Chapter 30 #2
Taran gave a shallow nod. Luther reached to clasp his shoulder, but Taran shoved him off with an anger I didn’t quite understand. Luther looked troubled as he watched Teller lead Taran away to the seats behind my chair.
“If you’re quite done taking in our trash, we have business to conduct,” Garath said.
My temper snapped. I looked around for a sword I could snatch off a guard to slice Garath’s tongue from his mouth, but Zalaric interrupted with a low, menacing laugh.
“The time will come soon when you lose everything, Garath Corbois, and when it does, I want you to remember that this was the day that sealed your fate.”
“Are you threatening me?” Garath snapped.
“If he isn’t, I am,” Luther said.
“So am I,” my mother mumbled.
So am I, I thought darkly.
Garath haughtily straightened his doublet. “None of this changes the result. The Houses vote together, which means we have eight votes. Diem is—”
“Norwick didn’t vote,” Eleanor called out.
I realized with a start that she was no longer seated beside me. In all the chaos of Taran and Garath’s fight, she’d crept across the room to House Benette, where she and Norwick were still exchanging whispers.
She paused again and looked up. “Norwick wasn’t part of your agreement. He can vote however he wants.”
“He’s still bound by the bonded bargain,” Garath said. “All the Houses are.”
“The Heads of Houses,” Remis corrected. “Isn’t that what you told me, brother?” His smile was brittle. “Isn’t that the reason you’re there?”
Suddenly, I understood why Remis had mysteriously retired. For Garath’s plan to work, each Head of House needed to pledge their magic to the bonded bargain. Remis had no magic to give, a fact he was desperate to keep under wraps.
What I didn’t understand was why the most restrained man in the realm had just come so close to letting it slip.
Ravyn Byrnum turned a shade greener. “Are you saying that if Norwick votes against us and breaks the bargain, all the Heads of House will lose our magic, but he loses nothing?”
“He’ll lose his head,” her twin Ryx mumbled.
Guilt sat heavy on my shoulders. The target I’d put on Norwick’s back had just become a guillotine hanging by a single thread. Could I ask him to take this risk when it might be the last thing he ever did?
“You could all change your votes,” Eleanor suggested. “Marthe Hanoverre has proven she can’t be trusted. If you give her control of this council, eventually she’ll take your votes, too. But if you vote as one for Diem—”
“We can’t,” the Head of House Ghislaine said. “They made that part of the pact, too. If any of us votes in her favor, we all pay the price.”
“Norwick,” Evrim warned him, “don’t even consider it. Marthe will pay for what she’s done, but if you cost me my magic, so will you.”
“Listen to your kin, boy,” Ravyn Byrnum said. “Don’t make an enemy of us all.”
Norwick drooped against his chair. Tension stretched through the silent room, every soul awaiting his choice. His eyes were bleak as he looked up at Eleanor.
“Please,” she whispered.
“Norwick, wait,” I said.
I swore beneath my breath. Was I really about to do this? Why could I not be the ruthless Queen just this once, when so much depended on it?
“Vote against me,” I told him. “My seat is not worth your life.”
Eleanor deflated. Norwick frowned. The other Houses groaned with relief.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Nidara, then again to Zalaric, then to the mortals, though I was too ashamed to meet my mother’s eyes. I looked back at Norwick. “Just promise me you’ll fight for them,” I begged.
“No,” he said flatly.
I didn’t think my spirit could sink any lower, but Norwick Benette had proved me wrong. Finally and fully defeated, I rose from my chair to leave.
“My death will come when the Blessed Mother wills it,” Norwick said. “If that is today, so be it. My vote is no.”
The Houses erupted. Angry Descended flew toward the Benette table as Alixe shouted for guards to intervene.
I stared at Norwick in a daze. “You don’t have to do this for me.”
“It’s not for you. Perthe is the reason you found me in that armory. He owed his life debt to you, and I owe mine to him. This is how I repay it.”
