by Casey Lane
“We’re not accusing anyone here,” another man said. His thick French accent pointed to House Guillory. A house more traitorous than the lot of us, they wanted the Fortescues out of power as much as anyone. Except they kowtowed to the Fortescues’ every whim, biding their time. They were the real backstabbers of the Council. Always waiting in the wings for a chance to rise to power.
“Oh really? What exactly do you classify as a traitor then?” Evelyn Fortier asked shrewdly. She was Oliver’s mother, and damn near close to family, but not a woman I would’ve crossed. I could already imagine it, her blue eyes peering at the man across the chamber. A slight frown would grace her lips, the only look she wore at a Council meeting.
“Your son broke that terror out the night before her execution—”
“The girl has a name. If you’re going to condemn her to death, you could at least do her the courtesy of using it,” Evelyn said.
My eyes watered in gratitude, the thanks I’d never be able to voice.
“So, you’re condoning his actions?” House Tormenta fired off. The Spanish were renowned for their volatility and blindly served in the name of keeping their superiority.
“My approval or disapproval doesn’t matter when we haven’t yet heard his statement, nor anyone else’s, for that matter,” she replied. Deft as always, even with her words.
“Council Member Fortescue will—”
“Will what, Ivan? Last we checked you’re not a Fortescue and shouldn’t speak as one,” Iain Kearney piped up, blasting the Member of House Branislav. I bristled at the sound of the Bulgarian House that had aided in the execution of my own. Those beastly people still gave me nightmares, but they hadn’t spoken out during my trial, and I’d focused my energy on the bigger danger. The only one yet to speak.
“Speaking of House Fortescue, where are they?” Helen Graeme—Scar and Seb’s mother—asked the question that had been on my mind since I’d arrived at the doors to the chamber. Anastasia didn’t stand Council Members questioning her, and Aldric only allowed it when he felt he had something to gain.
“Feeling guilty, Council Member?” House Lis replied smoothly.
Helen Graeme wasn’t one to be goaded. “I’m not on trial, Lis. Save your questions for someone who has to answer them.” At least I knew where Scarlett had gotten her temperate personality. Subtle as a brick.
“Is that evasion I hear in your voice, Helen?” the man asked. He was treading a dangerous line in openly disrespecting her by using her first name.
“Where is House Fortescue? I will not ask again,” she said. Her tone came across as annoyance, but I noticed a distinct note of concern.
Thunderous steps demanded my attention as someone came up behind me. I turned just enough to see a Witch so dark he was truly black. He stepped carefully around us, and the guards yanked me back against the wall roughly. After three knocks on the heavy oak door, he pushed it open slowly, allowing the Council Members to situate themselves. Swung wide, the doors caught, giving me a clear view of the room.
“Your Head of Council has sent me, bearing g-grave news,” he announced, dabbing beads of sweat from his smooth-shaven scalp.
“Get on with it, boy,” Guillory snapped at the Witch, looking down on him as though he were filth on his shoe.
His hateful eyes made my blood boil, and heat flooded my head, making me feel woozy with power. A tight squeeze to my arm reminded me of the guards holding me back. I looked at the Witch, along with the rest of the Council, waiting for a reply.
“Aldric Fortescue is dead, killed by Vampires in the early rise. Anastasia, as his heir, has been appointed Head of Council and will grace you with her presence shortly,” he announced.
Silence was followed by rapid murmurs that grew to furious shouting as the Council no longer pretended to be anything but what they were: the plague of our world.
“Dead? What do you mean dead?”
“How could this happen?”
“We must evacuate at once if the High Council—”
“There will be no running. Let them come!” It was Iain Kearney’s booming voice that rang out over all.
The other members looked at him, some in abject horror, others with a steely determination to stand with the burly Irishman.
