Chapter Thirty-Six #2
“Olympia, your Matriarch and Heir have informed the Tribunal you wish to offer a defense of protection of self?” Raghnall inquired.
“Yes, Sir,” I replied.
“The victim attacked you?”
“He did,” I answered and hesitated.
I could still see it so clearly in my mind; Bade stepping out of the shadows, blade glinting in his hand, that wretched statement he’d made before lunging at me. Godsdamned it, Olympia, I really wish it had been anyone but you.
“Olympia?” Raghnall asked and I blinked back to the present, mortified to find some moisture gathering in the corner of my eye. “Tell us what happened.”
“I was down on the Second–”
“Why?”
I blinked, caught off guard by the question.
“I was…visiting the House of Harlowe,” I informed him.
Raghnall’s eyes narrowed and I saw the opportunity he was taking a moment before he did.
He’d known about our trips to the House of Harlowe but had never been able to figure out why we were making them.
Now, he finally had an opportunity to force me to answer him regarding our business there and he didn’t care if it was in front of the entire city. He wanted to know.
“Why?” he repeated.
I frowned, considering how best to answer. Before I could utter another word, however, Nascha spoke for me.
“I don’t see how that’s relevant to the trial, Raghnall,” she said gently. “We’re here about the events which occurred outside of the House of Harlowe, not within it.”
Raghnall tensed but nodded for me to continue.
“I was walking toward the stairs to head back up to the First. It was late and I was exhausted and then Bade–” I broke off here, fighting to calm my racing heart, to avoid the tears threatening to fall.
“I didn’t see him at first. It was dark and he was too far away.
But then he came out of the shadows and I saw he had a knife.
I was confused. I asked what he was doing there.
He said he was there for me and then…then he attacked me.
He lunged at me with the knife. I just barely managed to fight him off for a brief second before he was coming at me again.
I raised my arms to defend myself and received this,” I held up my still healing arms, the red seams of the diagonal scar standing out starkly against my pale skin. “He said he was ordered to attack me.”
Gasps shot out around me and whispers that quickly grew to murmurs before Raghnall could speak.
“Did he say who ordered him to attack you?” Raghnall asked carefully.
My gaze slipped to Cosmo and I nearly scoffed at the question. As if there were anyone else in the city who could order such a thing. As if there were anyone else in the city who Bade would obey if they had.
“He hinted that it was his grandfather,” I answered.
The murmurs rose to outright chatter and Cosmo, on the dais, shook his head and rolled his eyes as if he couldn’t stand the lies I was telling, as if this whole thing was a farce, despite the fact that he’d been the one to arrange it.
“How did you manage to overpower him?” Raghnall asked, practically shouting to be heard over the crowd.
“I didn’t,” I answered honestly. “He had me pinned to the ground, my own blade hovering over my throat in my hand which he held above us, but I dropped the blade. As quickly as I could, I caught it in my other hand and rammed it up into his stomach. I didn’t…”
I broke off again, fighting for composure as I took a deep breath.
“I didn’t want to kill him,” I said. My voice cracked and the whispers began again. Raghnall looked like he was going to interrupt me so I rushed on before he could. “Bade was my friend. I cared about him. But we are the creatures our Houses make us.”
At that, I turned my glare to Cosmo who was still shaking his head as if in disbelief.
The crowd became deafening, some even shouting out angrily about what they thought of those ‘creatures’, but the Tribunal only had eyes for me.
Nascha’s face was impassive. Her lips were a flat line and her eyes held no hint of her emotion.
Whether she thought I’d done well or not was impossible to tell.
Raghnall was furious with the crowd’s reaction, moments away from leaping back to his feet and shouting at them all to be quiet again.
Cosmo was a study in simmering rage. Though he didn’t show it, affecting a casually dismissive demeanor, I knew him well enough to see the anger radiating off of him in waves.
“Where did you go after–” Raghnall began.
“Were there any witnesses?” Cosmo called over him.
I watched the Viper Patriarch carefully. He just stared right back, not a hint of his plans on his face.
“No,” I replied.
“So we’re to take your word for it that Bade attacked you first,” he said.
“I’d just left the House of Harlowe,” I reiterated. “I had no way of knowing Bade would even be on the Second. How would I–”
“How do we even know you’d been inside the House of Harlowe? Do you have someone who can vouch for you there?”
