A Dawn of Onyx (The Sacred Stones, #1)(54)

Sir Phylip dragged a hand down his face. It seemed these two may have had this argument before.

“If we go in there,” she continued. “We will only bring danger to this kingdom and cause more blood to be shed in Opal.”

Kane spoke for the first time. “Lady Kleio is right, we don’t go through Opal out of respect, not fear. Amber may be bastards, but we aren’t.”

Opal created the treaty to keep their lands and people safe—I didn’t believe Gareth would disregard that for his own gain. That sounded more like Kane, if anyone.

The man next to Kane stood, his baritone voice rumbling through the forum and commanding attention. “I have advised our king to meet with the various tribe and division leaders to enact a new treaty allowing only Onyx safe passage. If we want to send a wave of troops to meet Amber, we will need their help.”

Both Sir Phylip and Lady Kleio rolled their eyes at this almost in unison. Kleio spoke first. “Lieutenant Eardley, tracking each leader down, even with our best intelligence officers, will take months. It’s time we don’t have.”

Unease churned in my gut. I didn’t want to hurt my kingdom, but I did want to help avoid more bloodshed altogether. The lack of dignitaries standing up against Phylip’s plan for carnage worried me. If they utilized his plan, thousands of Onyx, Opal, and Amber lives would be lost within the next few days.

But the predicament did remind me of something—

It was a stretch but, when I didn’t want a medication to hit the nervous system too quickly, I’d put certain herbs or elements into my concoctions to act as blockers, allowing the medication to find other routes through the body and the effects to last longer for the patient.

That was what Onyx needed. Something to block the Amber soldiers, forcing them to abandon the pass. If going through Opal took the same amount of time as the other routes, they’d stop seeing it as a shortcut and leave the territory altogether.

My eyes cut to Kane. Leaning back, ankle crossed over his knee, fingers steepled in his lap, he was the epitome of calm. I had to admit I was wrong about the way I assumed he ran his kingdom. He was giving every noble, lieutenant, and dignitary in his court a chance to voice their thoughts and come up with a decision together. It was surprisingly fair.

As if he could sense my staring, Kane turned and caught my eye. He waggled his fingers at me in a coy wave. I smiled but shook my head—I wasn’t saying hello. I motioned to the group and then pointed at myself. He raised an eyebrow but nodded once in suspicious approval.

My stomach made a little heave of anxiety, and I fisted my hands in my dress to suppress their shaking.

When a curly-haired older woman had finished making her point about stationing Onyx men at the border of Opal and Amber, and Griffin had shot that down as a waste of their troops, I took in one more deep breath and stood.

“Good evening,” I started. The room was silent. Everyone seemed to look to Kane for his endorsement. I turned to him as well. He watched me with the same detached expression that he had held throughout the entire forum but didn’t make a move to stop me.

“I have no military training,” I said, turning back to the small crowd. “I’m not nobility, and I’ve only seen two maps of our continent in my life.” Beside me, Griffin placed his head in his hands. Kane stifled a laugh at his commander.

“What are you doing here then?” asked a gruff voice from the other side of the tent. Voices tittered with humor, and I strained but couldn’t see who had said it. My cheeks heated, sweat prickling at my hairline.

Kane shot the man a look of pure venom. “I don’t believe the lady was finished speaking. You’d be wise to watch your tongue in her presence.”

Deadly silence followed.

But his words bolstered me and I continued, voice a little less wobbly this time. “It could be fruitful to render the Midnight Pass ineffective.”

Despite there being no moisture in my mouth or throat whatsoever, I tried in vain to swallow. I waited for the rumble of disagreements I knew was coming, but all I could feel were their eyes lingering on me, waiting for me to continue. There was no way to look at Kane for some kind of approval without showing weakness.

And I didn’t need to.

This was a good idea. I knew it was.

“Not only would this stop Amber soldiers from getting to our borders faster than we can get to theirs, but it would be doing the Opal territories a favor. We’d be keeping war out of their land for free, and later down the line, they might be happy to do us a favor in return.”

“We can use the dragon and our hydras,” a nobleman added from my right. “It’ll be faster and more covert than having a battalion transport the blockade.”

“Our ore deposits will work to block the pass. They’ll never have enough manpower to move them out of the way,” Griffin added, deep in thought.

Pride warmed my bones as I sat. I couldn’t help looking at Kane now. He continued to watch the discussion play out but shot me a small nod, a smile twinkling in his eyes.

Kleio stood next. “Thank you…?”

“Arwen,” I supplied.

“Thank you, Arwen,” she smiled. “It’s not a bad idea. I have some spies in Opal as we speak. They could track down—”

Kleio was interrupted by heavy boots marching toward the tent.

Murmurs of concern danced through the forum, and I felt dread pull low and deep in my stomach.