With that business out of the way, Hallie thought Lamorat might pause, but he had a hard glint in his eye as he looked around the table. She wondered what he was going to suggest next.
A soft cry of alarm was the first warning she had that not everything was going well. She turned her head and saw more people coming into the chamber through the partially destroyed emergency exit that Peredur and the others had cleared. Too late, she, Girard and Accalon had been completely distracted by witnessing the Conclave in session. The first outsiders to do so. That mistake had cost them.
It wasn’t the large group that had arrived before, armed to the teeth, but a much smaller group of five people, two of whom she knew well.
“Didn’t miss me at all, did you?” Hoel Buchanan asked, descending a few of the shallow steps towards the centre of the Conclave chamber. He had stripped off his Conclave robes at some point since Hallie had last seen him, revealing the same black body armour that the tactical team wore. He’d sheathed the sword at his back and had supplemented it with a compact automatic weapon of some kind, settled in a holster by his side. He carried the matte black gun with the same ease as the tactical team wore their weapons. The two blondhochlenmen stood slightly behind and on either side of him, their eyes watchful as they looked over the room.
Hallie’s attention slid past Hoel to the man standing nearby. Findo Trask. After weeks of chasing him across the world, he was now in the same room as her, but on his own terms. Theveondkenwas dressed in a pale dress shirt, its collar open, and dark trousers, his bronze skin and black hair with its vivid red streaks a stark contrast to the three pale-skinned, fair-hairedhochlen. He looked perfectly at home, perfectly confident in the place where onlyhochlenhad set foot until now. The self-assurance made Hallie uneasy. He might be young for his kind, and prone to violence, but Findo was not stupid. He would not have come here, into this space and face to face with the Conclave, without a plan. The sheer arrogance of his presence here took her breath away even while she tensed in anticipation of what he might do.
The final member of the group was a human who Hallie recognised, both from the photograph she’d seen and from her glimpses of him, as Russet Welliver. The photograph had shown a defiant man staring back at the camera. And the witness that she and Girard had spoken to had described him in unflattering terms, making it clear he had seemed dangerous. He did not look dangerous just now. Standing in the Conclave chamber he seemed small. He looked deeply uncomfortable and uneasy and Hallie realised that one of the unnamedhochlenhad a tight grip on Russet’s arm, forcing him to stay close. There was a faint trace of magic in the air around the group, which seemed to centre around Russet, making Hallie wonder just what his role in all of this had been. And who was creating the magic for them. She hadn’t sensed any magic from Hoel or Findo in the past and nothing she had learned about Russet suggested he had any magic capabilities. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at thehochlenholding on to Russet. Trying to focus sent a sharp pain through her skull, but she felt magic from him. So the magic user had been one of Hoel’s people.
Hallie managed to get to her feet, along with Girard, and realised, with a sinking feeling, that the two of them and Accalon were the only three people with weapons facing Hoel and his group. She did not like those numbers at all.
Accalon was on the next step up from Hallie and Girard and out of the corner of her eye, Hallie could see that the young man had his hand on his weapon but hadn’t drawn it yet. She hoped he would continue to be sensible and stay still. She had seen more than enough people die that day and over the past few days to last her a lifetime.
“What do you want, Buchanan?” Lamorat asked, voice cool and holding more than a bit of contempt. Hallie measured the distance between Lamorat and Hoel, and between her and Girard and the other two, and realised she was not going to be able to protect Lamorat from where she was.
“I haven’t changed my mind,” Hoel answered, taking a few more steps into the room. His eyes flicked over the faces of the Conclave members, all turned towards him, and then on to Nanters and Cladas, who were standing, huddled together, a short distance away. “Turned you away, too, did they?”
“Removed us from the Conclave,” Nanters said, outrage in his voice and face.
“And you, too,” Cladas added, with a hint of vicious satisfaction. Hallie thought was distinctly foolish, considering how easily Hoel had killed another one of their group earlier. But perhaps Cladas was too shaken or angry to care about what was wise and what was not.
“It doesn’t matter,” Hoel said carelessly. Hallie’s eyes narrowed. He meant it. Mostly. There was something else there, including quite a bit of anger, which grew as he went on. The knot in her stomach was back, wondering what also Hoel had planned. “The Conclave is finished. Grown soft and weak. My father and his father would never have stood for it.”
“You are quite wrong, you know,” Lamorat said, still standing at the head of the table, apparently composed and untroubled by the threat of Hoel and his group. Hallie had to admire his courage. Even though Lamorat was most likely wearing body armour under his robe, it wouldn’t stop Hoel’s sword, and enough bullets would still kill him.
“What do you know of it?” Hoel sneered.
“I sat around this table, and others like it, with your father and grandfather for many years before you were born. Before your father had ever met your mother, in fact,” Lamorat said, in that same calm, cool voice. “Your grandfather was wise beyond his time. He saw the need for change, the need for reform.”
“He invited me onto the Conclave,” Cotovatre said, her voice as calm as Lamorat’s. “And he wanted a variety of voices here. Not justhochlen. Human, too, and non-human.”
“That is an outrageous slur.” Hoel was almost shaking with anger, face white apart from spots of colour high on his cheeks. “You are lying.”
“No,” Ocvran said, heaving himself to his feet with a weary sigh. “I was there, too.”
“We do not call you young because of your years,” Lamorat added, “but because of how you view the world. As if it should be in the image you expect, and nothing else. Those of us who have lived longer or travelled more understand that there is more than one way of doing things.”
“You are all lying,” Hoel said. He was shaking now, and strode forward, reaching for the automatic weapon. “You will take that back. All of you. You dishonour my father and grandfather’s names and memories.”
As Hoel moved, Findo moved, too. No one but Hallie seemed to notice, all their attention on thehochlen. So the rest of the room let out a collective gasp of shock when Findo growled, low in his throat. “This is more than tiresome.” Theveondken, onthe stair above Hoel, reached forward, took hold of the hilt of the sword Hoel was carrying on his back, drew the weapon and swung it all in one, smooth move. Hoel’s head parted ways from his body and dropped onto the stair, rolling down the remaining steps to the floor, a shocked expression forever locked in place even as his body swayed then crumpled to the ground.
More screams sounded around the room, and the Conclave members closest to Hoel’s head scrambled to move away from it as if it might explode. Hallie didn’t blame them. They had endured a lot of shocks that day. She didn’t have time for them, though, turning her attention back to Findo Trask.
Theveondkenwas standing, blood-drenched sword still in hand, looking around with a faint, mocking smile on his face.
It was only then that Hallie realised the twohochlenwho had flanked Hoel had not moved, had not done anything to protect him, or to seek revenge for his swift and brutal death, not even the one who possessed magic. The two blond men looked down at the headless body with barely a change in expression, then turned their gazes to Findo.
“Your orders, sir?” one of them asked.
Hallie knew she was not the only one who gasped. She had never heard of anyhochlendeferring to aveondkenand had never thought it possible.
“Stand by,” Findo told the two armed men in a careless aside over his shoulder, then turned back to the Conclave. “What, you thought Hoel was in charge?” Findo grinned, showing a lot of bright white teeth. “A useful tool, nothing more.”
“Findo Trask, I presume,” Lamorat said. He was still standing at the head of the table, Cotovatre nearby.
“You presume right,” Findo answered, still grinning. He looked around the table, then back at Lamorat. “And you would be Lamorat Lucas. And Cotovatre. I’ve heard a lot about both of you.”
