Chapter 39 Kasira #2
Talthari moved to Arraidia’s side. “If you will follow me, Guild Master, I will show you to your room.” They pressed their hands in supplication at Arraidia’s title, and the procession set off down the hall.
Allaster let out a small sigh. “One.”
The other arrivals followed a similar pattern, each door coming alight at the country’s allotted time.
Queen Sarren and Ryn entered next with their guards, the Queen’s dress a masterpiece of Verentula silk and decorative brocade, with a corset-like bodice covered in crimson kyda.
They came bearing a pouch of coffee beans for Allaster, and he gave them a small tome on Syovars in return, which earned him a small smile from the Queen before Fen led them away.
Allaster handed Kasira the bag of coffee beans. “Put that somewhere I can’t find it.”
Kasira shook hands with the elderly Arch Minister Cernos of Riviair and the Minister of Beasts next.
Both were short, brown-skinned men with shaved heads and the paws of the feline Kilari Bloodpanther marked on their palms. Done with a special ink that faded after two years—the time each Minister served before elections—it made it easy for Riviairens to identify their officials in public should they seek to petition them.
May had just escorted them and their guards away when the open book symbol of the Miravi door came alight.
Warrin opened it, stepping aside as Ambric entered.
He was alone, his long silver beard braided down his chest and tied with a sapphire pin.
He wore a slightly more embellished version of his usual dark robes, the cuffs embroidered with silver threads, but it was his face that bore the starkest of changes.
He looked as though he had aged a thousand years.
“Brother,” Allaster greeted him tentatively. “You haven’t been responding to my messages.”
“So I haven’t.” Ambric’s voice was hoarse and tired.
“I have a country to run and don’t have time to squander on my little brother’s every whim.
” He didn’t wait for Allaster’s response before striking off down the hall, leaving Warrin to race along in his wake.
Kasira swallowed back her questions. She had known Allaster had been trying and failing to connect with Ambric since Spenshire, but Allaster had written it off as his brother’s attempts to remain neutral.
That had not felt neutral to her.
The crossed swords of Kalthos came alight, and Allaster’s exhaustion redoubled. Then he cracked his neck and faced the door. “Let’s get this over with.”
Carlia exchanged wary looks with Kasira before she turned the handle.
Ambassador Vera swept in, dressed in the pure white and muted gold of the church, followed by two Malik.
She didn’t spare her breath on pleasantries.
“Take me to the Glass Room,” she ordered Carlia.
“I wish to prepare for the proceedings.”
Carlia inclined her head, her tone irreverent as she said, “Your Excellency, if we may wait for the King to arrive?”
As if on cue, King Carthur entered with his own palace guards.
Two royals—two different sources of protection.
Kasira had suspected that Vera had the loyalty of many Malik, but to display it so brazenly by requisitioning them as her own personal guard?
No wonder the King was so concerned about her rising power.
The cousins exchanged dour looks before Carlia led them from the portal room. Neither of them so much as looked at Kasira.
“How long do we have until the proceedings begin?” Kasira asked Allaster.
He fell back against the nearest wall, looking careworn. “Until noonday. Many of the dignitaries will make their way to the Glass Room before then. Lay what groundwork you can and get an idea of how everyone is feeling.”
Kasira flashed him a smile she didn’t feel. “Now you’re speaking my language.”
The Glass Room was aptly named. With three walls of floor-to-ceiling stained glass portraying everything from onyx-winged dragons to snow-white Alkatir, the room was awash in colorful light.
On the very top floor of the Library, it was the final room before the natural stone cavern of the mountain, beneath which rested the old Library and catacombs.
A finely detailed map of the six nations took up the back wall between two entrance doors, and tapestries depicting the countries’ sigils hung from the ceiling above a round table of thick wood.
Kasira gave herself a moment without Allaster’s presence. A breath in which to center herself on her task, to become the version of herself she had been only weeks prior: a woman who wanted only to do her job and take back her life, no matter the collateral damage.
She would need that woman to make it through the next few hours.
For rather than garnering support as Allaster wanted, she would remind each of these leaders exactly what they had to lose if Vera did not win, and she would do it all with a smile on her face. She had no other choice, and yet the thought of it made her sick.
In Belvar, she had coiled around herself in the darkness.
Even the smallest flicker of emotion had scorched her like a flame.
It had become so much easier to let herself go numb.
The day she had finally stepped free of that cell, so many things had followed her from the dark.
The anxiety was the worst. Her chest grew so tight there wasn’t room for her lungs, the pressure in her stomach like a fist. There was no controlling her thoughts or her body when it happened, and so the easiest thing had been to seal it all away.
To feel nothing—like death.
But in death, the bones of things became exposed.
She could no longer pretend there was nothing inside of her.
After feigning life for so long, at some point, she had actually begun to live, and if she wanted any chance at protecting those she had come to care about, she would do what must be done, even if it meant losing the Library. Losing May.
Losing Allaster.
Truth, she thought; then, more wryly: What would you think of me now, Loraya?
Ambassador Vera was already in the room, going over notes in a far corner.
Kasira skirted the room to avoid her and approached Arch Minister Cernos, who was enjoying a refreshing iced herbal drink by the nearest window with the Minister of Beasts, who had introduced himself in the portal room as Minister Iglacia.
She smiled at each of them as she approached. “Are you enjoying the mural, ministers?”
“It’s truly a work of art,” Iglacia replied with a nod of respect.
“The work of a Riviairen mage, no doubt,” said the Arch Minister.
He had a round, serious face, with a wide nose balancing a pair of wire-framed spectacles.
