The Dragons of Nova (Loom Saga #2)(74)

Yveun took another long sip. “But you knew.”

“I knew.” She smiled into the blackness. “I knew, and I knew where the wineries are. I learned of each of the storerooms where the vintage is kept.”

“It would be a shame if someone tampered with the brew.”

Far on the streets below, the first cry cut through the night.

“Such a shame.” Coletta took back the wine, helping herself to another long sip. “For the flavor is right.”

More screams as Dragons fell, convulsing on the stone streets that sprawled out beneath them. A symphony of agony his Coletta had produced sang to them with all the beauty of a full orchestra.

Yveun wrapped a hand around her hip and smiled into the night alongside her. It was going to be a much shorter Court than he was accustomed to.

“There has been word from the whisperers to Loom.”

“What did they say?” Yveun asked over a particularly high-pitched cry.

“Two messengers arrived to the Harvesters’ Guild. They came to sow seeds of dissent from the Alchemists. They are seeking to rise against you. A rebellion has formed.”

Yveun cursed under his breath. It was hardly a surprise. An annoyance, the persistence of Fenthri. At least, that was how he’d always viewed it. And that had been the problem. He had treated the men and women in the gray world below like children, poor helpless creatures in squalor, in need of his guiding light.

After all he’d done, they still stood against him.

“What did the Guild do?”

“The Vicar Harvester took their meeting. It was one of their Masters who alerted the guild’s Dragon whisperer to Nova of it.”

“Without order from the Vicar?” Yveun clarified.

Coletta affirmed it with a small nod.

There was only one reason for the Vicar Harvester not to immediately come to him, not to immediately take the rebels’ treasonous heads: they were entertaining the notion. Or they were trying to hide it. It didn’t matter which to Yveun; both were equally unforgivable.

The Harvesters had been a loyal guild. From the beginning, they had followed his laws when he had shown them the error of their ways. They had remained in communication. But the Fenthri were fickle creatures. They tried to fit multiple lifetimes in what was not even one-fourth of his.

“I have taken enough half measures upon Loom.” This was what happened when one tried to leave room for the foolishness known as kindness. He had tried to be kind to Loom, and this was how the Fenthri repaid him.

Delight rose in his mate. Coletta’s magic shifted to a pleased pulse that hummed against his palm. It was a wonderful physical sensation to the auditory wonders of the world falling apart around him. It encouraged him to be one step more vicious, to be wholly committed.

“The guilds on Loom are bold anew. Squashing their last rebellion was not enough, because from its ashes the Fenthri rose again. Attempting peace by allowing them their guild cultures, to allow them to teach, was far too generous. They forget too quickly, and for that, they need a firm hand.”

There would be no more exceptions. No more half measures. The tree had rotted; he would no longer pick through the fruit. He would cut it down at the base, burn out the roots. He would till the soil and plant again.

“The world below is broken beyond repair. It must be destroyed and rebuilt.”

“Lady Soph and Lord Rok,” Coletta referred to both of their Divine patrons with a toast, continuing to pass the glass back and forth between them.

“Tell the whisperer that all Dragons loyal to me are to be pulled from the guilds. They will be moved to New Dortam, where my Riders will shuttle them back to Nova. Then, the Riders will remain on Loom and take over the Revolvers—and their weapons.” The plan took shape with vicious precision. “The Harvesters are to be made an example. It will show all of Loom that I am their King, that they thrive by my will and that they will die by it too. If even the most willing and loyal guild could not resist entertaining treasons against me, they and the rest will know none are safe, from the tallest of their mountains to the deepest of oceans. The land below is mine, and they will know it in every unbroken scream.”

“Merely the Harvesters?” Coletta pushed.

Yveun’s magic surged, his bones hot with power that boiled over into the atmosphere. He wanted to rain magic and blood down upon Loom from the chaos he would unleash on Nova.

“No. Destroy the Harvesters without warning. Lay waste to the Alchemists before their pathetic rebellion can retaliate. Shatter the Rivets’ tallest clockwork towers so that nothing may be rebuilt. Stop every one of the Ravens’ trains and snuff out trade and communications. Then, when the four are destroyed in absolute, bring the torch to the Revolvers’ gunpowder. Explode all those who know how to make the tools of war to disrupt this world’s divine hierarchy.

“Let them cry for order from the chaos. Let them beg for a savior to deliver them from the suffering they will know.”

“And you will be that savior?” Coletta asked after a long stretch.

“When I return their lives to them, I will be Lord Rok Himself. I will be their red God.”

“No half measures,” Coletta said with singsong delight.

“No half measures,” Yveun repeated, and savored the tuning sounds of discord in the air as he stepped behind the conductor’s podium for the greatest symphony of destruction ever composed.