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Chapters (75)
  1. Cover
  2. Also By K.A. Linde
  3. Kinkadia Map
  4. Alandria Map
  5. Pronunciation Guide
  6. Tribes
  7. The Celebration
  8. The Murder
  9. The Hangover
  10. The Journey
  11. The House of Shadows
  12. The Princess
  13. The Ball
  14. The King
  15. The Wall
  16. The Court
  17. The Masquerade
  18. The Light
  19. The Plot
  20. The Healing
  21. The Training
  22. The Masters
  23. The Problem
  24. The Meeting
  25. The Assassin
  26. The Testing
  27. The Course
  28. The Season
  29. The Lord
  30. The Star
  31. The Dragons
  32. The Protest
  33. The Library
  34. The Bond
  35. The Night of the Dead
  36. The Camp
  37. The Celebration
  38. The Suspect
  39. The Smoke
  40. The Martyr
  41. The Arrest
  42. The Probation
  43. The Holiday
  44. The Estate
  45. The Flight
  46. The Confession
  47. The Village
  48. The Hot Springs
  49. The Geivhrea
  50. The Winter Party
  51. The Heart
  52. The Blackouts
  53. The Symptoms
  54. The Council
  55. The Rally
  56. The Aftermath
  57. The Shift
  58. The Sickness
  59. The Spiritcaster
  60. The Awakening
  61. The Crux
  62. The Negotiations
  63. The River
  64. The Boats
  65. The Shadows
  66. The Battle
  67. The Defeat
  68. The Treaty
  69. The Trial
  70. The Execution
  71. The Father
  72. House of Curses
  73. Also By K.A. Linde
  74. Acknowledgments
  75. About the Author

She nodded, and they slunk out of the view of the city.

Today was a defeat but not the end of their schemes.

62

The Treaty

“I never found her,” Fordham said in frustration. He and Kerrigan stood before the commander’s tent and waited for the reading of the treaty that had been signed with Queen Viviana.

“Wynter?”

He tersely nodded. “I pulled apart the entire rubble. Dug everything out myself, and she wasn’t there.”

“How is that possible?”

He ground his teeth and shook his head. “I don’t know. I should have found a body if she was dead.”

“Do you think that she used her magic to escape? Jumped somewhere?”

“I thought she was sufficiently incapacitated.” He sighed. “But she must have.”

“Gods…”

“It’s not the last we’ve seen of her.”

Kerrigan gulped. That was not a good sign. Not at all. Wynter was powerful. And the last thing they needed was a loose cannon with that amount of power as an enemy.

The crowd grew silent as Presiding Officer Malwin Zoh stepped forward to read the treaty. It had taken a full day of negotiations and the approval of the council for Queen Viviana to sign her seal on the document. And it was a litany of demands.

  1. The House of Shadows will become the thirteenth tribe of Alandria, sovereign to the Society and hereto known as tribe Charbonnet.
  2. All full-Fae will remain within the arranged boundaries of Charbonnet for a duration of five years with no standing army.
  3. A Society occupation will exist within the bounds of the tribe until the Society dictates that they are able to rejoin the greater world.
  4. No member of tribe Charbonnet will be permitted to enter the dragon tournament or join the Society for a period of one hundred years.
  5. All held slaves will be immediately released and slavery abolished in all forms.
  6. Any and all illegal magical artifacts will be handed over to the Society for destruction.
  7. A fine of a million marks a year will be paid to the Society for the rebuilding of the city of Lethbridge and reparations for lives lost.

Kerrigan winced with each new infraction added. The Society had all the bargaining chips on their side. They could and, apparently, had asked for everything. And the queen, in an effort to keep her people safe, had given it all away.

Fordham said nothing. He hardly even blinked as his people were stripped of everything that had made them what they were. She wanted to reach out to him, to offer comfort as the army cheered their victory and his demise. But he had been so adamant that he didn’t want them to turn on him that she had no way of doing that without putting a spotlight on him.