“Vampires? Tell me, boy, how Vampires killed the Head of the Council. I see none here. I haven’t heard any call of alarm. So, when did they get here, and where are they now?” Council Member Berg inserted in her thick German accent, her face stoic as ever. She came from a House made of earth-users, and she was one of the most level-headed on the Council. Unfortunately, her son was currently in the bowels of Fortescue mansion, a half-breed and one of the strongest earth-users of the generation.
“Are you doubting—”
“Do not put words in my mouth, Guillory,” she warned the sneering Frenchman. “Let the boy talk.”
Every pair of eyes in the room turned to the servant. His hands quivered a tad too much as he locked them behind his back, only visible to me and my guards.
“The b-break o-out last night left a h-hole in security. Several of the Made broke through and w-w-were not noticed in the commotion. Council Member Aldric Fortescue was found d-dead a few hours ago.” He stuttered his way through the report, causing several sighs of exasperation.
“Why were we not notified sooner?” Helen Graeme asked, wasting no time beating around the bush.
The boy shifted uncomfortably before answering, “My m-mistress wished to be left alone t-to grieve, until she is r-r-ready.”
By this point, the Council Members were all exchanging glances. A shift in power at the top was always accompanied by a struggle for power down the ranks, but would any of them challenge her?
“And the Vampires? Where are they?” Council Member Graeme continued, pressing for as much information as possible before the chamber erupted in heated exchange again.
“Our late Head of Council fought valiantly to protect himself, but it was not enough. The bodies are being disposed of, the grounds are being searched now for survivors, but it appears the Made have all been eliminated.” The quivering behind the boy’s voice made me think he didn’t believe this story any more than I did.
“This is such a bloody crock of—” I started.
“Quiet, prisoner,” a guard snapped. He moved to jam a rod into my back and silence me, but, on my last nerve, I retaliated. I was done being treated like a damned prisoner they could manhandle when they felt like it.
Your fear of me was well-founded.
I shifted, sending my elbow back into one as I kicked wide for the other, missing his baton but hitting my target square in the chest.
“What’s going on out there?” House Lis hissed.
The servant boy stepped aside as I grabbed the other end of the baton. Wrenching it from my guard’s shaking hands, I then whirled it on the one currently holding me. As I brought it down on his head, he blacked out like a shattered lightbulb. I flipped around as the remaining guard tried to hold me. With my back to him and his hands around my waist, I grasped both ends of the baton and brought it over his head. Forcing his neck forward, I crossed my arms and threw my weight back, crushing his windpipe. A gurgling sound escaped his lips as he struggled.
“Stop her!” House Branislav shouted.
I pivoted to the side when he sent a falcon after me. It dived for the dying guard and landed with its claws in his eyes. The guard shrieked, strangling the bird before they both fell silent.
“Really? You’re resorting to that? You’ve already signed my death warrant. May as well wait for your beloved Head of Council to do it herself now.” I projected my voice, tapping into the power of the spirit realm to aid me. I had no intention of attacking the Council, many of whom were my friends, supporters of our cause. Instead, I took my seat in the rickety chair before the platform where my noose hung.
Be strong, Johanna. It’s just a rope. Milla said you would make it out of this. Trust in her, in the Maiden.
“How dare I?” I asked Ivan Branislav. How fitting that he shared a name with Ivan the Cruel.
His wild brown hair was braided back, and he wore the skins of his kills for all to see. The Branislavs were a people who truly had the soul of a beast.
“How dare I?” I repeated, swallowing hard. “How dare you? I am the rightful heir of House Kozak, and it was not your, or anybody else’s, right to strip us of our name because we were not pure-blooded Supernaturals.” The blood of the guards covered my hands, but I was done shying away from the blood of those who deserved their fate.
“Look at you! Look at all of you! You position yourselves on your pedestals, believing yourselves better than the common man, and condemn us to death for something your Head of Council did. Where is the justice in that?”
Several of the members looked away. All those who fought with me, aided my cause, they couldn’t agree with me now. Not without taking themselves down too. They could think it, though, and fight in the only way they knew how.
