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“Lux is a willing prisoner.” Osonia nodded to him. “I don’t see his imprisonment being an issue.”
“Neither do I,” Véa said. “But I have the feeling Michael won’t be so willing to accept his fate.”
“No, he won’t be,” Rafael said. “We haven’t even been able to catch him, which is another matter we should handle before imprisoning my father.”
“I love you dearly, esiasch,” Sanvi said, “so please don’t take this the wrong way, but there isn’t a ‘we’in this conversation. You aren’t our enemy, but you don’t have a place in this court.”
He dipped his head. “Of course.”
“He’s right though,” I said. “If they’re having a hard time finding Michael, we’ll need the power currently within Lux to do so.”
“No disrespect, Nix,” Rafael said, “but that’s not the case.”
“What isn’t the case?”
“We know where he is. Capturing him is the problem.”
“I don’t understand,” Véa said. “He isn’t nearly as powerful as the two of you. Why would you have any issues arresting him?”
“Because he’s using Hana and Venark,” Rafael said.
“What the fuck does that mean?” I asked.
“We don’t know, exactly,” Rafael said. “But perhaps we should circle back to this.”
“No, I’m gonna need more information than—”
“One topic at a time, mi lim,” Véa said. “What do we feel is an adequate punishment for Lux?”
“Lock him up ‘til the maalaichte cnihme return?” Rion propped his elbows on the table and leaned in. “We’ll need all the necromancers we’ve got when the war begins.”
“I think that’s a bit excessive,” Elira said.
She was the last person I would’ve expected to saythat.
As we all turned to her, faces screwed up in confusion, she let out a long sigh. “No one’s going to like this opinion.”
“Oh, but I’m interested in hearing it.” Brynn gave a mothering look, the kind that mine had given me when I snuck out and lied about where I’d been all night. “Go on, mil. Tell us why.”
Elira whooshed her white, blond hair from her face, pulling it all to one side of her head. “Because in his position, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have done the same thing.”
I scoffed. “You’d destroy our world because—”
“Don’t take words out of my mouth.” She shot me a look. “I’m putting myself in his position. He goes all the way there, only to find the rightfully appointed queen of Matriaza has been tied up in a cave with no food and no water for months. If she weren’t eternal, if they hadn’t planned on using her against us, they would have. Instead, a woman we all care for was tortured formonthsto protect us.
“So he’s already angry. He’s scared, I’m assuming. He knows how we all feel about him, and the voice in the back of his head says, ‘If they do to me what they did to Usui, will anyone come looking? Anyone with the influence and knowledge needed to find me?’”
I huffed.
I saw what she was saying, but I huffed.
“So then he confronts them. Beyond a doubt, they antagonize him. I’m sure they mocked him. ‘What’re you going to do about it, Lux?’” She spoke in a false bass octave. “‘You’re the weak king who lost his wife to his brother. No one cares about you anyway. Blah, blah, blah.”
Elira shrugged. “Suddenly, he’s one man against hundreds inside the Conclave Hall. And he fights, and he’s losing, because he’s holding back. So he lets it all out, and… Boom.
“Then he goes to Morduaine. A land that despises him already, but a land he believes respects, at the very least, Véa. Surely, they can help him find the survivors on Matriaza and heal those who can survive. But he gets there, and the same thing plays out again. I know queens of Morduaine because I was one. Many of us were. How would you have treated him? Or, better yet, how would you have treated him when you made a treaty with those bastards?
“Don’t you see? They made him a punching bag. They weren’t the queens our mothers raised us to be.They took a deal with the maalaichte cnihme. It doesn’t get any eviler than that. And after being attacked on Matriaza, now with all of those souls inside him, he lost it. He wouldn’t let them harm our world.