A shield glittered around him as guards flooded the room. Evrim Benette pounded on its walls, demanding that he change his vote. Other Houses shouted threats against his life and his family and his lovers, vowing to bring their vengeance down on all their heads.
Norwick waved them off. “I answer to Blessed Lumnos for my choices. I fear her more than the lot of you.”
“Wait,” Eleanor shouted, waving her hands.
“Wait! There might be a way to save your magic.” At those words, the room fell to an eager lull.
“The bargain requires the Houses to vote as one, and it forbids any Head of House from voting against Marthe’s plan.
Those are the only terms, right? Well if there are no Heads of House left on the council, then as long as the Houses still vote together, the bargain won’t be broken. ”
“We made this pact to protect the council’s future,” Marthe insisted. “We must see it through, even if it costs us our magic.”
No one—not even Garath—spoke up to agree. You could have heard a hairpin drop in the silence that followed as the Heads of House mentally combed through the bargain’s wording for their last ounce of hope.
The Head of House Ghislaine gave me a wary look. “If we resign from the council . . . you choose our replacements?”
“Unacceptable,” Marthe said. “She’ll pick our weakest, poorest members. She’ll keep the council in her pocket. She’ll—”
“Oh shut up, Marthe,” Ryx and Ravyn said in unison.
“We should have known not to listen to you after you botched the Challenging,” Ravyn said. “Crawl back to your crypt and let the rest of us clean up your mess.”
I’d had precious few moments of joy since returning from the island. Watching Marthe’s craggy jaw hang open was easily top of the list.
“How do we know you’ll pick someone worthy to speak for our families?” one Head of House asked me.
“What about a compromise?” Eleanor offered. “She’ll select your replacements immediately from the people in this room. You brought your advisors and your closest allies. Let her choose from among them.”
I caught Eleanor’s gaze, my eyes bulging in silent panic. I barely knew the Heads themselves, let alone the supporters crowded around them. How could I possibly make such a critical decision on the spot?
Then she did the strangest thing.
She winked.
Slowly, unhappily, each Head of House gave their reluctant resignation from the council, and their focus shifted to hiding their less clever—or less controllable—family members from my sight. Even Garath succumbed to the pressure, selfish to the core.
Marthe, of course, was the final holdout.
She sat in her chair, hands folded neatly in her lap, and didn’t say a word.
She bore into me with her malicious glare, and I began to wonder if my magic was still suppressed, because it felt as if I could hear every nasty thought: I’ve lived this long.
I don’t have much time left. What does it matter if I spend it without magic?
At least I could take my rivals down before I go.
So I used my last, best weapon: I grinned.
A goading, do-it-I-dare-you grin. A let’s-watch-the-world-burn-together grin.
A triumphant grin.
Because I’d already won. If she accepted, she was off the council, and her dreams of running the realm would end. If she refused, she’d practically be doing me a favor, cutting my enemies off at their knees, and she’d provoke a war against House Hanoverre. That was one war I’d welcome with glee.
And so the brief, ignoble reign of Marthe Hanoverre came to an end, not in a blaze of spiteful glory, but in a pinch of her wrinkled face and two mumbled words: “I resign.”
Eleanor ran to my side and immediately rattled off a list of names that sounded familiar. As I repeated them aloud and their owners stepped forward, I realized why—these were the people she’d introduced to me before the meeting.
Eleanor’s Embers.
And my beautiful, clever Regent had chosen them well.
Though their names might have raised some curious eyebrows, none provoked any protest. Far from being outcasts, they were well-liked and well-connected, known for being clever or fair.
At worst, the others might have seen it as Eleanor playing favorites with her friends at court.
None would suspect we were laying the flagstones of a revolution.
When the last of the Embers were seated at the council table, Eleanor squeezed my hand three times, and we exchanged a smile, profound with relief and bright with a fragile yet burgeoning hope.
I leaned forward in my seat, and the path to a better Lumnos began at last.