Kyrja held out a hand. “Forgive me, Henrik. But I’ll ask you to prove it by giving me that crystal and inserting a fresh one.”
Council members shifted from foot to foot, exchanging dark looks behind Kyrja’s back.
He had a feeling she knew, even if she didn’t see. And didn’t care a whit. She kept that hand outstretched until a man trudged forward and slapped a blue crystal into her palm.
She waited a moment, presumably while another was put in the recorder. Then met Nik’s gaze again. A slash of her hand, and the metal at his wrists thawed, went limp, and fell away. It was all he could do not to rub them as he clasped his hands in front of him.
Her blink remembered every conversation they’d had in the last month, conveyed thousands they never got around to. Established the friendship they’d never put to words, one she’d clearly come to feel as much as he had. He saw her as she’d been that first day, bent over fallen servants, bloodying herself to save another. And knew she saw in him the same. Her face softened. “Nikanor Tristansson, you stand accused of conspiracy to terror that resulted in the deaths of twenty-two people and the wounding of a hundred seventeen. How do you plead?”
His shoulders relaxed.Conspiracy. That was very different from association. “Innocent, Your Highness.”
“The Council acknowledges your plea of innocence.” Her face went hard again as she turned it to her father. “The king may proceed with the examination of evidence.”
King Isidor blinked, long and lazily, at his daughter. Then glared at Nik. “Was Tristan Hansson your father?”
By the frost, he was going to make the same case, regardless of Kyrja’s attempts at correction. “He was.”
“And were you aware of his role as leader of the Red Hand revolutionaries?”
Revolutionaries? “I was aware that my father regularly lobbied Your Majesty for resources for your subjects under the domes, for more seats in the Great Council”—though he was beginning to wonder if that, too, was but a farce—“and for freedoms denied to thanes but enjoyed by Fjorders. If that is what you mean, yes. If you are asking if I knew he had any plans of violence, then no.”
The king’s eyes narrowed. “What is your legal place of residence, Nikanor Tristansson?”
“Twelve Oster Lane, Andre Village, Harroby.”
“And your father’s legal place of residence?”
Frost and snow. “Twelve Oster Lane, Andre Village, Harroby.”
Isidor cast his daughter a smug look. “The guards sent to search said abode reported all manner of supplies used in the building of the bomb that killed my people. Are you claiming that, though you lived with your father, you did not see him building this bomb?”
“I did not.” He swallowed. “I hadn’t been home since last Yule.”
The king clearly hadn’t expected that, given the quick snap of his gaze back to Nik. But it only made more suspicion fill his gaze. “Where were you then?”
Nik sealed his lips. Thanes were to receive schooling only until age fourteen, unless they were accepted to one of three programs—mine geology, agricultural engineering, or one ofthose elusive sixty potential openings for dominie training. Which the king no doubt knew well were nonexistent right now.
If he told the truth of where he’d been, he’d implicate Brother Gylfi for illegal instruction. If he claimed to have entered one of the other programs, it would be disproven in seconds—the Councils kept records of every student, and no doubt they’d be able to pull it up on a crystal here and now. Which left him what option?
“Please answer the question, Nikanor,” Kyrja said softly. “Where were you, if not at home?” She knew, of course, what he’d been about…but he’d never told her how. She hadn’t asked. Now, her eyes begged him to have a reasonable explanation.
How ironic. All the hours they’d spent speaking of the law, but he’d never actually given consideration to his own defense. He’d been too set on showing her what justice should be, and what it wasn’t. What she could legally and rightfully do as the Heir. He’d focused entirely upon her, upon their kingdom. And he couldn’t regret it.
His breath leaked out, and resignation filled him. So be it. He would not deny this truth, and if he died for it, it would be a good death. A martyrdom. “Studying the Words, Your Highness, and the law.”
The king’s brows crashed together. “What? Where? There are no openings among the dominies, no—”
“Alone.”Giver, forgive the lie. It is to protect your servant.“There is an abandoned kyrka near the edge of the dome.” True enough, as was the next part. “I discovered it during my last year of schooling. The library is well stocked, and since my father sold his lands when I was a boy, I had no fields to demand my time, nor any particular skill with the farming equipment he spent my youth developing. So I did chores for food at the neighboring farms and otherwise spent my time reading and teaching myself the sacred Words.”
The king’s smile was a cruel thing. “The Council bears witness to the accused’s confession of years of criminal behavior—”
“Self-guided study is not criminal,” Kyrja interjected, voice as calm as her father’s had been. “If it were, your own consort would have stood before this Council for the same crime.”
“Living under a dome without substantially contributing to its purpose of either agriculture or mining after the same age of majority you so kindly reminded us ofis.” He lifted a brow. “How old are you, Son of Tristan?”
The old style of address clearly had one purpose only—to remind them all of his real crime. Being his father’s son. “Twenty-eight, Your Majesty.”
“Twice the age at which you should have submitted yourself to the fields—another family’s, if your father relinquished his claim as you say. You could have petitioned for their return. Or put in an official request for relocation, if you preferred mine work. Applied for a position in Reykstoll, if you were of a more academic inclination. There have been thanes from the domes who became teachers.”
