“It’s Duchissa,” she snarled, rising to her feet. “And if you don’t agree, I swear on my soul—” another round of gasps and protests rose from the table, and they fueled the burning in her heart— “I will use every resource at my disposal to destroy you. I don’t care how long it takes, or how much it costs me. I’ll kill you.”
“Duchissa!”
“She doesn’t mean that, of course.”
“Our apologies, Your Excellency?—”
“Silence!” Kalie slammed her gavel down on the table. She glared at her simpering courtiers, who looked at her with expressions of shock and fear. “I meant every word.”
Carik frowned. “Oh, Princessa. How naive you are. You might be willing to risk everything in a misguided quest for revenge, but look around you. Are you foolish enough to believe your court will follow you?”
Words stuck in Kalie’s throat. Some of her nobles were muttering amongst themselves and nodding, as if they thought Carik was right.
“Your allies will abandon you as soon as they see the truth—you’re nothing but a witless girl at best, and a cold-blooded murderer at worst. And when this goes wrong for you, when it gets too hard, you’ll run and leave them to clean up the mess. Like always.”
Her knees threatened to give out, but she dug her nails into the table and forced herself to stay standing. He was wrong. She wasn’t going to run, not this time.
“Enough of this.” She glowered at Carik’s floating projection. “Your options are simple. Submit to my demands, or face the alternative.”
“Then I’m afraid we’re at a stalemate, because I plan to do neither.”
Kalie’s chest rose and fell rapidly. Beads of sweat dripped down her face. Her heart was beating so fast, impossibly fast, like it might explode.
Aunt Calida had been a dove, as peace-loving as Azura’s snowy messenger, but the Hannovers were phoenixes, cunning and fiery.
Right then, she didn’t want to be a dove.
“I hope you rot in hell,” she spat, and punched a button to end the transmission.
She’d expected absolute chaos.
She was met with silence.
It wasn’t the good silence, the silence that came with respect. No, her nobles were looking at her with disbelief, horror, and disgust written across their faces.
“You think I’m naive, I know. But war is coming, whether I lead it or not. I don’t want to wait until Carik attacks us to fight back. I want to take the fight to him.”
Hewlett’s father-in-law examined his beringed hands. “Personally, I don’t see the benefits of embroiling us in a galactic war. What’s done is done.”
“How ironic that the man who played both sides in the last war has suddenly become a pacifist!” Julian’s father placed a warning hand on his wife’s arm, but she threw it aside. “No, Gal, it has to be said! Like it or not, she’s our Duchissa, and we owe her our loyalty!”
Leighton scoffed. “You’ll defend her, after she humiliated your son in front of the court?”
Kalie’s cheeks flushed.
“Ignore him,”Ariah’s voice whispered in her ear,“he’s just a drunken oaf.”
She closed her eyes, swallowing thickly.
“We can discuss this without stooping to petty insults,” a young woman said. “While I sympathize with the Duchissa’s desire for vengeance, I cannot commit my people to another war that will cause suffering for billions?—”
“That monstermurdered my granddaughter!”
Silence swept through the room. The hoarse cry had come from Uncle Jacyn’s elderly father, hunched at the end of the table. Kalie bit down on her lip.
“Is there to be no justice?” His voice broke as tears spilled down his cheeks. Nobles bowed their heads. “Are you all such cowards that you’ll let the murderer of a child walk free?”
For the span of a heartbeat, barely a breath, the words hung in the musty air.
