Chapter 8
W hen the fight was over, and Korhonan trudged back to the princess, defeat evident in the set of his shoulders, she scowled at me, her expression more ruthless than before.
Her face was twisted in fury, her cheeks red and eyes aflame. I found that I quite enjoyed ruining her day as much as she had ruined my entire week thus far.
I called out louder than necessary. “I’d say two gold coins was more than a fair price to pay for victory.”
She took one step toward me, her features twisting in ire, but before she could say anything, the clouds burst above us. Rain poured down in torrential buckets, and the crowd scrambled.
Everyone but her. She just stared in fury until Korhonan carted her away, dragging her back toward their tent and as far from me as possible. That was fine by me.
I had already done what I set out to do.
Now I had to spend the evening making nice with the dukes and gently swaying them to see reason. Nils would be a tough sell, but he had a longstanding alliance with my father. As long as she didn’t do anything overtly offensive in the next several days, I might be able to persuade him.
Though that was a long shot, at best.
The next two days of the Summit were somewhat promising.
Each night, I met with a couple of dukes under the guise of understanding their reasoning, while in actuality, I was applying pressure for them to see mine.
Arès was at least reasonable and had already developed a soft spot for the princess. Viper would do whatever Elk decided, so for the time being, they would let her live.
Wolf would happily have sent her head back to her family, but Nils would stay his hand for my father’s sake. I lobbied hard for ransom, reminding him that both his clan and mine would be footing the bill for a war in terms of funds and casualties.
He wasn’t as convinced as I wanted him to be, but it was better than nothing.
Duke by duke, I gained a small bit of confidence that the Summit wouldn’t end in mass bloodshed. That the princess might be able to conduct herself with a small bit of self control.
But of course, really I had known better than to hope for that.
Suspicion scraped along my spine from the moment Mikhail exchanged a covert look with Iiro.
Then Mikhail was openly antagonizing the Princess. I watched as her expression shifted from a resigned sort of calm to blind fury.
Static almost seemed to crackle in the air around her, her wild curls practically standing on end as she stared down Mikhail like he wasn’t the head of an entire clan, an influential figure in the vote that controlled her very life, a man who controlled an entire army and was loosely allied with at least one more.
“Need I remind you what happened the last time someone attacked a castle my mother was defending?” Her voice was calm, but lethal. A promise of violence laced each word, a threat she couldn’t possibly hope to uphold from the grave. “And tell me, how many people needlessly died when you came against my father’s forces, when you convinced yourselves you had a reason to go to war?”
Son of an aalio…
Just like that, every private council I had held with the dukes began to unravel. Did she realize that she had just belittled the deaths of their brothers and fathers and uncles and sons, along with thousands of men under their protection?
I stared in wonder at how someone was so unbelievably capable of signing their own death sentence with just a few words. Apparently, she wasn’t quite done.
“If you’re going to kill me, get on with it, but don’t fool yourselves.” She let out a quiet, violent laugh. “You are no match for anyone in my family, least of all my mother, and sure as hell not my sister.”
Her voice shook ever so slightly on the threat and red bloomed up her neck, spreading to her cheeks.
Everything went straight to hell after that, resulting in more threats and the princess storming out of the tent, Korhonan on her heels, his face flushed with obvious disappointment.
I did my best to keep my tone unaffected as the other clan leaders shouted back and forth, some of them calling for her head before the eighth day was up. Only Arès argued in her defense, and the argument was more subdued than it had been previously.
He didn’t keep his clan neutral and safe by attacking the dukes when they were already so enraged.
Even Iiro was suspiciously silent after her outburst. For as much as he claimed to want her to live, he seemed oddly unperturbed by this change of events. It was one more thing I added to the growing list of evidence of his scheming.
He followed after his brother, barely making a defense on her behalf on his way out. For whatever reason, he had wanted this. Her outburst. For the clans to turn on her.
But why?
“Gentlemen,” I said, pushing back from my chair and standing before them. The room quieted at the sound of my voice, though a few irritated glances were cast my way at the interruption. “Are we really going to allow one girl to undo the years of relative peace we’ve had between our clans?”
Mikhail and Timofey narrowed their eyes at me, but they didn’t argue.
“Let’s take a few moments to recess. I brought a few bottles of vodka with me, why don’t I fetch those and we can continue our discussion then?”
The vodka from Bear was well known to be some of the finest quality, and I knew that would get their attention. Once they reluctantly agreed, taking their seats once more, I stepped out of the tent, telling Igor to go and fetch the bottles from my trunk.
“Congratulations, Princess Rowan.” Iiro’s voice drifted over from where he was standing with the princess and Korhonan. “Now that you’ve challenged their pride and their bravery and mocked the sacrifices of their loved ones, it’s safe to say you’ve managed to lose what little support you had garnered.”
Her eyes went wide with fear as she stumbled over her response. “At least they have a few days to calm down before the vote. I’ll just...win them over again.”
I was already moving toward them as Iiro turned away, some coy expression playing at the corner of his mouth. It disappeared as soon as he caught sight of me, solidifying my theory.
Iiro was too satisfied, and his brother was too calm. What was I missing?
I let out a low whistle, preparing to fish for a bit of information.
And possibly to see the look on her face when she realized her precious Theo wasn’t as perfect as she’d imagined him to be.
“You know, Korhonan, I never took you for a sociopath. But the two of you seem awfully...close. Yet when the princess manages to piss off an entire council that would just as soon let her burn as douse the fire, you don’t show a trace of fear. Interesting.”
There it was. Guilt. The aalio was playing some sort of game. Perhaps he was more like his brother than I thought.
Rowan’s eyes shot to me, her expression more vulnerable than I’d seen on her before, like she was searching me for an answer that Korhonan was keeping from her. It was an uncomfortable feeling, and I reminded myself that she was not my responsibility and none of this was my problem.
All I had wanted was to test a theory, maybe to sow enough dissension that she let on some of what was going on, but she didn’t appear to have any idea.
Which, again, wasn’t my problem, as long as she stayed alive. Therefore, keeping my men alive and my clan from inevitable war.
So I made my way back to the tent, hoping to try to drown the flames of the dukes’ rage with some aged vodka. Because at the moment, they very much were my problem.