“So, Council Member, with all due respect, the real question you should be asking yourself here is why your lovely Head of Council is not here, because, if I remember rightly, she was meeting with—”
“I’m glad to see they already brought the prisoner. Someone fetch a servant to clean up the guards in the hallway, and get that damned bird off my floor!” a cold voice snapped from behind me.
How fitting for her to show up now.
A chill ran down my spine as my family’s killer rounded the noose and ascended to her seat in the centre.
Not a word was uttered as they rose in unison and bowed their heads before their dark queen. Her eyes were rimmed red, but I wasn’t fooled. I’d seen the way she hungered for power, the contemptuous glances she’d given her grandfather. This was all too convenient.
“I would like to ask the Council to reconsider Johanna Kozak’s verdict.” Her silvery voice rang out across the chamber. Her blue eyes shifted to mine, no trace of a smile gracing her lips, and I froze.
I didn’t know where her sadistic smile had gone, but the cold look in her eyes didn’t bode well. Something had happened out there, because this wasn’t the same Anastasia Fortescue I’d come to know. The look in her eyes was more dangerous than any noose. They were colder than normal, more desolate than any desert I’d crossed.
There were worse things than death. Wasn’t that what I’d said?
I prayed I wasn’t about to find out what.
Chapter Thirteen
Why on earth would she want to reconsider my verdict?
I didn’t know a power alive that could swing my balance so swiftly from one side to the other. I should’ve been grateful but this defied any logical explanation.
“Why now? On the morning of her hanging? With all respect, Council Member, I know your grandfather’s passing—”
“He did not simply pass away,” she hissed. Her cold eyes turned on House Lis, not fooled by their pretty words and charlatan ways.
“Of course, but—”
His breathing hitched, eyes widening as he reached a pale, trembling hand to rub his clammy forehead.
“Did you question my grandfather’s choices?” she asked pointedly, holding him under her cold gaze.
“No, of course not,” he whispered reverently, bowing his head while still rubbing his temples. This was a new trick. Something I hadn’t seen before.
“Then what makes you think you can question mine?” she spat. Only when she turned away, did the man’s symptoms stop. He loosed an unsteady breath, leaning back into his seat.
The Council said nothing, and for once, neither did I.
“Now, we have a verdict to reconsider. It has come to my attention that we have a very real war on the horizon with the High Council. Their power has gone unchecked too long. In light of this morning’s events, I propose an amendment to Miss Kozak’s sentence. We cannot fight a war on two fronts. The girl considers herself a force to be reckoned with, and after her little prison break, I cannot disagree that there are better uses for her demonic gifts than the noose. She has inspired a rebellion, of sorts, and no matter how premature it may be, I will not make a martyr of her.”
Her words were carefully chosen. Guarded. If the warning flags hadn’t been there before, they were now. She’d never openly admitted to a rebellion, nor had the rest of the Council. Not good. Not good at all.
“I propose that Johanna Kozak’s sentence is carried out in servitude to the Council. She will hunt both the Made and the Born with her dark powers. Then, when the war is won and she is no longer useful, she will meet her end. All those in favour?”
Every single person in that room exchanged glances, as if asking who she was to make demands of the Council. Aldric had ruled with authority and an iron fist, but this wasn’t even pretending to take the others into consideration.
“And the others, Council Member?” House Guillory said, wasting no time before sucking up to the next Fortescue in charge. No one cared that a man had just died. It was the Supernatural way.
Oliver liked to say that they were impervious to death’s sting, but I thought nothing was farther from the truth. Supernaturals feared death because they didn’t understand it. It was part of the reason they could be so ruthless, but also why they couldn’t fathom their own lives ending. The concept was beyond them because of their pride. It would make the traitors in this room all the easier to spot when they thought their children were going to die.
“We haven’t yet heard testimony from them, and you would sentence—” another Fortier, Evelyn’s sister, Abigail said. I’d always liked her, but her soft heart would get someone killed.
