“Please child, admit your crimes. Save yourself and your family the embarrassment of a trial.”
Emariya smiled sweetly. “Please, Councilor Damphries, admit my brother put you up to this and save yourself the embarrassment of being revealed before all the Council for the part you have taken in
his
crimes.”
The Councilor’s wrinkled eyes narrowed. “So be it. Your trial will begin tomorrow, and may The Three have mercy upon you.” He started to turn, leaving the dungeon.
“Councilor Damphries,” Emariya called out. “Please ensure that my companions are called to the trial with me. They will be acting as my witnesses.”
Sadness reflected in his eyes as he faced her once again. “My dear, you get no witnesses, except those speaking against you. You’ve been accused by your brother and myself. The false letter you showed me was all the evidence I needed. Tomorrow will be the announcement of your sentence. And unless any Councilors speak on your behalf—which I wouldn’t count on—the fulfillment of your sentence.”
At first she thought she misheard him. Shock welled with sudden force, and she swayed on her feet. The first coherent thought she managed to form was for her friends.
It may be too late for me after all. But it doesn’t have to be their end as well.
She’d looked forward to a long life with Torian, but if her journey ended here, she’d take comfort in knowing his would continue.
“Wait! If they may not speak for me, let them go. Release them. They can help you get rid of the horde waiting outside your gate. They are useful to you.”
Damphries nodded, and a guard started to unlock the cell.
Torian clutched at her hand. “I’m not leaving you.”
With tears streaming down her face, Emariya threw herself at Torian, wrapping her arms around his neck. She tilted her chin slightly, whispering in his ear. “Go. You can’t save me in this cell. Get help.” Somehow she had to convince him to go.
His shoulders sagged and a quiet tear slipped out of the corner of his eye. “I’ll be back for you,” he promised.
“I know,” she said. “But if you don’t make it...”
He put a finger to her lips. “Stop. No goodbyes.”
Seeming to have had enough of the tender scene, the guards pulled them apart, forcing Emariya to let him go. As he was led away, their eyes never left each others.
After the guards shuffled her friends and Blaine out of the dungeon, Lord Damphries blew out the candles in their sconces on the wall, leaving her alone in total darkness. Once the door clicked shut behind them, she whispered into the empty space. “I love you, Torian.”
Through long hours in the maddening darkness, the silence became deafening. The ringing began in her ears, but soon settled into a tense ache in her neck as she strained, searching for any sound of hope. When she thought she couldn’t take the silence any longer, the pounding began. Rhythmic, insistent, and utterly senseless. Someone, or a lot of someones, were pounding on the outer walls of the estate. Didn’t they know that would do nothing except drive her more insane?
She tried to take comfort in the knowledge that if they were pounding, Torian and the others must have made it out. Didn’t seem to make much sense to her, to think that they’d be let out of the estate only to pound to get back in. What good would that do? Emariya laughed out loud, and the scratchy, raw sound of her laugh only made her laugh harder.
Eventually, she ceased to notice the pounding, and her thoughts drifted away. Perhaps she’d slept, she couldn’t be sure. Footsteps in the darkness, somewhere near the door of the dungeon, jerked her awake. Her legs, stiff from hours in the same position, didn’t want to cooperate as she shoved to her feet.
“Give me a lantern,” someone said.
The dungeon door creaked open, illuminated with lantern-light. Enough light was cast into the dank dungeon that she could see the guard who’d come in while she dozed. Emariya watched with a detached fascination as he unlocked her cell and gestured for her to step forward.
“They’re ready for you.” He didn’t meet her eyes.
Walking down the corridor, sandwiched between the two guards, Emariya tried to keep her head high. After spending the night in pitch dark, she squinted from the assault of the light. A bone-deep weariness set in, and she reminded herself she wasn’t giving up. She found herself wishing she’d opened the connection to say goodbye to her father, just in case. Then she had to stifle back a laugh as she realized that if a goodbye was necessary she’d be able to tell him hello soon enough.
Because the Council rarely convened in full anywhere other than at Warren’s Rest, there was no dedicated chamber for Council proceedings at Damphries. With so many visitors and residents crammed into the estate, they couldn’t move aside the tables in the feast hall either. That left the grand ballroom as the best location to hold her trial.
