This earned a chorus of agreements from around the table. Only one man stayed silent: the barrel-chested, black-skinned Vizer Sotar. He was also the only man with a fully operational brain in this entire room.
He flung Vivia a sympathetic wince now, and she found it … well, more welcome than she cared to admit. He was so much like his daughter Stacia, who served as Vivia’s first mate. And were Stix here right now—were this Vivia’s ship and Vivia’s crew—Stix would lash out at these weak-willed vizers instantly. Mercilessly. She had the temper that Nubrevnan men respected most.
But Stix was inspecting the city’s watchtowers today, like a good first mate, while Vivia was trapped inside, watching slimy Serrit Linday quieting the vizers with a wave.
“I have a proposition for the High Council. And for you, Your Highness.”
Vivia rolled her eyes. “Of course you do.”
“The Purists have offered us food and the use of their compounds. Across Nubrevna and beyond.” He motioned to a map that Vizer Eltar was so conveniently unrolling at the perfect moment. “Our people could be safe, even beyond our borders, if the need arose.”
Sotar cleared his throat, and in a sound like stone on stone, he declared, “Placing our people outside Nubrevna is called invasion, Linday.”
“Not to mention”—Vivia planted her hands on the table—“there must be some cost to this. No one—not even ‘noble’ Purists—act for free.” Even as she voiced this argument, though, Vivia found herself staring at the unfurled map.
It was a simple outline of the Witchlands, but paint had been dripped wherever enemy forces were closest to Nubrevna. Yellow for Marstok, speckling the east and south. Black for Cartorra, scattered in the west. Blue for Dalmotti, gathering in southern waters.
And finally red, thick as blood, for the Baedyed and Red Sails pirates circling Saldonica and the Raider King’s armies, still far to the north … for now. Heavy rains kept the Sirmayan Mountains water choked and uncrossable.
Come winter, that might change.
Vivia dragged her eyes from the map. From all those colors and all the senseless death that they might one day become. “What do the Purists want, Vizer Linday? What is the price for their food and their walls?”
“Soldiers.”
“No.” The word boomed from Vivia’s throat. Explosive as a firepot. Yet as she straightened, sweeping her gaze across the table, there was no missing the interest that had settled over the Council. A collective relaxing of vizerial faces.
They had known what Linday planned to propose; they’d agreed to it long ago.
Serrit Linday ought to be castrated for this.
Vivia tossed a look at her only ally and found Sotar’s dark face withdrawn. Disgusted. He, at least, was as surprised as Vivia by this turn of political sidestepping.
“The Purists,” Vivia said, “will turn our people against the use of magic.” She launched right to march around the table. “They consider magic a sin, yet magic—witches!—are the one thing that have kept Nubrevna safe and independent. You, Linday, are a Plantwitch! Yet you see no problem in giving our citizens and our soldiers to the Purists?”
Linday smirked as Vivia strode past, but other than a slight tipping back of his head, he offered no response.
“What about your family’s Stonewitchery, Quihar? Or your son’s Glamourwitchery, Eltar? Or your wife’s Voicewitchery?” On and on she went, until she’d reminded every single vizer of the witches that mattered most to them.
Each imbecile Vivia passed, though, was suddenly quite interested in the state of his cuffs. Or his fingernails. Or some stain on the wall that only he could see.
Until Vivia was back at the head of the table. Then, it would seem, tiny Vizer Eltar suddenly found his testicles, for he piped up with, “At least if our people are with the Purists, it is fewer mouths to feed at the prince’s funeral.”
For a moment, those words knocked around in Vivia’s skull. Prince. Funeral. They were a meaningless descant to the beat that thumped in her ribcage.
Then the words settled like sand in a tidal pool, and Vivia gripped the nearest map. Crushed it in a white-knuckled grip. This feeling she did not have to fake, for only a week ago she’d argued against that funeral with every breath inside her. A waste of expenses, she’d shouted. A waste of precious materials, people, and time! The dam needs fixing and the people need feeding!
The Council hadn’t listened, though. Nor had her father. Of course not. Merik had been everyone’s favorite. He’d had the Nihar rage, and he’d had the good sense to be born a man. Easy, easy—that was how Merik’s life had always been. No resistance. Whatever he’d wanted, he’d gotten.
Even his death had been easy.
Before Vivia could offer more choice words on the funeral, Linday chimed in, “You make an excellent point, Eltar. We must properly honor the dead, and we cannot do so with this many people in the city.”