Everything in me rebelled at putting Conlan anywhere within his reach.
We couldn’t survive without my father. It wasn’t just his army; it was him. We needed my father’s power and magic. He’d fought a dragon before and won.
I felt like I was walking down a winding staircase. Every stair was a piece of my life I would fight to the end to keep. My friends. My relationships. Each had a name or some concession I wasn’t willing to make. My pride. My dignity. My privacy. Julie. Derek. Ascanio. Ghastek. Rowena. Jim. Dali. Curran . . .
I fought for every one. I clawed onto them, holding on with the edges of my nails, but in the end, I would surrender and step down in the name of the greater good. This was queenship, and if only I could find someone to take it from me, I’d unload it in a fraction of a second.
The name of this step was “Never let my father touch my child.”
I let my magic out. It flowed out of me like a mantle. I decided not to bother with hiding it anymore.
The power streamed out of me, branching, stretching, reaching. I became the center of Atlanta, the heart of the land I claimed. I sat on the porch steps, but I might as well have sat on a throne.
My father felt it. His eyes narrowed. He blinked and his whole being seemed to have picked up a faint golden sheen. This was no longer a conversation between Roland and me. This was a conversation between New Shinar and Atlanta. Two rival kingdoms negotiating a brief peace.
“What do you offer, Im-Shinar?” I asked.
My father’s eyes narrowed further. “The full power of my army and myself.”
“You will fight Neig until he is dead. You will honor our alliance for the duration of this war.”
“Yes.”
“Kate,” Curran said.
“Don’t do it,” Julie yelled from across the lawn.
This was it. This was the last thing I had to give. I was about to place my son into my father’s hands.
“The word of Sharrum is binding,” I said. “Swear to me, father, that you will put my son back in my arms after you hold him.”
“I swear,” he said.
There were lines even my father wouldn’t cross. I had to believe that.
“Atlanta accepts your alliance. Bring my son to me,” I said. My voice carried, slipping through the walls like they were air. I knew Adora heard me.
Julie swore.
There was a scuffle in the house. A moment later Adora opened the door, put Conlan on my lap, and took one step back, her hand on her sword. Blood slid down her left temple, but she ignored it.
Conlan blinked at the light. My baby. My tiny sweet baby. Curran’s gray eyes and my brown hair.
I pointed to my father. “This is your other grandfather.”
“Gampa?”
“Grandpa. Grandfather. Great king.”
My father crouched by me. In these few seconds he somehow became everything a grandfather should be: wise, kind, warm, and filled with love. If I’d met him as a child, I would’ve trusted him instantly.
Carefully, I passed Conlan to him.
His hands closed around my son.
Everyone on the lawn waited, primed to explode. Curran paused in a half crouch, a hair away from violence. Hugh bared his teeth. Adora focused on my father like nothing else in the world existed. Only my aunt seemed relaxed, standing by Roland’s side.
My father straightened and raised Conlan up. My son blinked.
Roland’s eyes were full of awe. A smile stretched his lips, a warm, real smile that reached all the way to his eyes.
“You are a wonder . . .” he said softly.
My aunt smiled.
“Do you see the Wild?” Roland asked her.
“I do. You have no idea what he can do with it. Isn’t he the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?”
“He is. Well done, my daughter,” my father said. “Well done. He is brilliant like a star in the heavens.”
Shit.
The same look slapped Hugh’s and Julie’s faces. They had seen that expression before.
My father liked shiny things and gifted children. It was the potential; it drew him like a magnet. He told me once that Hugh had been a glowing meteor he caught and forged into a sword. If Hugh was a meteor, my son was a supernova. He was like nothing else I had ever seen.
My father wanted my son. He wanted him more than anything in the world. And if he took him, he would raise him like a prince. He would give him everything and it would be terrible.
“Conlan,” I called. “Come to Mommy.”
My son twisted in his grandfather’s hands.
Roland hesitated. Curran leaned forward a quarter of an inch.
My father took three steps forward and deposited Conlan into my arms. I hugged him to me.
“We have three days then,” my father said. “Possibly more, since the attack will come with the first magic wave after the three days pass. I shall come to discuss strategy before then.”
He vanished in a burst of pale gold light.
Everyone screamed at me at once.
I hugged Conlan to me. “Grandpa is bad,” I whispered to him. “I won’t let him get you. I won’t.”
That was one price I wasn’t willing to pay.
The magic wave fell, the technology reasserting itself once more.
Curran collapsed.
CHAPTER
17
I CLEARED THE space between us in a fraction of a second. He groaned, blinking. I wrapped my arms around him, squeezing Conlan in, willing with everything I had to keep Curran alive. Don’t disappear. Please, please don’t disappear.
“Curran, look at me. Look at me.”
He didn’t feel solid. Oh my God. It had happened. The balance within him had shifted. He was more god than man now, and the god part couldn’t exist without the magic. I was losing him.
“Curran!” I pulled magic out of myself and sent a burst of it into him.
His gray eyes focused on me.
I hugged him and kissed his lips, desperate. “Stay with me. Stay with me, honey.”
The muscles under my fingers gained density.
“I love you. Stay with me.”
“I’ve got it,” he said. “I’ve got it. Just took me by surprise, that’s all.”
“You shouldn’t have eaten the last one,” Erra said over me.
“Thanks, that helps.” He kissed me back. “You can stop now, honey. I’ve got it.”
I let the magic current die. The pain died with it. I hadn’t even realized I was hurting until it stopped.
Curran gripped my hand. I pulled him to his feet. He draped his arm around me. By the time we reached the kitchen, he was moving on his own. He sat in a chair. I kept my hand on his shoulder. I didn’t want him to disappear.
“Roland wants the kid,” Hugh said.
“Of course he wants the kid,” Curran growled. “He’ll stab us in the back the first chance he gets.”
They both looked at me. “I know,” I said. “We don’t have a choice. As bad as Roland is, Neig is worse. Neig is death and genocide. Roland wants to rule humans. Neig wants to eat us.”
The kitchen was silent.
“We know Roland will turn on us, so we plan for it,” Curran said. “We’re not going into it blind.”
And even if we did get blindsided, there was always the nuclear option. My father couldn’t live without me.
“We need to solve the problem of Neig,” Hugh said.
“And his many troops,” I added.
“Not counting the yeddimur,” Curran said. “If I were him, I’d run the yeddimur at us first, and then when we’re softened, finish us with troops.”
“That seemed to be his strategy when we fought them in Kentucky. Yeddimur are tough to kill. We can fight for hours before we ever touch his army,” Hugh said.
“Can we win this?” Elara asked.
Curran’s eyes went cold. “We don’t have a choice.”
“If we can get Roland to follow strategy,” Hugh said. “That’s a big ‘if.’”
“He will follow it,” Erra assured him.
“Do we even know where he is coming from?” Derek asked.
“My father’s old castle,” I said. “I told him I wanted to behold his army. That’s the only area around Atlanta large enough for him to field all his troops. I wanted to avoid attack on several fronts.”