Quiet sliced through the amphitheater at the pronouncement. He returned his gaze to the Order, many of whom avoided it. Verentia evidently thought differently. Triumph glinted in her eyes. Bloodlust made his fingers twitch.
“Well?” he asked, smooth and low.
Verentia drew herself to full height. “We, the Inquisitors for the Elsar, and head of Ur Dinyé’s chapter for the Elsarian Order, are here to inform you,Tetrarchy, that your reign is ended.”
Bewilderment settled over the Aequitas. To his right, Cassandane looked winded. “Inquisitor—”
“During our monarchical age, where the king made imprudent choices that led the nation’s folk on the path to Ruin, the Clans and the Order would step in to supplant unworthy leadership in favor of clearer minds.” Verentia wore a malicious shade of elation and a hunger she couldn’t mask as she stared at Cassandane’s seat. “Clanlady Dalvia helpfully brought us the text of laws that governed our land prior to the Corpus Juris Totus, as the latter curiously, apparently purposefully, doesn’t provide for such an event as impeaching all of you at once.” She laughed at Cassandane’s palefeatures. “I would have brought a petition to the land’s highest court, but I’m already there.”
So, this was your move, Noceo. Kadra smiled coldly. He had warned Cassandane.
A loud, false sound left her throat that could have been a laugh but sounded significantly more pitiful. “This is an unamusing joke, Inquisitor.”
Verentia’s brows rose. “Your Petitor would have informed you if it was.”
Anek, nervously standing behind Cassandane’s seat, gripped it for their life. Features tight, they shook their head at Cassandane’s terrified glance. Harion seemed torn between crawling into his seat or giving it up altogether. The Aequitas itself was quiet in their utter bewilderment.
Kadra tapped a hand on the edge of his seat and let his gaze roam over the crowd.Where are you, Noceo?
After a pleading glance at him, Cassandane gave up. “You’ve spent several monthsswearingup and down that Magus Supreme Kadra and Petitor Sarai held a coup. Now, here you are, doing the same?”
“Yes.” Verentia shrugged. “If she can, then why shouldn’t we?”
“That wasn’t a godsdamned coup!” Cassandane slammed a fist on the arms of her seat when Verentia opened her mouth. “Sarai’s life was at risk, or she wouldn’t have fought Aelius.I was there. I fought him too, godsdammit!”
“So, now youdefendDeath’s handmaiden!” Verentia said incredulously. “You are herebystrippedof your position—”
“You havenopower to do that!” Cassandane rose. Tendrils of crimson lightning sputtered by her. “Stop this or—”
“Are youthreateningme? Do you see this?” Verentia turned to the crowd, in a poor mimicry of Sarai. Narrowed eyes. A skeletal hand tugging at her tongue to mark her lies with malicious joy. Indignation that went only skin-deep. An absence of genuine concern. A blasphemy of the sincerity with which Sarai walked this stage.
He cared little for Cassandane’s whispered pleas for him to intervene, but he wouldn’t let Verentia make a mockery of how Sarai played the game.
He waited for her to take a breath and spoke. “No.”
Verentia’s brows snapped together amid a hiss of fearful whispers from the audience. “Is there something you wish to add, Magus Supreme?” she demanded frostily. “Death goes where your Petitor does, and has now followed her all the way toKomisto kill innocents there. I won’t give her a chance to feed our souls to the Dark Realms any further. If she’s miraculously survived yet again, she will submit to an exorcism.”
Ice pricked up his neck and sank in.A masterstroke, Noceo. This was his coup. But where was the would-be-conqueror?
Kadra strode down the dais toward her, slow and unhurried. “No.”
Bravado fraying, Verentia fled back toward her group of priests. “By the Elsar, stay away from me. Have you gone mad?”
“No. But I’m in danger of growing rather bored, Inquisitor. You’ve forgotten why I never had a Petitor untilSarai.” Her name was hoarse in his mouth. “You creatures were always so easy to read.”
Verentia gaped. “Creatures,” she echoed to the crowd. “Thisis what your Tetrarchy thinks of—”
“Fools,” he finished softly, his voice nevertheless rising above the dull thrum of the crowd. “Priests who believe the word of a woman they barely know who tells them exactly what they want to hear. Frauds who espouse ideologies that they don’t believe in so as to get a political seat.”
Leaving her shaking on the stage, he returned to his marble seat on the dais and tilted his head laconically toward Cassandane’s chair. “You must have enjoyed that seat immensely at Sarai’s Hearing to go this far for it. Petitor Anek, how much of what she’s spouted does she believe in?”
“None of it,” a familiar, exhausted voice called.
Every muscle in his body stilled. The ruined nerves along his spine quieted. His heart clawed up his throat as Sarai emerged from the Petitor’sentrance. Blood and dirt tarred her skin. An ugly burn ran from the right side of her neck to her shoulder. She had never been more beautiful.
Cassandane slumped in her seat. “Oh, thank the Elsar,” she muttered under her breath before speaking formally. “Petitor Sarai, it’s good to see you alive.”
His throat worked. He would have stood, but for the first time in his life, he wasn’t sure if his legs would support him. Unlike him, the Aequitas recovered its voice and pelted her with questions.
