Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
I’m pacing the council room, my movements jerky and uncoordinated, driven by lingering adrenaline from the battle.
Each jostled step makes me wince in agony, but still, I can’t bring myself to sit in the chair.
The arena came with me. My sweat has dried over a layer of sand, and grime blackens my fingernails and coats my hair.
My throat is swollen from Maxim’s attempt to strangle me; my head is radiating pain from the blow I took to the temple.
Maybe I should’ve at least waited until I’d bathed before I went head-to-head with some of the most powerful men in the kingdom. But I suspect it would make little difference. I’ll always carry this day with me.
The door opens, but it’s not the royals or the archons who enter. It’s Ryot. He carries a small bundle tucked under one arm, along with a folded towel, a flask of what I hope is laomai, and a pitcher of water cradled carefully against his chest. The door clicks shut behind him, leaving us alone.
I stand there, rooted in place, too exhausted to hide the way my body sways. Ryot sets the towel down on the chair in the center of the room and passes me the flask.
“Drink,” he says, his voice low and rough.
I do, and the fruity taste of laomai coats my tongue. I drain the flask, and at least the tremors stop.
He’s looking at me grimly, his lips pressed together in a firm line. “You couldn’t have at least waited until you’d seen Elowen for this?”
I scowl at him. “Would you wait? If it was your people, your family, would you wait even one more heartbeat to bring them relief so you could rest ?”
His jaw tightens, a muscle ticking there. Then he exhales sharply and wets the towel with water from the pitcher. He presses it against a cut that’s dripping blood down my cheek. “No,” he says. “I wouldn’t.”
The towel trails down my neck, brushes the edge of my face, where a bruise is beginning to bloom.
I flinch, and he pulls the bloodied towel back.
He drops the towel into the pitcher, water sloshing over the side.
He’s making a mess. He wrings it out, like he’s going to start again, but I take it from his hands this time.
I run it over my gritty arms and my hands.
“I don’t understand how it happened,” he says, mumbling, almost to himself.
“That I won the fight?”
“No,” he says, waving a hand. “I knew you’d win the fight. I mean, the neglect of Selencia.”
I stare at him, incredulous. “Neglect? Neglect would be welcome. It’s not neglect. It’s cruelty.”
He looks up at me then, and whatever words he’d been fumbling for die on his lips. I can see the shift in his eyes, the realization dawning across his face. Not only that I’m right, but that he hasn’t let himself see it fully until now. He nods again.
“Then don’t back down, Leina Haverlyn. And no matter what they try to tell you, you hold the power here today.” He gestures to the scar on my forehead. “You’re blessed by the gods—which means the archons need your cooperation, rebel girl.”
I huff out something between a laugh and a scoff. “The gods didn’t stop Maxim from nearly crushing my windpipe.”
“No. But you did,” he says.
The door creaks again, and this time the click of a cane, the thud of boots, and the low murmur of formal voices herald the council’s arrival. Before I can step forward, he leans in close enough that the heat of his breath at my temple tingles.
“They’ll try to make you small,” he murmurs. “Don’t let them.” Then he steps back. He doesn’t move far, but the space between us fills with formality.
The Elder enters the room, the archons trailing behind him. The king enters next, followed by Princess Rissa.
Ryot gathers the towel and pitcher and retreats to the same bench he took before. Each of them takes their pre-established positions—the Elder at the center of the table, Archon Lyathin to his left, Princess Rissa and King Agis on their cushions in the back.
My eyes trail to the wooden chair in the center of the chamber. It’s the same chair I sat in when I was “the accused.”
Archon Lyathin gestures to the chair. “Please sit, Leina.”
I wipe my sweaty palms on my tunic, square my shoulders, and take a step forward. They think I’m here to beg, but I’m not. I’m here to make them listen.
“I’ll stand.”
Anger flashes on most of their faces, but a small smile curls on the Elder’s lips. At least he’s paying attention.
“Congratulations on your win in the arena,” Archon Lyathin says, like he’s toasting me for a well-played strategy game. Not for taking a man’s life.
At his words, Nile—the head of Atherclad, Maxim’s Vanguard—tenses.
“It wasn’t my victory,” I placate. “It was the gods’.”
“Yes. Of course,” Archon Lyathin says. “So, tell us, Leina, why are we here? I believe we’ve already told you the Altor aren’t involved in governing.”
