When Blood Runs Cold - Chapter 216

If you choose not to help me, then I am afraid you are on your own. The choice is yours.”

They are harsh words, but in the face of a much harsher truth, I would consider them anything but unjustified. I will not risk my life, or the life of anyone else for that matter, being put on the line for an act of feeble minded treachery and ignorance to the greater issues of Faey. The angels are not the problem, nor have they even been. The problem is ourselves.

And, of course, my brother.

“A little harsh, Soren. Delina is our friend, not our enemy,” Kal whispers into the palm of his cupped hand as inconspicuously as he can muster to manage- which is to say, not much. But Delina doesn’t even hear him.

“Are you honestly giving me this choice- you’d kick me out of Sezeria if I don’t agree?” Delina asks, almost begs, stumbling forward a fraction before halting in front of my gaze. Folding my arms tighter around myself I merely reply:

“If I am to be a fair king, I must give you the same rules I plan to apply to everyone else. I will not take sides, Delina.”

Delina does not dare yet to look me in the eye, merely stepping back from my form, eyes downcast and her blood chilled with a long standing bitterness. Then she reaches down beside me to where Dawn stands, perplexed but attentive, and takes her hand, her fingers running gently over the back of the little angel’s. She squeezes it tight.

“You have never have been one to mince your words, have you?” Delina half laughs, half cries, doing her best attempts to shake the melancholy from her features, but finding herself quite unable. Vampires never have been good at expressing their emotions even at the best of times, mostly because we spend the majority of our time being selfish bloodsucking bastards to even give such trivial notions as ‘feelings’ a thought. It makes us quite unreceptive to both our own, and others emotions, and so on the scheme of things, compared to the other vibrant and expressive creatures of Faey, we are relatively stunted in that department.

Many of us fail to comprehend how to deal with emotions, become enraged or angry, perhaps even bloodthirsty. We mistake our sorrow for hunger and our joy for bloodlust. But fortunately, Delina seems- at least in part, more attuned than I ever was, remaining swaying on the spot, hand clenched over Dawn as she spares flickering glances to the angel beside her.

“Alright,” she relents at last, her free hand clenching and unclenching by her side. “I will help you. I will help you advocate the case to your people. It is like you said, what don’t we gain from peace? And besides,” she adds, a guilty expression riddling her features as she draws circles with the toe of her boot in the dusty ground. “We don’t exactly want them all traipsing over to Azrael.”

I lower my eyes.

“Certainly we don’t,” I commend, slapping my hands together in affirmation, ready to get going, to be done with this mess as soon as I can. Once more my thoughts linger to Serena, to the faint, almost eradicated bond that tugs at my heart. Silently to hide my desperation, I pray that it won’t be long until I see her again, yet my body is gripped with a sinking feeling that it might be a good long while.

Sure I could try and shadow travel, plop myself in the nearest location I can find where her presence is strong and continue searching from there, but that would be irrational, and idiotic at best.

If Azrael knows of my whereabouts, it would put her life in terrible danger, and even if it didn’t, my friends lives would certainly be at the risk. Not to mention, the plan that Serena so meticulously crafted would be ruined, there would be no spy, no plan at all, if I got myself involved. Perhaps she would pretend to still be under Azrael’s influence, but how long until her façade gives her away? How long until the icing cracks?

No, I must behave.

My time to be with her will come again, I must just wait. I have a kingdom to deal with, peace and war on my plate- now is not the time for making rash decisions.

“Right then,” I affirm at last, rubbing my hands together in a strange mix of eagerness and despondency.

“I suppose we better announce the news to my people, and yours,” I say, motioning down to little Dawn, who reached up with her other hand to clutch around my ringed finger. “We all have a big task ahead of us.”

But before I can go any further with my sentence, Kal reaches out towards me, latching onto my upper arm with a grim and worried expression. Nervously, he motions me around to face him.

“Soren,” he warns, lowering his voice as he gives me a sharp but fleeting look through his slanted black eyes. “You may be able to convince your people- Delina is an esteemed and respected lady to the vampires, and they value her opinion almost as much as yours but,” he says, letting the squirming fox in his arms drop to the ground, the white fluffy mammal circling us all with a series of light, plodding footsteps. For the most part I ignore him.

“The angels are notoriously set in their ways, they will not be convinced by the word of a small angel who- in the terms of the council- has barely lived her life. Such proof is not substantial for them. If you want any chance at all at winning them over, you are going to need another candidate. The Queen herself would have been the better option, but you know just as well as I that by now she will not be coming back for a long time. Think about this Soren, do you really want to do this now?”

Wringing out my hands, I breathe a long sigh.

“It might be the only choice I have, Kal,” I admit, rubbing the back of my head. “Unless you have other suggestions, Dawn is the only viable contender that I have and-”

I stop, pulled to attention by a firm tug on my trousers.

The small white fox tugs insistently at the hem of my trousers, his eyes sparking with awareness as he pulls away, a shock of feeling running through me as his eyes meet mine. He glances between me and Kal, and suddenly I realise with a growing suspicion that Kal has gone very, very pale.

“What is it doing?” Delina whispers sullenly beside me, leaning down on her haunches to inspect the fluffy little woodfox. Unfortunately for Delina, Ithuriel’s trust in her is, for now, compromised, most likely for the same reason that his trust in me was also a little while ago. Quickly, he scuttles back to Kal.

The fox gives a little yip at Kal, his tail wagging with a dragging anticipation, a silent form of communication going on between them as Kal slowly sheds his jacket, shaking his head.

“You don’t have to, Ithuriel,” he warns, dropping the jacket to the floor, but doesn’t make any further moves to stop him. It would seem this little fox has Kal on a leash.

Gently- enough so not to puncture holes into the well crafted elven fabric, Ithuriel drapes the jacket over himself, giving a low grunt as his eyes scan the room. Finally they stop on mine, glistening with twin orbs of sun and moon.

I get the feeling that the message that briefs in my head is only meant for me.

“I am doing this Serena, remember that.”

Ithuriel begins to paw at his collar, his claws scratching at the embedded pearls that gleam under the faint light of the room, the cavern filling with the sounds of scratching and scruffling. Meanwhile Kal can barely bring himself to watch, his hand covering his eyes as he tips back his head, murmuring to himself over and over in an incessantly monotonous voice how stupid this whole plan was. But Ithuriel continues working on the collar, growling at my attempts to try and help him. It is not often one see’s such an insistent little creature, and so it is only natural for me to fall back, curious, but not defeated. Meanwhile Dawn continues to clutch at my hand, observing this little fox with peak curiosity.

At last, the collar comes off with a clean pop, followed by a jingle, and in a matter of seconds, a thick grey smoke begins to cloud the little fox’s form, seeping off his skin, his fur, even the pulsing antantae on his head. Every inch of his fur is soon covered in this claggy fog which rises in the centre of the room, spinning like a whirlpool or a tornado, threatening to choke us all.

And then, just as the mist begins to seep into our skin, to the point where it just about becomes unbearable, it clears, leaving in its place a figure that is not a fox, but humanoid.

But saying they look humanoid would be scratching only the surface of it.