Emariya had trouble ignoring the irony. She’d always found the Damphries ballroom to be pretentious and unnecessary. In this room, men and women donned their best clothes and wore their best fake smiles, pretending to like those that they didn’t. Despite their proximity to the harsh Uplands, they held grand parties, as if those outside their gates weren’t suffering. It was all a lie.
Maybe this truly was a fitting setting for this farce of a trial.
Someone had placed a long table at the front of the room. Behind it, the Councilors waited.
As she looked at each man in turn, she wondered which of them, if any, might speak for her. In the agonizingly long moments it took for her to cross the large room, she held their gazes, refusing to look away.
Rough hands forced her into a waiting chair, alone in front of the table. She kept her eyes trained on the head table, searching for any weakness or ally. She almost faltered when she realized each of the men wore an unfamiliar uniform. Her father had always said that there would be no formal emblem or crest to represent the Great Council, because the Councilors didn’t represent the Council to their home estates, they represented their home estates on the Council. But now each wore a gold formal shirt with the green fern of the Warrens in the center. Identical golden cloaks fell from each of their shoulders.
Old Man Bosch, with his spectacles and wire-like hair, sat on the end. His gaze wandered and Emariya couldn’t help wondering if he was even aware of what was going on. He constantly worked his jaw, swallowing as if remembering last night’s dinner. Emariya quickly decided he would be useless.
To his left, Leeland Felton kept his back stiff, looking anywhere but at her. She’d always liked Lord Felton, and she thought he’d liked her, but it was hard to say. He’d always been loyal to her father, and if she could convince him of her honesty, she might be able to use that.
At the far, other end of the table, Lord Ralston glared daggers at her out of his hazel eyes, but when she looked at him he looked away. She wrote him off as likely to be no help at all, and a delirious, terrified part of her brain was tempted to laugh at the giant wart under his nose. When she’d been younger, she’d always wanted to, but knew her father would have been sorely disappointed. Did it matter now? Yes, of course it did, she decided. She would face this day with dignity, no matter what came.
Or how fake it is,
she told herself.
Look at me, wearing my proper lady’s shoes all the way to my
execution.
Lord Calkirk sat next to Ralston. His eyes, deep and troubled, gave her hope. The years had not been kind to him, and he’d aged considerably since her father’s disappearance. His balding head was now both pale and wrinkled with worry.
Damphries, sitting next to Felton, would be accusing her, and so was the achingly familiar blond man sitting in the center. Her brother looked exactly as she remembered, as if he’d been cut from the fabric of her memory and pasted into his chair. His back straight, he was the only one who did meet her eyes.
For one, brief moment, Emariya’s anger failed her. Seeing him standing there, looking so calm and in control, she had the overwhelming urge to run to him, knowing he would protect her.
And then the coldness of his eyes pulled aside the drape of memories that fooled her into thinking this monster was the brother she’d loved. Emariya willed herself not to cry as the depth of her loss truly sunk in.
The guards began to shackle her to the chair, and Lord Calkirk cleared his throat. “Is that really necessary?”
“I don’t mean to offend your chivalrous sensibilities, Lord Calkirk, but we have rules for a reason and given what she’s accused of I believe we should follow them,” Lord Ralston said.
So Calkirk she could count on, Ralston, she could not. Lord Calkirk and Lord Felton were her only hopes, but together the two of them wouldn’t be enough to sway a majority or even a tie.
After a moment of self-pity her anger came surging back, allowing her to draw it around herself like a shield. To Emariya’s left, a door creaked open, allowing Terin to step inside, flanked by Khane and another. Had she not been shackled, Emariya would have run to them. Although what she would have done after doing so she wasn’t sure.
Either hug Terin or hit Khane.
Both would have been immensely satisfying. She had to content herself with trying to catch Terin’s eye.
In the months since she had last seen her, the girl had lost some of the lively spark that was so characteristic of her, yet none of her innocent beauty. Terin looked up, meeting Emariya’s gaze, and her step faltered. She didn’t return the smile Emariya offered, either. Her eyes had grown older, and now they filled with sadness.