Nerves flutter in my chest—so much is riding on this.
Everything is riding on this. I turn to find Princess Rissa watching me with that icy control of hers, and she arches one perfect brow when I look at her.
Despite my anger at her—at both her and her father—it’s clear that my attempting to assassinate either one, or even both, accomplishes nothing.
There are pre-established heirs for days, running from Princess Rissa to the king’s nephew and beyond.
Each of them, I’m sure, has the same capacity for cruelty as every other Faraengardian monarch for the past 1,000 years.
My eyes slide back to the archons. And here lies the other problem.
No matter how well-prepared, no matter how strategic, a Selencian rebellion won’t accomplish anything if the Synod intervenes on behalf of Faraengard.
The Altor and the faravars would cut down even the best Selencian soldiers like they’re wheat under a scythe.
“Is the Synod’s purpose not to protect people?” I ask, my voice wavering at the end.
Nile, hearing my weakness, pounces. “The Synod’s purpose is to serve the will of the gods, to fight against the Kher’zenn so they don’t upset the divine order.”
I nod, agreeing with him, finding my balance. I take another step forward. “Of course. And the gods sent you an Altor from Selencia—from a land that is starved and beaten. Is that the kind of Altor warriors you want? Ones only half-fed and full of rage for you and what you stand for?”
The room stills.
Nile’s mouth opens, a ready retort coiled on his tongue, but the Elder lifts a hand, silencing him.
“Go on,” he says.
I breathe carefully through the ache in my ribs, willing my voice not to shake again.
“You say you serve the gods,” I continue, sweeping my gaze across them. “You say your loyalty is to the divine order. Then you should be asking yourselves why the gods would allow one of their chosen”—I gesture to myself, to the golden scar on my temple—“to rise out of a land abandoned to rot.”
Lyathin leans back slightly in his chair, fingers steepled in front of his chest. He’s studying me now, as if he’s reassessing every piece he thought he’d neatly arranged on his game board—and finding that the board itself has changed.
I press forward before doubt can overtake me, before it can make me tremble again.
“Selencia isn't only starving. It’s broken. And you think it doesn’t matter because you don’t see it here, inside these walls. Because you think the rebellion will die quietly beyond your borders. And it probably will.”
At the word rebellion, the tension in the room rises, foreheads crinkling in confusion from all corners. Did they not know there was a rebellion? I don’t think they did.
But the soldiers sure as the Veil do. They hunt down rebellion sympathizers and execute them like rabid dogs.
I find the king without meaning to. He sits motionless, his face carefully void of expression.
No crease mars his brow, no questions cloud his gaze, but he watches me with quiet, sharpened patience. He knew.
I turn back to the archons.
“Without your support, a rebellion is almost certainly doomed to failure. But with your support?” I pause, knowing that their minds are stumbling over a rising rebellion they didn’t even know about before now. “With your support, a rebellion isn’t even necessary.”
Lyathin’s gaze sharpens. Even the Elder sits with his hands clasped together, his thumbs drawing measured circles against each other. His cloudy eyes haven’t left mine.
“You think Selencia’s suffering will stay contained, but it won't. The gods are already moving pieces you can't see.” I hold my scythe with its silvery, twirly text out for them to see it. “You can either stand with them. Or you can stand against them.”
Lyathin takes a moment to look at each of the council members, and they communicate with more than words. It’s with shifts in their eyes and taps of their fingers against the stone table and a subtle jerk of the chin.
Archon Lyathin leans forward. “King Agis,” he calls.
The king stands in his regal black robes.
“There’s clearly been neglect in Selencia.
And Leina makes a valid point —the gods wouldn’t have sent her if they didn’t want us to do something about it.
We expect the crown to address the situation, to rectify the wrongs, and to ensure that Selencia can produce able-bodied Altor for the gods. ”
King Agis inclines his head stiffly to the council, ignoring me entirely. “I will organize with the overlords.” His voice is smooth, almost bored. “I will investigate the situation myself.”
“Excellent.” Lyathin settles back into his chair like a shopkeeper closing his ledger. “Now, Leina, your training?—”
“That’s it?” I interrupt, aghast. "You expect me to believe the royal family will fix centuries of cruelty because you asked him nicely ?"
I shake my head hard enough that my battered body protests.
