Chapter 57 Elena
ELENA
The council hereby finds King Kilis of Karven guilty of crimes against humanity of the first order. Punishment rendered: execution. Note: This is the first execution by council of a regent. May it be the last.
The Tsuana harbor curved into the neck of a hammerhead shark, the long cut of the land stretching out toward the sea, Janoon, proud and resilient, rising like a sword within it.
The pearl city, they called it. Pure and honorable, made from the richest Tsuani marble and strongest Jantari steel, a bastion of law and honor.
The last time the council met, Seshar had bled red into the sea, and yet not one drop had marred the perfect face of the city.
Elena wanted to rake her blood through it.
They were led into the palace under guard.
Janoon Palace was shaped into the contours of a conch shell, its exterior bright and white, its interior iridescent with hues of pink and lavender.
Round doors made of stone and decked with nacreous chipped shells opened to tall, curved hallways.
Fish swam beneath her feet through glass streams. Everywhere she looked, Elena saw attendants dressed in soft, luxurious wraps and tinkling headpieces.
No dirt lined their fingernails. No soot speckled their wrists.
What an image they made then, she and Samson, as they sauntered in with their bloodied and torn battlesuits.
“But, ma-madam, I mean, Your Majesty, the council is already in session,” an attendant said as he stumbled beside her. “They haven’t been informed of your arrival.”
“Good, it’ll be a surprise, then.”
“But, Your Majesty, there is only one seat. Your guest—esteemed guest—must wait out here.”
Elena came to a stop. She turned to the attendant, and he leaned away. “I believe my fellow council members will be interested in what he has to say, Ka Tirta.”
Tirta flushed. “O-of course, Your Majesty. But you all are armed. I can’t let you—”
Elena unclipped her slingsword, her pulse gun. Samson slowly unlooped his urumi and set it carefully in the attendant’s hand.
Without waiting, Elena entered a long hallway lined with guards and staff members from the different kingdoms. Cyleoni, Karvenese, Verani, Jantari. They turned as she marched, and Elena savored their startled gasps. Tsuani guarded the doors, but they paled at her approach.
“You’re in my way, soldiers,” she said.
One of the guards hesitated, the other looking to Tirta for direction. Suddenly, every guard quieted. The air tightened, sharpened, and Elena felt the weight of their stares, the nervous energy in which they touched their guns.
“Your Majesty,” Tirta said. “Please. Why don’t you rest for a moment? We will inform the council, let you properly introduce yourself—”
“I have sailed through the Black Pit, lost half my crew, and survived a mutiny and a drowning to come here, Ka Tirta. You can step aside, or I will add a felled Tsuani attendant to my list.”
Tirta swallowed, hard. Then he waved his hand, and the guards stepped aside.
Elena pushed open the great heavy doors with a resounding boom.
Voices died mid-conversation as all the mighty kings and queens turned to scowl at the intruder. Their scowls gave way to confusion, then shock.
“Esteemed members of the council,” she began.
The Verani king turned white, jowls open, as the Karvenese queen shared a look with Syla and the Tsuani monarch.
The attendants who fluttered behind their regents stared at her as if she were a ghost, or a demon resurrected, their gazes snagging on her bandaged arm, her swollen face, her bloodied hands.
Only Farin did not look shaken. Only he met her eyes, and a slow, amused smile crept across his lips. She returned it.
“I, Elena Aadya Ravence, have come to take my seat.”
Without waiting, she settled into the empty chair designated for Ravence. Samson stood behind her. His Agni burned coolly, and she was grateful for its steady strength, its limitless wrath. The others simply stared.
Queen Risha of Tsuana was the first to recover. Her headpiece, an intricately crafted crown of shells and silver, tinkled softly as she said, “Q-Queen Elena. We thought—I thought—you were dead. How did you get here?”
“Now, that is an interesting question,” Elena said, watching an attendant whisper quickly into Farin’s ear.
The metal king sat very still, the cogs of his body hissing. Then, in a voice slick like oil, said, “So this was your surprise, Syla. My enemy of the sea. She comes sailing on my killdoms. My captured killdoms. Did you plan to tell me, or was this all part of your grand reveal?”
Syla started, protesting, and then Bormani chimed in, and then Risha tried to calm them both as they shouted over the other. He is mistaken, Elena thought, as Risha slammed her hand against the table and called for order. I am not his intended enemy of the sea.
“Really, Syla?” Queen Kysha of Karven said once the clamor quieted.