After a long, awkward moment, Terin looked to Reeve. Her shoulders fell, but her eyes brightened.
She’s making a choice,
Emariya thought.
Between being loyal to me and being loyal to Reeve.
Having felt the immense pull of the Stones, Emariya had no misconception about which way the girl would choose. Even as she thought it, she could feel the ache of Torian’s absence.
Emariya narrowed her eyes at Khane. Her nails bit into her palms and she looked down, surprised to see she’d balled her hands into tight fists. She’d trusted him. When they’d put him in the dungeon, she’d worried for him, even after his betrayal. And then, he’d betrayed her again by taking Terin. Like her grandfather had said, the bad seed of a bad seed.
And speaking of Khane’s father... Emariya turned her attention to the man standing on Terin’s other side. His Roth-blue eyes identified the former guard as Alrec Roth, her mother’s brother. She’d disliked him the day he stood outside her chambers at Castle Ahlen speaking dismissively of Prince Torian. But her feelings then paled in comparison to the hatred she felt for him now.
A row of chairs had been arranged in a semi-circle behind her lone chair, and Terin and Khane followed Alrec, taking seats behind her.
As if The Three decided there weren’t enough people standing against her, someone else stepped into the hall.
Blaine avoided her eyes as he walked with an easy stride to his seat. He sat comfortably next to Alrec as if they were old friends. If she hadn’t know that it would hurt Jessa so much, Emariya would have taken solace in the satisfaction of being right about Blaine’s slimy character. As it was, all she could feel was a raging fury. She took note of the hearth behind the head table. If she had to use it, she would. Still, the nagging worry of who might become caught in the crossfire made her hope she wouldn’t have to.
With so many Stones in one room, Emariya could feel the power waiting, ready and willing, within her. Doubt nagged at the corner of her mind, arguing that she’d have no hope to control such concentrated power.
Reeve stood, tapping his hand on the table before him. A gold scabbard hung at his side, and Emariya’s eyes drifted toward it. Would he be the one to carry out her execution?
“This session of the Great Council of Eltar is now open. As much as it saddens me to have to call it.” Reeve paused and let out a long, exaggerated sigh. Several of the Councilors turned eyes to him in sympathy. “My sister, Emariya, stands convicted... I’m sorry, Councilors, but it is just so much for me to bear. Please, Lord Damphries. If you would, relate recent events for the benefit of the rest of the Council.”
“Yes, of course, My Lord. It is understandably difficult for you, as you’ve been so personally affected by it all.” Lord Damphries stood and surveyed the room, visibly basking in having the attention all on himself. “Good Councilors, I received the same letter as you all presumably did. The letter in which Lord Warren stated the most regrettable news that his sister conspired against Eltar at Thandrel’s Fjord.”
Emariya heard his words, and had to admit they were technically true.
“What’s more, she conspired with them to kill Lord Oren Warren, and she falsified documents, claiming inconceivably that her father had renounced Lord Reeve, in favor of her herself.” He wore an identical scabbard to her brother, and as he spoke his hands moved, and the scabbard seemed to shiver with his vehemence.
Emariya tried to shoot to her feet, but the shackles held her in place. “But that’s not true!”
“Silence!” Lord Ralston exclaimed. “You’ve been proclaimed guilty, and not offered permission to speak before this Council. You are allowed to witness the proclamation of the charges you’ve been convicted of only as a courtesy. If you cannot remain civil, we will revoke that courtesy.”
Lord Damphries, looking disgruntled, continued. “I had opportunity to view these falsified documents myself, and must say, I was saddened to find the claim true. She presented these lies to me herself upon her arrival here, and adamantly refused to recant her story even when afforded several opportunities to do so.”
“But they weren’t false! Show them my father’s signature.”
Lord Felton turned a wary eye between her and Lord Damphries. “She makes a good point, though she should remember she doesn’t have leave to speak.” He fixed her with a reproachful stare. “But where are these documents?”
“Right here, My Lord.” Damphries picked a scroll up from the table, handed it to Lord Felton and then turned to Reeve, as if expecting approval.