A gleam
Killian
Damon, as everyone knew, had a way with words. He also, in some ways, reminded me of my father, which was why I had to, at some point, clip his wings once I’d gotten into my position for the first time.
Damon’s eyes barely met mine; instead, he smiled at Calypso as though he had known her all his life. She watched him just as everyone else did, waiting.
“One village in Adrian’s territory has been attacked.”
We all then turned to Adrian, blonde, blue-eyed, and with spectacles on his face. He had been born with magical eyes that made it difficult for him to see normally. Eventually, he was blind, but that didn’t mean he was weak. It didn’t mean he was defective. Like him, like us, we were perfect creatures. He was not especially so, being that his grandmother was supposed to be a witch. Adrian had taken part of her magic, mostly just in his eyes, but that didn’t mean he could see. He saw life force instead of figures and colors.
He knew everything, in fact, he could judge intentions before anyone else did. Of course, his nose was also extremely sharp, as were his ears, but his skin was also quite sensitive, which was why he was mostly covered for comfort.
He pulled off his hood, placed his hands on the table, and just looked down towards the ground where Calypso sat.
“I could feel their death before it happened. I knew something was wrong. My mate sensed it too, and by the time we reached the village, they were all dead. Why did you do this, Damon? Why did you kill the innocent?”
He raised his hands as if in surrender, but we all knew that Damon would never do that.
“The territory was mine from the start,” he said. “You had just received it as part of tribute from my grandfather.”
Adrian was also quite old but didn’t look a day over human years of thirty.
“Until I took it back. The time of keeping it had elapsed, around a hundred calendar human years.” Damon smiled. Of course, he had this in the bag.
“That doesn’t mean you should have killed the people on it,” Adrian said, forcefully, though his voice was still very gentle and almost sad. “So many innocents died. But why didn’t you tell me you wanted to take the land? I would have told them to come out.”
Nothing but the sound of crickets for a good minute. On Damon’s face he wore a smile so sadistic and cold.
“But I did,” he said. “I gave you notice. I told the people to leave my land and they laughed and scorned me in my face, and you know how I get when that happens. I tore them from limb because I could not control my anger. You, more than anyone else, should know. They too should have been gone, the fact they were on borrowed land, a possession taken back. The blood will not be too bad. After all, I do intend to plant on it.”
Adrian slammed his hand down on the table, the cracking sound of the wood filling my ears to the point where it nearly caused them to burst. Damon flinched slightly. Even he, with his strength, knew that it was a foolish mistake to get into a fight with Adrian.
“Enough.” A wave of magic washed over me, not hostile, just warm, present and heavy. I looked at Calypso. Frustrated eyes were resting on Damon.
“You will give tribute to him. You will leave the land or he will be allowed to attack you just as you have attacked him. You will take from you the exact same lives you have taken from him and you will still leave the land.”
Damon sneered. “No,” he said. “I gave notice. Tell him to bring his beta. I will prove it.”
Damon continued. Calypso looked back to Adrian, who gave her a nod. In that moment Adrian’s dark-skinned beta stood before us.
“Is it true?” Calypso said. “Is it true that Damon gave you notice about taking the land his grandfather tributed over to Adrian?”
The beta cleared his throat. “Yes,” he said.
“Interesting,” I thought, and why did you, Damon, not inform your own? The beta looked to his alpha.
“I did inform him. He didn’t take it seriously. He said the land belonged to him fair and square.”
That didn’t sound right. Adrian didn’t speak like that, I thought to myself as my eyes met Adrian’s strange blue ones. Adrian frowned and then looked away.
“You lie,” he said.
“I speak the truth. Alpha Damon did give notice, several of them. In fact, he sent letters, letters that went unanswered. It was well within his right to attack the village and take it back.” The beta’s voice lifted with me, understanding that perhaps this would be his last day as a beta.
“Two hundred square miles is now mine,” Damon declared with a mockery of a smile. “You should have given it to me when you had the chance. You will not take any life from me.”
“Eight hundred lives,” Adrian said under his breath. “Gone because you would not speak to me yourself.”
“Very well,” he said. “We will mourn our dead.” Adrian said nothing after that until suddenly all eyes were on me, on the matter of the human made belonging to Alpha Killian. Eyes were still on me as well as Calypso’s.
“Custom dictates she must die,” Calypso said. “At least old custom does.”
Being that this is an internal matter, I didn’t understand why it was tabled before me. She raised a hand with a fistful of earth and let it fall slowly. Slowly I watched the grains of moist earth fall back to where she had picked them from. She bowed her head and looked around the room. “Anyone who wishes to talk?”
Damon glittered. “Alpha Hendrix and his... it is well. It is an internal matter,” Hendrix said, keeping his eyes on me. He was young too, but not quite as young as I, and he had entered power the old-fashioned way, by battle to the death. He had a nasty burn mark on his right eye, but that did nothing to diminish how fierce he looked, his icy blonde hair and black obsidian eyes.
“The truth is his decision to make,” he said. “I do not think it needs to be with us. It’s not needed here.”
He had said his piece, but I had a feeling others would have other things to say.
“I think he should kill her just to keep peace,” a voice reinforced by age said. An elder by the name of Elias. Elias had gray hair and a full beard of gray, but that did nothing to diminish his strength. His age only seemed to add to it.
“I’m sorry, younger Killian, but this human major is only going to bring you doom and destruction. Humans will never understand our way of life. They will never see things the way we do, and she will never see things the way you do. It’s about enough if your mate is a commoner. How much more a human, much beneath you, and kind even to the point we had to relegate them to the beyond. Kill the human or vanish her other way. I will not command you because you are a leader to do with, but I think it will be in your best interest to do so. There are many who want your land for its rich obsidian and iron ore.”
There was a gleam to his eyes as the rest of them stirred. It was greed, and they would kill for it.