by E. J. Beaton
“Oh, certainly. And I suppose we should all let you walk away with a source of untapped knowledge, should we?” Luca said. “Shall I remind you that the Academy is the only place equipped to examine such an animal?”
With another smack on the table, Dante intervened, this time arguing that no one should touch the chimera. Cassia’s replies grew ever more belligerent. Lysande looked past the end of the table and caught Pelory’s eye. She nodded ever so slightly.
“If you please, Your Highnesses,” Pelory cried, producing a volume that no one seemed prepared for.
Jale and Cassia paused in the middle of trading insults.
“Perhaps we should address the question of a leader.”
Lysande rose, aware of her cheeks heating but determined to keep the flush from them.
The advisors, captains, and followers were staring. She had expected this, and she expected a challenge, too: the reiteration of her words in the Pavilion, the order her memory was too well-trained to forget. You will rule together until the White Queen is dead or imprisoned and Elira is secure.
Every head in the room was turned in her direction. She wished Sarelin could have seen her now. City-rulers and nobles waiting for her next move, and she was no longer brittle, nor unwilling; she simply had no guarantee that this plan would work.
“It is our duty to see the realm through this struggle,” she said, “and that is why I propose—not a monarch, but a leader of the Council. Someone must coordinate our tactics, oversee five armies, and deal with the foreign lands. We might call them our Consul.” She looked around. “It was what rulers elected by their peers called themselves in the Classical Era.”
Silence continued to cloak the table. Luca pushed out his chair and stood up. Lysande saw a few hands hover over hilts.
“I nominate Prince Fontaine,” she said.
A sudden brawl of voices: a dozen different speakers clashed with each other; the room filled with exclamation, yet no sentence could be heard except in part, as if a troupe of poets were competing to grind each other down. The noblewomen beside Jale shouted something about a plot, while several people insisted that there had been an agreement made between Axium and Rhime, and the Pyrrhans flung their objections through it all. Eventually, Luca leaped up onto his chair.
The speech was everything Lysande had expected. “Are you not aware that there have been thirty-four attempts on my life since I was crowned prince? Eighteen attempts at poisoning, nine attempts at stabbing, three attempts at shooting, two lunges with a garotte, one sabotaged saddle, and one strategic use of a mad dog.” He looked around the table. “You need a leader who can survive anything, if you want the realm to survive.”
“So we should vote for a ruler who is constantly under siege from the populace?” Dante folded his arms.
“Every ruler is constantly under siege from the populace. The question is whether they know it.” Luca smiled. “And whether they are ready. How prepared do you think we will need to be for the White Queen’s next attack, Dalgëreth? Will it take a week? A few months? Or a lifetime of understanding the minds of murderers?”
“And you have been studying the minds of murderers since you were a boy, I take it?”
“Naturally. I grew up in Rhime.”
Cassia took over from Dante in interrogating Luca, bombarding him with questions about strategy. While Luca described his commitment to defending the cities and hinted at funds tucked away in the vaults of Castle Sapere, he returned most often to the benefits of having a single leader: the freedom it afforded the others to tend to their own domains.
“You will soon find a great advantage in running your cities in person, as you used to. No one likes a mob breaking down their palace walls.” Luca assumed an expression of concern. “Are you really willing to believe that in your absence, nothing will go wrong?”
She could see Dante nodding, and Jale ruminating, tapping his rings against the table. Luca was correct, last night, she thought. They’re worried.
She watched the lines of Luca’s torso as he gestured, and thought of how he had gasped, softly, hungrily, and utterly without control, when she shifted her body onto him.
Luca sat down, and Pelory called for any other nominations. After a moment, Cassia rose, pushing back her chair with a scrape of wood. Lysande felt her breath hitch.
“I nominate Councillor Prior,” Cassia said.
Lysande stood. She was aware of Luca’s lips parting as he stared at her. This time, Pelory had to raise her voice incrementally until the room accepted her order to be silent; Cassia tapped her chest with her fist, over her heart. Lysande felt taller at once.