“I–”
“How do we know this wasn’t all an elaborate lie made up to continue the torment your House has been leveling on mine since your Heir stepped into his role?
You could have gone down to the Second to follow Bade.
You could have cornered him in the dark and stabbed him in the gut without him even knowing you were there.
You could have left him bleeding on the street in front of the House you’d later conveniently claim to have left moments before.
Your temper is a well known thing, Olympia.
There isn’t anyone here who wouldn’t believe you capable of such violence. ”
“I would never–”
“Did you or did you not attempt to kill the Champion Adrian at a party held in her honor at my home nearly two years ago?”
“I did, but–”
“Did you or did you not set fire to a home on the Second Ring you believed was a front for rebel activity?”
My jaw fell open in surprise as I looked helplessly to Milo who was no longer leaning against the wall. He stood straight up, eyes whipping from Cosmo to me and back.
“Did you set the fire, Olympia?” Cosmo barked, rising from his chair and leaning over to point at me.
“I–I don’t–” I stammered, lost.
“It’s a simple question. There are witnesses who place you at the scene that night, witnesses who said you walked away from the blaze with a bleeding fist, that you didn’t even look back as the neighbors ran with water and towels to smother the fire and put it out.”
“Yes! Yes, I set the fire and I tried to kill Adrian but that was different. That wasn’t–I would never kill Bade!”
“Because he’s a First Ringer?”
Cosmo cocked his head to the side and I realized, too late, what he was doing. The crowd was eerily silent as he spoke again.
“Adrian was from the Third,” he reminded us. “That house was on the Second. You did those things. You admit to them. And yet, you claim you could never possibly think to hurt Bade. Is that because he’s from the First?”
“No,” I answered vehemently, shaking my head. “No, that’s not it. That–”
“Enough!” Raghnall bellowed. “The girl’s prejudices are not on trial here, Cosmo, nor are past sins. As I recall, you were the one who kept her from being charged over the incident with the Champion.”
“A failure on my part I will pay for with my grandson’s blood,” Cosmo replied dramatically.
I turned away from them then, away from the Tribunal, away from my cousin and Luca who stood only a few feet away from him.
I peered into the crowd, now glaring back at me with fury to match Cosmo’s, searching.
He had to be here. He wouldn’t have missed this.
He would know it wasn’t true. He would know I hadn’t done those things because of the rings.
“You will keep your questioning to the matter at hand or I will relieve you of the privilege itself, am I clear, Cosmo?” Raghnall chastised.
Cosmo answered with a solemn nod but, before Raghnall could continue his questioning, Nascha spoke.
“Olympia, why do you believe Bade attacked you?”
I turned toward my grandmother, blinking as I tried to regain composure long enough to comprehend her question.
“Why do I think he did it?” I asked to clarify.
“Other than what you’ve already claimed about him being ordered to do so.”
I watched her for a moment, trying to guess how much she wanted me to divulge, but her expression gave nothing away. I was on my own.
“It seemed as though he wanted the…” I hesitated. “I think he was after something I had in my possession.”
“Did he get it?”
“No, Ma’am.”
“What did you do after you killed him?”
“I–”
I broke off here as well. Those memories were the worst of all. I took a deep breath to brace myself and then launched into the story.
“I was hurt fairly badly myself,” I said. “My arms were bleeding a lot. I was drifting in and out of consciousness. I dragged myself down to the Third–”
“Why?” she asked. “Why didn’t you go home like you intended?”
“I was afraid that Bade wasn’t the only Viper out to get me that night. I didn’t go to the First because I didn’t feel safe there. In my weakened state, I needed to get to someone I could trust. So I headed down to the Third and made my way to the apartment of a friend.”
“A friend on the Third Ring,” Nascha clarified and I nodded, beyond grateful that she’d known how to heal the discord Cosmo was intending to sow. “Then what happened?”
“He cleaned me up, helped me stop the bleeding, and let me rest to regain some of my strength. He wanted to go to my family, to get help from them, but I wouldn’t let him. I was worried they were still after me.”
“Once you were healed up enough to leave, where did you go?”
My gaze shifted to Cosmo.
“Straight to the Vipers to turn myself in for what I’d done,” I answered.
More murmurs drifted to my ears from behind my back. The crowd sounded far less angry than they’d been before when Cosmo was accusing me of prejudice against the lower rings.