A man in a poofy wig cleared his throat. “Is it a problem if the guild removes some debtors from the city? Those who can’t pay for their own food are only a burden on our kingdom.”
My hands clenched on my armrests. I felt that same anger rising again. I’d grown up often hungry. I knew there wasn’t the tiniest chance this man had ever missed a meal. “People are going hungry because we owe them money. They’re good, hardworking citizens. They don’t deserve to be turned into slaves under a thinly veiled premise.” It wasn’t okay for anyone to go hungry or be enslaved, but I thought it more likely the assembled nobles would care about theoretical taxpayers.
My appeal didn’t work. Disapproving murmurs ran through the crowd. “King Uctor promised them money, not us,” the nobleman said.
“But you all benefitted from the World Games.” My voice came out more plaintive than I liked. I straightened and tried to adopt the harsh tone of the Blood Duchess. “The man who made the decision to buy on credit has regrettably returned to the Sun God. But the king’s debt binds the entire country of Arahasnor. All of you had the option to refuse when the king asked you to sell him materials for the stadium—commoners couldn’t turn down a royal request. The royal treasury is empty, so in order to pay our citizens what they are owed, we must all contribute. Countess Donya contributed all of her personal money and World Games winnings to keep the government running this long.” She hadn’t told me to throw in that part, but I felt salty. “I’m asking you to reach into your hearts and find compassion.”
A worrying lack of compassion stared back at me from the increasingly hostile faces.
“I simply don’t see how any of this ismyproblem.” A lady in a yellow dress stood up and headed for the door. The rest rose to follow suit.
“Wait! Please!” I shouldn’t have begged. I was screwing this all up. Tears stung the corners of my eyes.
Ari stood at attention and bellowed, “Arrest anyone who tries to leave!”
The guards shot into motion, blocking off the door and crowding around the nobles. A shocked hiss ran through the crowd. A woman pretended to faint, then got up off the floor after she realized no one was paying attention. I cast Ari a grateful look. He winked at me.
I clapped my hands. “Everyone, please sit down.” I didn’t want to arrest anyone, but I couldn’t just let them all leave, either. That would mean failing Donya and all of Arahasnor.
“You can’t do this,” someone in the middle of the crowd said in disbelief. “A noble who attacks another noble dies from violating their life-oaths.”
Everyone stared at me, alive and showing no sign of strain. I tried to smile confidently, but it came out as a grimace.
“It’s a bluff.” With those confident words, the crowd moved for the door again.
“Stop,” Ari growled. The guards raised their pikes to bar the door.
“The Conclave of Kings will hear about this!” The noblewoman in the yellow dress marched toward me.
I flinched. I knew this was a mistake, because her smile widened with triumph.
She lowered her voice. “If the Conclave of Kings learned of how you’ve beaten your ward, then your regency could be called into question.”
Anger wiped away my anxiety. She’d known that the real duchess had been beating Antonia. How many people in this room had known and done nothing to protect that poor child until their own interests were being threatened?
I steeled my resolve. Raising my voice, I cried, “Arrest them all! Some time in the dungeons will let them think about how they’d like to vote.”
The woman’s face paled as a guard grabbed her arm. I stared her down with all the fury in my heart.
The nobles didn’t fight. None of them were armed, and they largely seemed confused and disbelieving about the situation. As theywere dragged out of the room, they all kept shouting about life-oaths and the Conclave of Kings.
Once Ari and I were alone in the throne room, I sagged back into my seat. By that point, I’d soaked my expensive dress with sweat. “Do you think I went too far?”
“You went exactly far enough,” Ari said. “Don’t worry, we’ll just let them cool their heels in the dungeons for a few hours. We’re not going to actually hurt anyone. But we needed to do this in order to prove that life-oaths don’t kill you. That puts the nobility in quite a tight position—their life-oaths still stop them from raising troops against you, but you can do whatever you please to them in return. You have all the power here. They’ll cough up the money you need to stave off Arahasnor’s destruction.”
My hairstyle had fallen apart. I pushed sweaty strands off my forehead. “Someone who controls an army but isn’t bound by life-oaths … doesn’t that make me a dark lord?” The title had always been gender neutral, probably because the dark lady was what adherents to the Sun God called the adversary. Who got declared a dark lord revolved around politics rather than any exact definition. The Conclave of Kings had been known to quibble over whether the leader of a large bandit group counted. But the primary purpose of the entire system was to prevent war from breaking out. Anyone who led a country had to swear life-oaths not to wage war, or be declared a dark lord and have every country in the Conclave unite to destroy them.
“That’s correct, but I wouldn’t worry too much about the Conclave of Kings,” Ari said. “They spent two years sending Dark Lord Kaine warning letters while he was building up his army. By the time they get around to doing something about you, you’ll be back in your real body, and I’ll have killed the duchess. No one will ever know what happened. They’ll be left confused as to how Duchess Hedri broke her life-oaths.”
“We need a cover story.” Body swapping was a mythological power, but other types of magic could be used to change appearances, create illusions, or control people. “If we don’t have an explanationfor breaking the life-oaths, it will become a bit too obvious that I’m an imposter.”
“Then you might lose control of the Sherdan guards.” Ari frowned. “The nobility will hesitate to attack you because they’ll die if they’re wrong, but the guards didn’t swear life-oaths.”
I’d been thinking about this since my conversation with Donya, and I’d come up with an idea. “My sister told me the treasonous former Head Cardinal Jiang had a relic that could break life-oaths. A cane he carried everywhere. She said the Conclave of Kings ordered it burned after his death because it was deemed too dangerous to exist, but she secretly kept it.” I smiled at the memory, because that kind of trick was exactly what Ysabel would do. As someone who’d been bound all her life to become a human sacrifice, of course she’d see the value in keeping around something that could break life-oaths. Also, she’d always been a sneaky weasel. “My sister made half a dozen fake replicas and gave one to Donya.”
Ari beamed, catching on to my plan. “Good idea.”
“Jiang took his cane everywhere. Any noble in Arahasnor would recognize it. The cane’s power became notorious after he used it to kill the former king and queen.”
