Chapter 29 #2
We halted in the center of the room. Before us sat a semicircle of officials in matching uniforms, each bearing sleeve ornamentations, chest emblems, and distinct collar markings that likely identified their spire.
They perched on high-back chairs behind a narrow table built in a series of curves that created individual alcoves while placing a small distance between them and whoever stood in the center, giving a calculated illusion of benevolence and approachability.
There was nothing about their sharp-eyed stares and rigid postures that revealed it was solely for appearance, not reality.
Sequestered as I was, several feet from the emissaries and behind a wall of guards, I had a partially obscured view.
A few feet away, Cirrian, cuffed in runed manacles, was escorted in by guards who formed a half circle around him.
His lips twisted into a self-satisfied grin as he positioned himself before the central emissary.
The others received a cursory dismissal as his eyes quickly skated over them.
The change in their expressions showed they had registered the intended disrespect.
“Lord Zyran,” Cirrian said, his voice booming in an exaggerated deference as he kneeled before him, arms stretching out toward Lord Zyran.
Quiet authority settled in the lord’s intense hazel eyes.
Steadily and with intent, he regarded Cirrian.
The slow roving frown hardened the angles of his jaw, drawing my eye to the intense sharp curves of his face.
Acorn-brown wavy hair looked as aggressively precise as his movements as he tilted his head, keeping his intense scrutiny on Cirrian.
“Cirrian, drop the deception. It doesn’t suit you. You’ve never shown the slightest display of reverence for the Bavelon, and I doubt you’ve developed any respect for us now.” His glare landed hard on Cirrian, who lifted his head, his lips tugged into a grin.
“Is this what you are searching for?” Lord Zyran asked, standing to reveal unexpectedly tall height and a slim, lithe physique built for power and speed.
His unsettling fluid movement put me on edge.
Holding up several silver strings, his fingers tapped at them like he was playing an instrument.
The strings sparked to life, rocketing toward Cirrian before Zyran grabbed them.
Bringing them close to his lips, he whispered something that made them wither into little speckles into the air.
“Your mastery of your magic is a virtue and a vice. I admire it and abhor it equally. The same feelings I tend to have for you.”
Damn. Tact is a missing art in Umbryth.
Cirrian’s eyes scanned the room until he found me between the wall of bodies. He shifted enough to hold my gaze.
“Release me.” A threat threaded through his request.
Cirrian stood taller, the room quieter than before. Even the guards around Cirrian’s back were ramrod straight, a shadow of concern creeping over their faces before being marshaled away. The expressions of the Bavelon members tightened as they exchanged looks.
Lord Zyran looked the most defiant. Eyes leveled on Cirrian, he said, “I trust that you will behave. If we must subdue you, your right to defend your actions will be revoked and you’ll be sentenced without your defense.
Do you understand, Cirrian?” His name was voiced with the same lamentation as when they referred to ephemerals.
The moment the manacles were removed, Cirrian was in front of me. Hesitating, he took a strand of my hair in his hand and wound it around his fingers. He studied me.
“Who did this to you?” He sounded like I was missing a limb.
“Me.” I stole a glance in Sayier’s direction. “I needed to be presentable for this.” I attempted to add humor to my voice, but the sting of it remained.
He glared at Sayier, who lifted her chin and returned the glower. Her expression aptly showed she didn’t care about his dissatisfaction with her. There was also concern, which conveyed her willingness to do whatever was necessary to give him an advantage. He appeared to have missed the caring part.
“Do you want to change?” he whispered.
“My hair is the least of our worries,” I hissed through clenched teeth. He was infuriating. “Why didn’t you want to see me yesterday?”
“It’s not that I didn’t want to, I couldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Let’s discuss it later.”
Would there be a later? How much time did we have between his judgment and punishment?
With him so close, it was difficult to remember that we were in an atrium and all eyes were on us, ready to deliver sentence. Cirrian didn’t seem to mind. Releasing the strands of hair, he took my hand, his thumb making little patterns over my skin. The warmth of his touch curled over me.
With an unusual intimacy, his eyes lingered on my features, slowly journeying over the angles as if in search of something. I stepped even closer.
