Chapter 10 #2
“Attire, you say? Well then.” Kyrja waved a hand over her gown—a silvery-purple today—and as he watched, frost covered the fabric, grew, thickened, until the dress was a robe as white and sparkling as the one her father wore.
Given the indrawn breaths he heard, it wasn’t a trick they usually played.
Kyrja tapped a finger to the gray-sleeved arm. “I suggest you move this, Ulna, before I freeze it solid and snap it off. I’m in no mood for your drama.”
The king’s shoulders stiffened. “You would befoul the Council chambers with threats?”
In the rubble that first day, when her father spoke, the princess had all but cowered.
Now she turned the same ice-sharp gaze on the king, which earned another round of muted gasps from the members who could see it.
“I would ‘befoul’ the chambers with something they have clearly not seen in many years—actual justice, aligned with truth. If it requires threats to make room for that, then so be it.” She stomped to the right of her father and cast that fearsome gaze over the circle.
Nik barely kept from smiling. This was the Kyrja he’d tried to draw out, day after day in his cell.
One who was willing to fight for what was right, shake free of the shackles her father clearly tried to keep on her.
One willing to make a few waves—and not wait centuries for her father to die before doing so.
Her voice rang with authority. “According to the Fjordic Articles, if the reigning monarch has an heir over the age of majority, designated as one and twenty in our land, then it is said official Heir who must call to order any trial held by the High Council, and said Heir who must stand witness to the decisions of the Council and king, otherwise any rulings are invalid. This role my brother performed no fewer than seventy-four times since he came of age, so it is clearly not a rule so ancient as to have been forgotten. But perhaps all the Council has not kept up with my Blessing Day celebrations, when we marked both my age and the years since I was Awakened.” She narrowed her eyes at a few of them, gaze halting on a man at Nik’s left.
“Stellan—you were at my last celebration, a year ago now. How many snowballs were thrown? I believe you had the honor of lobbing the last of them at my head, and if I recall, you shouted the number as forcefully as you sent your missile.”
Stellan visibly swallowed. “Four and thirty, Highness. I believe today marks five and thirty.”
Today? Today was her birthday? Nik’s throat went tight.
A princess’s thirty-fifth birthday Blessing Day should have been marked with a ball.
A celebration so grand they’d have heard of it even in Harroby, when the next news crystals arrived.
All the women would ooh and aah over the gowns, the men over the magical demonstrations.
Instead, she was here. Defending him, pitting herself against both her father and the High Council.
Kyrja tapped a finger to her chin as if in thought. “Quite right. Now, mathematics was never my forte, I confess, but I do believe thirty-five is older than twenty-one.” She spun back to her father. “Unless you’ve reordered the cardinal numbers too? Fodur?”
Surely everyone in the room saw the disdain in the tilt of the king’s head as clearly as Nik did. “The princess has had innumerable burdens thrust on her untested shoulders in the last month. The Council and king agreed it was asking too much, to expect her to shoulder this as well.”
The princess didn’t seem to like being spoken about in third person—Nik could understand that. But after the hours she’d put into learning first from him and then from the library, when he sent her in search of books, she was clearly furious at them for trying to cut her out of these proceedings.
She lifted her chin and stared her father straight in the eyes. “Such care for my shoulders! I thank you all for your concern. But I assure you, you are not asking anything. I will serve my people with a glad heart. Starting with this one.” She spun on her heel, faced Nik fully for the first time.
Her anger didn’t fade, nor her intensity dim. But when her eyes met his, he saw the warmth beneath the ice. The heart for what a royal should desire—Justice. Truth. Service. “Whatever words have been spoken until now must be struck from the record. Scribe?”
From behind, a sullen voice said, “So stricken.”
Kyrja held out a hand. “Forgive me, Henrik. But I’ll ask you to prove it by giving me that crystal and inserting a fresh one.”
Council members shifted from foot to foot, exchanging dark looks behind Kyrja’s back.
He had a feeling she knew, even if she didn’t see. And didn’t care a whit. She kept that hand outstretched until a man trudged forward and slapped a blue crystal into her palm.
She waited a moment, presumably while another was put in the recorder. Then met Nik’s gaze again. A slash of her hand, and the metal at his wrists thawed, went limp, and fell away. It was all he could do not to rub them as he clasped his hands in front of him.