“No,” I say, my voice cracking under the stress of it. “I won’t train. If you think I’ll play the obedient soldier while Selencia is forgotten again, you’re wrong. Whatever the gods wanted from me will rot with me before I stand by and let this be the end of it.”
A heavy silence falls across the room. Archon Lyathin’s expression hardens.
When he speaks again, his voice is a whipcrack of fury.
“You cannot keep bucking authority, Leina Haverlyn,” he says, each word measured and sharp.
“This is war. There must be structure. Discipline. Without it, everything collapses.” He rises from his chair fully now, hands braced on the table.
“If you refuse to learn discipline and respect on your own,” he says coldly, “I will beat it into you.”
The threat hangs there, pulsing between us.
But doesn’t he see? Can’t they all see ?
I’ve nothing else to lose.
I take another step forward, until I can brace my hands on that stone table that separates us. I lean in until there’s no more room for pretense, until our breaths mingle.
“You want to know what happened that day? The first day my powers manifested?” I ask him, and I swear to the gods, this is a voice from someone else, as if someone—or something—has seized the broken pieces of me and woven them into something harder, sharper, unstoppable.
There’s a flicker in Lyathin’s eyes—the briefest flash of uncertainty—as if he recognizes it too. I don’t wait for him to answer.
“On the day my powers awakened, I wasn’t battling soldiers or Kher’zenn. I was at my older brother’s wedding.” His eyes narrow on me, as he tries to fit that truth with my emotions from that day—crippling grief and unrelenting guilt.
“And then the king’s soldiers came. They came that day for the sport of it. They tied my brother’s 18-year-old bride to her cottage and set her on fire. She burned alive in her wedding dress while we watched. I can still smell the burning lace.”
I expect my voice to crack here, but it doesn’t. It’s Ryot who cracks. A rough involuntary noise—half a breath, half a curse—drags out of him, as if my words landed a physical blow. My gaze jerks to him, to find his hands fisted at his sides, his face carved in fury. It steadies me. He steadies me.
I turn back to the council, my voice stronger now. “Do you know what burned lace smells like? It’s fragile and sweet, as if paper and dust caught fire, like old memories turning to ash before you can hold them.”
I make sure I look each of the archons in the eyes, even the Elder, before I continue.
“I was hollow long before a death demon ever touched me. You think you can beat fear into me? You can threaten me with whips, with death, with the gods’ own wrath—but I’ve walked through Lako’s hells with nothing and I’ve come out with less. I have no fear left to give you.”
Like stones cast into a still pond, my words make waves.
Across the chamber, King Agis is outwardly calm, but a muscle ticks sharply in his cheek.
Princess Rissa is far less composed. She sits rigidly, her hands clasped too tightly in her lap.
Her mouth is drawn in a thin, bloodless line, but worse than her anger is her disdain. She doesn’t believe me.
Ryot, though … he believes me. There’s an apology in his eyes that’s just for me.
But I don’t want his apology.
I want things to fucking change.
The archons—so experienced at masking their emotions behind a mental wall—are harder to read. Finally, Archon Lyathin leans forward, breaking the taut silence. The sound of his fingers drumming lightly against the stone table brings every gaze back to him.
“The Synod will assign an Altor to oversee the investigation into Selencia and form our own report, but we cannot spare anyone before winter,” Lyathin says.
“We have three months before the cold weather will pause the Kher’zenn attacks and until then, the war stretches every resource we have. We need every body on patrol.”
I wait for the condition. There’s always a condition with people like this—people with power. I don’t have to wait long.
“In exchange,” Archon Lyathin adds sharply, “you will begin your training without resistance. You will take your place among the Altor, as the gods intended.”
“I’ll be the Altor to go to Selencia in the winter,” I say.
“Impossible,” he argues. “You won’t have your faravar yet. You’ll be in essential training. You’re already behind.”
I weigh the words, turning them over in my mind to make sure they’re sound.
In my silence, Ryot steps forward. “I’ll go.” Every head turns to him. “I’ll go to Selencia this winter and report back on the conditions.”
Archon Lyathin gives a nod. “That’s acceptable to me. Leina?”
I keep my gaze steady—not on Lyathin, not on the king or Rissa—but on Ryot. Doubt gnaws at the edges of my mind. Is this a mistake? Am I trusting the wrong hands with what little hope we have?
But I nod.
“I agree.”