Olloi swayed on the spot. He didn’t resist as a guard led him out. Whispers swept the hall again, but at one crack of a halberd on the ice, they died away.
This was power. This was what I’d needed. I’d merely had to sign two men over to death to get it.
I spent the rest of the afternoon speaking with delegates—those who weren’t too terrified to keep their appointments. I kept Inkar with me, a move that made Eirhan shake his head.
“I hope you’re making her unhappy,” he muttered in Kylmian. He paced around the room frenetically, something I’d never seen before from him.
Inkar was fast becoming my best ally. “Everything’s going according to plan,” I replied, neglecting to mention that the plan had changed.
“Arlendt has a suggestion for a replacement foreign minister,” Inkar said when the Baron of Arlendt had gone.
Eirhan stopped pacing and contrived to look so astonished I thought he’d fall back into his chair. “And how is his opinion relevant, Your Grace?”
Inkar shrugged, took a sip of my coffee, and wrinkled her nose. “I did not say his suggestion was relevant. I said that he had one.” She looked at me. “You will have to choose a new minister, will you not?”
Yannush’s arrest left a power vacuum, but I had no notion of whom to fill it with. Nor was I invested in making what my father would perceive as a power play when he woke up. “That’s not my first priority.”
Eirhan’s shoes clicked on the ice like clockwork. “You’ve demonstrated that you’re Kamen’s daughter at last. Now you need to consolidate—immediately. Pick an aristocratic second child for foreign minister. Then they’ll owe you something. Then move on to trade discussions with Urso. Terrify him sufficiently and he’ll be too afraid to bring a mediocre deal back for you to sign.”
“What trade discussions?” The pit in my stomach was morphing, changing into something too close to panic again.
“Any trade. Particularly trade with Below.”
I shook my head. Even as I did, a small part of me marveled at the girl who could order the taking of two lives but couldn’t decide basic policy. But I knew what made me so afraid. Father would have expected me to kill his cabinet if they’d even hinted at treason. Making these decisions would make me his enemy.
“You can’t leave us in a precarious position because you think Kamen might wake up,” Eirhan said. Was that fear I heard in his voice?
“You can make the agreements if you’re so keen,” I muttered.
I hadn’t intended him to hear or to take me seriously. But Eirhan said, “Your Grace has refused us parliamentary representation. You can’t order me to take the power you’ve denied me.”
As if he could convince me he was powerless. “You declared me provisional grand duke. My father’s condition isn’t better, but it’s not worse. I can’t pretend he’s as good as dead after four days, and I won’t do anything—anything—that I can’t guarantee he’d do.”
Inkar looked between us. Eirhan stopped his pacing. “A deadlock is a dangerous thing, Your Grace.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He reached back to retie his slipping horsetail with shaking hands. “It’s advice. People will start taking drastic measures, and dealing with them may be worse than making the decision in the first place.”
I had to wait until after dinner to slip into a servants’ corridor. I followed it to a staircase and sneaked up to the second floor, hoping that Viljo and Aino wouldn’t get into too much trouble for my absence.
If the guards outside Yannush’s door were surprised to see me, they didn’t indicate it. “I haven’t been here,” I told them coldly as they let me in. I considered giving them something; Inkar paid servants in silver from her own arms. But grand dukes didn’t make bribes. They received obedience.
Yannush looked awful—half his horsetail had come undone and hung in knotted tangles around his face. His skin was sallow in the firelight, and his eyes were dark pits. His beard looked dull and untidy.
He swayed as he registered me. Then his face twisted bitterly. “What are you doing here?”
Maybe it was a bad idea I’d come alone. “You said you had a cure.”
For a moment, I thought he hadn’t heard me. Then he began to pace. “I didn’t want to do it, you know,” he said, as though he’d been rehearsing.
I could tell him to shut up and give me my answers, but I held back. Maybe he’d reveal his allies. According to Annika, I hardly lacked for candidates.
“My hand was forced. Your father went mad, and we had no alternatives to stop him.”
“We?” I said.
“We’ll go bankrupt if you don’t do something,” Yannush said. He ran his hands over his arms, and I saw the scratches in his leather coat where his nails had scraped carelessly. “Not to mention that you’ve led us to the brink of war.”
I almost laughed at that. “You’re the one who tried to give Sigis the keys to the country.”
“We need his power. We need his strength.” Yannush stared me down. “We need his allegiance. Your father risked revolution and worse. Sigis might take some measure of independence, but he’ll offer stability. We need this. The Avenko line is selfish. You could have made an industry out of refining magic, but your father hoarded the secret. Sigis will make us a trading center. Sigis will make magic relevant, not just a curiosity for kings. And Sigis, unlike you, knows how to run a country.”
“Such a hero,” I sneered. “I’m sure you didn’t spare a thought for the rewards Sigis would give you. Land, titles, powerful positions in government. Did I miss anything?”
The fervent light in Yannush’s eyes guttered. “I’ve only done what I think must be done. And I didn’t do it for Sigis, but for Kylma.”
“Liar.” I stepped forward, testing my limits. Yannush fell back. Excellent. “How willing are you to die for him?”
For a long moment, all I could hear was the moan of the wind outside. Yannush’s hateful gaze gave way to something more desperate. Finally, he said, “What other option do I have?” in the hoarse voice of a man who had thrown his lot in with the conspiracy and lost.
What would Father do? Rage at him? Promise a painful death? Or would he act as Yannush’s friend right up to the point at which he killed him? “The illness is magical. Which means if you had something to do with it, you know how to manipulate the magic. You have the secret.”
Something flickered in his face. Hope, cunning, fear? “You want me to give it to you.”
I tried to keep my face blank. “I want to know how you got it.”
“And if I said it was your own father?”
“I’d call you a liar again.” I regretted not bringing Viljo along; the only way I could think to threaten Yannush was with a fire poker, and that didn’t seem fitting for my station. So I tried to soften my voice instead, to use pretty words instead of dire threats. To start from a different direction. “Tell me about the curse, Yannush. Tell me who worked on it with you, and tell me why you cursed them all.” All except me.