“When? How?” Lord Percival asks.
“While we were at the banquet,” Lord Wellimton says. “Which is why Princess Rasha was called away.”
“Some Bron soldiers stumbled across them.” Rasha’s voice shudders in spite of her stiff stance. “One of my Cashlin guards insisted they come get me.”
Bile rises into my mouth. “Why didn’t they come get
me
?”
“Perhaps because by the time my men spoke with me and I’d sent them looking for you, they couldn’t find you,” she says coolly.
My gut turns.
“Where were they found?” Lord Percival asks. “Are you certain they were only Nym’s guards?”
“Yes, and they were found in a private section of the palace. We’re not sure how they got there other than it appears they were dragged part of the way.”
That cold is seeping around my bones again. “How?” I ask. Sir Gowon’s warning from last night slips through my mind.
“There’s a black-market price on your girl’s head worth more than Faelen.”
What have I done?
“Their throats were slit and their bodies . . . torn.”
“In pieces?” Lady Gwen squeaks.
Lord Wellimton nods.
“Who did it?” Myles is staring hard at Rasha but tips his head toward Eogan’s empty seat.
The disgust for him in her expression is as clear as the slight shake of her head,
no
. “We’re not sure. But . . .” She pauses and shifts to glance around the room in clear indication that it’s
why she came here early today.
To study the faces of people as they walked in.
I peek back at the host of guards. There are more of them than yesterday.
“We’ve been assured, though, that the Bron military are doing everything in their power to look into it,” Rasha says.
Something in her tone doesn’t ring right. I grab her arm and turn her toward me, lowering my voice. “Rasha, what—?”
She winces and pulls away. “Nym, your fingers are ice!”
“Sorry.” I step back before reclaiming my hands to the warmth of my cloak. “I just . . . what can I do to help?”
She rubs her wrist. “I think you’ve already done enough.”
Lord Wellimton’s voice grows loud. “Lord Myles, in light of these circumstances, I’d appreciate you allowing me to do most of the negotiating. Since I’m certain we can agree it’s for the best. I know you’re the king’s cousin, but as a senior member of Faelen’s High Council, I must insist that I’m better prepared for this discussion. In whatever direction it takes us.”
Myles gives a soft snort, but Wellimton simply nods at the two Bron generals and takes a seat before they move off to the king’s table. Rasha slips in next to him, in the same order we were last night. The set of double doors we’re facing down the long aisle abruptly opens and the other three Bron members who ate at Draewulf’s table last night file in. Following them is Sir Gowon.
My mouth goes stale. I wonder if he’s thought any more about the Elegy, or the Draewulf accusation I made last night. If he’s even considered it.
Before I can think on it further, Draewulf’s Mortisfaire daughter, Lady Isobel, enters, head high, black hair swept behind her, wearing a skin-suit with porcupine quills woven to feather out over her chest and shoulders. I may not be into fashion, but even I would wear a suit like that. She looks compelling. Powerful.
Potent.
The already noisy room grows even louder as Assembly members talk over each other and some stand to get a better view of her.
Eogan-who-is-Draewulf strides in last and the whole group proceeds down the aisle in what feels like an awkward parade because half the crowd is frowning and arguing and the other half is nodding and yelling support. Draewulf looks amused.
He stops in front of the table we’re sitting at, and I’m tempted to try out my new ability right here, right now. To punish him. To
try to release Eogan while there’s still time. “What is the blood of kings, Draewulf?” I want to whisper.
But I don’t. I don’t even move. Because something tells me this new ability’s not ready, and if Draewulf finds out too soon . . .
He’s two feet away and lifting his hand. He murmurs some type of foreign word as he casts a glance at the noisy Assembly. Abruptly they fall silent.
He drops his hand and walks up to the king’s table to take his chair.
That’s what will happen.
I look around, but if anyone other than Rasha at our table notices, I can’t tell. Perhaps they thought the Assembly simply obeyed his raised hand for silence. Except those in the crowd look confused.
Sir Gowon shuffles behind and waits until Draewulf is settled in the king’s center chair before leaning down to place a set of documents in front of him.
