Maia set down her goblet and watched as Suzenne and Dodd, seated to one side of her, stole a lingering kiss. Though she was happy to see her friends reunited, their simple display of affection loosed a twinge of bitterness in her heart. She would never be able to kiss Collier that way. Her curse prevented it.
The city was ebullient with the unexpectedly quick and relatively bloodless victory, which was unprecedented in the kingdom. Only eighty men had died in the melee, seventy-five of them from Schuyler’s side . . . and a third of those slain by Jon Tayt alone. The freed prisoners had followed Jon Tayt into the thickest ranks of their foes and bludgeoned the fleeing soldiers into submission. The city watch had used their knowledge of the streets to hem in the escaping men. Soldiers had quickly stripped away their tunics and tried to disguise themselves, but the locals all knew each other, so the defecting soldiers found no shelter amid the populace.
Kord Schuyler had been found with a bruise on his head, wandering aimlessly in a nearby street outside a brewery. He had been brought in chains to Pent Tower. The leaders had all been seized—not a single one had escaped into the woods. The enemy soldiers, upon hearing Maia’s orders to seize the ringleaders, had turned on their masters and voluntarily brought them to the watch.
Aldermaston Kranmir had been caught as well and suffered a similar fate, and though Maia intended to let her grandmother devise his punishment, she asked that he be brought to her.
Sitting in her audience chamber, on the throne, Maia watched as Kranmir was delivered in chains. His gray cassock was smeared with mud, and without his mushroom-shaped hat, his dark hair was disheveled. There was a puffiness around his eyes, a pallor to his cheeks, but his lips still quivered with defiance and hatred as he gazed up at her. One of the soldiers who escorted him looked affronted that he did not kneel, and nudged the back of his legs with a poleaxe.
“Do not force him,” Maia said, giving the soldier a subtle shake of her head. She fixed her eyes on Ely Kranmir and waited for him to speak.
Richard approached the throne from the nearby bench, arms clasped behind his back. He looked stern but not angry. He positioned himself close to Maia, as if he were ready to personally defend her from an attack.
“What would you have me say?” Kranmir asked in a challenging tone.
“Only the truth,” Maia answered. She could sense the conversation would not go well. She had hoped to find him repentant.
“The truth,” Kranmir said with a half chuckle. “Oh, I speak the truth. I am an Aldermaston after all. And I wear chains.” He rattled them mockingly. “You have authority, Lady Maia, but you are not my queen.”
Richard took a step forward. “Do you intend to continue speaking out against Her Majesty’s right to the throne?” he asked in a formal, neutral tone. There was no hint of anger or resentment at all in his countenance. “I have had reports already that you have not been silent about your perceived injustices.”
“Perceived, Richard? Perceived? My domain has been stripped from me. I have been hunted by the royal wolves and treated with indignities unbecoming of my station. But so suffered the martyrs of the past as well. Yes, Richard. I am an Aldermaston, and I will continue to speak the truth about what this girl really is. I will tell the world what I have seen with my own eyes! You are the imposter, Richard. You are her pawn. I pity you. There will come a day when everyone will know that Comoros’s queen is nothing but a—”
“Be silent,” Richard commanded in a firm, powerful voice. “By the Medium, I revoke your power of speech. I strike you with palsy in your hands. You will neither utter nor write another word until your heart is sufficiently humbled. You have forsaken the ways of the Medium, Ely. Her Majesty has decided that the true High Seer will oversee your punishment. Take him away.” He gestured to the guards.
Maia watched as Kranmir’s eyes widened with shock and terror. His jaw moved, his mouth opened, but no sound came out. A rattling noise followed, and she watched his hands begin to tremble uncontrollably. She turned to Richard, whose face was firm and unyielding, yet free of any rage. He gestured for the guards, and one of them grabbed Kranmir by the arm and escorted him from the audience hall.
“Richard,” Maia whispered in awe.
He looked at her mildly and shook his head. “It was not my will, Your Majesty. Even the Medium grew weary of his disrespect.”