Chapter 90: The Bravest Knock In Drakencrest (He Hated It)

There should be an alarm. A horn. A concerned third party. Something to alert a man that he is about to ruin a perfectly functional personality. There wasn’t.

One moment Kael Ashenvale was a handsome, emotionally unavailable, intelligent, morally flexible, carefree war criminal. The next he wanted to be something else.

Better.

The desire was revolting. He examined it the way one examines a rash. With suspicion, mild horror, and the hope that it would go away on its own.

It didn’t.

He actually wanted to be a better man. Gross.

Kael Ashenvale had never wanted to be a better man. He had wanted to be the smartest man in the room, the most dangerous, the most useful, and occasionally the most attractive, depending on the room.

Better had never made the list because better implied a standard he was measuring himself against, and measuring implied he cared what the measurement said, and caring implied vulnerability, and vulnerability was a door he had welded shut at sixteen and had been standing in front of ever since with his arms crossed and a sarcastic remark loaded.

He rubbed his hand down his face.

OPTION ONE: do nothing. Continue being the man he had been. Brilliant, isolated, lethal, and entirely allergic to accountability. It was a comfortable life. He had excellent taste in wine and no one to disappoint.

OPTION TWO: walk into his brother’s tent and do the bravest, stupidest, most un-Kael thing he had ever done in his life.

"Absolutely insufferable," he muttered. He was referring to himself. He was also referring to the wolf princess who had caused this, and the brother he was about to face, and the entire concept of growth as a philosophical proposition.

Growth was for goddamn plants.

✦✦✦

Kael knocked once on the tent post, then entered without waiting for a response.

Maddox’s hand was on his blade. Kael clocked it. Appreciated it, even.

"Kael. I didn’t expect you inside my tent voluntarily." The tone suggested that of all the ways Maddox expected this evening to go, ’Kael walks into my tent voluntarily’ ranked somewhere between ’Ryker taking a vow of celibacy’ and ’Sterling telling a joke.’

"I didn’t expect to be here voluntarily." Kael let the flap close behind him. "And yet."

The two men looked at each other in silence. The distance between them was eight feet, a father, and a throne that only one could sit on.

"I need a word, Maddox."

The use of the first name was intentional. Kael called him little brother when he was performing. He called him Maddox when he meant it. The distinction was one of approximately four tells Kael possessed, all of which he was fully aware of.

Maddox reached for the crate behind his chair that Ryker had labeled "medical supplies." Two glasses. One bottle. He poured and slid one to Kael without a word.

Kael took it. He sat in the chair across from Maddox like a civilized person, which was new territory for both of them and neither acknowledged it. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Maddox set his glass down first. He treated every shared drink as a pacing contest he didn’t know he was competing in. Kael had been exploiting this since they were teenagers, and was choosing not to exploit it now. Growth. Disgusting.

Maddox waited. Kael noticed. His little brother had gotten smarter since the last time they’d sat across a table.

"The offer you extended," Kael began. "Restoring House Ashenvale. Granting lordship. If it’s still on the table, I will take it."

"You held eighteen houses, Kael. Conquered, from what I’ve been briefed. Dark magic, compulsion networks, fae alliance. That is a continent’s worth of enemies and a war crime portfolio that would take my council six months to adjudicate."

When Maddox spoke, his face gave nothing. The boy had turned into a statue. An armed statue. With whiskey. The improvement was noted.

"That is partially accurate." Kael rolled his glass between his fingers. "Twelve of those houses I released. The remaining six I held through the transition period, then released in the same manner."

Maddox’s brow moved a fraction. "Released."

"The eighteen were held through fae compulsion, which broke mid-battle after a mutiny. I had the means to rebuild it. I chose not to. I withdrew from twelve leaving the garrisons intact and infrastructure undamaged."

His iron eyes held Maddox’s gold. "The six I kept controlled choke points, supply routes, or resources I needed for the fae war that I could see coming twelve months before your scouts started filing reports about it."

"And the six?"

"Released in the same manner, once the fae intelligence I needed was extracted." He paused. "I am many things, Maddox. Stupid is rarely one of them. Holding territory through dark compulsion is expensive, unstable, and morally repulsive even by my standards, which I will be the first to admit have been flexible."

Maddox refilled his glass. The motion was unhurried.

"You want your mother’s seat. The council wants your head. Convince me they’re wrong."

