“Trials are such lovely things. Always wonderful to hear a wide variety of people condemn your choices for reasons which have nothing whatsoever to do with why the choices were made and everything to do with their personal or political disdain for you.

Not that I’m against trials. In theory of course, it should be possible to hold fair one. Not even all that difficult really. A system of courts which could review an individual judge or single juries verdict would serve to dilute power to a degree where justice was at least nominally a viable outcome. The High Council of course could never abide such an idea though. It would strike against the entire point of their existence. 

It would be much like fitting a collar on a rhinoceros, in that attempting to bind power which is used to being accountable to no one and having to suffer no oversight is an endeavor fraught with nothing but peril. Far easier to turn the beast away from it’s target via more subtle means and allow it to think the idea its own so it an be satisfied with the outcome you desire.”

– Xindir Harshek Doxle of the First Flame responding to a letter from the Empress Eternal after the High Council ordered the execution of Baron Blackfield, also known as the People’s Saint.

To say that the proceedings of my trial, or hearing, or whatever they were choosing to call it, got underway without any further drama would be the most humorous mischaracterization possible. Our arrival produced the sort of chaos usually only seen during natural disasters, which in a sense we sort of were.

Apparently, half the relevant House Speakers hadn’t shown up and half of the ones who had were in the middle of packing to leave after receiving assurances from House Ironbriar’s Speaker that the Hearing wasn’t going to be needed and that the title of House Riverbond had been declared forfeit. “Declared by who” the Ironbriar speaker had neglected to specify and since he wasn’t the sort of person that lesser speakers were wise to question no one had pushed for further details.

Until we showed up.

I saw “we” not in the royal sense, but in the “I had a small army with me” sense, even if that wasn’t immediately apparent by the size of my entourage as we entered the High Council’s chambers. The presence of two Imperial Advisors did give a reasonable warning that any further direct assaults would end poorly for them though. 

That didn’t stop the various Houses from trying indirect assassination techniques, at least not if the ever increasing count Doxle was mumbling to himself meant what I thought it meant.

“House Riverbond calls the House Council to session,” I said, my voice booming out above the cacophony of the assembly thanks to a quick enchantment Doxle tossed on me.

Normally a lesser House like Riverbond wouldn’t be the one to call the High Council to do anything. By proper protocol, I would have my “sponsor House” make the call for me. Since I did not, in fact, have another House sponsoring me, and was at least technically at war with most of the Houses present, I was free to ignore protocol and make whatever demands I wished.

And the other Houses were free to ignore me and continue on with their somewhat insulting scheming. I mean I was right there. With ears which were admittedly just a bit more sensitive than standard human ears could be. But still. At least find a private room or something.

Apart from being generally miffed at the House Speakers for failing to acknowledge me properly, I wasn’t too unhappy with the general chaos. The longer it took for them to come to order, the more time our plans had to come to fruition.

If Ironbriar had been smart, they would have called the Council into a Hearing immediately, and issued a verdict after whatever required and perfunctory statements would make the whole thing legal.

Not that we would have let things be that simple.

We’d been over the sorts of stratagems I could employ, and the ones Doxle and Enika could try in order to drag the proceedings out. Sadly, there weren’t many and the none of the options we had were good ones.

Of them all though, allowing the chaos to proceed for as long as possible was at least an entertaining one. I put on a show of growing ever more annoyed with the Speakers around me, which didn’t take much acting on my part, in an attempt to keep Ironbriar, Lightstone, and Grayfall from noticing that I was secretly hoping it would continue until it was far too late, one way or the other, for the Hearing to make much of a difference.

Surprisingly, it worked.

Not forever, but there was a good half hour where the Speakers seemed content to spiral off into whatever weird side arguments struck them as important. Thirty minutes wasn’t a lot of time, nowhere near as much as I wanted, but watching them completely overlook how serious of a threat we posed was oddly reassuring.

Or perhaps it was worrying.

I’d had to make it clear that we were enough of a threat for them to take seriously so that they would respond to our war declaration with anything other than contempt and unconcerned dismissal. Beyond that though, I hadn’t tried convincing them to take me anymore seriously than the child they mistook me for being. If I was counting on their underestimation of what I could do though, I would be a complete idiot to underestimate them in turn.

“Is Ironbriar building a coalition against us?” I whispered to Doxle. Unlike the other House Speakers, I didn’t move my mouth, lips, or tongue to form the sounds, and I pitched it outside the normal range of human hearing.

“They already have one,” Doxle whispered back, with similar inaudible quality. “They’re trying to convince the other Houses to order their own Advisors to attend in sufficient force to act as a check against Enika and myself.”

“Can they do that? I thought you only answered to the Empress?” I had developed an unintentional amount of pride concerning “my” Imperial Advisor. Doxle could take any other Advisor in a fair or unfair fight. I knew that. I was less certain if that was true for three, four, or several dozen other Advisors though. 

“Oh we do, but we also enjoy the trinkets the Great Houses shower us with,” Doxle whispered. “The Speakers think they can order their Advisors, but it’s really more of a request with the threat of unemployment backing it up.”

“Will it be a problem if they get enough to come?”

