Harthon silenced them as he leaned forward, dark promise swirling in his irises. “Any resistance against my soldiers will be perceived as a threat. They are trained to eliminate threats. Feel free to test them.”
“I’m sure we can figure out the logistics,” a Lord murmured.
Harthon shifted back in his chair. “Good. Any concerns you would like me to hear?”
The rest of the meeting was swift. It consisted of a few requests to raise taxes, which Harthon only permitted for those working in the cities. There was talk of choosing successors, should Koerlyn’s attacks result in a Lord’s death, and then the Lords blessedly filed out of the room.
Ana nudged my arm. “Entertaining, right?”
“They do enjoy making asses out of themselves, though some of them were okay.”
“It often depends on the day,” Harthon commented dryly.
“Why do you even have a cabinet, then? You’re the Princeps. Can’t you just get rid of them?”
“It’s tempting, but an upheaval like that would cause me more problems than solutions. Counseling a cabinet is a sound idea at its core. The pompous asses ruin the spirit of it.”
That they did. Despite being Princeps and living in a glorious Citadel, Harthon was quite the opposite of pompous. He carried himself as a warrior, a worker, rather than an elite. While I’d known this since he first took me, it struck me for the first time how unusual this was for a Princeps.
Ana shrugged. “Maybe a few of them will die if Koerlyn brings hisfight here.”
“As convenient as that would be, that’s not what a minister should say,” Harthon admonished, though there was no heat in it.
She cheekily grinned. “You’ve said before that we’re leading in a different way. This ismydifferent way.”
“So long as you keep that different way behind closed doors.”
“Of course,Princeps.”
The exchange was either friendly banter or flirtatious banter, but I couldn’t distinguish them if I tried. Not that I’d ever really learned the intricacies of relationships, growing up so isolated in my small village. Though I wasn’t sure why, yet again, I cared about Harthon’s romantic connections. He wasn’t my friend or anything more, and his relationships had no bearing on my status here.
It was a stupid thing to think about.
I came out of my thoughts to see Harthon and Ana standing, waiting for me to do the same. Quickly, I slid my chair back and stood, a pointless flush threatening to invade my cheeks.
It wasn’t like they could read my mind.
Ana rested a hand on my shoulder. “If I don’t see you later, Etarla, I’ll check in tomorrow before you leave for Fifth. Thanks for making Jonathan quiver like a child.” That hand then patted my shoulder like we were old acquaintances—like I wasn’t their prisoner—before she smiled and twirled away, the scent of roses following in her wake.
That scent lingered when the doors closed behind her, leaving me alone with the warrior-leader who’d strung up those bodies in the distance.
“I’m typically the one to make my cabinet shrivel,” he said, closing the distance between us with slow, lazy steps. He stopped speaking long enough for me to wonder if I’d overstepped, but then one side of his mouth curved. “You handled Jonathan well.”
Still discomforted by Ana’s gesture, I rubbed the shoulder she’dtouched. “These eyes may as well be good for something.”
“How about you spend the rest of the afternoon using them for some reading?”
I scrunched my brows. “Reading? What about training?”
“You hide it well, but you’re hurting from last night,” he observed, examining the discoloration on my cheek once again.
I hadn’t complained or winced once while in his presence, and yet he saw straight through the façade.
Still, nothing was painful enough to keep me from learning how to save my own life. “I’m fine. I’d like to train.”
A brow raised. “Your cheek is yellow, your fingertips are still raw, and I imagine your body doesn’t appreciate how hard the stone floor was.”
Swallowing the urge to touch my cheek, I doubled down. “You’re right, but I’m used to working while not feeling my best. I can train.”
