Page 10 of Be the Serpent

The Luidaeg was watching this all go down, looking faintly amused, which is never as good a thing as it might seem. Oberon was also watching, from the back of the crowd. He looked more distressed. I couldn’t bring myself to feel bad for him. I wanted to shake him and shout for him to fix this. We were his descendants, in some cases literally his children, and he was the one who’d overseen the creation of this whole stupid system! He should have been stepping in to make it better, or at least to make it less broken, and instead he was lurking around the edges like a stray dog who wasn’t sure whether they’d be welcomed or whipped. And I was getting damn tired of it.

“Then maybe you’ll allow my claim of offense,” said Dianda. She sounded almost chipper about it, like this was the most fun she’d had in weeks. She strolled languidly over to stand next to Dean, who hadn’t said a word through this whole exchange. “She abducted and mutilated my oldest son. She stranded my youngest son away from the water long enough that he could have suffered serious damage. Much longer, and this would be a very different sort of trial. I’m less forgiving than the sea witch. I wouldn’t waive the charges of murder.” She looked to Arden. “I know I’m not your subject, but in this matter, I’ll place myself at your command. May I have my justice?”

Arden nodded, slowly. “You may claim your offense.”

“But—” began Luna.

“Duchess Torquill, I may run a casual Court here, but I am the Queen in the Mists, heir to Gilad, who had been heir to Denley, first King in the Mists. My word is law within these halls.” Arden looked coldly at Luna. “If this is not something you can live with, perhaps you should seek another Kingdom. Be aware, however, that if you depart, the fact that multiple of my citizens and one of my neighbors have attempted to claim offense against your daughter will travel with you, and you will find no harbor among my peers.”

Luna visibly deflated. Sullenly, she said, “I apologize, Your Majesty.”

“Excellent.” Arden looked to Dianda. “The transgression against your house was a terrible one. What amends would you ask of the girl?”

“She will spend a year in service to Sir Daye’s household, and return to her parents’ halls at the end of that time only if she and Sir Daye both agree that her debt has been paid,” said Dianda. “I would take her home with me, but I think her presence might discomfort one of my husbands. I’m still trying to get him to believe that we’re not going to get rid of him the moment he becomes inconvenient; bringing in a lady’s maid designed to remind him of what that woman made him do strikes me as unkind.”

“Sir Daye? Is this acceptable to you?”

Of course it was. We had anticipated Luna’s objection and arranged for Dianda’s intercession beforehand, in case she also objected to Tybalt. “It is,” I said.

“You’ll have to feed and house the girl. It seems unfair to place an additional burden upon you in the name of delivering satisfaction.”

“I have a guest room,” I said. “My home was a gift from my liege, Raysel’s father, and is more than large enough to house her as well. May already cooks almost everything in industrial quantities. Feeding Raysel won’t be a problem, and as long as she’s not allergic to cats, we are a more than suitable environment.”

“Then the claim of offense is granted and fulfilled,” said Arden. “Rayseline Torquill, for your actions against the House of Lorden and the Duchy of Saltmist, you will spend the next year of your waking life in service to Sir October Daye. You will live in her home, and you will enter the Duchy of your parents only in her company. At the end of that time, if you both agree, you may return to Shadowed Hills. If you do not agree, your service will continue. Do you understand?”

“I do,” said Raysel. She had climbed out of her coffin at some point, and was standing next to Etienne, her hands behind her back, her chin high. “I am grateful for the opportunity to make amends for some of the damage I have done.”

“You can’t intend to let Sir Daye make off with our daughter when she’s just been awakened!” snapped Luna. “It’s unreasonable to expect that from her! Or from us! She deserves the chance to recuperate from what she’s been through before she begins a year of senseless servitude! Just let us take her home, and—”

“And spread the offense my house claims against her to your entire Duchy?” asked Dianda. “I specified that she was not to return to Shadowed Hills without Sir Daye’s company until both agreed her debt had been repaid. Or are you finally allowing October to come home?”

Luna stopped dead, eyes widening as she recognized the walls of the cage she had just built around herself. If she let me come back to Shadowed Hills with Raysel, she was admitting my banishment had been purely for her comfort, and Sylvester wouldn’t have an excuse to shut me out again—especially not now that I clearly had an army of purebloods willing to claim offense on my behalf if I wasn’t allowed to claim it for myself. I hadn’t done anything wrong. He was my liege. Locking the doors against me broke a dozen rules of hospitality, and she knew it.

So did Etienne. He looked deeply relieved by Dianda’s question, shoulders relaxing. He glanced at Raysel, who was perfectly still, the only motion a small muscle in her jaw that kept twitching.

“I don’t . . . She allowed . . . Why are you involving yourself in this matter?”

“Because your precious little petal hurt my boys,” said Dianda. She raised her voice slightly, even though the amplification spell on the room meant it was entirely unnecessary. “No one hurts my boys.”

Patrick put an arm around Simon’s shoulders, pulling the other man close, glaring at Luna in a way that made it perfectly clear how many names were on that list.

“And because Toby’s family,” continued Dianda. “Unlike some people, I acknowledge that sort of thing. Sorry if that makes you uncomfortable. It’s just how I was raised.”

“The sea is not meant to involve itself so directly with the land,” said Luna.

“Did you miss the part where I just said Toby was family?” asked Dianda. “She’s my husband’s kid. That makes her mental health my problem, and you’re trying to damage her mental health, which means I have to deal it with it. So yeah, I’m allowed to involve myself, because Toby’s involved, and my son is involved, and you’re being sort of an asshole right now, I hope you understand that.”

“Root and branch, this better not be the way we kick off a war,” I muttered—or tried to, anyway. The amplification spell caught that, too, making it way louder than it needed to be.

Luna shot me a scandalized look. “I wouldn’t drive Faerie to war,” she said.

“I don’t know, sort of seems like you’re trying,” said Raysel. “Sir Daye claimed offense against me because I asked her to.”

Luna gasped. “How—You’ve been asleep. You couldn’t ask anyone for anything.”

“You sent her into my dreams to change the balance of my blood, to make me one way or the other,” said Raysel. Her voice was clear, but her hands were starting to shake. She’d told me once that it was easier for her to think when she was asleep, when she had the time to figure out what she was going to do or say next, and we were running up against the edges of the confrontation as she had scripted it for herself. “You were fine with me making choices while I was asleep then.”

“I did it to save you,” said Luna. “Your body was tearing itself apart. I shouldn’t have been able to have you, my little rose, my little treasure, and once your blood figured out that it was impossible, it wanted to let go. So I turned to your father’s knight and asked her to remake you in an image that could survive.”