Chapter 12 #2
“That is what happens to anyone who doesn’t treat the magvis appropriately, as I made very clear moments ago. You were in attendance, were you not?” The patient question was a stark contrast to the threat underlying the words.
Jonathan stopped his blubbering, delicately scooting his seat forward once more. “Yes, Princeps. My apologies. I did not expect it—”
“Her.”
“I’m sorry, Princeps?” Jonathan asked, confusion deepening the wrinkles around his overly wide mouth.
“I believe you meant her, not it.” Harthon’s gaze slid to me. “As you can see, the magvis is a very lovely woman. Her name is Etarla.”
Something in my belly jumped. Surely, Harthon had only called me lovely to emphasize his point.
“I…yes, she—Etarla—is very lovely indeed.”
“Etarla is here because she is more powerful and important than any of you. She now plays an integral role in this Territory, and thus, she is privy to our conversations. Any questions?”
No one spoke.
“Good.” Harthon straightened in his seat.
“Now as I’m sure you’ve guessed, Koerlyn is not happy that we have the magvis and he does not.
We’ve been dealing with minor incursions, but he will be increasing his efforts.
He will not stop attacking us until he has Etarla.
As such, I’ll need you to prepare your men to be drafted.
There are more battles coming, and they won’t be easy. ”
“Are you going to continue taking his land in the meantime?” the man across from me inquired. In his forties or fifties, his brown hair was slicked back from hawkish features.
“It won’t be our focus, but it will be a consequence of the final outcome. This will only end in killing Koerlyn, at which point I plan to inherit his Princeps throne,” Harthon answered impassively, as if he weren’t speaking of killing a Princeps conquering an additional Territory.
“With the magvis in hand, that should be easy, no?” The question came from a man next to Ana who resembled Jonathan.
“The magvis is very powerful, as you know. But her power must be used sparingly, and Koerlyn knows that. It is best we plan to conquer him with men.”
“When should we expect these men to march?”
“Within weeks. Our offensive will depend on Koerlyn’s.”
There were a few grunts of acknowledgement, and then a middle-aged man from the end of the table spoke. “What about the Domus, Princeps?” Symmetrical features and short, dark hair made him handsome, while unmarked skin implied he had never seen battle.
“What about it, Harold?” Harthon asked, sounding bored.
“Well, a magvis was who erected the Domus. Can your magvis not take it down? Expose Centralis and whatever it contains?”
It was as if Harthon had anticipated the topic, because he smoothly responded, “We know what happened to this land when the Domus was erected. The consequences of removing the Domus may be worse. It is not a risk I will take now, especially as we are dealing with Koerlyn.”
He fibbed to the Lords with a practiced ease that both awed and worried me. The man was a good liar. Would he use that skill against me? Had he already used it against me?
“Is she here of her own will?” Jonathan eyed me as if I were a dangerous animal.
Almost imperceptibly, Harthon’s eyes narrowed. “Do us the pleasure of asking your whole question.” The request was thick with warning.
Jonathan was either too ignorant or too arrogant to heed it. “Well, if the magvis is not happy here, what would stop her from turning on us?” The loose skin of his neck wobbled against the four thick necklaces draped around it.
Harthon stilled. “Do you think I would have invited a threat into our Citadel?” The temperature in the room plummeted, the roaring fire doing nothing to quell the cold tension coming from the head of the table.
“No, Princeps, of course not,” Jonathan rushed. “But the magvis is not human. We cannot know the thoughts passing behind those horrid eyes.”
Witch. Monster. Kill her.
I bristled under the haughty tone. He spoke as if I wasn’t even in the room, as if I didn’t have ears that could understand his words. Anger simmered beneath my skin, the itchiness too much to ignore.
“My eyes are horrid?” I interrupted with a smile, watching as shock widened the whites around his irises.
The other Lords stiffened.
His lips moved as they searched for words. “Well—”
“Perhaps you meant intriguing, or lovely, or enchanting.” Not that I believed in any of those descriptions.
“Yes, of course, magvis.” He struggled to maintain eye contact for longer than a second, turning from me, to his peers, to the table, and back again. No one intervened as he clearly hoped.
“To address your concerns, I have many thoughts that pass behind my eyes. None of them involve harming this Territory.” My smile dropped. “Though quite a few now involve you.”
