It was almost sunset by the time Drake’s caravan reached the end of the noble road, and as much as it vexed him to wait longer, Drake acknowledged the advantage of waiting for nightfall. He still didn’t have an answer from Prince Lorel, so while Kel and his forces prepared themselves to escort him and Marissa to a vantage point where they could survey the flooding, Drake decided it was past time to talk to Lorel himself. He needed an answer.

Nicole had already left to bring word of their return to the manor. Kel and his pack had gone ahead to secure the path Drake, Marissa, and his bodyguards would take to the high cliff that would allow them to survey the extent of the current flooding. So now, the only part of his plan he hadn’t put in motion was finding out if Prince Lorel was a coward.

With Valentia on one side and Cresh at the other, Drake rapped sharply on the door to the prince’s carriage. No one answered. That was annoying.

“Prince Lorel!” Drake shouted loud enough he knew the whole camp could hear him. “I need your answer!”

Still nothing. No answer from the carriage, and no sign anyone inside was in the mood to listen. Drake glanced at Cresh. “Any chance you can rip that door off?”

Cresh bared his sharpened teeth. “That does not seem very diplomatic.”

“My silverwood’s about to drown. We’re done being diplomatic.” Drake rapped on the door again. “Prince Lorel! Open up! Or I’m coming in there!”

Still no response. For the first time, Drake grew concerned. This didn’t feel like the prince was just ignoring him. What if Varnath had found a way to assassinate his brother with no one the wiser? What if the prince was dead?”

“I’m officially worried,” Drake told Cresh. “Get that door open.”

Cresh gripped the door of the carriage. Wood splinters as his claws tore into the hardwood, and then he ripped the door right off the side with ease Drake envied. Cresh tossed the door away as Drake stared into the now open carriage in first alarm... and then disgust.

The carriage was empty. The giant tank was empty. A small amount of seawater still sat inside, but there were no kromians in the tank. So either they’d all been teleported... or they’d fled through the sea gate instead of risking their lives to save Drake’s manor.

“What now?” Valentia asked calmly.

Drake glared at the empty tank and resisted the urge to smash it. As much as he’d sensed Prince Lorel’s hesitance to help him take out those sea gates, he hadn’t expected the prince to literally flee with his... fins... between his legs. Yet that was exactly what had happened, and there was only one reason Drake could imagine Lorel would risk leaving.

Lorel didn’t think Drake would survive the coming battle to complain to the Judge.

Now that he could actually see inside the tank, it was obvious the sea gate inside was more than large enough for kromians to swim through. That was how Lorel and his people had escaped. They’d reversed the flow and slipped back into the sea rather than fight at his side.

“We still need to survey how far the flooding has gotten and if we can divert it.” Drake resisted the urge to kick the carriage. “We’ll figure out the rest once we’re back.”

His rage was building, both at the increasingly difficult odds arrayed against him and at this blatant betrayal by Prince Lorel. Had Lorel been working with his brother this whole time? Or was he simply so much of a coward he’d fled rather than face battle?

As Drake led Valentia back to where his mother waited to head to the plateau overlooking the silverwood with Lydia and Sidori, Drake forced himself to focus on the problems he could still tackle. Right now, that was scouting the enemy force.

Marissa frowned when she saw the expression on his face. “His answer was no?”

“His answer was fuck off. He and his escort slipped through their sea gate and left us to twist in the wind.” Drake scowled. “So much for retaking his empire.”

“Gods,” Lydia said quietly. “Are we certain he was not abducted?”

“Even if he was, he’s gone. I think he weighed his options and decided fleeing back to the waters of the capital was a better bet than staying here to fight his brother with us. Regardless, our first objective hasn’t changed. We need a get a look at the flooding.”

“Then we should depart at once,” Valentia said. “I do not believe whatever forces guard the sea gates below the silverwood will have detected Kel’s pack, but they cannot have failed to notice our wagons. If we plan to survey this flood, we should move now.”

“You’re not wrong,” Drake said. “Robin and the others are all ready to support Cresh and defend the vanguard?” He refused to leave the non-combatants in his manor undefended, especially after losing several of them during the beach ambush.

“The vanguard is as secure as we can make it,” Lydia said. “Samuel has command.”

“Then let’s roll,” Drake said. “Lady Marissa? You lead the way.”

