Chapter 678: His Word Was Enough

Tiberon’s eyes went the temperature of a glacier. Every sound on the training field died at once. Nothing moved. Nothing breathed.

Gavriel did not flinch. "This is a false parley. I have seen this happen before."

"You have seen this ’happen before’," Hyran repeated, one eyebrow raised.

"Yes," Gavriel replied. "I saw things in the coma that I cannot explain to you in the time we have. That is a false parley to lure you out of Drakenfell for ambush. They will be attacking Drakenfell as well." His voice dropped to something quiet and absolute. "I will put my rank and my family name behind every word I just said. I am not wrong, Alpha."

Tiberon studied him.

The studying lasted three seconds, during which the King of Drakenfell looked into the eyes of the Gamma he had raised beside his son, the boy whose training he had overseen, whose rank he had signed, whose potential he had measured against a standard only Dexmon had ever met.

The boy the ancestors had called his second son.

Gavriel held the look. His green eyes were bright, burning with a conviction that had no evidence he could present and every ounce of truth his soul could carry.

He was asking Tiberon to trust him, his third-in-command, and override his own instincts built over thirty years with no evidence, just his word and his eyes and the desperate, bone-deep certainty of a man trying to save a father.

"My Gamma is someone whose judgment I trust," Tiberon stated, loud enough that every person on the field could hear. "I will decline the parley. Wartime footing. Effective immediately. Seal Drakenfell. Nothing in, nothing out. We prepare."

Gavriel’s shoulders dropped by an inch.

The order hit the field and the field obeyed. Bodies moved in every direction at once, wolves to the gates, handlers to the roosts, cadets to the armory, the entire training ground converting from peacetime to wartime in the time it took Tiberon to take his next breath.

✦✦✦

TWENTY MINUTES LATER - DRAKEN FORCES MOBILIZATION

WHUMP.

Velkaris landed on a side field and Dexmon jumped off his back in the same motion. His eyes locked on Tiberon immediately. The voice that came out of him was still very much the Dragon King’s voice.

"There is a fleet approaching from the south. Fifty dragons at minimum. It is possible there are more. Every single one of them has been corrupted."

Tiberon’s gaze moved to Gavriel Sterling, lingering for a moment before moving back to Dexmon.

"Distance?"

"Twenty minutes at combat speed." The Dragon King’s gold eyes tracked something invisible to every other person on the field, reading the sky the way Tiberon read a battlefield, in layers, each layer producing intelligence the naked eye could not access. "They’re holding formation. Disciplined. Whoever commands them has done this before."

"Fifty against our full complement."

"Your complement is one hundred and seventy-three combat-ready dragons, twelve of which are currently grounded for molt or injury." The Dragon King paused. "The mathematics favor you. The mathematics also assume you are not spread across three defensive perimeters and a coastal patrol that was redeployed last week."

Tiberon looked at him.

The Dragon King looked back with his son’s face and another man’s patience.

"I pay attention, King Drakenfell."

✦✦✦

FORTY MINUTES LATER

A second hawk cut across the field.

Same dark plumage. Same precision. Same trajectory. It banked once and dropped a sealed letter at Tiberon’s boots with the accuracy of a bird that had been given coordinates and a deadline and had met both. Again.

The Dragon King saw it first. His gold eyes tracked the hawk’s departure, then dropped to the letter on the ground.

"Blood seal," he said.

Tiberon looked down at it. His jaw moved one millimeter.

"The second one today."

The Dragon King crouched. His hand hovered over the parchment without touching it. Gold magic pulsed once from his palm, sweeping across the wax, the parchment, the ink beneath the fold. The scan was older than Hyran’s technique, less layered, more instinctive, the diagnostic method of a king who had been reading enchanted correspondence since before modern scanning protocols existed.

"I do not sense anything beyond the seal itself," he said. "The parchment is clean. The enchantment is contained within the blood and will dissolve only for the intended recipient. There is nothing layered beneath it."

Tiberon picked it up. The seal dissolved at his touch, same as the first, the wax absorbing into the parchment and leaving clean edges.

He read it. His face gave nothing.

Then he looked at the Dragon King. What he said next was out of character for Tiberon Drakenfell, and both of them knew it.

"Would my son have been able to sense what the Gamma sensed in the first letter?"

The Dragon King studied him. The question was unexpected. The asking was more unexpected. Tiberon Drakenfell did not ask questions he had not already calculated the answer to, and the asking meant either the calculation had failed or the answer mattered enough to risk appearing uncertain.

He did not question it.

"Yes. His abilities are still developing, along with the Gamma’s. Instinct alone won’t fully cultivate it. They will both need training to master it."

"Noted."

Tiberon said nothing else, but something behind his expression shifted by a degree.

Tiberon unfolded the second letter.

✦✦✦

Drakenfell,

You have rejected my blood-sealed parley.

The forces aligned against you are larger and older than yours. I am offering you the only door in this corridor that does not end in your bloodline burning.

The terms are simple. Surrender the girl mated to your son. Deliver her to Ironveil Pass unconscious. We will do the rest.

In return, I withdraw all claims against your kingdom and the war between our houses ends. The continent returns to order.

Your son will find another mate. I am also happy to make arrangements for him.

You are a practical man. Be practical.

This offer will not be repeated.