Аманда Хокинг - Ascend

“What?” Loki paused at the door.

“If you were with the Vittra still?” I asked, and I looked at him directly. He stood a few feet from me, his golden eyes looking dark and sad. “Would you have attacked Oslinna? Would you have killed them?”

“No,” he said. “I have never killed anyone.”

“But you fought with them.”

“I never fought for my King.” He shook his head. “That’s why I ended up in the dungeon.”

“I see.” I looked down at the floor, unsure of what to think of him anymore. “Stay out of sight. Nobody else will trust you.”

“I will.”

“Loki,” I said just before he slipped out the door, and I turned to him, so he could see I was serious. “If I find out you knew anything about the attack, I will bring you to the King myself.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” He bowed, then left my chambers.

Duncan came in a few minutes later, and I dressed quickly. I smoothed out my hair the best I could, because I couldn’t look a fright at this meeting, but I didn’t have time to make sure I looked top notch.

I practically ran down the hall, with Duncan at my heels, and I reached the top of the stairs at the same time as Willa. Her dress was a bit askew, and her hair was tangled, so she’d obviously gotten dressed in a hurry. I was happy to see that she’d listened.

“Duncan said you wanted me to come to the meeting?” Willa asked, sounding confused as we went down the stairs.

“Yes,” I said. “I need you to start getting involved with this.”

“Wendy, you know I’m not good at this kind of stuff,” Willa said.

“I don’t know why you say that. Public relations are your forte.

And even if it wasn’t, this is your job. You are one of the highest Marksinnas we have. You should be helping shape the kingdom instead of letting others destroy it.”

“I don’t know,” she shook her head, and when we reached the bottom of the steps, I stopped to face her.

“Look, Willa, I need you on my side,” I said. “I’m going into a room full of people who think I’m an idiot and a liability. People are in trouble in Oslinna, our people. I don’t have time to fight with them, and people are fond of you. I need you to help me. Okay?”

“Of course.” Willa smiled nervously. “I will help you in any way I can.”

Before we even reached the War Room, I could hear them arguing. There were too many voices to clearly understand what they were fighting about, but they were upset.

“We all need to calm down!” Finn was shouting to be heard over them when Willa, Duncan, and I arrived. Finn stood at the front of the crowded War Room, but nobody paid attention to him.

Tove leaned on the desk, watching them all. The Chancellor, his face beet red, was yelling so much at poor Markis Bain that spittle flew from his mouth. Marksinna Laurent was standing up and screaming at Garrett, who tried to keep his expression neutral, but I knew he wanted to smack her.

“Excuse me!” I shouted, but nobody even noticed me.

“I’ve been trying to get them to calm down.” Finn looked at me apologetically. “But they’re in a complete frenzy. They think we’re next.”

“I got this,” Willa said.

She climbed up onto the desk behind Tove, carefully because she was wearing a short dress, and she put two fingers in her mouth and let out a loud whistle. So loud that Tove actually covered his ears.

Everybody stopped talking and looked up at her.

“Your Princess is here, and she’d like to talk to you, so you should give her your attention,” Willa said with a smile.

Duncan walked over to the desk and gave Willa his hand to help her to the ground. She thanked him, then smoothed out her dress, and I walked over to stand between her and Tove.

“Thank you, Marksinna,” I said, then turned my attention to the angry mob. “Who knows the most about the attack on Oslinna?”

“I do,” Thomas said, stepping forward from behind Aurora Kroner.

“Tell me everything you know,” I said.

“We’ve already gone over this,” Marksinna Laurent said before he could say anything. “We shouldn’t be rehashing the same things.

We should be plotting our attack.”

“I am sorry to be wasting your time, but nobody is making any decisions until I know what’s going on,” I said. “This will all go much faster if you simply let Thomas tell me what happened.”

Laurent muttered something and looked away. When I was certain she was done, I turned back to Thomas and nodded for him to continue.

“Sometime late last night, the Vittra attacked Oslinna,” Thomas said. “It’s one of the Trylle’s larger compounds located in northern Michigan. Reports vary, but we believe it started around 10:30 p.m.”

“Are we certain it’s the Vittra?” I asked.

“Yes,” Thomas said. “The King wasn’t there, but a message was sent on his behalf.”

“And the message was?” I prompted him.

“‘This is only the beginning,’” Thomas said. Whispers filled the room, but I held up my hand to silence them.

“Do we know how many Vittra they had with them?” I asked.

“It’s hard to say concretely,” Thomas shook his head. “They’ve begun using hobgoblins in their battles, so we are assuming the numbers of actual Vittra are running low.”

“Ugly little creatures,” Laurent snorted at the mention of hobgoblins, and a few chuckled in response.

“So the hobgoblins comprise most of the Vittra army?” Tove asked dubiously. “How are they a threat? They’re small and weak.”

“They may be small, but they’re still Vittra,” Thomas said.

“Physically, they have tremendous strength. They seem to be slow mentally and more susceptible to Trylle abilities than their human counterparts, but not that many of the Trylle in Oslinna even have abilities anymore.”

“These hobgoblins caused real damage to Oslinna then?” I asked.

“Yes,” Thomas said. “The town is completely devastated. We don’t have an exact figure of how many lives were lost, but we suspect the number to be at least two thousand, and they only had a population of three thousand to begin with.”

Someone gasped in the back, and even Willa made a sound, but I kept my face blank. Here, compassion would be a sign of weakness.

“Do we know what kind of casualties we caused on the Vittra army?” I asked.

“No, but I don’t think it was substantial,” Thomas said.

“Possibly a hundred. Maybe more.”

“So they killed thousands of our people, and we killed maybe a hundred of them?” I asked. “How is this possible? How did this happen?”

“They were sleeping,” Thomas said. “It was an ambush during the night. They might have underestimated the hobgoblins. We had no idea exactly how strong they were until this attack.”

“What kind of strength are we talking about?” I asked.

“Stronger than me? Stronger than Finn? What?”

“Strong enough to lift a house from its foundation,” Thomas said, and the room erupted in more nervous chatter.

“Quiet!” I snapped, but it took them longer to silence.

“We’re next,” Laurent said and stood up. “You heard the King’s threat. They are coming for us, and we’re completely exposed! We can’t stand up to that.”

“There’s no need for hysteria.” I shook my head. “We have the most powerful Trylle in the world, the most powerful of any creature on Earth. Marksinna, you can create fire. Tove and I can move anything. Willa can harness the wind. We have more than enough power here to defend ourselves.”

“What about those of us who can’t?” the Chancellor asked.

“We’re defenseless against little monsters that can throw our homes!”