Chapter 21 The Petitions
The Petitions
The first petitioner is easy. Or, he is meant to be. He speaks at length about grain and routes, his voice careful in the way of men who believe precision will protect them from consequence. I listen, following what I can, losing the rest somewhere between his numbers and his justifications.
The silence stretches longer than he intends.
Petunis steps in without invitation, her voice cutting through his explanation and reducing it to its bones until the decision sits plainly between them. She delivers it without hesitation, without apology, and by the time she finishes he bows as though the outcome had always been obvious.
I watch him leave and feel the gap where my answer should have been.
“You will not always have me to do that for you,” she says.
“I know.”
“Then learn.” Her voice is laced with irritation, though underneath it a hint of what might be affection seems to exist. “Or at least learn to pretend properly. Sit straight. They must never see you falter, you must always give the illusion of confidence. Indecision is for the common. You are a queen.”
The Herald steps in again. "Qyanis of the Rock Region," he announces.
The next man approaches. He looks much the same as the first, composed and properly dressed, his posture correct, his tone measured as he begins to speak.
I listen more carefully this time, tracking not only his words but the way he holds himself, the pauses he does not expect anyone to notice, the subtle tightening beneath his composure that has nothing to do with his request.
Teorin’s voice returns to me without invitation. Do not chase with your eyes. Use what you are.
I let my focus loosen instead of tighten, allowing my awareness to move outward rather than forcing it through what I can see. The room expands around me in a way that has nothing to do with distance. Breath. Movement. Presence. And beneath it, something that does not belong.
It finds me before I understand it. A pressure, low and coiled, gathering beneath the surface of his calm.
Not hesitation. Not uncertainty. Something harder.
Anger held too tightly. Bitterness shaped into purpose.
It sits beneath his words like a second voice, one that does not bother to hide itself if you are not looking directly at it.
It comes together all at once.
He moves.
“You will not ruin this country—”
The light leaves his hand before most of the room understands what is happening, but I am already there, my hand lifting as the power reaches me.
I take hold of it as it arrives, not meeting it with force but closing around it, containing it, redirecting it before it can land.
It strains against me, then falters, its direction breaking under my control until it dissipates into nothing.
The room goes silent. He stares at me as though something essential has been taken from him.
He tries to move again, but I am already in front of him, the light answering cleanly now as I draw it forward and close it around him in a controlled hold that leaves him unable to act without tearing himself apart in the attempt.
“Who else?” I ask.
He does not answer. I do not repeat the question. The pressure changes, narrowing, moving inward through the place where resistance gathers and holds, pressing until it fractures. I feel it as it gives, not as words but as direction, as the shape of what he intended and where it leads.
“Where?” I say.
This time the answer comes. Names form beneath the strain, locations following them, pieces of something that had not yet been set into motion but had already begun.
I release him. He collapses to the floor, whatever strength he carried into this room stripped from him by the effort of holding it.
I look to the guards. “Find them.”
They move at once.
One remains, watching me with careful attention. “Your Grace, the dungeons?”
I look down at the man at my feet, at the space he occupies now that his purpose has been removed from him.
“Dungeons?” I say, and shake my head. “Kill him. Dead men cannot plan assassinations.”
The guard holds my gaze for a fraction longer than necessary, then nods. “Yes, Your Grace.”
He does not hesitate again. I glance toward Petunis and see the briefest change in her expression, something that does not linger long enough to be named before it disappears. The man is dragged out screaming.
The Herald enters again. "Sir Talen of Sunwall."
The name sounds familiar. A figure stumbles through and I recognize him instantly as the man on the ship with us, the man Nyara had spent her evenings with. The only other Alarnan on the ship during our journey from Veynar to Alarna.
He makes eye contact with me, then rushes to his knees.
“I saw how you fought on the ship,” Talen says as he steps forward, dropping to one knee with practiced precision.
“It would be my honor to serve as your prime protector. You ensured that all others crossed the wards before you yourself did. Now that there are rumors you are with child, you will require—”
“Oh, shut the fuck up.” The words enter the room without force and yet carry through it completely.
I angle my head toward the door. The man at the entrance stands as though he has never considered the possibility that he might not be allowed there, his presence cutting through the space in a way that shifts it without effort.
His hair is threaded with white, his face marked by something that reads less as age than as disregard, a flask loose in his hand as though it has always been there.
Beside him stands a boy, quiet and watchful, his attention moving through the room with a focus that does not match his years.
The man looks toward the dais. “Petunis, you cunt,” he says, as though the room exists only to carry the insult to her. “She just came through the wards and you have her working already?”
He spits onto the floor, the sound landing where silence had only just settled. “And you’ve got groveling pieces of shit on their knees in her throne room?”
Talen does not rise.
I do. “Talen was offering a kindness,” I say, keeping my voice even. “He was offering to—”
The man’s answer was immediate. “Then you’re more stupid than your mother,” he says without hesitation, “if such a thing were possible.” He delivers the words casually, without embellishment, and the room suddenly feels too small to hold them.
He gestures toward Talen as though dismissing something already beneath his notice. “Get him the fuck out.”
Much to my shock, the guards rush to obey and Talen is removed before I can even shoot him an apologetic glance.
I look to Petunis. “Who is he?”
She does not answer immediately, and with her hesitation I understand that whatever this man is, he does not belong to the rules I have been trying to learn.
He looks back at me then.
There is no reaction in his face. Only scrutiny, as though he is deciding whether I am worth the inconvenience.