Draewulf twitches an idle hand to cue Gowon to get on with it, and in a loud voice the old man introduces each guest at our table to the larger Assembly.
“Cashlin’s esteemed princess, Her Royal Highness Rasha. Faelen’s Lord Myles, who is both lord protectorate and King Sedric’s cousin. Faelen’s Lord Wellimton, Lord Percival, Lady Gwen, and the delegate Nymia. Bron officially recognizes and welcomes each of you to our kingdom and our Assembly. We pray these upcoming negotiations will find favor and benefit the entire Hidden Lands realm.”
I’m watching the room as he’s speaking, and it’s a small relief to realize not everyone here seems as put off by us as it appeared last night. Out of the hundred or so faces, I count a good twenty that are smiling in what might be approval.
“Well, that’s something,” Gwen whispers.
I nod my agreement and catch the snarls of some of the boys who are dressed sharp in black suits with silver material sewn around the neck to look like sea-dragon teeth. Something about it is unnerving and I go back to listening as the elderly Sir Gowon opens the floor for negotiations.
“First issue on the agenda,” he states, “is the treaty that King Eogan signed with Faelen’s King Sedric on behalf of Bron. You all were presented with a written copy upon leaving this Hall last evening.”
He nods to Eogan who looks over the room and displays the slightest hint of teeth, which, if I didn’t know better, I’d say was a show. Because his underlying expression is humored, as if something is a jest and he’s merely biding his time. “Begin,” he says.
A general at his table stands. The stitched color rank on the shoulder of his black suit suggests one of the highest positions. He looks Eogan’s age of twenty-two years but with a long nose and hair dyed silver. “Forgive me, but I can’t help pointing out that according to our statutes, the entire treaty should be considered void since the Assembly was not part of its signing in Faelen.”
A much older, more wrinkled counterpart beside him nods. “How can we negotiate under the terms of something we had no part of—let alone trust the country King Eogan signed it with?”
“A better question is how we can negotiate while Faelen’s Elemental weapon is sitting in the same room as us?” A gentleman from the Assembly stands and waves a hand my direction. “Why is she here? To insult us? Are we to discuss a treaty when the cause of Bron’s loss hovers in our very midst?”
The Assembly members turn their gazes on me.
I keep my head up and stare back at them. And ignore the shiver
in my blood as the vortex and ice push further into my bones, boring into me. Even as I tell myself I did what I had to for Faelen.
I will always do what I have to.
“Lord Myles, King Sedric’s cousin, brought her as an act of goodwill,” Lord Wellimton says, even as he flicks me a dramatic glance of suspicious disapproval.
“Or perhaps to force us into accepting the treaty as valid,” another Assembly member argues. “Because she’s certainly not here to be used as a weapon on
our
behalf—especially as I noticed no mention in the treaty for the recompense of funds by Faelen to Bron. Most of which, I’ll remind us, was lost due to
her
.”
There are uncomfortable seat adjustments among the Faelen delegates as Lady Gwen and Lord Percival seem to distance themselves from my chair.
“Recompense of funds?” Wellimton sputters and his face turns red. “Your Majesty, may I ask for a more thorough explanation of such an accus—?”
“I think the greater question is whether we can even trust His Majesty to have signed such a treaty,” the silver-haired general interrupts. “King Ezeoha, you left us four years ago in the hands of your brother. Then you allowed your own people to believe you dead until you appeared and killed Odion on Faelen’s behalf.”
Eogan-who-is-Draewulf smiles. “On
Faelen’s
behalf? Is it not your governing belief to let the strongest survive and claim what’s theirs? The circumstances surrounding how I chose to survive or gain rulership are not for you to question. Or do you challenge my wisdom and loyalty, General Cronin?”
The silver-haired general ignores him and looks around the room. “King Odion led us into battle just like his father, but he . . .” Cronin points accusingly toward Eogan. “He fought against us at
Faelen’s Keep. He has sold us out to the very country we should now own.”
That dull, drumming cold in my bones is spreading up my spine. I shift in my seat toward Rasha. “Why are they discussing this in front of us? Wouldn’t it be better handled privately?”
Rasha turns me her reddish gaze. “In this room I believe they are required to do so, especially in regard to political matters.”
