“I’m sure you would have done the same. If your mágik was as strong as mine, that is.” I made sure to keep an air of authority in my posture and unconcern in my tone.
“Like father, like daughter,” she mused.
I could see the wheels turning behind her eyes, planning and plotting. My lips curled up at the corners. “You have no idea.”
I ended the dream with a finger fluttering wave, an infuriatingly naive gesture.
Lady Adiran was intelligent, evidently so, but I knew in that last second, as the dream faded away, that she saw me as a bumbling idiot like the men who had come before me.
I could not wait to prove her wrong.
Chapter sixty
Seren
To say the council was less than thrilled with our unsanctioned expedition would have been a gross understatement. We were greeted at the palace gates by stern faces and cross words.
They ushered us through the outer grounds. The familiar clang of steel rang in my ears, reminding me of a time past, of my history in Ordelés and the path that had led me here. Sequestered in the council chamber, we faced a verbal lashing that was expected but harsh considering the outcome of the ritual.
I tuned out the voices as I waited for my turn to speak.
Nothing they could say would make me regret what we had done. It had been dangerous, to be sure—and to go without permission and protection had broken half a dozen Acsillan laws—but I would not trade the power bestowed upon us by the Goddesses, and the advantages it gave us, for the world.
“And how would we have explained that to the people?” Mira Pálinkás, the council's water wielder, questioned. “If we had lost the entire royal line in the span of a week, what would we have done?”
I sat silently, head down, while Ayla argued back, more impassioned than I had ever seen her. “It doesn’t matter what you would have done. That’s irrelevant. We have returned, mostly intact, and we are all the more powerful for it!”
“We need rulers we can rely on,” Araceli Basa countered. “Not children who slip away on a whim.”
“It was not a whim, Councilwoman. It was an educated expedition. We had the ritual in hand, the knowledge to succeed. And we had the necessity for it. Lady Adiran will come, and when she does, you will be grateful for the power Ayla and Seren now wield.” Théo explained the results of the ritual calmly.
“And what is your plan moving forward?” Ignatius Imre asked, his voice dripping with acidic sarcasm.
I drew in a deep breath, nodding as I collected my thoughts.
“What does the public know?” I asked in confirmation of what I already suspected.
“Nothing,” answered Hesperia Farkas. “We have done our best to ensure no information has been allowed to leave the premises.”
“We will need to make a public statement. The official story will be that Claudian killed the king and was subsequently arrested for high treason. It was always his intention to deal the killing blow, and it explains his imprisonment more easily than the full truth.” Voices erupted around me, but I raised a hand.
They fell silent once more.
“Before we involve the public, we must put a stop to Lady Adiran and her plans for us.” I paused before dropping the final piece of my plan into their laps like an unwelcome visitor. “Our power is strong enough now to defeat her, but we must lure her to us. To do this, we will stage a royal wedding between myself and Harkin Aranti.”
Outrage was the overwhelming emotion at the table.
My hands trembled, and I shoved them beneath my thighs. I shouted to be heard. “She will not know the wedding is a farce.”
The council needed to believe it was not real until it was too late.
“It will be a trap to lure her, a spectacle that she cannot refuse. The wedding will be held on the solstice, which is the perfect time, in her mind, to execute her plan,” I explained. “I have already planted the seeds in her mind during a dreamwalk.”
“We will allow you a few minutes to discuss,” Ayla gestured toward the door, and we joined her, exiting swiftly into the antechamber.
Harkin drew me into a comforting embrace. His heart pounded against my chest, mirroring my own. Our feelings were real, and our future undecided—left in the hands of the council members and the decision being made behind closed doors.
I rested my cheek against Harkin’s shoulder, breathing in his familiar scent of amber and pepper. In an unspoken moment, I hoped we might choose each other no matter what the council decided.