His face paled, and I indulged in it. Here was a privileged Lord, one with power and status and self-importance, cowering to a lowly village girl.
Harthon had mentioned the benefits of being feared.
I knew now that if one wasn’t careful, they could abuse and drown in that power. It was rather intoxicating.
I continued the facade for a moment longer, allowing my horrid eyes to traverse over every seat. “If anyone has further concerns or questions about the magvis, do not speak as if I’m not here. Ask me.”
Of all the Lords, only Harold and the hawkish man across from me met my gaze, which eventually landed on Harthon. It could have been my imagination, but I thought I saw his lips twitch.
“Give me the status of our education implements,” Harthon ordered, moving the meeting forward.
I listened intently as each Lord reported on their domain.
Harthon had apparently mandated that all children learn to read and write, and if the Lords were being honest, both boys and girls in the cities were attending lessons for two hours most days.
The villages, though, lagged, as the people there resisted the efforts.
“They do not see the value in it. It’s difficult to convince them.” Harold stated. He’d reported the best compliance of all, but even then, some of his communities refused the mandate.
“Likely because those in the villages are still struggling to survive. When a child learns for two hours, they cannot help their families for two hours,” Ana said.
“What of the weekly provision runs from your cities?” Harthon asked.
Silence.
Harthon waited.
Harold cleared his throat. “There have been some logistical challenges to work out, but mine are now regular. It is helping.”
Harthon acknowledged his input with a nod, then continued to wait for others to speak.
Agonizing seconds stretched before Jonathan’s neighbor spoke. “Many of us are still working on the logistics.”
As in, none of them were doing a thing to support their people.
While I didn’t know the details of these supply chains, it was clear that each Lord was to help transport resources from their cities to the smaller villages.
Doing so would rob them of the ability to gorge on food and waste materials on frivolous uses.
Harthon blinked. “Here are the logistics that I will implement if the situation does not improve by our next meeting. I will personally send soldiers to each of your homes, and they will take the resources from your kitchens and estates and disperse them to the villages.”
A few murmurs of protest arose.
Harthon silenced them as he leaned forward, dark promise swirling in his irises. “Any resistance against my soldiers will be perceived as a threat. They are trained to eliminate threats. Feel free to test them.”
“I’m sure we can figure out the logistics,” a Lord murmured.
Harthon shifted back in his chair. “Good. Any concerns you would like me to hear?”
The rest of the meeting was swift. It consisted of a few requests to raise taxes, which Harthon only permitted for those working in the cities. There was talk of choosing successors, should Koerlyn’s attacks result in a Lord’s death, and then the Lords blessedly filed out of the room.
Ana nudged my arm. “Entertaining, right?”
“They do enjoy making asses out of themselves, though some of them were okay.”
“It often depends on the day,” Harthon commented dryly.
“Why do you even have a cabinet, then? You’re the Princeps. Can’t you just get rid of them?”
“It’s tempting, but an upheaval like that would cause me more problems than solutions. Counseling a cabinet is a sound idea at its core. The pompous asses ruin the spirit of it.”
That they did. Despite being Princeps and living in a glorious Citadel, Harthon was quite the opposite of pompous. He carried himself as a warrior, a worker, rather than an elite. While I’d known this since he first took me, it struck me for the first time how unusual this was for a Princeps.
Ana shrugged. “Maybe a few of them will die if Koerlyn brings his fight here.”
“As convenient as that would be, that’s not what a minister should say,” Harthon admonished, though there was no heat in it.
She cheekily grinned. “You’ve said before that we’re leading in a different way. This is my different way.”
“So long as you keep that different way behind closed doors.”
“Of course, Princeps.”
The exchange was either friendly banter or flirtatious banter, but I couldn’t distinguish them if I tried.
Not that I’d ever really learned the intricacies of relationships, growing up so isolated in my small village.
Though I wasn’t sure why, yet again, I cared about Harthon’s romantic connections.
He wasn’t my friend or anything more, and his relationships had no bearing on my status here.
It was a stupid thing to think about.
I came out of my thoughts to see Harthon and Ana standing, waiting for me to do the same. Quickly, I slid my chair back and stood, a pointless flush threatening to invade my cheeks.
It wasn’t like they could read my mind.