Vengeance Throne (The Callistra Chronicles #2)

TWENTY-FOUR

Chapter Twenty-Four

As the invading Unseelie ships entered the shallow waters of the Isles, Falon watched the evacuation vessel on the other side of the land drift out to sea, beginning its long journey to Calva.

She would have expected humans to have lost their capability for teamwork and altruistic behaviour after centuries in the toxic wastelands. After their culture became one filled with fear and scavenging, they should have turned beastly as a species: they had already became savage hunter-gatherers, they had already shed all forms of civilisation in favour of survival.

They should have forgotten how to be selfless, but it would appear that such a trait was ingrained into their blood. Even as they stared death in the face, most humans followed instruction during evacuation and heeded a methodic process, filing onto steel-lined hallways and cramming into supply closets until there was no room at all for movement.

Either that, or they were simply afraid of being knocked over the head and then having their unconscious body chucked carelessly into a lightless room, which was what happened to the few that tried to make a fuss.

But a lightless, dusty room on the very lower level of the ship was still a good compromise. Most other humans had been placed in the dorms, and each dorm had been built for one Unseelie soldier during the first fae civil war. At a time like this, there was no choice except to shove almost twenty humans into each dorm, putting children on the beds for comfort while the adults were to stand for the entirety of the journey.

Falon supposed a few sore legs were better than annihilation and slavery at the hands of the Unseelie Court.

She had overheard Lauha wondering if it would be possible to stack some humans atop each other, but Averon had shot down that suggestion immediately. The day and a half one-way journey to Calva with bodies atop each other could kill the fragile humans, and there was no great rush, because Averon had a contingency plan for the remaining humans.

The Isles still had its old nuclear fallout shelter.

Averon had been hesitant to reveal this, and hadn't spoken until absolutely necessary, when Circe of Eo was running around tearing at her hair. The witch had looked like she wanted to slap the human leader again for the extremely late deliverance of the news, but settled for spinning on her heel and furiously discussing the new information with her fellow witches in a hushed whisper.

Falon could hear the entire conversation while she stood nearby, doing a rough headcount of those being ushered into the shelter. She wouldn't know for sure if this was everyone—they didn't have an exact number of their population, only enough of a rough estimate to confirm that they hadn't forgotten to notify an entire community about their plans to evacuate. If there were one or two people who simply slept through the alarm or were too slow in reaching the shelter, then there was nothing that could be done. The survival of the human species was at risk here.

"Now would be a really good time to reveal you have a plan," one of the witches, Rhoden, was hissing at Circe while Lauha paced beside them.

"I'm thinking, I'm thinking," she said, tapping her face with her palms repeatedly. She waved her hands at the third witch. "Yelena, help me out here. The humans made plenty of unlikely but successful last-stands in Earthen history."

"Yes, but that was when the battles were human against human," Yelena replied. "Not three witches without access to magic and one banshee against the entire Unseelie army!"

Falon shuffled a step closer, diverting more of her attention towards eavesdropping when Yelena dropped to a grudging mumble that was hard to hear.