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“Do they now?” A dangerous edge laced his voice.
She made a sympathetic noise. “A good number of your courtiers, too, as they’ve signed statements to that effect. I thought I might prove the ludicrous nature of the assertion now, with your permission. I would hate to miss dinner tonight, and I hear the guild inquisitions can be lengthy and tedious.”
He waved his hand in a dismissive, by-all-means gesture.
Clare gave Madame Aria a cold smile. “You are the second-best Songweaver in the kingdom, are you not?”
Madame Aria gritted her teeth. “I am.”
“So when I sing, you can tell what I am trying to induce.”
“Yes.”
“And you”—she turned to the Hounds—“are capable of verifying that I am using magic, and how much of it?”
They nodded.
“Delightful.” She tilted her head up to Alaric. She did not sing, as such, merely let three words, imbued with command and all of her Songweaver’s magic, arrow at him. “Come to me.”
She had only used the full extent of her Songweaving talent that first dinner. Then, her magic had been spread across a multitude of people, and it had still driven them to nearly maul her and Numair. Now all that power, a reservoir so deep she almost couldn’t spend it all within the confines of the short command, gushed out of her in a torrent, hitting the king of Faelhorn square in the chest.
When Clare’s magic worked, she could feel it—where it wrapped around people, where it coaxed and cajoled. It did not wrap around Alaric now, did not feed little bits of information back to her. Instead, it was severed from her in the span of a second, too quick for her to determine how the king had done it.
Power only affects me when I wish it to.
Alaric looked bored. “Not now, little songbird. But perhaps in the future.” His gaze switched to Madame Aria. “I believe that was desire she struck me with?”
Madame Aria’s assent sounded like it was dragged out of her throat. “Yes, my king.”
His gaze flicked to the Hound beside her. “And the entirety of her magical reservoir?”
“Yes, my king.”
Alaric steepled his fingers, resting them a moment against his lips. “I find it concerning, how impotent you must all think me, if you believe a girl with a pretty voice could usurp the entirety of my will.”
The court flinched as a single entity.
“I find it more concerning that even my Hounds have come here on such a ridiculous supposition. Clearly, I have left the Mages Guild too long in peace to run itself. It is an oversight you can rest assured I will rectify immediately. As for those of you foolish enough to actually bring this here, to my own halls, no less, that will be settled now.”
He turned to Clare. “They’ve insulted you as well, Miss Brighton. What would you have done with them?” See what it can be like, was the message beneath the offer. You had no power where you came from. So feel what it is like to wield mine.
It wasn’t nearly so tempting as he thought. Because it was his power, his authority, and it would only be hers when it suited his whims, would only protect her so long as it amused him to do so. The only power she had was what he granted her, and she had lost far more in this exchange than he had pretended, publicly, to give her.
Because she had started the lie of I am considering your offer, the lie of Give me time and I will bend to you. Lies required careful tending. They could only be maintained for so long when they promised something, as this one did. This particular lie also required that she not bore him. Because she was, by virtue of the authority he’d granted her in this moment, representing him. And no man appreciated being thought boring.
And she would enjoy part of this. To Madame Aria she said, “The Musicians Guild no longer exists. Its offices are closed, its accreditations are worthless, and no business of a similar nature can be reformed.”
Madame Aria’s face went bloodless, but she wasn’t reckless enough to protest. Clare addressed the Hounds and the guild’s enforcers next. “You no longer work for the Mages Guild. You no longer work in any magical capacity. Your ability will never again contribute to your financial well-being.”
“You are too kind-hearted,” Alaric said lightly. “I would not have been so lenient. But it will be as you wish. And what of my noble subjects? The ones so concerned for me that they petitioned the guild without my consult?”
“They are banished from your court, for the next year.” It was not a punishment, and she knew it. After the spectacular degree to which this had gone poorly for them, anyone whose name was on that document would want nothing more than to disappear from Alaric’s sight in the hope that he would forget them.
She had riled them too much lately and, as she’d started this farce of considering Alaric’s offer, she could no longer afford for him to think she couldn’t deliver on it. Fortunately for her, the court’s opinion was a fickle thing, and so long as they understood that she understood what she did with this “punishment” she should be well on her way to shifting that opinion in her favor. So she added, “Because I am, as our king says, too kind-hearted.”
She left before anyone else could speak to her, went directly to the stables and saddled Kialla. There were a few hours yet before she was expected at dinner that evening, and after what had just happened, she had work for Chalen Mora.
Chapter Seventy-Eight
