Chapter 2
Chapter two
Aldric
Tension blanketed the Elmorian council chamber like heavy Kunishi fog. No one spoke. No one moved. All eyes remained fixed on the double doors leading out of the chamber as they waited for Sir Arkwright, Captain of the Queensguard, to return with the prisoner.
All eyes, save for his.
He stared openly at the porcelain statue perched three chairs down from him, her godparents seated between them.
The statue with that iridescent usuru draped around her slender throat.
The statue determinedly ignoring the weight of his one-eyed gaze, just as she had been ignoring him all morning, making him wonder why he and Calix had been summoned to this blasted meeting in the first place.
His kirei. Seraphina.
Beautiful, stubborn, irritating Seraphina.
Her features were drawn. Dark circles marred the pale flesh beneath her eyes. Even her chestnut hair seemed dull, as if it were losing its shine. With a frown, he let his attention wander toward her mouth; her bottom lip was chewed to bits.
She looked dreadful—a wraith in blue silk.
Aldric absentmindedly drummed his fingers against the arm of his chair. What was wrong with her? Was she ill? Had she not been sleeping?
Was she wasting away at the thought of marrying…him?
What does it matter? he snarled to himself in the next moment, forcing his own thoughts away from the impending wedding. Seraphina de la Croix might be his fiancée, his ally, his future wife, but that didn’t mean he had to like her.
Nor that he had to worry about her well-being.
His left thigh ached, still healing from where she had stabbed him. The rest of him smarted as well, still strangely raw after the Truth-Reading she had subjected him to.
She had tortured him. Humiliated him before all his men.
She absolutely deserved whatever discomfort she, too, was currently experiencing.
Aldric’s left eye twitched when the double doors abruptly exploded inward, revealing a dozen Queensguard led by Sir Arkwright. In their midst stood a pox-scarred lad in irons. A lad who stank of urine and fear.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Seraphina blanch further.
“This is the one, Your Majesty,” Arkwright announced over the clatter of the lad’s chains and the stamp of booted feet as the knights herded their prisoner into the room.
“William Hasty. One of the upstairs servants.” The doors slammed shut behind them, making the boy flinch and the queen’s usuru, Alyx, hiss.
Aldric shot another look that way, tracking the way his kirei swallowed hard. The way she tucked her hands into her lap to hide their visible tremble.
“Surely, we are mistaken,” she called out, sparing a glance for the rest of the room. But again, her storm-gray eyes skimmed right past him, as if she couldn’t even bring herself to acknowledge his existence. “This is a boy, not a criminal.”
From his place seated at the other end of the table, the Duke of Coreto dryly observed, “Even boys are perfectly capable of committing treason, Your Majesty.”
His kirei’s godfather, Lord Chancellor Percival Umberly, ceased stroking the head of the great white beast that was supposed to be a dog lurking beneath the table. Reluctantly, he confirmed, “Unfortunately, this is the culprit, Your Majesty. We have his confession.”
Sir Easome, the Lord Constable, grunted his agreement. The Count of Wellane—the Lord Exchequer—stared blankly ahead, as if lost in his own thoughts. Spymaster Olivia, Seraphina’s attack weasel, pulled a flask from somewhere and took a swig.
But when his kirei entered into a quiet conference with her holy advisor, Father Perero, and her godfather rather than immediately sentencing the prisoner to a summary execution, Aldric huffed out a sigh through his nose.
He had a feeling this meeting was about to drag on for far longer than necessary. The lad had committed treason. He had confessed. The boy’s age was unfortunate, but what was there to discuss?
Unfortunately, Coreto seemed to agree. “You can’t possibly be considering pardoning this young man, Your Majesty.
” For some reason, the duke’s icy stare slid toward him when the older man softly added, “Had your impressive luck not held that night, you would be dead. All thanks to this William Hasty ensuring your balcony doors were not properly secured.”
The details of what exactly happened that night were supposed to be a secret known only to the queen’s inner circle. And him. And his Twelve Sons.
Aside from one crucial detail, the truth of which only he carried—that he and not the assassin had brought the witchblade into her bedchamber that night; that he had been intending to use it against her on his brother’s orders.
An action worthy of execution.
And she would kill him if she knew.
Yet for all of that, Coreto looked at him as if he knew good and well that luck had nothing to do with the queen’s survival the night of the assassination attempt.
