Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 129584 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129584 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Ravi didn’t blame Alric for his reluctance to trust the Sodalicium. The responsibility of keeping the Burkhard Clan alive and thriving was entirely on his shoulders. Their king was not about to let anyone threaten that, if he could help it.
“Even if we knew exactly where the Jaeggi were hiding right now, we don’t have a viable plan for dealing with them,” Dieter reminded them as he pulled the conversation back to the problem at hand.
“Of course we do. We fire-bomb the damn town,” Alric snapped. His anger returned in a flash, and Ravi was still close enough the see the gold ring around his eyes nearly envelop the deep blue iris. Alric’s dragon was definitely on board with this plan.
Baldewin clapped his hands together and rubbed them, a wicked grin spreading across this face. “Exactly. That’s exactly what we need. Scorched earth. Wipe the bastards off the planet once and for all.”
This time, it was Dieter who groaned. “That’s not an option, and you both know it.”
“It’s definitely an option. They attacked our king,” Ravi countered.
“They attacked our mages,” Baldewin added.
“And they’ve attacked our home. Our home, Dieter,” Alric said in a low, hard voice. “They snuck inside our gates and entered our home, clearly with the intention of harming our people. They need to be stopped once and for all, before anyone else can get hurt.”
“I’m not arguing that they need to be stopped. My problem is that fire-bombing a town where they are hiding will inevitably injure and kill humans who have nothing to do with our war.”
“He’s right,” Gunter grumbled. He sounded as if he didn’t want to agree with Dieter at all, which surprised Ravi a little. Gunter had never been a fire and chaos kind of guy. “Right now, the humans are largely happy and excited that we’re here. Torching a town to ash will give them a very big reason to fear us, even if we are justified. We would be ending one war only to start a new one.”
“Plus, we don’t want to kill innocent people,” Dieter pointed out, looking upset that he had to say those words at all.
Yes, they didn’t want to kill innocent people. That was just a little hard to remember when it came to fighting the Jaeggi.
“This whole discussion is moot if we don’t know where they are hiding,” Alric complained. He shoved away from the desk and walked over to the chair he’d been sitting in, dropping into it with an irritated huff.
Baldewin crossed the room and sat on the sofa closest to him, stretching his legs out.
“The humans are doing what they can, but hitting red tape was inevitable,” Gunter said with a shrug.
“But all that work the humans are going to do, that’s on a computer, right?” Ravi asked as a new idea started to form in his mind.
“Largely,” Baldewin answered. “They’ve got access to security cameras and other databases, I’m sure. They’ll sort through the information to track the Jaeggi back to her starting location.”
Ravi stood next to Alric’s chair, his arm resting on the back of it. “Then, why don’t we use our computer genius and snarky hacker to search for the Jaeggi?”
“Cassie?” Alric said.
Ravi nodded. “She used her sneaky computer skills to track down Tori and the rest of his clan. She’s also researching all the new mages and wannabe mages. Why can’t she use her Google-fu, or whatever she calls it, to find the Jaeggi? The human police have already given us a starting point—Czechia.”
Baldewin laughed. “Permission to hack into all kinds of security cameras to find the Jaeggi? Yeah, I think Cassie would go for it.”
Alric groaned. “God help us.”
“Good luck reining her in again,” Dieter muttered.
Gunter shifted to sit on the edge of his sofa cushion. “That’s true, but it is for a good cause. And North has proven to be quite handy with computers, as well. They’re likely to find the information we need much faster than the humans.”
“Very well. I’ll speak to Cassie, try to set up some boundaries. We can’t have her getting caught or getting into mischief. But, if we can find the Jaeggi before they put more mages and dragons in danger, that’s all the better.”
Ravi might have let out a celebratory shout. They were finally going to get these bastards. It wasn’t so much that their last attack had hurt him personally, but rather it was as Alric had said. The Jaeggi had attacked their home, damaged their sense of safety and security. This needed to end now.
Sora sat comfortably in Gunter’s office (dungeon? lair?), hands folded on the tabletop. The suspiciously scarred tabletop. And really, it felt like a dungeon in here, as there wasn’t a window to be seen. There were quite a few preservation charms on the bookshelves to help keep the books there from fading with time.