She was a tall, thin woman, with long pale limbs and even paler hair braided to resemble crowns upon her head.
She smiled, her black-stained lips peeling back to reveal gem-encrusted molars.
“I didn’t know you still plotted, old man. ”
The Karvenese queen sat across the round table, beside Queen Risha, but Elena felt as if the woman was right beside her, her voice and eyes pricking her skin with the delicacy of a snake bite.
“And with such a young thing,” she mused. “Have you two formed an alliance, then? Conspired to make us look like fools?”
“Peace, Kysha,” Risha said.
“How long have you been hiding her, Syla?” Kysha continued. “And who is the pet she brings?”
“You’d do well to remember, Kysha, who the pets are in this room,” Syla said, looking between her and Farin. Kysha’s face tightened, but her cool smile did not drop. She simply sat back in her seat, silent, watchful, but Elena caught how Farin’s roaming metal eye skittered to the pale queen.
Jantar and Karven had a long-running alliance, longer than Ravence and Cyleon. Elena did not expect any support from the queen and her frigid country, but she wondered who held the power in the relationship. Was Karven a pet, like Syla insinuated of Veran?
“I had a pet once,” King Bormani said mournfully. “A marjarah, with silver fur. Her name was Adria.”
Kysha rolled her eyes as Risha turned to Elena. “Is it true you come sailing in on Jantari killdoms?”
“I come to you all with every intention of preventing a war,” she said. “It will be up to this council, on the heads of all its kings and queens, if it comes to pass.”
Kysha bristled, and even Bormani was bright enough to scowl. Though it was not a threat, it was clear: The blame would be on them, not her. An indelicate way to begin negotiations, but Elena had neither the subtlety nor the time to care.
“My family was murdered. My kingdom was taken. It’s true that the Arohassin were behind it, but they were mere puppets. Controlled by another hand. A hand that controls all of you now.”
Bormani guffawed. “No hand controls Veran, young queen.”
“Nor Karven.”
The Tsuani queen looked disturbed. “Elena, surely you are not suggesting we are puppets—”
Elena jerked toward her, and the sudden movement made Risha lean back as she responded, her tone acidic, “I do.”
Silence thrummed, alive, intense. At once, the room shifted.
Gone was their confusion, their half-curious amusement.
The regents of the council looked nervous, or pissed.
Slowly, Elena dragged her eyes across each and every one of them until, finally, she found the gaze of their master.
She leaned forward, her voice full of all the loss and anger and grief of the past sun, sharpened into a blade, cutting deep.
“King Farin of Jantar, I accuse you of regicide. I accuse you of orchestrating the murder of my father and the attempt on my life through the Arohassin. You unlawfully invaded my country and thus stand in contempt of the Treaty of Borders. You are the master behind the carnage, the hand that pulls the strings. And I demand my reparations.”
Risha inhaled sharply while Kysha scowled, as if now tasting the sour bite behind the skin of a fruit.
Bormani looked sick. Only Farin remained composed, his hands folded placidly before him.
His metal eye still roaming, seeking. His unfailing calm irritated her at best, infuriated her at worst, and Elena fought to keep her vision aligned. The hungry call of her Agni at bay.
He thought he could bury her. Silence her.
Take her country like a thief in the night.
Even now, with his unflinching composure, Farin believed he had the upper hand.
But despite all his best efforts, he had not been able to kill her, and this undeniable fact gave Elena courage.
Her Agni flared, and Samson shifted behind her in discomfort.
She could almost taste it—her acidic desire for vengeance.
Elena sucked in a breath, savoring the ashen taste, and said, “I demand the freedom of Ravence and Seshar.”
Chaos erupted. Bormani and Kysha spoke at once, shouting. Syla turned to Risha for help, who called for order, as the attendants around them fluttered in agitation, unsure of what to do.
“Seshar is not a kingdom that has been recognized—” Bormani cried.
“—it would jeopardize the metal trade—” Kysha interjected.
“Perhaps Ravence is founded, but Seshar—” Risha reasoned.
“You don’t understand what you’re asking,” Farin said, his voice rising and silencing the rest.
At their obedience, Elena smiled inwardly, joylessly.
Even if they did not know it, they were his puppets.
Dancing along to his strings, his pauses and his whims, cajoling if only for more metal, more trade, more power and influence.
Farin held an invisible influence over them all. Their sudden quiet was yet more proof.