Valentia almost looked like she might object. “Pardon me, Lady Marissa, but have you been to Gloomwood Manor before?”

“I have,” Marissa said.

The humor of Valentia asking a former Lord Gloomwood if she knew her way around the manor was so rich it took the sting out of Prince Lorel’s betrayal... a little. Drake planned to announce his mother’s true identity to the manor after they returned, and there was no way Valentia could know who she was, but still. This amused him.

“Trust me,” Drake said. “She’s somewhat familiar.”

Marissa led them off in a direction that would almost take them to the silverwood. She picked her path without slowing, seemingly as familiar with this country as if she hadn’t been gone for twenty-five years. Soon she led them up a steadily rising hill with small brown trees.

Sidori said nothing as she followed, eyes on the land, but Drake saw the curiosity reflected in her eyes. This was the first time she’d seen any of this. If he needed to pass any new orders to Kel, Sidori would find him. Without Sachi, Drake certainly couldn’t.

These small trees were nothing compared to the mighty silverwood, but it wasn’t easy going without vero to open the way. Still, Drake had no worries they’d be ambushed. Kel and his Silent Pack were out there, just out of sight, killing anything that threatened.

As they climbed higher, Drake spotted increasing patches of bright red beauty. More blood flowers, the small and beautiful plant that almost killed Anna. Those deadly flowers were everywhere on this cliff. Sky hadn’t been kidding about how easily they spread.

Drake wasn’t certain why the kromians had planted the sea gates in the field instead of in the forest, but he had his suspicions. He hoped to have those confirmed tonight. Meanwhile, Marissa continued to lead them up the cliff with the same confidence Sachi would have shown.

Thanks to his new feral scouts, Drake’s only enemy on the climb was boredom. His mother never slowed, fully confident in her memory of the terrain. The moon was halfway to its zenith when they emerged from dense woods on a plateau overlooking the plains below.

Drake grimaced as he surveyed the extensive flooding below. What had once been a huge grass field was now a saltwater lake easily five times the size of the grounds of his entire manor. The water glistened in the moonlight like the Alicean Bay back in Korhaurbauten.

They’d been lucky that the field it now flooded had been below the elevation of the silverwood, but it was also a natural bowl... and saltwater had almost filled it. He suspected the border of the forest was already poisoned beyond repair, and what if this had already slipped into the water table? It might not even need to flood the silverwood to start killing it.

“This is worse than I feared,” Marissa said quietly. “We must stop this flow tonight.”

“Can the silverwood help us?” Drake asked. “Is there anything it can do to defend itself, like.... raise the earth? Make a dam? Can it drop trees to raise a storm barrier?”

“The trees can bar passage to invaders, but they cannot fight a rising tide.” She pointed below. “Look at the patterns swirling in the water below. Do you see them?”

The brand new lake below wasn’t completely still. Drake could see bubbles and froth at five different spots equally distributed across the massive lake. In another day or so, even those ripples might not be visible, and then the silverwood would be doomed.

“Those have to be the sea gates,” Drake agreed. “At least there’s only five of them down there.” The fact that he could see the disturbance of the water when it was already waist deep suggested how much water was passing through every moment they waited here.

“Such gates must be massive to have passed so much seawater since they were placed,” Marissa said. “We may not have long before it rises high enough to flood the silverwood.”

“I don’t see any kromians guarding the gates or around the perimeter, so they must all be hiding in the water.” Drake glanced at Sidori. “You said the water was only waist deep?”

“It was where I went in. I cannot speak for all of it.”

“Did you encounter any kromians?”

“Only one.”

A kromian who was certainly dead now. Given Sidori couldn’t swim and couldn’t see the kromians in the murk, wading in anyway had been exceedingly brave of her. If he’d had any doubts she was actually Sachi’s sister, her reckless confidence would have banished them.

Drake looked back to the mess shimmering in the moonlight below. “We may have no choice but to wade in and destroy those gates the hard way. We can’t let them flood the silverwood. The manor will be defenseless without it.”

“There could be traps in the water,” Valentia warned. “Also, kromians can easily maneuver in water that deep without breaking the surface. Even if we commit all our remaining zarovians, we may be overwhelmed. There could be hundreds hiding in that water.”