“You speak as one still stuck in the old days,” a white-toothed, rough-faced Bron general near Draewulf is saying. “What Eogan has done for us is innovative at the very least; at best it’s saved us manpower and multiple deaths. While all of us here grew up accustomed to the war, not all of us saw the need for it.”
I see eight, maybe nine people agreeing.
“A nice sentiment, but how many here would back you?” General Cronin’s voice grows louder. “We are a people of war! And we, as Bron’s leaders, have a country that after one hundred years of war has been promised a victory! Submitting to anything less than that will be viewed as a defeat, and all of us will lose the respect of our citizens.”
Heads are nodding.
“We want repayment,” several voices mutter.
“We want victory!” others say.
Oh.
Oh litches.
“They still want a war,” I murmur, awareness dawning.
“They do?” Lord Percival whispers. “With who?”
Apparently my voice carried louder than intended because the old, wrinkly general looks me square in the face, then breezes his gaze across the other delegates. “It’s not even that we want a war—it’s that we’re in danger of our own. The plagues from Drust have reached the
plains and rumor has it Lady Isobel’s Dark Army is shortly behind them. Yet here Lady Isobel sits. Sire, perhaps it’s not our place to ask where you’ve been the past four years, nor to speculate on your current relationship with Faelen. However, we cannot negotiate and find stability in a peace treaty while Drust is breathing down our neck. There are dark dealings over there, ones your brother chose to ignore in his hunger to launch against Faelen.”
I look at Lady Isobel’s flawless face and note the strain of her flexing muscles. I wonder how much self-control she’s exercising right now.
“And I argue,” the rough-faced general says, “that we’ve got citizens tired of war and wondering if this peace treaty—as well as an attention to things closer to home—might not be wiser.”
“Except we’re a nation of war,” General Cronin groans. “You can’t merely change who we are.”
“Maybe once. But I think you’ll find a few of the newer Assembly, as well as some of the people we represent, are weary of it. Why not save our resources and pursue what we want through diplomacy rather than force?”
“Which is why we’re all here, is it not?” Eogan says, spreading his hands.
The silver-haired general guffaws. “I would agree with you, Your Majesty, except one cannot help notice a representative from Tulla is not part of this delegation. And Cashlin?” His mouth curls. “No offense, Princess Rasha, but you are all your country saw fit to send? It leads one to doubt the seriousness with which your country takes these negotiations.”
“As you well know, my people lacked the ability to get here from Cashlin as quickly as needed,” Rasha says. A ratlike, sly smile comes out in full play on her face. “However, I assure you that, merely
because a task has befallen you in recent days which you are illequipped to handle, sir, does not mean that I am impotent for mine.”
The man’s cheeks pale as fast as her grin disappears, and I’ve no idea which pantaloons of his she just aired, but from his panicky expression it’s clear they’re quite awkward.
“Let’s move on,” he mutters.
Except His Majesty’s not listening. He’s leaning back speaking with a soldier wearing the eerie black mask and garb of the Mortisfaire.
Isobel’s guard? How did one of them get in here?
Ten seconds later he’s twitched his hand again and murmured whatever incantation brings that unnatural silence over the room. “Perhaps now is a good time to take a three-minute refreshment pause.”
B
ESIDE ME, LADY GWEN RISES AND MOVES DOWN to question Myles. I lean into Rasha and shake off the few stares I sense from the Assembly as they get up to talk amongst themselves. “About the guards killed,” I ask her. “Do you think it was specific toward them because they were
my
guards?”
She eyes me stiffly. “We believe so, seeing as the Bron people are clearly not pleased by your presence here.” She purses her lips. “Little did they know they needn’t have bothered killing off half your protection unit considering you’ve managed to endanger yourself much worse through Myles.”
“You can’t be serious. I wasn’t endangering
anyone
. I’m trying to help.”
“Maybe so, but at some point the lust for power requires a price.”
“Price? Are you saying
I caused
their deaths?” I peer around at the generals and delegates before lowering my voice. “I went with Myles as a responsibility to my people. And even to
these
people.”
“Just because you won Faelen’s war doesn’t mean you have to do it again.”