Chapter 30
Wroth
Gazing at the long table before me, all I could see was her eyes.
The image had haunted me for three weeks now. Three weeks of feverish investigating and research, illicit meetings, subtle bribes.
Three weeks of the hell that was waking up in an empty bed. Of turning to look into someone’s face, and it wasn’t hers.
Of closing my eyes, and all I could see was that last hurt, imploring look she had given me, as though asking if I could really stand to let her walk away.
I had, but only because these three weeks had purchased the position of strength I needed to look down this table at the smug, dandy noblemen, each with a lai in his name and a knife hidden behind his back.
Twelve men, the wealthiest, most powerful men in the Rivers, most of whom had planned my death.
“So we’ve all agreed,” Nathanael lai Auvray said, tenting his fingers on the papers spread before him.
Several fingers bore heavy gold rings, inset with expensive gems: a star garnet, a weighty sapphire, and a lush emerald.
“My daughter has decided upon a midsummer wedding, a proper time for such a celebration; that gives a little under two months of preparation. The Pharosene pearls have already arrived and been authenticated by the Port-Master. The receipt is prepared for reimbursement, as seen here.”
He slid a paper across the desk, covered in red ink. I snagged it with a single claw, eyeing the sums it held; several thousand gold marks’ worth of pearls.
I wondered briefly what Jesamin would look like, clad in nothing but her own skin and a small fortune in real pearls. She’d probably throw them at me one at a time, demanding an explanation for such buffoonery and waste, and put them to good use in some strange Artifice.
Then, of course, she would demand proper pearls and I’d be powerless to resist. I wiped my burgeoning smile away; I didn’t deserve to smile at the thought of her, not yet.
Esteri, the only woman in the room, sat not at the table but in a chair behind her father, as befitted a proper Rivers lady.
The golem Delicata shimmered in shades of vibrant cerulean, dreamy lavender, and pumpkin orange as she poured her mistress a cup of tea, subserviently bowing her head as she offered it.
Esteri took the tea, nodding briskly to her father. “Don’t forget, Father, there is still the issue of contracting a jeweler for the tiara, as well as sourcing the diamonds.” Her cold blue eyes landed on me. “Surely your late wife had some pieces that might be repurposed.”
Bram hovered silently in the back of the room, his arms tucked into his sleeves, watching the noblemen watch me with a serenity he had been lacking for some time. He smiled slightly at Esteri’s forward request, exposing the tips of sharp fangs.
“Surely she does,” I said amiably.
“And if you don’t, I’d be glad to provide our new Lady’s diamonds at a special price.
” Thibaud Galtus tried a saucy wink, failing miserably.
In the last several months, he had become a thin, wizened stick of his former self, which I now knew was because he was being eaten alive with worry for his son Dreu.
“This wedding might be so grand as to eclipse…well, the former Lady’s wedding. ”
“Of course,” Esteri said, her tone clipped, but I smiled at Thibaud.
“Your son’s corpse lies rotting Below.” My tone was pleasant, so mild that it took nearly a full minute for the noblemen to fully understand what I’d said to their faces.
One by one, they went silent, staring at me with shock, incredulity, disgust, and in Thibaud’s case, abject horror.
Esteri stared at me, her teacup midway to her mouth and forgotten.
My gaze drifted from Thibaud to Olivar lai Heriot. My gums ached with suppressed bloodfury as I exposed my fangs to him in a wide grin. “As does yours. Last I saw of Cadell, he was serving as a nursery to some species of truly vile worms.”
Esteri lowered her tea cup with a clatter, her lips pressed so flat they’d gone white. “This is positively despicable talk while a lady is present.”
I leaned back in my chair, spreading my hands.
“Is it? One would think you’d have an interest in such things, given that your family name is inextricably linked with plans to murder your betrothed, plans abetted by these men in particular and—oh my, how foolish—put in writing and sealed with their crests. ”
She stared at me, nostrils flared and face a ghostly white. Nathanael clutched at his chest, turning strange shades of red and grey in contrast to his daughter.
“And here they are.” I reached into my coat, pulling out the packet of letters Jesamin had retrieved from Alvar’s belongings. I spread them on the table, covering the receipt for pearls, and making sure those signatures and seals were visible across the room. “So many familiar names to see here.”
Nathanael managed nothing more than a hoarse wheeze.