Allaster had described him to her as earnest and steadfast, a reasonable mind, who took great pride in his country and his place at its head.
Alongside Queen Sarren, he was one of Allaster’s greatest concerns, as he had a tendency to view matters like this in terms of business.
If Allaster’s position as Librarian threatened Riviairen trade, the Arch Minister would be far more likely to oust Allaster.
“Indeed,” Kasira agreed with a dip of her head.
“Her name was Liava Neras. She was at Amorlin nearly three hundred years ago. Liava is responsible for all the stained glass in the Library, as it was her personal mission to, quote, ‘bring a touch of life to the place.’ Apparently, she found it quite drab.” She winked at them, earning a small smile from Iglacia.
Cernos only lifted his chin higher. “Do not presume to quote my own history back at me, Assistant.”
“Of course.” Kasira bowed her head, and the sudden deference seemed to put Cernos off-kilter.
His dark eyes narrowed at her. “You are not quite what I expected, Lady Kasira.”
“Oh?”
He set aside his empty glass. “Ambassador Vera painted you as uncouth, an insult to the Library’s legacy. She said you were a criminal and that the Paratal has condemned your soul.”
Kasira had assumed that Vera would have done her own work among the other dignitaries, but as usual, the Ambassador hadn’t deigned to inform her of it. “The Paratal also sleeps in a room of four white walls and thinks artistry a distraction from the divine.”
“Then you are not in fact a criminal?” Cernos asked, refusing to be deterred.
She didn’t let her smile falter. “I am the Assistant Librarian of Amorlin, Your Excellency.”
“But you were not the chosen candidate,” Cernos pressed.
“It is illegal to impersonate the Assistant Librarian, though the ability to prosecute that lies only with the Library. What is it about you that convinced a man like Allaster St. Archer to forgive such a transgression? Are you sleeping with him?”
Kasira’s mask nearly broke at the directness of the question, and she had to give Cernos credit.
Whether he meant to or not, asking questions like that was a good way to gather information: You learned a lot by how someone responded.
Which was why Kasira let her expression falter between unease and embarrassment.
Just enough to let the Arch Minister think that, perhaps, he was correct.
“Allaster accepted me as Assistant because I am well suited for the role, Your Excellency,” she said. “A relationship of that nature would be inappropriate, particularly with things as they stand.”
“Meaning?”
Kasira’s gaze slid to the Malik at Vera’s back. “The Conclave, of course. I must be impartial. I have no desire to provoke the Ambassador’s ire further.”
Iglacia exchanged a knowing look with Cernos, who crept closer to Kasira. “Are you suggesting Ambassador Vera intends to take this matter further if the Conclave fails to convict?”
“I can’t pretend to know the Ambassador’s mind.” Rumors of war between Kalthos and the Library had abounded for months, and for Riviair, whose was a peacetime economy, there could be no worse outcome.
Cernos looked ready to press, but Iglacia briefly laid a hand on his arm. “I think that’s enough,” he said softly. The small touch had a transformative effect on the Arch Minister, who all but sighed audibly.
Kasira filed that little tidbit away for later and nodded at the Arch Minister’s empty glass. “Another, Your Excellency?”
As the other dignitaries filed into the room with their Library representatives, Kasira moved smoothly from one group to the other, laying similar foundations.
With each lie and half-truth she told, she retreated a little deeper into herself, allowing the words to come on reflex.
It was the only way she could avoid thinking of Allaster.
The only way she could shift favor away from him, one word at a time.
May and Allaster were the last to arrive, and Kasira slid immediately to their sides. “Arraidia is on our side, but I can’t be certain of Cernos or Sarren. Though, I’m fairly sure Cernos and Iglacia are in a relationship, which, last I checked, isn’t permitted between Ministers. We could—”
“We’re not using it against them,” Allaster cut her off with a shake of his head. “We play this fairly.”
She had known he would say that but provided the information nonetheless to make it look as though she were trying. It would be suspicious if she didn’t offer him anything useful.
The room quieted suddenly as Talthari approached a podium at the forefront.
As the mage who most recently had been representing the accusing kingdom, they would be responsible for overseeing the proceedings.
“It is now noonday,” their smooth voice called across the room.
“Please take your seats, and we will begin.”
There were eight chairs around the central table, six for the dignitaries and two for the Library, and several rows stretching toward the glass windows for the Library representatives and the dignitaries’ guests.
A chair also rested beside the podium, occupied by Vera.
Kasira took her place at Allaster’s side.
Once everyone had settled, Talthari unfurled a paper that they read from.
“I now commence the third gathering of the Conclave, so called by Ambassador Vera Helsen of Kalthos, who levies against Allaster St. Archer, Librarian of Amorlin, the charges of misuse of Library resources and gross favoritism.”
This speech should have been a relief to Kasira. She had done what she had set out to do, completed one of the most legendary cons in the world. Yet with each word Talthari spoke, her dread only grew.
“We will begin by hearing from Ambassador Vera, to whom the Librarian will be permitted to respond at any point,” Talthari continued with a decorum Kasira respected.
She was fairly certain they were on Allaster’s side, yet they clearly acknowledged the Conclave’s authority.
Would the other mages reject the Conclave if Allaster lost, or had she and Thane sown their discord too well?
“I would remind the rest of the room that all others are required to absorb the presented information in silence,” Talthari said stoically.
“Disturbances during the Conclave will not be tolerated, and offending parties will be asked to leave. At the end of the presentation of information, the council of dignitaries shall have as long as they need to deliberate and vote. A majority is required to convict.”
They allowed the parchment to refurl. “Let us begin.”