“An affront to the gods?” Maddek’s harsh laugh echoed through the chamber. “Only to your goddess. Her brother Chaliq rages with me.”
“So he does.” Her gaze was steely as it held his. “But that is the way of Justice. He serves himself. Law serves the people—and it is by alliance law that this matter has been resolved.”
“Alliance law is not Parsathean law.”
“Then by your own laws. If Zhalen set upon your parents, as you believe, then your queen and king were challenged and defeated. The council could have allowed Zhalen to take Parsathean lands for his own—a suggestion that was at one point put forth by him.”
Maddek might have welcomed that. For if it had been done, then Maddek would have soon been meeting Zhalen and issuing a new challenge.
And if it had been done, so too would the alliance council have met him on the battlefield. “You would have allowed him to take Parsathean lands?” The fury of his gaze burned into hers, and even steel could not long withstand heat of this intensity. “Parsathean lands are not the council’s lands to give. We are not a province under rule of the alliance. The alliance is an agreement between our people—and treachery breaks that agreement.” Pella and her devotion to Muda did not sit at that crescent table alone, however. Maddek met Nayil’s gaze again and could see no weakening in the older man, nothing to distrust. Yet Zhalen still lived. “You stand with this decision?”
Grim resolution lined his face. “Our queen and king wanted nothing more than a strong alliance—”
“They were betrayed by that alliance. I have no more use for it.”
“You speak in haste and rage and grief.” Admonition firmed the other man’s voice. “Your parents would still have the agreement between our people and the southern realms be honored.”
Haste and rage and grief did not change the truth that prompted Maddek’s response. “What honor is there when we stand in alliance with their murderers? Do you speak as their friend and fellow warrior? Do you speak as a Parsathean? Or do you speak for this council?”
The older man’s jaw clenched—likely holding back his own words of haste and rage. After a moment, he said evenly, “I took a vow to serve our people and to serve this alliance. And I speak for both when I tell you we cannot weaken now.”
Pella’s gold chains clinked softly as she folded her arms over her chest, her eyes tight with dread and fear. “Word is that Anumith the Destroyer is returning from across the western ocean.”
“Rumor,” Maddek dismissed. He had heard the same word. But not a day of his life had passed without hearing someone speculate upon the Destroyer’s return.
“This news has come from many sources,” Nayil said quietly. “You were a babe too young to know the terror and evil he brought upon us, but Pella and I remember well. So do Kintus and Gareth. Now with the monasteries of Toleh at our side, with the strength of Ephorn and Syssia, with Rugusian steel and Gogean seed—perhaps more might survive his march through these lands. More might live.”
Bitterness rose to Maddek’s tongue again. “What life would it be when every breath drawn is of air that Zhalen still breathes? As a son, I cannot let their murders go unavenged. I cannot be part of an alliance that will turn their gaze from truth and say that justice has been done.”
“And what of your people? You are not only a son. You will be a king.”
“Parsathe has not yet spoken.”
“They will. As one voice.” Nayil’s was certain. “You will be Ran Maddek—and we must have a king who does not put himself above the needs of the people by turning his back on the alliance.”
And Maddek could not turn his back on his mother and father. “Others could lead. Your daughter is strong. Enox would be a fine Ran.”
“She is and she would be,” Nayil agreed. “But so would many others. The tribes would argue and put forth their own candidates, and we would be divided instead of strengthened by the choice we must make. You are the only one who would have the consensus of all. You are the only one who already does. Do you think these discussions have not already taken place? They have. You are the voice we will choose to speak for all of Parsathe, Maddek, and is this how you would serve us? Is this how you would honor your mother and father—by destroying the alliance and abandoning your people?”
“It is Zhalen who destroyed the alliance when he struck my father down.”
“Not in the eyes of the law.” Pella’s response was not without sympathy, but her gaze and her tone were steel again. “And if you touch Zhalen or his sons in retaliation, the alliance will move against you as an enemy.”
Maddek inclined his head. “If that is what must be, then so be it.”
On a heavy sigh, Nayil closed his eyes, then looked to Pella with a silent request.
She answered with a bow of her head and more solemn words for Maddek. “I will leave you to speak with your advisor, Ran Maddek. I understand what a blow this must strike to your heart. But the alliance must survive if we are all to survive—and it cannot if your vengeance rips apart the agreement that binds us. No one will trust the Parsatheans to hold to alliance law if their Ran raises himself above it.”
“Your words are not unheard, Lady Pella,” was his only response. It was all Maddek could give to her now—the reassurance that he respected her enough to hear and consider everything she had said.
Upon her retreat, Nayil sank heavily into one of the bone chairs. With a gesture he invited Maddek to do the same, but Maddek could not sit. He prowled the length of the chamber instead.
“Held and interrogated for three turns of the moon?” Maddek would not lay accusing eyes upon the other man, so he looked to the ivory ceiling instead. If Nayil had known what had occurred, his mother would never have been imprisoned for so long. “How did their absence go unnoticed?”
“We knew they were journeying in search of a bride.” Weary self-recrimination filled the response. This was a question Nayil must have asked himself repeated times. “No one in Parsathe thought them missing, only traveling. I thought their silence was unusual but never suspected the truth. I believed they had simply not sent a message—or would not, until they found a bride for you.”
“What of this girl? There are no more daughters of Nyset. Are there?”
Only a woman of Nyset’s blood could inherit Syssia’s throne, which was why Zhalen would never be more than regent. Nor would his sons, despite the moonstone eyes that marked them as Nyset’s descendants. Their own children would not carry the same mark; it only passed through the female line.
Zhalen’s wife, the warrior-queen Vyssen, had given birth to five sons. But she had borne no daughters and was the last female in that bloodline. With no one to claim the throne after her death, Zhalen clung to her power and his position with an iron fist.