I somehow find the chair beneath me and sit, and wait as Eogan’s expression turns darker than I can ever recall seeing it. His hand shakes and even his shoulders appear to quiver. “Someone bring another who has more respect for Bron’s tradition and its king’s wishes. And see that this one is—”
Sir Gowon steps in. “I’ll see to it, Your Majesty.” He beckons for two guards and Kel, who doesn’t look back as he strides, neck stiff, eyes straight forward, out of the room after Gowon.
Another boy enters as he leaves. He’s a head taller than Kel and his features are harder, fiercer.
He’s one of the group who’ve been glowering at me.
Without waiting for the guests to recover from their shock or for the injured man to prepare, he pulls out a straight, twelve-inch-long blade and lunges at the man’s leg.
The soldier utters a cry as the strike lands, and he drops to one knee. The boy’s gaze goes hard.
I push my chair back.
Myles’s hand is on my arm again faster than I can blink, pulling my wrist down to hide the blade. “Don’t be a fool. Make a scene now and you’ll embarrass the Assembly and endanger all of us.”
“I refuse to sit here and watch a child be used for blood sport. Even the other boy saw the idiocy in this.”
“At their ages, they’re considered soldiers. They’re showing off technique. It’s a rite of passage.”
“And the injured man?”
“Welcome to politics, sweetheart. This is where we pull our panties up and pretend to approve of another world’s customsss. Now put the blasted blade away and let the poor man die with dignity before you get usss all killed.”
I wrinkle my brow and look toward the door Kel was led through. “What are they going to do to him, you think?”
“Shh.”
I glare at him. I can’t watch this. I turn toward Eogan’s table. “Your Highness,” I say in a voice that carries farther than intended.
The room stops. The cheering stops. All movement stalls.
The edge in Draewulf’s eyes is sharper than anything that’s drawn blood tonight.
I nod to the warrior and the boy standing with his blade held up for the death blow. “I applaud your plan for demonstrating the same compassion you’re known for in Faelen. By showing the use of killing as a last resort rather than sport. Just as the previous boy was displaying.”
His calculated smile falters. “Ah, you speak kindly of my reputation, m’lady. But here in our home culture, would you have me rob this boy’s honor? Where would the compassion be in that?”
“Is it not King Eogan’s sense of honor that showed mercy on Bron and Faelen that saved both our lands? And thus would it not be more honoring to these warriors who have shown such skill in fighting, to show control through mercy?”
His face goes blank and flickers confused before it softens. A flare of green widens around his black wolf pupils, and abruptly there emerges something majestic in his face. Noble. I inhale. Because I swear it’s the Eogan I know. He begins shivering, and it’s so hard that he clenches the table with his hands as he looks from me to the boy and frowns. He starts to rise just as Isobel slides her hand over his chest and leans down to whisper in his ear. The green fades and his grin returns, more twisted this time, changing into the same smirk his daughter is wearing.
He releases the table.
“Interesting words spoken from the woman who chose not to withhold her Elemental mercy from many loved ones missing from this room. Alas, I promise you’re soon to discover mercy and death are often the same.” He waves at the injured man, now spitting up blood, and commands the boy, “Finish it.” He twitches his fingers at the guards behind me.
The straight blade comes down with a repulsive thud.
I look away only to realize the soldiers’ blades are poking into my back. “You’ll join us in the corridor,” one snarls. “Alone,” he adds when Myles begins to rise.
I clamp my gaze on the lord protectorate oaf and slide my knife back into its makeshift sheath. Myles’s glare is asking what the hulls I’ve just done because not only did I fail to save anyone, I may have doomed the rest of them. I don’t blame him. Of all people, I should know that compassion without the power to change anything is futile. Is dangerous.
Stumbling to the door amid the angry guards and daggers, I glance back to see Draewulf’s expression. Instead of gloating, he’s wincing. And when I trail my gaze to the hand resting on his chest, I see it belongs to Isobel.
She grins and blows me a kiss right as the door opens and I’m pushed through.
“No!” I cry out, but the metal shuts in place behind me.
“You’ve been invited to Bron by special request of Lord Myles,” one of my Faelen bodyguards says in my face. “Do you realize what those people think of you? What they could do to you?”
“Her being here is already an offense,” growls a Bron soldier. “She’s lucky we didn’t just cut her down then and there.”
Their irritable words—they keep tumbling out, swirling around reproachful faces that are all glaring and yelling at me.