The Dark Edge Chronicles - Clan War

To Last Blood

Dru's internal clock proved as precise as it originally was. Not forty minutes after he finished showering, there was a polite tap on the door.

Sitting cross legged on the bed meditating in an attempt to settle a mind still uneasy at what he witnessed in Anka's bedchamber, Lash looked up.

"Yes?"

"High Lord Ingamon Lash of House Lash and clan Ventru," a woman's voice formally named him from just outside the door. "You are summoned to the Queen's Conclave!"

Again, as it was with Atrix, the two guards that escorted him took him directly to the entrance to the conclave chamber. Which, this time, was open. The six legionnaires standing guard stayed at parade rest, which told Lash that he was expected this time around. Then it was into the darkness he went, his escort stopping outside.

Remembering the path he took with Atrix, he smoothly strode through the darkness to the velvet curtain that made the final barrier before the conclave chamber itself. And, like before, it was pulled out of the way by hidden cords as he approached it, allowing him to step through the resulting space without pausing.

This time, however, instead of being called immediately down to the floor, Atrix, who was standing to the side of the staircase and behind the top tier as she did the time before, reached out and grabbed his sleeve. Looking over at her with a frown, he caught her waving him over to stand beside me. When he came to a halt on her left, she leaned in to whisper.

"The senior queens will summon you shortly to the floor to finish your report, Lord Lash" she indicated. "But, first, they have some business to deal with!"

Nodding, Lash copied Atrix's parade rest and settled in to wait. Thankfully the senior liliths didn't make the conclave wait long.

As Anka had done near the end of the previous conclave, the eight senior liliths stepped out of the crowd from eight separate locations on the bottom-most tier. Some took the nearest staircase, if it was available, while others just simply stepped down onto the floor. Moving with the grace inherent to their position, they quickly assembled in the center of the floor. There they paused to quietly talk amongst themselves for several minutes.

Then, in one voice, they were speaking.

"Anka of the Nordstrom, descend to the floor and speak with us!"

There was quickly a stirring in the second tier that resulted in the Nordstrom lilith pushing her way to the front before haughtily descending the same way she had several hours previous. And when she reached the floor, she stalked towards the senior liliths.

"What do you want?" she hissed challengingly, coming to a halt a few paces away from the group of eight.

"Filii sumus posterum," Gazzy said tightly.

"And what does that gibberish mean?" Anka demanded to know.

"It's a phrase in a dead human language you quoted not twelve hours ago when you demanded the right of a replacement child, or reponere infanti," the lilith from the Toreador clan flatly explained. "It means 'children are our future'."

"Of course they are," Anka scoffed, looking from the Toreador lilith to Gazzy. "It is one of our most sacred charges as liliths to safeguard our people's ability to have children." She sneered. "I learned that the first day I ascended."

"And yet you never embraced the ideal into your heart, into your very soul, Anka," Narilla spoke up to say, her face a mask of self control. Yet, even from the top tier, Lash could see the rage boiling in her eyes.

"Or you wouldn't have made a plan to find yourself at NachtFeuer in time to meet Ingamon Lash, High Lord of the Ventru, come to conclave and invoke reponere infanti to demand he impregnate you. Only to leave him to die from your abuse after telling him you intended on carrying the child you would make together, to term, then eat it to keep the Nordstrom people unsullied by Lash blood!"