“Let me lay out my promise,” Lysande said, loudly, before Luca could speak. “Prince Fontaine has made many good suggestions, and I cannot claim his experience. Yet I claim a powerful motivation. It was my advisor, Lord Derset, who led us to this pass, and I swear to you that I will atone for what he did.” She drew a piece of parchment from her pocket and unfolded it. “Where Prince Fontaine offers broad promises, I have a specific plan.”
“Goddesses below,” she heard Lord Malsante whisper to Carletta Freste. “Did His Highness know about this?”
“If he did, I’m a Lyrian dancer,” Freste muttered.
Lysande had expected her hands to be trembling. They were not. She let her gaze pass from face to face, feeling the weight of the silence, holding it for as long as she dared. Across the table, she saw Luca’s jaw tighten, his face elegant and crossed by anger.
She got it all out, thankfully: the need to improve the conditions for the poor, ensuring that they were well fed and gaining many more soldiers in the process. Her recent law banning vigilante attacks and her Leveling Fund needed to be declared, too. There were protests, of course, but she spoke firmly. Next, she outlined the need to use their best minds to defend against the chimera, making use of their inventions and harnessing the talent of the Academy, with Pyrrhan inventors involved too. Then the need to embark on a course of diplomacy with Royam (“Royam?” Dante cried), whose people and leaders had, for much of Eliran history, been wantonly overlooked, as well as the need to repair relations with Bastillón immediately. Lysande let them know in a clear voice that she had compiled all the references to Royamese customs from the palace library. It was too soon, perhaps, to say anything about elementals, though she wanted to, with a fierce yearning; a beat tapped in her consciousness, a drum warning her to hold back, and she reminded herself to keep marching at her own pace.
Finally, she declared her intention to recover all books on magic and all accounts of the White War, beginning with those in the Academy. The spluttering and glaring from the Rhimese did not surprise her.
“Is there anything else you’d like to tick off your list?” Luca said.
In the corner of her vision, she caught sight of Cassia’s poorly suppressed smile. She wanted to grin back. You could bargain with allies, but with friends . . . with friends, you pledged yourself. You gave, and you hoped.
“I thank you for reminding me, Prince Fontaine. In fact, I mean to declare my intention to appoint Cassia Ahl-Hafir as an official Mistress of Chimeran Knowledge.”
“Mistress of—is this a joke?”
“Far from it. She will be responsible for investigating their biology, their mentality, their capabilities. Without knowledge, we have no hope of defense. Indeed, Prince Fontaine,” for Luca had begun to interrupt again, “without someone to gather facts about chimeras, how could I lay the right foundations to defend Elira? I would be rushing to seize power without a strategy. Not that I accuse you of any such thing, you understand.”
Voices clamored as the Councillors argued, and for a while, Lysande watched them. She let the discussion ebb and flow. When she was ready, she cleared her throat and looked around the table.
“I am but a scholar, and Prince Fontaine is . . . well, a prince. But as a scholar, I kno
w how to marshal facts and rule ideas. You know me as one who trained under Queen Sarelin. Let us not forget that before Axium Palace, I lived many years in a public orphanage. The people do not forget it, I promise you. When war draws near, they will lack courage, and who better to restore their valor than one whom they can relate to—one whose unpolished name they chant?”
“Is that another quote from the Silver Songs, Councillor?” Jale asked.
“No.” She cobbled a smile together. “I wrote that line myself.”
Amid the flurry of whispers that broke out in the Oval, Pelory managed to get over to her. Lysande and Luca were to leave the room immediately, Pelory insisted, while the rest of the Council considered the matter. Luca was escorted out with her, and Pelory shooed away the attendants who had stuck their heads out from doors.
Lysande walked to the painting of Queen Montfolk. The crown that nestled in the queen’s hands dominated the corridor, shining in the dim light, its paint brighter than the matte paint which covered the rest of the canvas. Lysande stood on the right side of the portrait. After a moment, Luca joined her, standing on the left of the crown.
