Dreams of Gods & Monsters (Daughter of Smoke & Bone #3) - Laini Taylor Page 0,47

and then we come home by the other portal, close it behind us, and deal with the rest of them here in Eretz.”

Elyon chewed on this. “Setting aside for the moment ‘the rest of them,’ and the impossible odds there, the thousand in the human world makes nearly three to one, their favor.”

“Three Dominion to one Misbegotten?” Liraz’s smile was like the love child of a shark and a scimitar. “I’ll take those odds. And don’t forget, we have something they don’t.”

“Which is?” inquired Elyon.

With a glance first to Akiva, Liraz turned to regard the chimaera. She didn’t speak; her look was resentful and reluctant, but its aim was clear: We have beasts, she might have said, her lip a subtle curl.

“No,” said Elyon at once. He looked to Briathos and Orit for support. “We’ve agreed not to kill them, that’s all, though we would have been within our rights to do it after they broke the truce—”

“We broke the truce, did we?” This from Ten. Haxaya, rather, who seemed to be enjoying the deceit, in a way only she could. Karou knew her true face. She’d been a friend, long ago, and her aspect wasn’t lupine, but vulpine, not so different than this, really—only sharper and more feral. Haxaya had claimed once that she was just a set of teeth with a body behind it, and the way she smiled Ten’s wolf jaws was like a taunt. I might eat you, she seemed to be thinking, most of the time, including now. “Then why is it our blood that stains the cavern floor?” she demanded.

“Because we’re quicker than you,” said Orit, all disdain. “As if you needed further proof of it.”

And with that, Ten was ready to launch herself over the table at her, teeth first and truce be damned. “Your archers are the ones who should answer for this, not us.”

“That was defense. The instant you showed hamsas, we were free of our promise.”

Really? Karou wanted to scream. Had they learned nothing? They were like children. Really freaking deadly children.

“Enough.” It wasn’t a scream, and it wasn’t Karou. Thiago’s snarl was ice and command, and it tore between the facing soldiers and set both sides rocking back on their heels. Ten dipped her head to her general.

Orit glared. She wasn’t beautiful like Liraz, like so many of the angels. Her features were ill-defined, her face full, and her nose had been broken some long time ago, smashed flat at the bridge by blunt force. “You decide what’s enough?” she asked Thiago. “I don’t think so.” She turned to her kin. “I thought we were in agreement that we wouldn’t proceed unless they proved their good faith. I don’t see good faith. I see beasts laughing in our faces.”

“No,” said Thiago. “You don’t.”

“Pray you never do,” added Lisseth helpfully.

Thiago continued as though she hadn’t spoken. “I said I would discipline any soldier or soldiers who defied my command, and I will. It’s not to appease you, and you won’t be audience to it.”

“Then how will we know?” demanded Orit.

“You’ll know,” was the Wolf’s reply, as heavy with threat as his earlier pronouncement to Karou, but without the tint of regret.

Elyon was not satisfied. To the others, he said, “We can’t trust them at our sides in battle. We can fight Jael without mixing battalions. They follow their command, and we our own. We keep apart.”

It was Liraz who, with a considering look at the chimaera, said, “Even one pair of hamsas in a battalion could weaken the Dominion and give us an edge.”

“Or weaken us,” argued Orit. “And blunt our edge.”

Karou had glanced at Akiva, and so she saw a spark light his eyes—the vividness of a sudden idea—and when he spoke up, cutting in abruptly, she expected him to give voice to it, whatever it was. But he said only, “Liraz is right, but so is Orit. It may be early yet to speak of mixing battalions. We’ll leave that question for now,” and as the talk moved deeper into the attack plan, Karou was left wondering: What was that spark? What was the idea?

She kept looking at him and wondering, and she had to admit she hoped it might be some way out of all this, because it was becoming clearer to her with every passing moment that, in one thing at least, the seraphim and chimaera were united. It was in their mutual unconcern, in the midst of their plotting, for the effect this attack would