Chapter 25 #2
The room went deathly still.
His broad shoulders squared as he turned toward the councilman, his face hard and rigid. For the first time since Imani had known him, there was absolutely nothing bored in his expression. Whatever iron restraint that usually contained Ellisar’s authority had vanished.
“Choose your next words very carefully,” Ellisar warned, his voice dangerously low.
The councilman blinked, losing some of his bluster. “High Sentinel, I meant no—”
“I know exactly what you meant.” Ellisar leveled a fierce glare at him, sending a shiver down Imani’s spine.
“You questioned your queen’s judgment because another man desires her.
You took the fact that she survived Kiran, understands him, and possesses intelligence none of us do, and twisted it into evidence that she is unfit to lead. ”
“I questioned a vulnerability.”
“No.” Ellisar’s palm struck the table.
The crack echoed like a whip. Several advisors flinched backward. Even Esa stared at him.
The sudden, vast pressure of his magic rolled across the room, disciplined, yet barely restrained. The man who could weather insults and political maneuvering without a twitch of his jaw had finally been pushed to the edge. And it was entirely on her behalf.
“You questioned her competence,” Ellisar said, his blue eyes chips of ice.
“And you dressed the insult in political language to make it palatable. She took a throne from a man with every institutional advantage. She closed a Fabric rupture your own people could not contain. She walked into this chamber and gave you a strategy before most of you had finished pulling out your chairs.”
A muscle in his jaw flexed. “If you disagree with her strategy, identify the flaw. If you possess better intelligence, present it. But you will not suggest she is too weak-minded to rule simply because her heartmate wishes to possess her.”
His throat bobbed, color draining from his face. “That was not my intention.”
“Then your intention was poorly expressed.”
He bowed his head. “My apologies, Your Majesty.”
“Accepted,” Imani said, her voice a cool contrast to Ellisar’s heat. “Now, if you intend to remain on my council, learn the difference between questioning my strategy and questioning my capability.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Her chosen mate remained standing, his breathing deep, one hand braced so hard against the table that the tendons in his wrist stood out.
“Ellisar.” Imani motioned for him to sit down.
With a shake of his head, the suffocating pressure of his magic receded. He gave the councilman one last, cutting look. “Do not make me explain it twice.” He sat down.
Imani should have been irritated by his intervention, and indeed, a small part of her was.
But she was acutely aware of the distinction in what had just occurred.
Ellisar had only shattered his restraint when the disagreement morphed into an attempt to diminish her.
Unlike Kiran, whose fury was always rooted in possession, Ellisar had not once called her his.
He had called her their queen.
She’d ruminate on that point later.
Imani turned back to the maps. “As I was saying. Kiran controls the narrative by bringing every High Sentinel and the second monarch into his domain. If his legitimacy is questioned, this is where he forces the realm to acknowledge him.”
“You’re right about the danger,” Ellisar added, his tone level once again.
“Going is a risk. But staying home gives Kiran exactly what he wants. It allows him to call you frightened, isolate Essenheim, and spin whatever narrative suits him. If you attend, you gain firsthand insight into his military strength and discover exactly who is willing to stand beside him.”
Imani listened, his counsel washing over her.
Avoiding risk doesn’t uphold the rule, Ellisar had told her once before.
Tanyl had avoided the hard options. He had stayed in the middle, allowing the edges of the kingdom to rot to protect the center.
Imani was still learning the machinery of ruling, but she refused to become Tanyl.
She curled her hand into a fist in her lap, looking at Ellisar and Esa.
The council knew only what it needed to know, but the three of them knew the full picture: Meira, the divided crowns, the second king, the unraveling Source.
Those secrets made confronting Kiran more vital, but she needed to beat him at his own game.
If another claimant to Niflheim existed, Kiran’s own court might be the best place to find the first evidence of him.
“We will attend the parley,” Imani announced, her voice ringing with absolute finality. “But we go on our terms, and we do not hand him control.”
The room’s frantic energy instantly transformed into determination.
“How do you expect to contain him if this turns violent?” one advisor pressed.
“What are the terms of our arrival? Do we go in with protection?” another asked.
“Our primary objective is intelligence. I want to know why Kiran is gathering power, who answers his call, and what he intends to demand. Our leverage is his desire for my presence. We make him pay for that access.”
Imani ran a finger along the Niflheim border on the map.
“The cost is proximity,” she continued. “We go onto Kiran’s ground, reveal some measure of our strength simply by showing him who travels with me, and give him another opportunity to use the heartmate bond against me.
I am aware of that risk. I am choosing it because what we learn there is worth more than what we expose. ”
She swept her gaze around the table. “We will not enter Niflheim helpless. We take a heavily armed, controlled escort, enough strength to extract us if diplomacy fails. If he refuses to let us leave, the parley is over, and we exit by force. Success means we leave freely, having conceded nothing of our sovereignty, armed with a clear picture of his coalition’s weaknesses. ”
Meanwhile, she’d find the leverage she needed against him. Somehow.
Sitting back in her chair, she laced her fingers together, her posture radiating a calm she was finally beginning to feel. “If he wants to bring every piece onto one board, I intend to see them all before he starts moving them.”