Chapter 38: The Scheme

Kren and Pina made their way slowly out of the plane wreck. Kren was still mildly annoyed that no one else seemed to grasp the sheer weight of what they’d just found. Only Bernice would understand the significance of it — because this wasn’t supposed to exist here at all. She’d told him once, long ago, that she’d come from another world entirely, that her soul had transmigrated here after dying in the one she was born into. The presence of a crashed airliner — a machine that, as far as Kren knew, only existed in the world Bernice claimed to be from — raised more questions than he had any appetite for right now. Unfortunately, he seemed to be the only one capable of asking them. The discovery didn’t lighten the weight already sitting on his shoulders, and it certainly didn’t make the task ahead any simpler. So he let it go, filing it away for later. Perhaps Bernice alone would appreciate the mystery of it properly. For now, they had far graver matters in front of them.

"We need to be careful. The Lyndwyrms patrol this whole peak constantly, especially after dark — I’d rather not get caught flat-footed out here. Say whatever you need to say, and let’s get back somewhere safe." Pina said, standing in front of the bone-littered cliff face. Kren chuckled, then stepped forward, planting a hand against the vine-covered rock just above her head, towering over her.

She swallowed, hard. That alone was all the encouragement Kren needed. He tipped her chin up with two fingers until she had no choice but to meet his golden eyes directly. "You’re a beautiful woman, Pina of the Storm Eagles. It would be my absolute pleasure to claim you, and bring you into my bed."

Pina’s expression darkened instantly. "I am not an object to be claimed, Your Majesty." she spat. Kren didn’t so much as flinch. He simply dipped his head and caught her lips in his.

It happened fast enough to stun her entirely. Pina fought back immediately, shoving against his chest with everything she had — and he didn’t budge an inch. He pulled back on his own terms, keeping her pinned neatly between his body and the cold stone behind her.

"What the hell do you think you’re doing? I’ll kill you!" Kren only scoffed.

"You can’t. And you won’t." He held her furious glare without the slightest hesitation, those electric blue eyes burning with barely contained rage. Gods, how he wanted to clip those wings of hers — pull her down off whatever lofty perch she’d built for herself. None of it meant anything to him if she didn’t have the raw power to actually back it up.

"Just say what you came to say and let’s get out of here." She said eventually, turning her face away from him. Kren smiled, fully aware he’d just won this particular exchange — one step closer to claiming the Storm Eagle princess for his own. She’d resist, that much was certain. But even now, that resistance felt thin, almost performative. Sovereign called to sovereign, whether in open challenge or quiet submission, and this pull between them ran deeper than simple attraction. Their inner beasts recognized something in each other — whether as prey or as partners, neither of them could say for certain yet. But the low hum of it sat in both their Auras regardless, harder for Pina to parse given she’d spent her entire life with no real relationship to Aura at all.

"All of this matters, Pina. I’m going to kill that alpha — or at the very least wound it badly enough that finishing the job becomes trivial afterward. The rest of the clutch gets wiped out, and that cavern becomes mine to claim. And at the end of all of it, there’s you. You’ll stand at my side, as my woman, and as the Storm Eagles’ voice in my court. Your people get protection, and a real path back to power. You won’t be a sovereign with a sovereign bloodline anymore — your people, your bloodline’s sovereignty, all of it becomes mine. Ours. Our children’s."

Pina raised an eyebrow at that but said nothing. Kren took the silence as an opening and pressed on. "Your father is planning something. Every instinct I have is telling me that whatever that plan is, letting it play out unchecked would be a very bad idea. Tell me what it is, so I can prepare for it properly."

Pina let out a scoff, eyebrow climbing higher. "You’re joking. You want me to betray my own father and hand you his plans? Why — because you kissed me and fluttered your eyelashes at me?" She pushed off the cliff wall, annoyance plain on her face. Kren didn’t move an inch as he gave her his answer.

"Yes."

The sheer audacity of the word threw her off balance more than the kiss had. The confidence behind it — like he already considered her his, without a single shred of doubt — grated on her. It felt like something being quietly stripped away from her, piece by piece. Kren likely didn’t understand that. And even if he did, she doubted he’d care.

"Well, unfortunately for you, I’m not in the habit of betraying my own family. Besides — what business is it of yours? This seems simple enough to me. Kill the alpha, marry me, claim the loyalty of the entire Storm Eagle tribe. What exactly is so complicated about that? You make it sound like there’s some deeper conspiracy at play."

"How about killing him and claiming his crest for yourself?"

Jomin’s voice cut cleanly through the conversation as he pulled himself free of the tunnel entrance, letting the vines fall closed behind him. Pina hissed, lunging forward and slamming her younger brother back against the cliff face, hand closing around his throat.

"What the hell do you think you’re doing?" she growled. Jomin, remarkably unbothered, looked like this was a routine he’d grown well accustomed to by now.

"He saved my life after you left me to die. I’d say you’re the one being foolish, thinking I’d just sit quietly and let father’s plan go through unchallenged. He’s a monster!" Jomin shot back.

"He’s our father!" Pina snapped. Jomin let out a bitter laugh, turning his head aside with a hollow smile.

"Oh, he’s my father now? Our father? You’re a hypocrite, Pina — and a coward, if you’d rather bury your head in the sand than look at the truth sitting right in front of you." Pina’s eyes went razor-thin at that.

"If I were you, I’d choose my next words very, very carefully."

