“Caldbon has declared me a usurper.”
Avette’s tone was light and amused, but the chill in the air became a stinging breeze.
The council—what was left of it—sat around the long table, silence ringing off the short but wicked stalactites that glittered above them. Norris, with his bruised and vacant stare, was seated alone with Bertha’s empty chair between himself and Mareda. Imogen sat on the princess’s other side, right by the head of the table. Doran had been eyeing her sourly, but his gaze now snapped up at the queen’s words. From where he stood, a few paces behind Avette, Ger thought he caught a flash of interest in the steel of the Captain’s eyes.
“Ausurper, Your Majesty?” was all he said. Incredulous;outraged. Who couldpossiblythink such a thing?
Benan stood behind their Captain, unable to suppress his jagged grin.
Avette hummed; Ger could see only the back of her head, with its slicked back waves and a crown that towered like icy battlements. From the way the blue light slipped and danced along the frozen walls, he knew she was holding her pendant in those long, white fingers.
“A temper tantrum,” she said mildly. The light flared, and every face around her was momentarily lit in blue. “They were displeased, initially, over the slowing of trade from the Laune as we tightened our operations at the ports. They cared little for our concerns over my missing betrothed, apparently. Soulless beast, that Caldbonian King.”
Doran nodded eagerly, and Avette sighed as though the same threat that so delighted him was a mere inconvenience to her. An annoyance.
“And now, tensions have quite escalated. Caldbon feels that the legal vote of ouresteemedCold Council holds little weight. They have declaredbothof my cousins bastard born, which I suppose is fair, and decided that little Isabelle is the true Heir to both CaldbonandEisalaan. Convenient, do you not agree?”
“Iseult,” said a small, toneless voice. The air in the room, forever cold and stirring like a gentle flurry, suddenly stilled. “My sister’s name is Iseult.”
Avette’s head turned slowly, catching Mareda in her sights for just a moment before she turned away, bored and dismissive. The moment her head was turned, Imogen’s hand curled briefly around Mareda’s wrist.
“Norris,” the queen called sharply, and the councillor flinched. “This is your area of expertise, is it not?”
“I don’t—birthrights, Your Majesty?”
Avette closed her eyes through a long inhale, and Norris’s already pale complexion drained.
“Foreign Affairs,” she said finally. “As theCouncillorof Foreign Affairs, dear Norris, I am asking for your counsel.”
He nodded, eyes wide in their dark hollows.
“Well?” she demanded, and the poor man flinched again.
“W-well if—if the conflict began with trade, and, uh—”
Norris was visibly sweating despite the biting cold, dew beading in his sunken eye sockets and all along his thinning hairline. Avette’s head lolled to one side, her sigh light and airy beneath the sudden creaking of the stalactites overhead.
“—and we have frozen the—the ports—”
Norris stammered over the growing sound, blinking away the sweat that dripped into his eyes as he tried to shoot a cautious gaze at the slowly sinking ceiling. Ger’s heart gave a timid stutter, almost inquisitive in tone. A fun little game, really. He’d call itWill I let the panic swallow me as someone new is murdered before my eyes?
“Oh, fabulous,” Imogen chirped. The creaking stopped, the very walls pausing with interest, and Imogen smiled, pretty and polite. “We’ll extend the Frostbeyondthe ports, how clever of you, Norris.”
Norris struggled through another few stammering breaths before Avette flicked a silencing hand at him.
“Extend the Frost?” she said to Imogen.
“We’ll extend the bounds of Eisalaan into the seas,” said Imogen. “Caldbon’s army will never even make it past the ports,and if they try, we’ll meet them on the terrain thatweknow best.”
Doran, whose lip had been curling further with every word from Imogen’s mouth, finally loosed a hoarse scoff.
“I appreciate that this is your first Council meeting, my Lady,” said Doran, “but we tend to deal in strategy over pretty Wielding tricks.”
Imogen just smiled. Itwasher first meeting; she’d been assigned to the Council just that morning. Mostly out of necessity to meet the legal quorum following Bertha’s death, which had been ruled an accident by the trembling palace Healer who had attended the scene.
The first woman ever to drown in a cup of tea.
“Is our Silver Kingdom a pretty trick to you, Captain Doran?” Imogen asked sweetly. “Thatwas the work of a Wielder, too.”
