Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Q ueen Daro was alive.
We got word from Dr. Orella the following day.
Though she’d been improving since I used the temporal magic, it hadn’t been an instantaneous thing.
Whether that was because I didn’t know how to wield the magic efficiently, or because that was how temporal magic simply worked, no one knew.
While I’d been sleeping and healing my own injuries, apparently the same had been happening to the queen.
She was awake now, according to the doctor, though still fragile.
After all, she’d been abed for quite some time longer than I had, which took a toll on her body in and of itself.
After sharing our bodies so many times that we were pleasantly sore, hungry, and somewhat more dehydrated than was healthy, Kason walked me through what he knew of Desha’s plot.
Her goal had been simple: the crown. It had not been a spur-of-the-moment action.
No, she’d planned it meticulously. Months before, she’d begun by slowly and quietly clearing witches out of Kardonan so there would be no local resources—or fewer, at least—to call upon when the queen took ill.
She’d convinced Telurin not to summon Kason, reasoning that there was nothing Kason would be able to do to help and that his work was too important to interrupt.
In this perfect plan, no one would know what ailed the queen.
She would die, and then they would summon Kason to return for the funeral, where she would have somehow framed him for Telurin’s death, leaving the throne open for her to claim.
Instead, Dr. Orella had thwarted her plans by sending a messenger to find Kason, which had instigated the unraveling of it all.
The men who’d ambushed me in the Slipshod had been hers, likely hoping to get rid of me and destabilize Kason.
When that didn’t work, she abandoned the plan to eventually kill Telurin and blame Kason for it, and instead she and Evart ambushed Kason, as he’d told me earlier.
It had been a shock to Kason and Telurin that the captain of the palace guard had been in on it; Desha had promised her a hefty bonus to block off Kason’s quarters, pretending his body was inside and that an investigation was taking place.
But I’d messed it all up again by escaping the dungeon and helping the queen, which had just about driven Desha mad.
Well, madder than she already was, I supposed.
She was currently in that same dungeon, awaiting her fate to be decided.
I had no worries she’d escape—she didn’t have a goddess-inhabited dragonet willing to help her.
With all of this behind us, and our relationship on firm ground, for once, I should feel relieved. Maybe even excited for what the future would bring.
Instead, I was sitting with Kason in an anteroom in a building a few blocks from the palace, waiting for the Council of Witch-Hunters to call us in.
My stomach was tight with nerves and had been ever since we received the summons yesterday.
It had been direct and to the point: they bid Kason to bring me to them to answer for my crimes.
Not doing so would immediately result in his banishment from the guild.
I couldn’t allow that to happen, so here I was.
Kason was at my side, but I wasn’t na?ve enough to think he could do anything to help me.
“It will be all right.” Kason squeezed my hand. He’d been holding it the entire time, even on the walk here, a physical representation of his words. He didn’t want to let me go, but I rather thought he might have to. For a time, anyway.
“I don’t want to die anymore.”
“Good gods, Mo.”
“You remember? What I said when you first caught me?”
“I remember.” The pained look in his sky-blue eyes attested to it.
“I’ll deal with hard labor.” I swallowed a painful lump. “As long as I get to come back to you. Assuming…assuming you’d still want a convicted criminal.”
He shifted on the bench, lifting our joined hands to his chest. “Mo?—”
The anteroom’s door opened suddenly. “The council will see you.”
I inhaled shakily as I stood. My eyes drifted toward the entrance we’d come in, a hundred yards or so to our right, and I wondered for a moment if I could make a break for it. It would take everyone by surprise, and I was quick. I might make it.
Probably not though. And then where would I be? Deeper in a hole, that’s where.
I concentrated on breathing as we entered the council chamber.
It was about as large as the small dining room in the palace, with two rows of chairs and tables set up along each side, the second row on a riser so everyone could see the floor in between.
At the end of the room, opposite the main door, was a single desk and ornate chair—not quite as resplendent as the queen’s throne, but more decorated than the other furniture in the room.
This, I assumed, was the place of the Lord Hunter.
An older man, hair graying and tan skin lined with wrinkles, stood there, wearing the traditional garb of witch-hunters—utilitarian black leather armor—as though a horde of witches might burst into the chambers at any moment to wage the war the hunters always seemed to think was imminent.
I probably should have known his name, but I didn’t.
The only hunter who’d ever mattered to me was the one standing at my side.
“Mokido Azenas, finally, you’re brought before the council for your crimes,” the Lord Hunter intoned. As though I were a serial murderer or some-such nonsense.
I stole trinkets. Okay…some of the items weren’t quite trinkets , but they certainly weren’t priceless. I’d sold them easily enough.
“Lord Hunter?—”
“You’ll have your chance to speak and explain yourself, Kason Estosia.
” The Lord Hunter’s dark eyes considered Kason for an instant, then refocused on me.
“Mokido Azenas, you are charged with five counts of theft of items valued at more than five hundred gold, and ten counts of petty thievery. Your reign of terror ends now.”
I couldn’t help it. A shocked chortle burst out of me. “‘My reign of terror’?” I echoed disbelievingly. “Are you even hearing yourself?”
“Mo—” Kason whispered.
“No, this is ridiculous. They’re acting as though I’m a murderer. A rapist. Or even someone who threatened people in order to rob them. I did nothing of the sort!”
The Lord Hunter’s eyes were positively thunderous. “Mokido?—”
“I stole things, yes. By sneaking into residences that were empty and taking small things whose absence would have little to no impact on my so-called victims, who were all richer than the entire population of the Slipshod and the market district combined. Be honest—did any of these thefts leave the lords in question in ruin?”
One of the hunters seated on the right side of the room shot to her feet. “That is not the point! You broke the law and used magic to do it. Therefore, you must be punished for it.”
I snarled at her, pulling back my lips to show my fangs. “Well, maybe if anyone in power in this fucking city gave a shit about the people living on the fringes, I wouldn’t have had to steal!”
“The law?—”
“Fuck the law!” Kason shouted.
I—and everyone else in the room—shut up.
Now that he had everyone’s undivided attention, Kason took a breath.
“I believe in our order’s purpose,” he said, his eyes traveling around the room, meeting the gazes of his comrades.
“I have worked diligently to bring in witches who think themselves above the law. I have captured murderers and those who terrorized towns. You all know my record. But I’m appalled by how vehemently this council has pursued Mokido.
A simple thief. He has inflicted no physical harm on anyone.
And yet, he has Wanted posters in every town for a hundred-mile radius, as though he threatened the queen herself.
Why?” He didn’t wait for a response, but continued on, his gaze continuing to rake over those assembled.
“Because this order cares more about the lords of Kardonan than the law itself.”
“Kason, you are out of line,” the Lord Hunter growled.
“Lord Hunter, with all due respect, I don’t care.
” Kason took a step forward, releasing my hand.
“I have given everything to this order because I believe in the good we do. I’m not arguing that Mokido should be above the law.
He should not. He admits to his crimes, and I agree with Gisella that he should be punished.
What I don’t agree with is this council’s insistence on treating him like a greater threat and worse criminal than he is.
It makes me question if any of the nobles he stole from have more access to this council than they should? ”
Behind us, the chamber’s doors opened. I glanced over my shoulder and was stunned to see Queen Daro sweep into the room, guards surrounding her.
Her silvery blond hair was piled atop her head in a shiny cascade of loose curls, and she wore a simple golden circlet.
She was pale and her fine day dress in a deep purple fabric seemed to hang on her form more loosely than it should, but there was color and vitality to her cheeks that hadn’t been there the last time I’d seen her.