"Or what?" Kren cut in, drawing both siblings’ attention sharply back toward him. "I don’t have time for this. Pina, there’s a war coming that’s going to make these years of Lyndwyrm sieges look like a holiday in comparison, and I have other alliances that need my attention. I may be desperate, but you are not my only option here. I’m offering power. Salvation. A seat at the top of this mountain — and you’re willing to throw it all away for a father who’s already half in the grave, and couldn’t offer you a fraction of what I can. So. Both of you have exactly one moment to tell me what’s actually going on, or you can deal with your Lyndwyrm problem entirely on your own."

The siblings exchanged a long look.

"Don’t." Pina warned, but Jomin had already made up his mind, clearly ready to throw his lot in with Kren instead. In a strange way, this felt less like betrayal and more like saving himself — from his sister’s quiet plotting, and from whatever his father had planned for him next.

"All of this — the tournament, the gathering, the Lyndwyrms left unchecked — it’s a trap. A lure, meant to draw in as many crest-holders and cultivators as possible. The more of them the Alpha Lyndwyrm kills, the more likely it is to drop its own crest when it finally falls. That’s the real goal. Turning the Storm Eagle clan into the Lyndwyrm clan."

Kren said nothing for a long moment, letting the words settle. There was clearly more here than any of them had space to unpack standing exposed on this ledge, with Lyndwyrms still patrolling somewhere above. He motioned them all back toward the tunnel entrance.

They found their way back to the hidden chamber inside the wreck, settling in among the old rotted seat frames while the cavern beyond hummed faintly with the distant movement of the clutch. It took the better part of forty minutes of careful, measured conversation before the full shape of it finally came together — and by the time it had, Aki was looking at both siblings the way a butcher eyes cattle headed for slaughter. Fima wore something close to vindication on her face, as if she’d known all along the Storm Eagles couldn’t be trusted. This new revelation made everything Pina had said up to this point feel almost redundant — hollow, even, given that the suffering she claimed to want to end was being orchestrated by her own father.

"Why?" Ruhu asked, ever the pragmatist among them. Jomin and Pina traded another look, though Pina turned her face away again, unwilling to add anything further. Kren let it go and shifted his attention to Jomin instead, who finally gave Ruhu the answer he was looking for.

"Our father is dying. We can’t mine or work the ore veins on this range anymore — not with our numbers this thin — and growing food up here has always been close to impossible. All of this, the tournament, the alpha, every bit of it, is preparation to move our people down the mountain and carve out new territory somewhere easier to survive on. And to extend his own life. The only way to live longer than your natural years is through cultivating an inner beast properly, and the only way he can do that now is by claiming a crest and starting an entirely new bloodline. A new inner beast. The same way our ancestors did, generations back, when we were nothing but ordinary people with no inner beast to call our own." Jomin’s voice hardened. "He did all of this. For power."

Kren wasn’t especially surprised. Power had been near the top of his list of possibilities from the start. He’d already noted how old and frail the chief looked, practically standing with one foot in the grave already. Without access to cultivation, the man had been robbed of the lifespan most beast tribesmen took for granted — even reaching First Awakening alone typically guaranteed something close to a hundred and fifty years, barring misfortune and assuming a reasonably healthy life.

"We should just kill them both. Kill the father too, and be done with it. We claim the entire village by right of conquest — there’s no one here stronger than us." Fima said suddenly.

"NO!"

Kren’s roar tore through the hollow interior of the ancient wreck, loud enough that the Lyndwyrms beyond the glass shrieked in response, the sound echoing back through the cavern. Everyone scrambled for cover on instinct, Kren himself pressing flat against the wall beside one of the windows. Outside, the screeching intensified as the clutch searched for the source of the disturbance, circling for nearly twenty tense minutes before finally losing interest and drifting off.

Kren caught more than a few pointed glares in the silence that followed, but brushed every one of them off, his focus locked entirely on Fima. Once Pina finally signaled it was safe to speak again, Kren crossed the small chamber straight toward her, forcing the Margay backward step by furious step until her spine met the far wall. He raised a single finger and pressed it hard against her chest, not caring in the slightest how it sank into her, nor how good it might have felt to either of them in another context. This needed to land, and land clearly.

"I am not, and will never be, the kind of king who kills someone simply because it’s convenient for me. If someone has to die, they die because they stand against me as an enemy — not because removing them makes my life easier. Pina and Jomin have done nothing to either of us. From everything we’ve seen and heard tonight, both of them strike me as decent people caught in an impossible situation."

"And you know this how, exactly?" Pina asked, eyebrow raised, looking at Kren like he’d just said the single dumbest thing she’d ever heard. Surprisingly, it was Fima who answered for him.

"Cats are exceptional judges of character." she said simply.

"Then why do you hate me?" Pina pressed, having already clocked Fima’s open hostility toward her from the start. The Margay only shrugged.

"It’s my job to hate anyone who could become a threat to His Majesty, or to the Kora Kingdom." she answered, without so much as blinking.

"And I fall into that category because...?" Pina wasn’t about to let it go. She’d noticed the treatment, grown steadily more irritated by it, and this felt like her first real opening to confront it directly.

"Everyone who isn’t His Majesty falls into that category. You’re not special. Even if you somehow end up in his bed with your legs in the air, it changes nothing. You are not a Black Lion. You never will be. And to me, nothing in this world outranks the blood of N’kora."