“There’s no time for a full trial. They’ve already killed my grandfather—who’s to say they will not come for me next?” she demanded, but the Council didn’t offer an answer. They didn’t seem to notice the hint of fear in her voice. “I leave it in the hands of the Council to do what you’ve sworn to do. I want an answer from every House. Given that the Council has already come to a verdict, Johanna Kozak will be put to death when she’s exhausted her uses. The others will be tried at a later date to determine their loyalties.”
My stomach squirmed. I didn’t like her lack of an answer about what would happen to them. This was her play? In response to a mass breakout and a dead Council Member, she wanted a hit squad against the very wankers she was in cahoots with? I shook my head, not believing what I was hearing.
“House Tormenta, your answer?” she pressed, beginning the vote.
“Servitude, my Lady.”
“Branislav?” she continued.
The dark-eyed man looked down at me, his lips pulled back in a wicked sneer, exposing his aged, yellow teeth. “For all your efforts and brave speeches, you will die a slave.” He spat the words, spittle spraying across the desk. I glared up at him, biting my lips as I fought to contain my retort. “Servitude, Council Member,” he said.
That was two out of ten, and Anastasia was going to vote yes.
“House Lis?”
“Slavery,” he hissed. His wicked grin chilled my blood, raising the hair on my arms. At least he called it what it was. I already saw where this was going, and it wasn’t pretty.
Think of Jayma, I chanted internally.
“Guillory, your vote?”
“I vote servitude as well, Your Highness.” He even added a little bow at the end. Was she royalty now? Might as well be with how she was treating this transition of power.
Anastasia didn’t smirk, though; it was like she hadn’t even noticed as she continued down the list.
“Graeme?”
Helen didn’t look at me, but she swallowed hard before speaking. Her jaw set just before she said, “Death.”
Under other circumstances, I would’ve balked, and even been hurt. Not this time, because whatever Anastasia had planned for me, I knew I’d prefer death.
Think of Jayma, you selfish cow. Would she give up because
the road looked hard?
I couldn’t look away when she called Iain Kearney. The giant of a man glanced at me, glassy eyed, as he choked out, “Hang her.”
Then came House Maestri, Donte’s family. They were pure as pure came, and no supporters of mine. When they voted for death, it shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. While they detested the Fortescues, they were too cowardly to ever stand against them. Even Donte had only found the courage after his sister’s death.
“House Berg?” she asked. I was only two votes away from a tie.
“Her honour lies in the dragon, Council Member. Try as you might, even stone cannot tame fire. Death.” Lady Berg’s words were short and to the point. A compliment and goodbye masked behind logic. Always the realists, and I loved them for it.
“It comes down to you, Council Member Fortier, to decide Johanna Kozak’s fate. Do you wish for her to serve or hang now and be done?”
I didn’t look in Evelyn’s direction. I couldn’t. Instead, I kept my eyes locked on Anastasia Fortescue. She was my judge, jury, and executioner, despite the imitated act of democracy carried out here.
Evelyn sighed deeply. Both sides of this coin were bad, and deep down, even I didn’t know what she would say.
“Any day now, Council Member. You have a choice to make, and if you do not voice it, I take it by default,” Anastasia said curtly. This was her move: choose or lose her vote. Pay no mind that there’d been no one there to choose for Jayma or my parents when she’d come calling.
I ground my teeth, gripping my arms tightly across my chest.
“You have come before this Council without delivering answers, and now expect us to change a verdict you’ve argued for from the very moment this girl stepped foot in here. She’s on trial for her life, and my own son hasn’t even been afforded that pleasure. I must ask, Council Member, what will become of the rest of them? My child and many others were led astray by this rebel, and you want to keep her alive? To use her and them for some sort of gain in a war that isn’t theirs to fight?” Evelyn Fortier was a force to be reckoned with, and wreak havoc she did.