Kael’s jaw tightened. The micro-expression was the second visible tell he had given in five minutes.

"I have fae intelligence your military can’t get. The last dragon who tried the Eclipse Court was returned in six separate boxes. The fae are coming, and when they arrive, dragon flame won’t be enough. I will be."

Maddox studied his brother.

"I have never seen you want to be a better man, Kael. What changed?"

"That is a personal question."

"You’re sitting in my tent asking for a seat at my table. Everything in this conversation is personal."

Kael’s mouth opened. His first instinct was to deflect. The deflection was already forming, a sentence about standards being relative and improvement being a low bar when the starting position was a treason hearing.

He caught it. Killed it. Downed the rest of his whiskey.

"It was pointed out to me recently that I have a place here and I keep leaving it empty. The observation was delivered by the most inconvenient person on this continent, at the worst possible time, in the most irritating way, and it was correct."

Maddox laughed. The sound was short, surprised, pulled out of him by a sentence he hadn’t expected.

Then it was gone. His expression reset like a door closing and the king returned.

"The council requires a vote. Your charges are still on record. The elders will use them. You need house support before I can make this formal."

Kael nodded. He had expected this. The expectation did not make it easier.

"What I can do," Maddox continued, "is bring you in as my Fourth in Command, effective immediately. Military authority, direct chain to me, Ryker, and Sterling. The position gives you standing in the war summit and a legitimate reason to be in every room where decisions are made. From there, I open the floor for you to make your case for the vote."

"Fourth in Command." Kael turned the title over. It was three ranks below the seat he had been offered years ago. The irony was so precise it could have been a punchline.

"The war logic I agree with." Maddox leaned back. "Your intelligence is the best in the room and we both know it. But you’re asking me to trust a man who burned this continent once. Earning it starts by showing me that I can trust you."

Kael held his brother’s gaze. It was exactly where he deserved to start.

"Accepted."

Maddox extended his hand across the table. Kael took it. The grip held for two seconds longer than a handshake and one second shorter than an embrace, landing in the exact territory that brothers occupy when the bridge between them has been rebuilt halfway and both of them are choosing to stand on it.

Then Maddox pulled him forward a half-step and clapped him on the back. Kael returned it. For three seconds neither of them moved, and the tent held two men who shared a father and a bloodline and a childhood that had tried to turn them into enemies and had nearly succeeded.

"I need more whiskey for this," Maddox said.

"You needed more whiskey three minutes ago. I was being patient."

Maddox poured. They drank. The whiskey was better than the first glass because the context had changed, and context was the only thing that had ever mattered.

Ryker came through the flap like a man with something to say, saw Kael at the table, and forgot every word of it.

"Well, shit."

Maddox looked at him. "What?"

"Oh, this is happening? This is actually happening. I need everyone in this tent to acknowledge that I predicted this, I was mocked for it, and I am now the smartest person in this war. Drinks are on Maddox. I’ll wait."

Ryker poured himself a drink, then dropped into a chair at the table.

"New developments. Shadowfell had to leave urgently. His kingdom is under attack. Your sister may or may not have grown attached to his second in command and is absolutely not in a bad mood."

Maddox’s gold eyes lifted from his glass to Ryker. "Attacked by another kingdom in Nyros?"

"Not likely," Kael answered, even though the question had been directed at Ryker. "Nyros is under siege across multiple kingdoms, not just Shadowfell. I’ve reached out to a few of my contacts to see if it is dark fae related."

Ryker gestured with both hands at Kael like he was an exotic animal at the zoo. "Case in point. Right there. My network said one pack. His said the continent is on fire. I’m man enough to admit that and angry enough to drink about it."

Maddox’s fingers drummed the table twice. Slow. Bored. "Did the Lunaris Princess leave with Shadowfell?"

"No," Kael said. "But knowing her, she’ll probably want to return if Lunaris is attacked. She has zero self-preservation instincts and a habit of playing hero."

Ryker shot Kael a look.

Maddox caught it. "What?"

Ryker answered quickly, before Kael could. "You didn’t hear this from me. Lunaris was attacked a few weeks ago. Different pack rolled in, then took the Keep. She traded herself to save three hundred hostages, then escaped in the same night. Stupid? Yes. Incredible? Also yes."

Kael exhaled slowly, recalculating something he thought he’d already recalculated.

Maddox waited three seconds before speaking again. "We’re short on good riders. Sending her back to a siege would be a waste. She stays."