“How bold of you,” he said.
“A prince once told me that I should be bolder when I jump. He said a horse would never do as I bid if I asked it politely.” Lysande could still remember the moment she had stood beside him, perched on a cliff, the white stone buildings of Rhime laid out before them.
“Very clever, those ideas about helping the poor—or is that using them?” He shook his head. “I could’ve protected you, Prior.”
“Perhaps you failed to grasp why I was trembling in the observatory. You see, I was shocked, but not because I threw my daggers into Derset.” She had wanted to say this to him before, in his suite, only she had not been able to find the words. They were arriving now. “The only thing more shocking than murdering someone is discovering that you don’t feel shocked at all. Or weak. Or horrified. Or any of those things you’re supposed to feel. I could have killed him again, Fontaine, sunk my blade into him again and again, until there were no places left to pierce.” She looked into his eyes. “So you see, I have no need for protection—from you or from anyone else.”
For a long time, he held her stare, and she could not tell what he was thinking, though she had the impression that he was seeing her for the very first time.
“I learned a saying, here in Axium, as a child.” She did not drop her gaze. “Restrain, constrain, subdue. We had to chant it in the orphanage, every day, to remind us not to speak too loudly, nor to step across any lines. I confess, I believed that every child in Axium learned it. I heard the blacksmith’s daughter say it to her mother on one of my trips to the city. But after I moved to the palace, I never heard a silverblood repeat that phrase—not a single noble, nor an advisor, nor the queen. I came to wonder if they had ever been taught it at all.”
“That would certainly fit with their official motto.”
“Everything in its place. Oh, yes, they all know that one.” She smiled, just a little. “When people have been showing you for years that you are not part of their group, then why should you borrow their words? Mottos are not goddess-given. People wrote them. It seems to me that a different kind of leader needs . . . new words.”
The door swung open and Pelory called their names. In the doorway, Lysande paused. She placed a hand on Luca’s throat and held it there, feeling the pulse. He stiffened.
The talk ceased as they entered the Oval again. It did not seem right to take their seats, with everyone staring at them, so they stood in front of the table. Lysande glimpsed Litany at the end, and she saw the girl’s hand slip instinctively to her dagger-belt.
Dante cast his vote first. “The more time spent running a city, the better one is at running a country. It stands to reason.” He shot a glance at Jale. “Whatever my personal thoughts, I must defer to experience.”
“Are you voting for me, Dalgëreth?” Luca sounded delighted.
“I hope I do not come to regret it.”
Lysande exerted all the effort she could to remain impassive. She inhaled, feeling the last vestiges of the golden glow. If she could take three spoonfuls of scale right now, perhaps the gold would speed through the room once more and enter her veins. She would stand as a tower: ready for a siege.
Cassia rose and declared her support for Councillor Prior. (“Now, there’s a surprise,” Luca remarked.) Lysande caught her friend’s eye and they exchanged grins, Lysande mouthing the word chimeras across the table.
Jale, however, announced that he was going to abstain. While Pelory checked the rules, Lysande waited, trying to ignore the whispering.
“It appears there’s a rule. Where all leaders of the cities are called to vote on one issue, anyone may abstain if she or he finds it impossible to reach a decision,” Pelory said.
“Well, there you are. Simply impossible for me, I’m afraid,” Jale said.
“A split vote. Perhaps we could have two Consuls,” Pelory said at last. “But as to how authority over the city-states would be split . . . without a precedent, the division is opaque . . .”
You mean you don’t have even the scrap of an idea, Lysande thought.
Dante called to one of his captains, who rummaged in a bag and unrolled a cloth. A stitched map of Elira confronted them. Lysande was suddenly reminded of the size of the land and the size of what she could be taking on; people always defined a country by its common characteristics of terrain and culture, but in fact, it was the differences between cities and towns, between one group of people’s beliefs and another, that constituted a realm. As she watched, Dante ran his finger down the middle, dividing the west side from the east, his fingertip stopping at the Grandfleuve.
