Brynne felt sick. Guilt and alarm flooded her, along with Zael’s sharp stab of shock. She felt the clawing sharpness of his dread…and the bite of his rising fury.
“Was it you, Sia?” His demand rumbled with outrage. “Damn it, did you do this?”
She glanced up now, her beautiful face stark as she shook her head. “No. I swear it.”
Nethilos rose from his seat. “There will be no alliance. There cannot be, not under the terms you’ve proposed, Zael. Not while your loyalty appears to be swayed toward the Breed and the Order.”
“What are you saying?”
Another of the elders, Baramael, the male with the bicolored eyes, fixed a disapproving look on Zael. “The colony needs insurance that you will act on our behalf—in our best interests—should the Order one day come to us for our help in standing against Selene.”
“And especially if they come to us for our crystal,” added Anaphiel. She had seemed the most amenable to the alliance during the first meeting, but now the soft-spoken black Atlantean female looked at Brynne and Zael in obvious mistrust.
“You say insurance,” Zael murmured. “What does that mean?”
Nethilos glanced to his colleagues before he spoke. “The council has decided that the only way we can enter this alliance with the Order is under one condition. That is if you agree to remain behind at the colony.”
“For how long?”
Zael’s question hung in the sudden quiet of the chamber. He looked at Brynne, and she had never felt so anguished or alone. She had pushed him away yesterday, but she hadn’t really felt she’d lost him forever until right now.
He knew it too.
His blood hammered with the understanding of what he was being asked to do.
“You mean indefinitely,” he replied woodenly. “Stay here at the colony for the rest of my life.”
Nethilos inclined his head in a grave nod. “That is this council’s decision, Zael. There will be no alliance without your commitment to our terms.”
CHAPTER 34
When he arrived in the council chamber that morning, Zael had been prepared to walk away from it all. Away from his people, and away from the only place he considered home.
After Brynne had pushed him out of the cottage yesterday—out of her life, he’d feared—it had forced him to examine his aimless, long-lived existence. More to the point, it had forced him to consider an interminable future without her.
What he had concluded was that a life without her was no life he wanted to endure.
And if that meant following her to the ends of the Earth to convince her of that, he damned well intended to do it.
But he’d been wrong when he said the alliance between the Breed and the colony didn’t matter to him. It did. Because without the potential of peace—without the assurance that Selene would not be able to have the war she seemed so determined to ignite—Zael knew that no one he cared for would ever be safe.
Not him. Not the people of the colony. Not the Breed or the Order or anyone else who should be unfortunate enough to stand in the way of the Atlantean queen’s vengeance.
And, most important of all, not Brynne.
As he’d paced most of the night in the confines of the home he kept on the island, he understood that above all else, the alliance had to happen. No matter the price.
He sure as hell hadn’t anticipated this.
“You can give the council your answer whenever you’re ready, Zael.”
At Nethilos’s proclamation, the rest of the elders stood, then followed him out of the chamber.