15. Chapter 15
B y the time Talen reached the council chamber, the treasurer’s voice was already echoing down the corridor.
The double doors slammed open hard against the wall. Talen winced. He hadn’t meant to put that much force behind it.
“Your Highness,” Sir Reginald, one of Talen’s tutors as a boy who recently became councilor, exclaimed, half-rose from his chair.
The older man’s sigh was long-suffering, but there was a flicker of fondness in his weary eyes.
Glad to see the prince heir returned home at last. “By the gods, must you always enter as though storming a battlefield?”
Talen’s mouth curved. “Old habits, Sir Reginald.” He cleared his throat, addressing the others in the room. “Apologies, I was detained by Lady Merren insisting her cat requires a personal guard. Apparently, ‘budget cuts’ mean the palace can no longer afford feline security.”
A ripple of stifled laughter moved around the table that was quickly silenced when the king’s glare cut through it.
The chamber itself felt cavernous this afternoon, the torches throwing uneasy shadows across an expanse of polished oak. Nobles, generals, and advisors ringed the table like vultures around a carcass. At the head sat Kaelin, poised and composed beside King Maelion.
“So good of you to join us,” the king said flatly. “Lord Thaddeus was just beginning the treasury report. ”
Talen inclined his head, stepping around the table until he came to sit next to Kaelin’s chair. She didn’t so much as glance at him, her focus sharp on the treasurer who cleared his throat.
“Continue,” Kaelin prompted.
Lord Thaddeus bent over his parchment, the quill trembling faintly between his fingers.
“A deficit of twelve thousand crowns this quarter, due to the continued suppression of the human uprisings in the western villages. The reagents for the Verdant Elixir remain volatile in price.” He paused, dabbing sweat from his brow.
“However, Your Graces, prison expenditures have declined notably since the restructuring. Reduced rations, consolidated guards resulting in an overall efficiency. Fewer mouths, fewer coins, as they say.”
Talen’s head snapped up. “Efficiency?”.
Lord Thaddeus’ quill stilled. Talen felt his father’s gaze bore into his.
Talen straightened. “If you call efficiency starving prisoners with moldy bread and beating them bloody in their chains, then yes, your numbers are thriving.” He tossed a parchment onto the table that he produced from his coat pocket.
“I rode with the last convoy to Pyraelia. I saw what this restructuring looks like. I also saw humans condemned to death for stealing something as insignificant as a loaf of bread.”
A murmur rippled through the council.
Talen continued. “We were given dominion over humans to serve them as subjects of this realm. This is not justice, and it is not what the gods would want of us.”
Talen’s eyes cut toward the king, then Kaelin.
“I have names,” he said quietly, gesturing to the sealed parchment laying on the table.
“Of the guards who took it upon themselves to twist the crown’s law into cruelty.
They should be brought to question and be held accountable for their misuse of power. ”
Kaelin’s gaze lingered on him long enough for the others to shift in their seats.
“There is merit in what Prince Talen proposes,” she said.
“Rebuilding the prison system would not only reflect better on the crown’s reputation among the lower provinces, but it could also improve productivity.
This may add some cost at the start – more fresh food, cleaner water, medical oversight, but the long-term benefits would far outweigh the expense.
Healthier prisoners live longer. They work longer.
The mines and forges would benefit from that alone. ”
She leaned back slightly, eyes sweeping the council. “If the western mines resume full capacity, our silver production increases – more coin, more trade, more raw material for both jewelry and the royal armory. The treasury stands to gain in the long run.”
Kaelin’s tone shifted. “And while we’re on the matter of expenses, executions drain more from the treasury than most care to admit.
The distance to the execution blocks, the transport, the soldiers required to oversee each journey — even the rations needed to keep the prisoners alive until the day they’re killed — all of it adds up.
” She folded her hands neatly on the table.
“It would be far more cost-effective to reduce the number of prisoners sent to execution altogether and reassign them to labor camps. Let them serve their sentence productively. Fewer deaths, fewer wasted resources — greater return for the crown.”
A few councilors exchanged uneasy glances, but Kaelin’s expression didn’t waver.
Talen watched her in silence. Kaelin’s persuasion was a weapon she wielded better than any blade.
Appealing to their purses had always been her strength; mercy wrapped in profit was the only language this council would ever heed.
And she knew it.
“Either way, it must go to a vote,” Kaelin said. “Per council protocol, a majority must agree before any reform can be enacted.”
Her eyes swept the chamber – ten in total.
Talen’s jaw flexed as he drew in a breath. “Then, let’s have it.”
He looked to each of them in turn, from lords draped in fur, generals with silvered armor, clerks with ink-stained fingers. Men and women who’d never smelled a prison corridor, who spoke of human lives in ledgers and coin counts.
“Those who would reconsider the reconstruction,” Talen said, his voice even but tight with restraint.
For a moment, no one moved. Then, Kaelin raised her hand. Her chin lifted, eyes still locked on him. King Maelion’s hand followed, though his expression was unreadable, a flicker of calculation behind his calm mask.
Sir Reginald lifted his trembling hand. His mouth curved into a faint, proud smile — one that belonged in the memory of a classroom.
Talen’s chest tightened. He could almost hear Reginald’s voice as it had been years ago, warm and steady as he corrected a boy too quick to temper and too slow to think.
“Strength without mercy is merely tyranny, my prince. A good ruler knows when to raise the sword and when to stay the hand.”
Three hands raised.
Seven stayed still.
The numbers spoke for themselves.
“So noted,” Kaelin said coolly, lowering her hand. “The majority has spoken. The current structure remains.”
There was the scrape of a quill, the shifting of ledgers – someone coughed.
And the meeting moved on to the next subject.
But Talen barely heard the next line of discussion.
The words blurred into static—grain tariffs, bridge repairs, trade routes.
His pulse drummed in his ears, his mind circling back to the convoy, to the hollow faces behind the iron bars.
Whispering prayers to the gods, mothers rocking their children who wept out of hunger.
“I’ll handle it myself,” Talen said.
Every head turned.
“I will personally oversee the reconstruction of the western prisons. Whatever costs it takes to do it properly, I’ll pay out of my own funds.”
Lord Thaddeus blinked. “Your Highness, surely that’s unnecessary – ”
“If this council won’t act, I will.” Talen said, his gaze sweeping the room once more before landing on Kaelin.
A dangerous silence followed. The king’s expression darkened in warning.
Still, Talen didn’t look away.
And when the treasurer finally stammered back into his notes, the torchlight caught on the prince’s hand, still clenched, knuckles white.
As if he were holding the weight of the entire realm in his palm.