As if he knew Seraphina de la Croix had only made it through that night alive because he had already been in her room.
Trying to convince himself he needed to kill her first.
Before he changed his mind and risked his life to save hers—for some stupid, still-unknown reason that irked him every time he thought about it.
The sound of his kirei’s lilting voice jerked him back to the moment when she said, “A fact not known beyond the confines of this room, Your Grace. Will not the people ask prying questions if we publicly hang this man for all the world to see?”
You don’t have to publicly hang him. That’s what he wanted to say.
But he let the words wither on his tongue, unsaid. Better to remain silent in these sorts of things. To appear to have no opinion. No thoughts of one’s own. Let them think he was just a little, scarred brute with no mind and a savage temper. It was better that way.
Better to let people underestimate him until it was entirely too late for them to form a second opinion.
“Master Hasty,” Seraphina called out next, addressing the prisoner directly. The lad lifted his tear-streaked face to look her way. “Why did you leave my balcony doors unlocked that night?”
Silence hung in the air—her only answer for the span of several moments.
Until Sir Arkwright jostled the boy, prompting him to finally stammer, “F-for the gold, Your Majesty. It was…more gold than I’d ever seen in my life.”
Coreto muttered under his breath, “This is utterly ridiculous.”
Aldric silently agreed. But that seemed to be his kirei’s way. She was soft, with a heart that bled for the less fortunate.
Seraphina ignored the duke. “And did you know why you were being asked to leave the balcony doors unlocked that night?” When the prisoner frowned, clearly confused, she rephrased the question. “Were you aware of any plot against me? Did you wish me dead, Master Hasty?”
“No,” the boy gasped. “I’d never—”
His kirei nodded once and proclaimed, “William Hasty, you are hereby pardoned from execution but sentenced to lifelong exile instead. If you return to Elmorian soil, you will be put to death.” Softer, she added, “Might I suggest you take your new fortune west to the city-states of Fortuna? A man who asks too few questions in pursuit of gold would do well there, I think.”
Aldric thinned his lips and looked about the room, gauging the reactions of the other councilors present.
Sir Easome and Sir Arkwright both raised their eyebrows but said nothing.
Coreto openly scowled. Olivia chuckled, as if finding all of this amusing.
Wellane cleared his throat and blinked his way back to the present.
Only the Umberlys and Father Perero managed to keep their features schooled.
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” the lad sobbed while his armed escort dragged him from the room. “Bless you, Your Majesty.”
Eyes burned against the back of Aldric’s neck—Calix. No doubt his Son was trying to get his attention where he stood against the wall behind him like a valet rather than his second-in-command.
But half-Kunishi bastards didn’t warrant a seat at the table with all the fancy lords and ladies, he reckoned.
Rather than turn around to see what the other man wanted, Aldric leaned forward and tried to catch the eye of his fiancée instead.
“Is there a purpose to my being here?” he bluntly rasped, earning himself a sidelong glance from her godmother, Duchess Edith, sitting directly to his left.
He offered her a tight smile in reply.
“Yes, Your Highness,” Seraphina coolly answered, still without deigning to glance his way. As if she couldn’t stand the sight of him.
And who could blame her? He wasn’t pretty like his little brother, Edmund, or her peacock, Lord Tiberius Beaumont.
How sad for her that she had decided to marry him instead of one of them.
His kirei continued, “Our Master of Ceremonies—the Viscount of Arlund—has written with news from the front. Thus far, he has been able to keep the Arathian troops from advancing, but he is in desperate need of reinforcements; his lines are thinning with every skirmish.”
Aldric watched as she lifted one of her pale hands from her lap and stroked the sleek scales of her usuru while she spoke.
“The Lord Chancellor has already rallied the north,” Seraphina revealed. “As we speak, Lord Cyneric Umberly rides south for Goldreach. We pray this strange cold front will not impede his journey.”
Duke Percival growled, “A bit of snow and ice has never stopped an Umberly before—”
“But the Count of Wellane and the Duke of Coreto have both requested leave to return to their lands in order to rally their troops in person,” his kirei said, speaking over her godfather.
Her gaze slid toward each of the councilors in question as she murmured, “And your requests have both been granted.”
Wellane breathed out a sigh of relief and nodded.
Coreto merely dipped his head in acknowledgment of her words.