“Actually, they said you’d refused all of Sigis’s attempts to sway you. They said you were the only one.”
Reko raised an eyebrow. “I’m loyal to Kamen. Don’t confuse it with being loyal to you.”
Anger flared in me again. Well, he’s honest. Something that no one else on my council seemed to be. “It means we’re on the same side.”
Reko snorted at that.
“We are. We both want my father back. And I think we can help each other.” I folded my hands. “You help me, I look for the cure. My father returns, things go back to normal.”
Reko’s mouth twisted as though he were amused at my trying to be an adult. “Let’s say you’re right. Do you really think things will go back to normal?” He shook his head, as though I honestly couldn’t be that stupid. “This reckoning has been coming since before you were born. We need a representative parliament, whether or not your father recovers.”
“I can’t—” I stopped myself. Grand dukes could do anything. “Surely if I declare a parliament, that looks as though I consider myself to be grand duke permanently, not merely provisionally. Something you’ve been against from the beginning.”
Reko folded his hands and tapped his forefingers together. “Here’s the deal I want. Call for a representative parliament immediately. I’ve drafted preliminary documents, which you can present to the council. Once you’ve decreed it—publicly—I’ll help you.”
“That’s not the way this works,” I said, feeling my temper start hot in my belly. “You don’t tell me what the deal is. I tell you, and you obey.”
“If you want my help, Your Grace, you’ll have to give me a parliament. And I think you need my help.”
“I don’t need anything,” I snapped. “I don’t have to give you anything, either. I was willing to overlook your outburst in the hall, but if you won’t cooperate, I’ll have to think about what my father would do in these circumstances.”
A strange look crossed Reko’s face. At first, I couldn’t place it, then I realized—it was grief. Pain and anger, too, but more grief than anything else. “Your father was my friend.”
“Well, I’m not. And I’m grand duke if I don’t find a way to cure him. Think about that before you refuse me again.” I got to my feet.
I expected him to say something—to tell me to wait, or to fling some insult after me in defiance. But Reko merely tapped his fingers and watched me, and the longer I waited, the harder it was to speak.
I left his chambers. I ought to storm somewhere dramatically, but his refusal had put me at odds with myself. If I couldn’t inspire fear in Reko, I didn’t yet have what it took to control my court. I was still vulnerable. I needed to do more.
But I wasn’t sure what.
I thought I’d be able to contemplate Reko’s insistent treason at my council meeting and ignore my ministers as they had ignored me. But the moment I stepped into the room—five minutes early—I saw them sitting straight-backed and nervous, and I knew I wouldn’t like what they had to say.
I took Father’s seat next to Eirhan. The room was quiet: shuffling papers and cleared throats and slurps of coffee. I focused on the tapestries and their flora: cloudtree, wolfthorn, galanthus. The fauna: lepus arctos, canis lupus nixus, ursos isabellinus. When Rafyet finally arrived, on time and blinking in confusion, I’d identified about a third of the tapestry.
I waited for Eirhan to call the meeting. But he simply picked up his coffee cup and turned to me. “Okay,” I said. “I suppose we should start.”
I looked from minister to minister. But not all of them looked to me. Itilya, Bailli, and Urso turned slightly toward Yannush. Yannush set down his own cup and took a breath. “What’s the point in starting, Your Grace? We can’t discuss the Avythera agreement without the minister of agriculture present. The minister of Below should be arranging your coronation trials, but he’s confined to his rooms. The rest of us walk in fear that we’ll be next.”
“And why is that?” I asked.
I’d meant to sound sardonic, as though they clearly had something to hide. But Yannush leaned in and said carefully, “Because Your Grace arrests everyone who irritates her.”
“That’s ridiculous. Eirhan’s still here, and he’s been irritating me for days.”
No one smiled, not even the pained smile of We-Have-to-Laugh-at-Her-Grace’s-Jokes.
Yannush bared his teeth ever so slightly, then worked his mouth into a neutral expression. “We have to face the facts. Your Grace is overwhelmed. Your interference in your family’s health nearly killed them, and your paranoia is destroying this council. We can’t make the decisions we need to make.”
Anger rose in me like a tide. Paranoid? Someone tried to curse me last night, and I was paranoid for wanting to find out who it was? “You don’t make decisions,” I reminded him. “You’re my advisory council.”
“And we advise you to step back,” Yannush said.
Step back. And let Sigis win the coronation trials without trying? And let Eirhan be grand duke in my name?
“My father would kill you for saying such a thing,” I hissed.
There was silence around the table. My stomach curdled with cold knowledge. None of them cared, because I wasn’t my father. My edges weren’t hard enough. Grand dukes commanded respect, and I didn’t.
The water in the messenger bowl began to swirl. Eirhan reached forward, but I swatted his outstretched hand, standing to take the green-tinged note myself.
You are cordially invited Below, where answers are to be found for your questions.
Eirhan peered over my shoulder. “What does that mean?”
I folded the note. “It means this meeting is over.” My heart began to patter. The note couldn’t have come at a better time. “If you want to do something useful, you can keep Sigis from winning the coronation trials.” Assuming, of course, that the council hadn’t arranged his coup in the first place.
The palace Below was hung with color and light, a riot of lamps in more shades than I would have guessed could grow here. I wanted to press my hand against them, but Meire held my wrist tight and swam without speaking to me, her crest flat against her head.
Instead of leading me to the throne room, Meire took me through a low arch and a winding, open corridor until we reached a bare courtyard. A wire cage stretched up and over our heads, keeping us inside and the yard exposed. There was no decoration here; the space was lit only by a few deep-blue lamps. Everything looked stranger in their light; Meire’s skin took on an obsidian sheen, and my own looked dead and bloodless.
“What is this place?”
Meire did not look at me. Her eyes were dark, and the gills at her neck flickered like a panicked heartbeat. “It is a tribunal. It is why you are here.”
I frowned. “Am I on trial?” And for what? For taking too long to sign some agreement?
“Of course not,” the duke Below said from behind me. I turned around and bowed, and he nodded to me, taking me by the hand. His hands were larger than Meire’s, multijointed and silver at the tips. One of his hands could have enveloped both of mine. “You may think of this as a gift, if you like.”