“Not if our plans work out,” Doxle said. “And if they don’t? Well we don’t really need to worry about that do we?”

Of course we didn’t. If our plans didn’t work, we would likely all be dead, and the dead get to worry about other things, if my sister was any indication of what typically awaited us beyond the veil.

“They’re doing something else too, aren’t they?” I wasn’t convinced the Great Houses were wholly unaware of what we were doing.

Mostly unaware, sure. 

Entirely unaware of certain critical elements? Absolutely. 

I could be sure of both of those because if they knew the full scope of what we were doing they would have been waiting for us with a guilty verdict the moment we walked in the door, and if they knew what I was doing, they would have killed us all of the spot. I’m difficult to kill, but I’ve seen my people die, and I know the Great Houses have the magic to get it done if they’re willing to expend sufficient force and personnel on the issue.

And what I was doing would have justified losing every member of the Imperial military at home and abroad.

That they weren’t going to that extreme was a profoundly good sign, but it didn’t mean they weren’t still dangerous. 

That was confirmed a moment later when the magic suppression field slammed down over the room.

I felt like I was back in the jail cell.

I hated it.

I wanted to rip someone’s throat out.

Idrina, proving that she was a lot more aware than people give her credit for, must have sensed that because she put her hand over mine which quieted the growl which had been growing in my chest.

We’d considered that they might lock down the Council chamber. It hadn’t seemed all that likely because it meant they were just as vulnerable as we were, but we’d at least considered the possibility. That didn’t seem to be true for most of the other Speakers who immediately began lodging protests like “what is the meaning of this” (it means someone is aware that we’ve made a staggering number of assassins vanish and they’re justifiably, worried about what that means) and “what do you think your doing” (typically addressed to someone who was not, in fact, doing anything).

“Don’t worry,” Narla said. “They’re going to have to come through me to get you.”

I stepped in front of her before she could do the same to me.

Without her magic, Narla was still the most physically imposing presence in the room. She was also, however, quite human and a sword thrust to the heart would still kill her dead. With my magic locked down, there were things that could kill me with ease, but a normal sword was not one of them.

“No dying for me,” I said. “You’re more than a meatshield. I need you to live. All of you.”

I’d never been crushed to death before. I wasn’t sure that was what Narla was doing, in fact I suspected it was meant to be a hug (not terribly appropriate for someone dressed like I was), but dang that girl was strong even without her magic.

“This Council will come to order,” the Speaker for Lightstone called out, using a similar voice projection spell to the one Doxle had cast on me.

Mine was better though. Lightstone sounded like a nasally drip.

Or maybe that was just how he normally sounded?

Probably.

Not that it mattered. The other speakers listened to his call to order. Being the most powerful of the Great Houses came with some perks.

The other speakers did more than just shut up though. Like the good little sheep they were, each one filed over to their assigned seats, and donned their official Hoods of Office. In theory those signified that the Speakers were acting as the “incorruptible voice of their House” rather than as the eminently and easily corruptible individuals they so clearly were.

I closed my eyes and reach for my magic.

They couldn’t take it from me.

It was a part of me.

In a very real sense, my magic was who I was.

Those were all true statements and compelling arguments. Sadly the Great Houses had studied magic for long enough that just because my magic was still inside me did not mean I could bring its effects into this world.

They had made one mistake though.

Well, no, that’s not correct.

They’d made many, many mistakes.

In this particular case though, they’d made one specific to shutting me away from my power. In the jail, I’d been locked down by a similar spell, but there they’d been able to focus it onto me with the shackles I’d been bound in. The spell which was suppressing magic in the room was much stronger in terms of raw power but the High Council chamber was a far larger area to splash it over.

Also, I’d learned a few tricks since someone tried this on me last.

“The High Council calls before it the claimant seeking to be recognized as the heir to House Riverbond to put such claims to rest,” Ironbriar’s Speaker said.

“No,” I still had Doxle’s voice enhancement spell so while I spoke softly my refusal carried to every member present. “This hearing is not about my claim to House Riverbond. You are here to answer for the charges laid against you, for which war has been declared between our houses.”

We knew they would try to undermine my legitimacy. It was a good tactic and one which had some chance of success, though Doxle felt he had an equal chance of success at arguing against based on the “discussions” he’d already had on the subject.

Those would be the discussions which had left him reeking of blood that was not his own as a point of reference.

“The Pretender does not possess standing to speak before this Council until the matter is decided,” Lightstone’s speaker said.

Which unfortunately meant that my entourage would not be allowed to speak either. That was a dangerous move on Lightstone’s part since Doxle and Enika could claim separate standing as Advisors, but doing so would mean they wouldn’t be allowed to fight on our side if a Trial by Combat was called and one of the other Advisors was chosen as Ironbriar’s Champion.

I nodded to Doxle to go ahead anyways.

If it came to it, I’d put myself against an Imperial Advisor. That would suck but it’d be a lot better than sacrificing one of my friends to them.

Before Doxle could step forward to speak however, another voice rang out throughout the chamber.

“She has standing, and is no pretender. Or would you challenge my right to speak?” Grammy said.