“Most of them didn’t even know you had returned to power,” Tamsin told Trik. “They were completely clueless. So either Lorsan doesn’t trust his own people or he had been planning on sacrificing them all along and didn’t want them to be aware of it.”
“Dude is sick,” Cassie muttered under her breath.
“And evil,” Syndra added as she came to stand next to them. “What are you going to do with them, Trik?” she asked.
Trik looked down at the dark elves kneeling before him. There were around twenty-five and they were all looking back at him, some in awe, some in confusion, but none of them looked hostile. These had been his fellow warriors for centuries, and yet standing before them now as their King, he felt as if he’d never met them.
“The Forest Lords have seen fit to restore me back as the rightful king over all the elves. You can pledge your loyalty to me and to my queen,” he motioned to Cassie, “and the Forest Lords, or you forfeit your life.” He figured that would make the choice pretty simple.
“May I speak,” a male with long dark hair and red eyes spoke up.
Trik nodded his head and answered, remembering the warrior’s name. “Leer, what say you?”
The dark elf stood and pulled his shoulders back as he narrowed his eyes at Trik. “We know you probably better than the light-elf king and queen. We know your reputation and have seen firsthand the death you have delivered over the centuries. Why should we follow you? Why should we pledge our loyalty to an assassin, one who worked so closely with Lorsan?” There was a rumble of agreement behind Leer as the other dark elves agreed with his questions.
Trik knew that these questions would come. He knew he couldn’t expect the light or dark elves to forget all of his past; they would be foolish to not question him. He didn’t want to be a leader of a race that could not think for themselves. He would never ask them to follow blindly and he would never lead haphazardly.
“You are right to question and I will answer you to the best of my ability.” He took a deep breath and looked down when he felt a small hand slip into his. Cassie was smiling up at him, her face the picture of innocence and truth—his truth. He drew on the confidence she gave him and turned back to the dark elves. “When I walked away from my crown so many centuries ago, the Forest Lords gave me a prophecy although I did not remember it until it started to unfold. They said that the choice would be laid before me to take my crown back when I found my Chosen. They said she would be a vessel of goodness and light, one so pure that she would conquer the darkness that I had allowed a foothold in my own soul. Cassandra is my Chosen. Why the Forest Lords have given me someone so gentle and kind I will never know. I do know that I may be many things, but I am not a fool and it would be foolish of me to reject the gift of my Chosen. She has restored the light in my life, she has helped me to see that our creators, the Forest Lords, have a purpose and plan for us, and it was never for us to be a divided nation.
“I’ve committed myself once again to their leadership and teachings and choose to follow them. I will no longer let evil rule in my heart nor will I let it reign in the hearts of any of our elves, light or dark. A time of cleansing is coming and they will wipe from our realm any that do not choose the correct path. Change is painful, and change for the good is sometimes more than painful because it requires death so that new life can grow.” Trik’s eyes met Leer’s and then he met the stare of each dark-elf captive. “You have a chance to do something good, something selfless; don’t let this chance pass you by.”
He turned then to Tamsin. “If they pledge loyalty release them immediately; if not then bring them back to the castle and I will deal with them.”
“You don’t have to do it alone,” Tamsin told him.
Trik met his eyes. “I have set their death sentence. I should be the one to carry it out.” He heard Cassie’s intake of breath and knew that she would argue against it, but he knew it was the right thing to do. “Cassie and I will continue to seek out survivors, and Syndra will use her healing ability on the wounded.” He looked up at the rest of the light-elf warriors still waiting on orders. “Be vigilant as you search the ruins, and if you can keep from killing then please do. We will take as many alive as possible and give them the opportunity to choose their own fate.”
“Why do you think you have to be the one to kill them?” Cassie asked as soon as they were away from the others.
“Are we really going discuss this now?” Trik asked her.
“Well we can always wait and discuss the fact that you think you have to be the one to deal out the death sentences later, when we’re alone, in the room we now share because we’re married.” Cassie knew she wasn’t playing fair, but then she was married to an assassin. The way she saw it he probably didn’t even know what playing fair looked like.
“That’s just wrong, Cassandra,” Trik nearly growled at her.
She shrugged nonchalantly. “I’m sure there’s nothing else you’d rather be doing later anyways, so you are totally right; there’s no need to talk about it right now.”
“Cassie,” Trik warned.
“Can’t hear you,” she sung as she continued to look for injured dark elves, all the while a secret smile danced on her lips. She shouldn’t manipulate him, but as she looked back over her shoulder at the frustrated, now huffy king, she couldn’t help the slight amount of satisfaction she found in it. Okay, so maybe she wasn’t quite as pure and gentle as they thought.
Chapter 16
“Life is happening all around us. War, bloodshed, loyalties being given and taken away and yet there is still us. At the end of the day you are the one who I share my hurts, my worries, my fears and my hopes with. You are the one who sees me fall apart when I’ve been holding it together in front of everyone else. When everything else is falling apart, you are the one who continually holds me together.” ~Cassie
Cassie drug herself into the room she had now called home for more days than she could remember. She didn’t even know if she could recall what her bedroom at her parents’ house looked like, and that thought nearly dropped her to her knees. She was so tired—the kind of tired that seeped into your bones and didn’t let go until you had given into it and slept for days, but she knew that wouldn’t be happening. After searching the rubble and then traveling across the realm back to the light-elf castle, they now had close to fifty dark-elf captives to deal with. Of course her mate thought he had to handle it all himself. Little did he know that she was about to put her foot down and he was going to listen.