“King Alvere is alive. We got word from the capital that Merlin is holding him for ransom. She’ll return him to Vauphan once we and they recognize her as queen… of both countries.”
“Bloody Pits!” I couldn’t help myself.
Grizzly gave a significant look to Ursa. Ursa’s look was just as cool. “She needed to know.”
“You weren’t going to tell me?” I blurted.
“We didn’t want you running off before we’d had a chance to determine our course of action.”
“And if it were your wife, someone you loved, would you wait?”
Grizzly grumbled. It was clear he’d not want to wait either. “From what I hear you have many ‘loves.’”
I tried not to shout at him. After taking a moment to calm myself, I answered with, “Don’t we all have many people we love, who we’d die for, who we’d want to rescue from madmen or madwomen?” I knew he was sleeping with not only Ursa, but also Blackclaw. I was sure he loved more than one person himself.
He grumbled again. “And what do you plan to do, knowing this?”
I very much wanted to run off and save Alvere immediately. But… “I will wait and see what this Council decides,” I said diplomatically.
“And if you don’t like it, you’ll do your own thing?” Lady Tanuki said with a faint grin.
I looked at the calm visage of the astute woman and nodded. “Pretty much, yes.”
She sighed. “Oh, to be young again.”
“There is more,” Ursa said. “You should know the Vauphani nobles are strongly considering taking Merlin up on her offer. From what we’ve heard, they were not too happy with some of the things Alvere had begun in his short reign as king. He’d talked about doing away with the nobility apparently, and they think themselves more likely to keep their titles under this new queen.”
“That’s only because they don’t know her.”
“Exactly.”
This wasn’t good at all. “So, what is our plan?” I asked.
The assembled Nobles looked at each other. It was clear they had all been thinking about this but not decided anything. “We were waiting for you,” Grizzly said stoically.
And in that moment, it became clear to me. Despite the many years of experience of the lords and ladies gathered in this room, all they had ever done was debate minor changes to government and protect their lands. They had no clue how to deal with a situation like this. And the truly stunning realization was, I did. I’d been battling mistweavers and dealing with internal intrigue for nearly all of my — admittedly short — Noble career.
But before we got any further there was one thing — a curiosity that had been driving me mad — I wanted to know. I turned to Lord Drake and asked him directly, “You have a spirit-gift, yes? What is it?”
Everyone looked at him.
“Apparently my secret is out.” He grimaced, his dark eyes drilling into me. Then he sighed. “But yes, perhaps it is wise for us to share our various gifts if they might be of use in what is to come. I, as Lady Legs knows, can see things others cannot. I see people’s auras and can often determine how they feel by seeing even the slightest change in their expressions and carriage.”
So that was it.
Grizzly shared that he had a gift of strength, making him far stronger than he should be. That was it. No others had gifts they were willing to tell us about. I told them of myHerogift, and we moved on to planning how to defeat Merlin.
“Can I get a chair?” I asked. “I think we’re going to be here for a while.”
And at that, several of the others visibly relaxed. For all of their seniority over me, I’d just taken control of this meeting… and that had been exactly what they’d wanted.
Interesting. Very interesting indeed.
Didn’t I tell you that you were destined for great things?Auwei said with pride.
I don’t know if you ever used those words exactly, but… thank you for your faith in me.
As you can see now, it was well deserved.