Drake hated that she was right. “What other choice do we have? They don’t even have to attack us to win, just hide in his water until the whole forest drowns. We’ll absolutely take losses if we go after the sea gates, but I don’t have any better ideas right now.”

No one contradicted him. They really were fucked. As he surveyed the new lake below in silence he waited for something else to occur to him, something not suicidal. It would be ridiculous to survive this much and then die to a bunch of fucking fish people.

Without the living forest to hold off his enemies, his manor could easily be surrounded and destroyed... but if everyone died in a futile attempt to close them, there would be no one to return to the manor. Despite his vow to be willing to send his people on suicide missions when necessary, the thought terrified him. He’d already lost too many.

Walking into that shallow lake would be like stepping into waters filled with hungry sharks, except these sharks would slice your legs off before dragging you off and drowning you. As much as it would hurt to know he was sending people to their deaths, he had to look at the big picture. That meant leading his people in a meat grinder, unless...

As Drake’s gaze passed across the scarlet flowers spread across the cliff, a desperate and arguably diabolical thought crossed his mind. He was tempted to dismiss it at once given the long-term damage it could cause even if he succeeded, but Prince Varnath had backed him into a corner and Prince Lorel had left him high and dry... or, in this case, low and wet.

He hated where his mind had gone. He hated that it felt like the only way to save the silverwood and save his people. Yet his only question, now, was how long it would take.

“I have an idea that lets us close down those sea gates and doesn’t everyone killed,” Drake said. “But I don’t think anyone’s going to like it.”

“We cannot lose the silverwood,” Marissa said eagerly. “What is your idea?”

Drake told them.

Silence fell atop the plateau as everyone considered what he was suggesting.

“You’re right,” Lydia said quietly. “I don’t like that idea at all.”

“Yet it accomplishes all our objectives without much of a risk, assuming we can make enough to pull it off. It’s the only option I can come up with that I know will work. Everything else is a roll of the dice, and a bad roll leaves us and the whole forest dead.”

“It seems a good plan,” Sidori said cautiously. “Why do you hesitate to use it?”

“I do not know how the noble court will react to such an action,” Marissa explained. “Yet what is it you said not long ago, Lord Gloomwood? It’s only a war crime if you lose?”

Drake nodded grimly. “Prince Varnath has already committed an unforgivable crime by attempting to poison a sacred being as ancient as the silverwood. Everyone down there signed up to help him do it. Still... I’m hoping someone will talk me out of it.”

Lydia stepped to his side. “No matter what you decide, I am with you.”

“We should do it,” Valentia said.

“I agree,” Marissa said. “I also recognize that standing alone in this decision is a dangerous gamble. So if the noble court decides we have committed a crime once they learn what we have done here, we will stand and hang together.”

“So we’re decided.” Drake breathed. “Let’s head back and tell everyone the bad news. I just hope we have enough gloves and cloth to cover everyone’s faces.”

As word spread through his vanguard about Drake’s plan to save the silverwood and avoid having everyone in the vanguard wiped out by the kromians defending the sea gates, he didn’t miss the whispers of consternation or the worried looks. He also made it clear that anyone who didn’t want to participate was welcome to step aside. No one refused.

His people worked carefully through the night, gathering blood flowers from the cliffs and crushing them into the deadly powder assassins across the realm had slipped into unattended drinks. In the end, Prince Lorel’s empty tank proved the most efficient way to mix it all. The tank was huge, solid, and had a sea gate that would spew water: the perfect rapid dispersal system.

The moon was setting by the time they had filled the tank with enough concentrated blood flower dust to do the job. After that, it was simply a matter of rolling Prince Lorel’s abandoned wagon into the new lake and waiting. The flow of the sea gate in the tank would quickly spread the poison through the fledgling lake. Even diluted, it would be virulent.

The first bloated kromian bodies surfaced with the rise of the sun. More than a few soon stumbled from the lake, covered in blue-black blood, but none made it far before arrows from his ferals or the blades of his zarovians cut them down. It was difficult to fight a battle when you were already dosed to the gills with poison that made you bleed through all your openings.

The defeat of the kromians was not battle. It was a slaughter. As Drake watched bloated kromian bodies surface on the water or stumble out only to be cut down, he wondered if he’d finally crossed a line he couldn’t step back over. Poison was a coward’s weapon.

But it certainly was efficient when he had to kill an army of invading fish people.