“Lyria’s territory is vast,” Luca mused. “We could divide it between the two of us.”
“I should like the northern half,” Lysande said. “Where the bone people live. As Consul, my first act will be to take them under my authority and protection, by law.”
“Can we just reforge legal tradition like that?” Pelory said.
“I will melt it down myself, if I must.” Lysande met her gaze.
Luca shot Lysande a cutting stare. It was the last question to settle, however, and after bows had been made and hands shaken, Lysande and Luca agreed to have a draft of terms drawn up. Dante drew his sword and carved the map in two. The Oval erupted into applause and comment, guards and nobles swarming to the divided cloth, Pelory muttering something about the possibility of sewing the map back together with merchants’ thread when they could avail themselves of a skilled artisan. Jale thanked Lysande and whispered something about the bone people that she did not catch.
Pelory escorted the pair of them out, and Lysande hastened to keep up with her as they marched down the corridor. Her own body seemed warmer than usual, her chest hotter, but she kept the excitement running through her from showing on her face. It had worked. Unbelievably, it had worked. No silverblood had blocked her plan.
She had no notion where they were going. She needed a few minutes, a few breaths, to catch up with what had just happened, and the staff lining the walls seemed to feel similarly, peering after them. A pair of guards sprang apart at the entrance to the fifth floor. Lysande and Luca made their way along the corridor until Pelory waved them over to the largest window in the palace. The crowd spread out along the fence below, rows of people in emerald-hued caps and homespun shirts, talking and pointing.
“I anticipated that after the meeting, the populace would be waiting for you,” Pelory said, with a glance at Lysande. “We all need something to celebrate.”
She nodded, observing the crowd for a moment.
“I took the liberty of decorating the western balcony. In case you’d like me to lead you to a place where you might make an appearance,” Pelory said.
Clever. Put yourself in front of the populace
as queenmaker, she thought. She laid a hand on Pelory’s shoulder. “You’ve earned it. Still, don’t forget to remind the people that it was Captain Hartleigh who gave his life for them. They should be conscious of who they owe their thanks to, after all.”
She gestured to the corridor ahead, and Pelory led the way, walking less ebulliently now. Luca fell into step with Lysande. He did not smile, but nor were his eyes flashing with their dark fire; he was looking at the portraits of poets, captains, and nobles, shining from silver frames on the walls.
As they neared a family tree of the Breys, he slowed. “The orphan and the bastard,” he murmured. “I did say it has a ring to it.”
“Sounds like a pair of thieves.”
“Perhaps that’s what we are.” He stared at the tree. “Thieves.”
They stood, confronting the chart for a moment. A black patch covered the place where the name of Sarelin Brey’s second cousin should have been. It had been sewn on with many small stitches. She felt sure that Luca had noticed it.
“Since we’re to share responsibility, I wish to be clear, Fontaine. Don’t think for a moment that I’m going to sit back and assist you while you make the decisions.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t expect that, Prior. Not from a Consul of the realm like you.”
“The last Consul was stabbed to death in her courtroom.” Lysande’s gaze lingered on the chart. “By a group of twelve silverbloods.”
Silence answered her. She looked across to see Luca gazing thoughtfully at the black patch.
Rounding the corner of the corridor, they came out onto a balcony. Over the top of the silver and emerald ribbons tied to the rail, Lysande made out a sea of upturned faces. She did not attempt to still the nerves coursing through her. When you faced a sea, you could slink back onto the shore, or you could swim into the currents and ride them as they formed peaks, breaking and foaming, carrying you to a place where you might struggle to float.
Freste and Malsante were waiting for Luca on the left side of the balcony, holding his bow and his cobra, and on the right side, Litany beamed, clutching Lysande’s dagger-belt in one hand.