Blackstrom shot him a withering look, the ruddiness in his cheeks deepening at whatever affront he took from the question. “If they had been, you would’ve heard about the example we made of them.”
The Clockwork Brigade had its claws sunk deep in Daijal. Its influence in Daijalan culture was something the Iverson bloodline had been incapable of excising, no matter the laws passed. People would offer up their lives for a dream, and they’d risk the same for freedom.
Having Ashion nominally under the Daijal court’s control hadn’t stopped the Clockwork Brigade. If anything, the Inferno had emboldened them. For all that Eimarille prided herself on knowing things, Ashion’s spymaster—whoever they were—knew more secrets than she did.
The argument picked up steam amongst the parliament representatives. Bernard set down his memo, listening to the words fly back and forth with a faintly displeased expression on his face. Whether it was for the argument itself or its underlying subject, it was difficult to tell. He’d let them argue themselves into a fractious disarray that would accomplish nothing, and that wouldn’t be a problem if the underlying rebellion was anywhere else but the clarion crystal mines.
Eimarille stood, drawing all eyes to her, effectively silencing the argument being tossed from one side of the table to the other. She ignored the way Bernard’s mouth tightened and how Wesley frowned at her.
“Gentlemen, I understand your concerns, but there is a solution if you are willing to see it through,” Eimarille said calmly.
“And what would you suggest?” one of the lords asked.
She ignored the lack of title addressed to her in favor of driving her point home. “The new banking laws allow for a broader interpretation of nonpayment. We must follow the bloodlines attributed to the debt slaves in the mines. Go through the genealogies however far back will be useful and take all of their families as collateral. Apply the debt bondage clause and make their indentured servitude the supposed rebels’ punishment for this ill-advised tantrum.”
Several of the men at the table dropped into murmured side conversations at her words. Eimarille remained standing, meeting the gaze of every man who chose to look at her without bowing her head. When her attention made its way back to the king, he’d masked whatever irritation he may have felt about her speaking up.
“Depending on the reach of the genealogies and who the law picks up, some bloodlines may wake up to an unpleasant surprise,” Bernard finally said.
“That’s the risk everyone takes when doing business with banks, Your Majesty.”
“I would not see loyal bloodlines targeted.”
Eimarille knew they had vastly different ideas of what constitutedloyal. “Then we can allow them to pay the blood fine.”
There were ways for the rich to sidestep the laws and pitfalls of doing business with banks. Most people paid collateral with their lives. The new law gave the option to those who were an accessory to debt to pay their way out if they had the means. In the grand scheme of things, few would be able to pay.
And that was the point of these new laws.
To provide bodies that would, eventually, die for her and become useful in a war no one knew was coming.
Bernard waved a hand at her in a commanding way, and Eimarille inclined her head at him before sitting. She’d planted the seed, and if she had her way, greed would make it grow.
It would be three more days of meetings, all of which she attended, interjecting her thoughts with the precision of a marksman, to gain the support of an action that would tear families apart. But it would pad the bottom line of several of the men seated at the table and many more in Daijal parliament, to say nothing of the king’s coffers.
It was a small victory when Bernard signed off on the order that issued an accusation of treason against the debt slaves rebelling in the clarion crystal mines. The laws were clear that people paid what they owed on a loan, or they worked it off. Now, society would learn that a debt belonging to one person could ensnare generations, and its reach crossed borders.
Eimarille wanted the rebellion in the mines to be crushed. She wanted the new law to make those who gave their loyalty to an empty throne that burned with starfire in Ashion to think twice about acting against the crown she would one day wear.
“The Collector’s Guild will make a pretty auron on this job,” Wesley said over dinner after everything was set into motion.
Eimarille cut into her roasted chicken and dragged the piece through the buttery sauce on her porcelain plate. “As long as the Collector’s Guild does its job, then yes, they will be well paid.”
Bernard twisted the stem of his wineglass between his fingers and thumb. “Is this what you hoped to use these laws for when you requested them as your wedding present?”
They sat at the table in the royal family’s private dining room: the king, the crown prince, the crown princess, and her Blade. The queen had taken ill after the wedding, and no amount of healing magic or medicine had cured her lungs of the rot slowly taking hold. The doctors and healers whispered behind closed doors that they didn’t expect her to live another year.
These days, Queen Aleesia ate alone more often than not, in her bedroom that Bernard rarely visited. Theirs had not been a love match, but Eimarille knew the queen loved her son dearly and influenced him in ways even the king could not stop. To gain Wesley’s agreement in anything, one needed the support of his mother.
Which was why Eimarille always took tea with the queen, as she had every afternoon on the first day of the week since she was a child when present at court, and let Terilyn pour for them. Habit meant no one ever suspected the root of such illness was found in the dregs of a teacup handed over with a smile.
“I only wish to expand our right to rule,” Eimarille said, affecting a demur manner. She set her fork and knife down, allowing herself to smile at Wesley as if he meant the world to her when he never would. “Is that not what any parent wants for their children?”
Wesley choked on his wine, eyes going wide as he coughed to clear his throat. His gaze snapped from Eimarille to his father, then back again, disbelief clear in his eyes. “Children?”
Eimarille shifted on her chair, leaning back far enough to settle her hand over her still-flat stomach. “I’m pregnant, my dear.”
Wesley’s jaw went slack as he stared at her, while the fiercely pleased expression on Bernard’s face wasn’t comforting at all. To anyone else, the king would appear as excited, but Eimarille knew he was now counting down the days when she would outlive her usefulness to him.