I frowned at them. “You’d really think, after decades of planning, you lot would have become slightly more accomplished at plotting regicide. I’m almost disappointed in you.”
“Those are forged,” Olivar lai Heriot cut in.
A twitch in his lower eyelid betrayed his nerves.
He adjusted his cravat uncomfortably, fingers brushing the gold pin at his lapel.
“It doesn’t take a genius to imitate our signatures, and the Lady only knows, there’s plenty of foreign artists willing to replicate a seal for a handful of silver. ”
I held up a paper to the light, studying the seal. “Olivar…you do understand I can smell you on this?”
He eyed me warily, mouth opened to speak, but said nothing. I brought the paper to my nose, inhaling deeply.
Ah, to have blood coursing through my veins in abundance, senses heightened, scent sharpened.
“Let’s see…on the night you signed this, you were wearing a worsted wool jacket, though it couldn’t have been too cold in your parlor with those cedar logs burning, and had just consumed a meal of rice and braised lamb, spiced with Serissan peppercorns, and accompanied by a bottle of…
hmm, smells like a ‘72 Velon Blanche, a dry white—good choice, if you have the palate for wine—and a hint of jara dust. Well, we can’t all rise to the occasion without aid, I suppose. ”
Olivar had stopped rubbing his cravat, his superior smile long since fallen away. His left eye was now twitching wildly, followed by the corner of his mouth.
I picked up the paper with the lai Auvray seal, stamped in pale blue wax.
“This is my favorite game,” I confided to Nathanael, wafting the paper and taking a deep breath.
“Does your wife know you keep a Pharosene mistress in your summer manor? I must say, she has excellent, not to mention expensive, taste in fragrance. Rose and saffron, with a hint of Héllénic myrrh.”
Esteri had swallowed hard the moment I picked up the incriminating letter, but now her eyes rolled to her father like glass marbles, stunned and blank. “Father?”
Nathanael recovered long enough to slam his fist into the table. “Enough of this!” he roared. “So you know what we have done. What do you want of us, fiend?”
I lowered the paper, my grin fading. “I want you—all of you—to sign an amendment to the Blood Accords.”
They stared at me. Only one man, Teodoro lai Veil, met my eyes without fear.
I gestured to Bram, who produced the amended copy, with empty spaces for each signature and seal to be witnessed and notarized. He brought it before me, laying it reverently on the table.
“What amendments do you propose, my lord?” lai Veil asked with genuine curiosity.
He alone, of those high noblemen seated at this table, could speak without fear.
It was possible that he was the only true snake at this table, still hiding in the grass, but in all the digging and bloodwitchery of the last three weeks, not once had his family name, or personage, been connected with any of the Spear of Justice members or their plans.
If he had, I would’ve been genuinely surprised, given his family history.
“You will see here—” I pulled several pages aside.
“I have proposed a single amendment to the right-by-marriage. Any human woman of age, in good health and of sound mind, having lived in Veladar for a period of at least five years with the intent to remain a citizen, qualifies as a legal match for any Lord within the four holds of Veladar.”
Almost all of them stared at the amended Blood Accords with horror.
Teodoro lai Veil gave me a secret, triumphant smile.
His mother Liria lai Veil was Serissan, and had married and borne twin children to the Veladari ambassador I’d sent their way two decades ago.
Now his twin, Ofelia, served as ambassador in their father’s place, and much good had come of it, with many trade routes and a proper embassy established.
“It is a sound amendment. I’m pleased to put my seal to it. ”
“Of course you are, you Serissan whoreson,” Nathanael snarled.
Teodoro waggled a finger at him, gesturing for Bram to bring the candle and sealing wax.
“Oh, I make no effort to hide my aspirations. Perhaps one day, it will be my nieces or grand-nieces who sit the throne.” He took the quill Bram offered, signing his name with a flourish.
“Yet I think not soon.” He eyed me. “But I hear whispers of a name I know. A name I associate with cleverness and intelligence, unlike…others I could speak of.”
His glance toward Esteri was so quick as to be invisible, but a cloud of outrage seemed to billow from the woman.
Nathanael was furious enough to stand, watching with narrowed eyes as Teodoro poured the wax and pressed his seal to it.
“This is what you’ll have of us, Wroth?” he asked quietly. “A Forian bride? That traitor fel Telyr’s cast-off whore? It’s no secret that you’ve been Below with the fel Arron girl. Do you not remember what they did to us, not so long ago?”