Fanon’s jaw shifted side to side. His butterfly glowed a deep orange, and he slouched in his chair like he wanted to be anywhere else. Cora braced herself for whatever hatred he was about to spew.
His voice came out tight. “Whatever I have said or done as steward is no longer relevant. We have our Morkara now, and our regent. I condemned the human queen as I saw fit when the authority was mine, but our regent has condemned those actions in turn. We have Ailan’s judgment now. You need not mine.”
Cora blinked a few times, surprised by his words. She wasn’t the only one. While his statement moved some to silence, it outraged others.
“We still can’t trust her!”
“How can we trust an alliance with a worldwalker?”
“She must demonstrate her worth as our ally.”
“She could use her magic at any time.”
Another ache pierced Cora’s temples as the arguments dissolved back into chaos. Devils below, she felt like she was in the council room with Lords Kevan and Ulrich, the target of their ire and suspicion. She never had managed to earn their trust or respect before they’d met their demise, but she had gotten her way a few times with a blend of truth and lies. She tried to think of some way to utilize those same lessons now, but she had just one idea. One that weighed heavy against her thigh and sent a memory of pain through her neck.
Breathing out a slow exhale, she rose to her feet. “Can I speak?”
The arguing voices went silent.
Ailan sat up straighter, brow furrowed. Etrix turned to her, head tilted slightly to the side. His butterfly flickered a deep green, then softened back to blue. “Yes, Queen Aveline. You may speak.”
“Your regent has already spoken on my behalf,” Cora said to the room at large, not bothering to hide the irritation in her voice, “so I will not repeat what has already been said. No, I cannot make a binding vow, and I know a human’s promise means nothing to you without one. All I can offer you is this.”
Cora extracted the collar from inside her robe. Her stomach turned just to hold it. She lifted it for all to see. “If you can’t trust my magic, then collar me until it’s time for me to return to my people. That’s all I can offer you.”
She held her breath, waiting for more arguments, or for one of the Elvyn to act and snap the device around her neck.
But Ailan spoke first. “Where…where did you get that? Why do you have it?”
Cora faced the regent as Ailan rose from her chair to stand beside Cora. The Elvyn woman’s eyes were wide as they locked on the item in Cora’s hand.
Cora was surprised by her reaction. While it was true she hadn’t mentioned the collar when she’d talked about her time in El’Ara, she’d had no reason to believe Ailan would be so shocked by it. “Fanon used this on me. It suppressed my magic.”
Ailan shot a fiery gaze at Fanon, her butterfly darkening to blood-red. She pointed at the device. “That was made for one individual.”
Fanon shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “It was made for a worldwalker. I brought it with us to investigate the trigger that had alerted us of an unwelcome intruder.”
“You shouldn’t have used it on her.”
He opened his mouth but quickly snapped it shut. His butterfly was almost as deep-red as hers now. “As you say, regent.”
Ailan marched up to Cora and snatched the collar from her hands. “No one will use this on her, or any of my human allies. This was reserved for Darius, and for him alone it will remain.”
Disgruntled murmurs sounded throughout the room, but Ailan spoke over them.
“Don’t you see now? The human queen has demonstrated trust in the only way she can. She offered to let us collar her, and we will let that be enough. She returned a priceless, irreplaceable item to where it belongs. It is perhaps the only thing that will give us a chance to defeat Darius.”
Another ripple of surprise moved through her. Cora had assumed the collar was a common piece of Elvyn technology, not a one-of-a-kind artifact.
“It didn’t work before,” one of the Elvyn said. Her expression was neutral beneath the glow of her yellow-green butterfly.
“That doesn’t mean it isn’t an advantage,” Ailan said. “Now, enough with this back and forth about Queen Aveline. She is my ally, and she has demonstrated trust like you demanded.”
When no one stated a word of reproach, Ailan returned to her chair. Cora did the same and was relieved to feel somewhat lighter. She hadn’t realized how much she’d dreaded wearing the collar again until it was taken from her hands. Ailan now held it in her lap, gingerly, as if it were precious.
Cora couldn’t help but wonder about it. Why was it so irreplaceable? What had the Elvyn female meant when she’d said it hadn’t worked before? Had they tried to use it on Darius? Had it been part of Satsara’s attempted wardweaving?
There was a story there, and Cora needed to know more.
