there had always been a lot of love between them.
None of them had the same mothers, but they all had each other, and their father loved them all equally. They would never betray each other.
They were supposed to have stopped him before the humans ever learned about the existence of immortals. Instead, while the war was still waging in the Shadow Realms, the Lord grew impatient with its lack of progress and turned his dragons loose on Earth.
The humans, not expecting the attack and having never seen anything like the creatures scorching their land before, were slow to respond. But it didn’t matter; the Lord had gathered enough intel that he sent the beasts to destroy the human’s military strongholds first.
No country was safe from the wrath of the dragons. By the time the humans responded, their military was devastated, and what remained of it was ineffective against the dragons.
The war had spilled out of the Shadow Realms by then, and though the coalition spent much of the war working in secret to depose the Lord, Cole realized they’d failed. Now, they were still trying to figure out a way to defeat him, but millions, if not billions, had lost their lives in the process, including countless immortals.
Once the human realm fell, those immortals who fought on the rebel side had nothing left to fight for… other than their lives.
The war continued for almost another year, but it grew smaller and smaller until the rebels turned and fled in the hopes of saving their lives.
“Because they think they might have some sway of the next Lord if it is one of theirs,” Maverick said.
“Why? The warlocks have no control over this one,” Cole said.
“It makes no sense, but that’s the way it is,” his father said.
“Hmm….” Cole drummed his fingers on the table and glanced at the empty seat across from Maverick. At one time, Del would have occupied that chair, but his friend was gone.
However, his daughter was still very much alive. Cole pushed aside the image of Lexi’s awed face as she gazed at the luna flowers. Now was not the time.
“How do we go about finding someone to take the Lord’s place?” Brokk asked.
“That’s the question no one can answer,” Maverick said. “That throne was built for an arach. Those dragons belong to them.”
“But they’re all dead,” Cole said.
“That they are,” his father muttered as he poured himself a goblet of wine.
“There has to be someone who can handle its power,” Brokk said.
“We haven’t found anyone in a thousand years,” their father replied.
“There has to be something we can do,” Brokk insisted. “We can’t sit here and wait for the Lord to decide he wants all our realms, and all of us, dead next.”
“Someone has to sit on that throne,” Maverick said. “The Shadow Realms will be almost as unstable with an empty throne as it is with the Lord on it. The dragons will have free reign of the realms if someone isn’t on that throne to control them. And if those things decide to fly free….”
“We’re all fucked,” Cole finished when his voice trailed off.
“Exactly.”
“What if we kill the Lord and instead of replacing him with one immortal, we have a rotating group of them, each chosen by a member of the coalition?” Brokk suggested. “We can pick who we think will be the best choices for the throne.”
“And what if one of them sits on it and decides not to give up the throne’s power?” his father asked.
“We’ll fight that battle if we come to it, but if they’re not on it for very long, maybe we can keep the throne from corrupting them.”
“I think Brokk’s suggestion might be worth discussing with the others. Have you spoken with Circe?” Cole asked.
Circe was the witch on the coalition. No other witches knew one of their most powerful coven leaders was secretly helping other immortals bring down the Lord. They would have been astounded to learn that at one time she was also working with a vampire, but Del’s death ended that relationship.
Tove had originally gathered Maverick, Circe, and Talon for this. After years of friendship, he felt he could trust them, and he wanted the powers other immortal creatures could bring to the table.
He later brought in his sons, and Cole was the one who introduced Del. The man was a military genius, but not even Del could figure out a way to get through the dragons to destroy the Lord. However, he’d been working on something he said might change things. Unfortunately, he died before anyone could learn what it was.
“Brokk’s suggestion could work,” Maverick said.
“There’s a lot of hate between the different species; look at what happened here tonight,” his father said.
“There will be a lot more death if they don’t get over it,” Cole said.
His father sat back in his chair and clasped his hands before him as he stared at the far wall. “I think we might be on to something here. I think the others will approve of each species having equal time on the throne, and we can hold each other accountable.”
“It’s going to require a lot of trust between the species,” Maverick said.
“That’s something we’ve never had before,” Cole said.
“The humans never possessed knowledge of us either, and we never believed our families would be torn apart the way they are.”
“This may be our only hope,” Brokk said.
“I’ll talk with Circe and Talon,” his father said.
“If they agree, we’re still left with the biggest problem of all,” Brokk said.
“How do we get past the dragons to kill the Lord?” Cole asked.
They all stared at each other, but no one had an answer.
“Keep an eye out for Varo and Orin,” his father said. “Don’t put yourselves at risk, but if there’s something you can do….”
“We’ll save them if we can,” Cole vowed, and Brokk nodded.
Cole knew that was easier said than done as the Lord’s men were relentlessly hunting his brothers, but he would do what he could to save them.