“You’re the one hurting her,” Perian shot back.
Renny was trying to twist out of his grasp, which meant he had to hold onto her hard to try to keep her from getting free.
“Let me go!” she was screeching at the top of her lungs.
Perian stood up, wobbling a little but managing to stay on his feet.
“Let her go, Cormal. You’re hurting her!”
“Don’t threaten me!” Cormal snapped, and threw the fireball.
Even as Perian stumbled back, water splattered through the air and doused the fire.
A crisp, furious voice yelled, “Stop thisimmediately!”
“Mother!” Renny yelped. “Cormal is hurting Perian!”
“The carnalion is threatening us!”
“Shut up!” Wind whipped furiously through the room, and everyone finally subsided. Perian had never heard Brannal roar that loudly before.
The Queen said, “Thank you,” as though that was an everyday occurrence.
“Larenia, step away from the cell immediately.”
Renny wrenched her arm out of Cormal’s grasp, crossed her arms in the most obstinate look that Perian had ever seen, and leaned back against the bars of his prison. With an effort, he suppressed a smile.
Cormal reached for her again, but the Queen stopped him this time with a sharp, “Cormal!”
“It could hurt her!”
Perian gritted his teeth.
“My name is Perian,” he said stiffly. “And I would never hurt Renny.”
The Queen’s gaze was cold as it settled on him. “I believe you are overfamiliar with my daughter.”
Perian suppressed a shiver at the ice in that voice. Cormal had found an ally, it seemed.
But Renny didn’t move, glaring at everyone. “Perian would never hurt me. I don’t care what any of you say! If you want to put him in the dungeon, then I want to be in there with him!”
Perian felt tears sting his eyes, because that was so ridiculous, so genuine and… the only person who had expressed such a sentiment.
The Queen’s face softened slightly as she looked at her daughter. “He isn’t safe, Larenia.”
“Of course, he’s safe!” Renny snapped back. “He would never hurt me!”
“Not ever,” Perian agreed, not that anyone seemed to care what he had to say.
The Queen’s eyes snapped back to his. “Did you not kill a man yesterday?”
Perian swallowed, didn’t look at Brannal, and tried to keep his faceblank.
“Did I do everything in my power to escape my kidnappers, including a man who tried to assault me and who was supposed to be safely imprisoned?” he said a little bit roughly but firmly. “I did.”
“The penalty for that is clear.”
The penalty for protecting yourself? But no, of course not. The penalty for being a carnalion. He didn’t even have to have killed anyone to be killed on sight, and the fact that hehadkilled someone, that everyone knew about it—