Her blink remembered every conversation they’d had in the last month, conveyed thousands they never got around to.
Established the friendship they’d never put to words, one she’d clearly come to feel as much as he had.
He saw her as she’d been that first day, bent over fallen servants, bloodying herself to save another.
And knew she saw in him the same. Her face softened.
“Nikanor Tristansson, you stand accused of conspiracy to terror that resulted in the deaths of twenty-two people and the wounding of a hundred seventeen. How do you plead?”
His shoulders relaxed. Conspiracy. That was very different from association. “Innocent, Your Highness.”
“The Council acknowledges your plea of innocence.” Her face went hard again as she turned it to her father. “The king may proceed with the examination of evidence.”
King Isidor blinked, long and lazily, at his daughter. Then glared at Nik. “Was Tristan Hansson your father?”
By the frost, he was going to make the same case, regardless of Kyrja’s attempts at correction. “He was.”
“And were you aware of his role as leader of the Red Hand revolutionaries?”
Revolutionaries? “I was aware that my father regularly lobbied Your Majesty for resources for your subjects under the domes, for more seats in the Great Council”—though he was beginning to wonder if that, too, was but a farce—“and for freedoms denied to thanes but enjoyed by Fjorders. If that is what you mean, yes. If you are asking if I knew he had any plans of violence, then no.”
The king’s eyes narrowed. “What is your legal place of residence, Nikanor Tristansson?”
“Twelve Oster Lane, Andre Village, Harroby.”
“And your father’s legal place of residence?”
Frost and snow. “Twelve Oster Lane, Andre Village, Harroby.”
Isidor cast his daughter a smug look. “The guards sent to search said abode reported all manner of supplies used in the building of the bomb that killed my people. Are you claiming that, though you lived with your father, you did not see him building this bomb?”
“I did not.” He swallowed. “I hadn’t been home since last Yule.”
The king clearly hadn’t expected that, given the quick snap of his gaze back to Nik. But it only made more suspicion fill his gaze. “Where were you then?”
Nik sealed his lips. Thanes were to receive schooling only until age fourteen, unless they were accepted to one of three programs—mine geology, agricultural engineering, or one of those elusive sixty potential openings for dominie training.
Which the king no doubt knew well were nonexistent right now.
If he told the truth of where he’d been, he’d implicate Brother Gylfi for illegal instruction.
If he claimed to have entered one of the other programs, it would be disproven in seconds—the Councils kept records of every student, and no doubt they’d be able to pull it up on a crystal here and now. Which left him what option?
“Please answer the question, Nikanor,” Kyrja said softly. “Where were you, if not at home?” She knew, of course, what he’d been about…but he’d never told her how. She hadn’t asked. Now, her eyes begged him to have a reasonable explanation.
How ironic. All the hours they’d spent speaking of the law, but he’d never actually given consideration to his own defense.
He’d been too set on showing her what justice should be, and what it wasn’t.
What she could legally and rightfully do as the Heir.
He’d focused entirely upon her, upon their kingdom. And he couldn’t regret it.
His breath leaked out, and resignation filled him. So be it. He would not deny this truth, and if he died for it, it would be a good death. A martyrdom. “Studying the Words, Your Highness, and the law.”
The king’s brows crashed together. “What? Where? There are no openings among the dominies, no—”
“Alone.” Giver, forgive the lie. It is to protect your servant.
“There is an abandoned kyrka near the edge of the dome.” True enough, as was the next part.
“I discovered it during my last year of schooling. The library is well stocked, and since my father sold his lands when I was a boy, I had no fields to demand my time, nor any particular skill with the farming equipment he spent my youth developing. So I did chores for food at the neighboring farms and otherwise spent my time reading and teaching myself the sacred Words.”
The king’s smile was a cruel thing. “The Council bears witness to the accused’s confession of years of criminal behavior—”
“Self-guided study is not criminal,” Kyrja interjected, voice as calm as her father’s had been. “If it were, your own consort would have stood before this Council for the same crime.”
“Living under a dome without substantially contributing to its purpose of either agriculture or mining after the same age of majority you so kindly reminded us of is.” He lifted a brow. “How old are you, Son of Tristan?”