Leaning in, I asked, “Are you the slightest bit off? Not working at your full capacity?” I wasn’t trying to be insulting, but I couldn’t begin to understand his casual attitude. “It could help your defense.”
His laughter roared through the room, and he mumbled something I couldn’t quite make out: There she is? Or something along that line as he backed away, the guards quickly replacing his chains.
His hearing, if you could call it that, felt like a recount of his life.
Not only did they list the innumerable violations that had led him to Quelling three times, they also listed his current violations.
Cirrian didn’t just circumvent their rules, he seemed to view them as suggestions, to which he kindly gave the middle finger.
Most of his transgressions were the result of him being a complete menace to the draveths, which made me wonder if he had been the inciting incident for the war.
“Then there was the time of your self-appointed hiatus. Disengaging your seon and abandoning your duties. We were lenient because you were grieving the loss of Goddess Annessa, but it has been long enough. These are not actions from grief but rather your self-indulgent insubordination,” Lord Zyran chastised.
My heart sank to the pit of my stomach. After this venomous lamenting there was no way he would be extended leniency.
“Do you have anything to say in your defense?”
After a long moment of consideration, Cirrian spoke in an even, tepid voice. “We claim to value virtue and adherence to the rules that bind us. Do not kill. Adhering to them meant we nearly lost the collected magic and rendered ourselves obsolete.”
“The rules exist for a reason.” Another Bavelon spoke, her voice a beautiful melodious chime.
From the suspended silence, I assumed she wasn’t one to speak often.
“It is unfortunate so many of you don’t appreciate the importance of the rules.
They exist because along with the immense responsibility, we have been granted exceptional magic. ”
Her eyes swept over the room. A protective gentleness in her expression filled her words. “We have so few rules we must uphold, and in return we are given an abundance of privileges.”
Her attention landed solely on the rule-breaker.
“Minimizing and rejecting our rules will extend to our roles as protectors of magic. If we neglect our jobs and allow a culmination of all the magic from the departed, you are fully aware of the chaos, wars, and abuse that will occur, especially in the ephemeral world. How long would it take for the ephemerals to become as ravenous for power as the draveths? To attempt to break the barriers to our realm in search of more power, to conquer other realms? It would only take one of them to do the unthinkable and gain that power.”
My mind quickly went to Vina, who’d allowed her coven to die so she could take their magic and would have sacrificed her own daughter for access to the Laytherium.
“You are given a life of luxury for so little in exchange.” Her assertion came with ridicule and obvious umbrage at Cirrian’s lack of appreciation.
Ostentatious luxury, though, said my judgmental voice, who was an epic hater.
“And we expect so little in return. Respect and adherence to the few rules that we have. Do not kill. Do not intervene in collections.” A blade edge inched into her words.
“It is my understanding that in a course of seventy-two hours you’ve managed to do both.
Surely you have a reason for this, Cirrian?
” A slight flush fell over her sharp cheekbones and the bridge of her angular nose.
Her thin lips disappeared into her frown.
Her fingers aggressively combed away her cocoa-brown shoulder-length hair highlighted with a thick patch of silver in the front.
Silver-gray eyes leveled an expectant look at him.
Shadow gods weren’t a nuisance but a necessary entity for the stabilization of society.
I could feel Sayier’s glare searing into the side of my face. Not knowing the protocol, I stepped forward, steering around the guards, who didn’t try to stop me.
My eyes found Cirrian’s while I waited for him to give me some kind of indication that he wanted me to intervene. To give my testimony. Nothing. As if he’d resolved himself to his fate. Fate I was linked to.
“He didn’t intervene with a collection,” I blurted. Walking toward the center of the room, I continued. “It wasn’t a real death. It was a curse.” I surveyed the room, expecting piqued interest but finding only boredom. Immense boredom and varying degrees of disdain.
The minute belief that my appearance could curry any favor was squelched in that moment. Their expressions were a micro-step from disdain, but I marched on. “She wasn’t supposed to die, and he only intervened to give me time to save her.”
“Was it a death curse?” Lord Zyran asked.
“The very nature of a curse is eventually death, correct?” I provided.
“So your answer is yes,” he volleyed back, his cool eyes sweeping over me with a critical assessment before walking around the desk toward me.