"How dare you raise your voice to the members of this court that have been serving long before your arrival?!" Grayson yelled, abrupting rising from his seat and slamming his hand into the table.
"Get out," Boris growled.
"What?" Grayson asked his mind wavering.
"GET OUT," Boris bellowed his eyes sending sparks through the room, "if in the face of a crisis the only thing that bothers you is a hit to your useless arrogance, then GET OUT OF THIS ROOM! your presence will not be needed."
Grayson's jaw gnashed and he silently slid back into his seat.
"I will not be permitting any more USELESS arguments and those who participate in them will be removed from this meeting?" Boris warned his voice devoid of emotions except anger, "have I made myself clear? Quite frankly I don't care about whatever you have to say about me because, at the end of the day, I am the one in this chair, not you."
Grayson locked eyes with Boris for a second before looking away, his golden eyes started to feel more intimidating than they once were.
"Now," Boris sneered, his voice softening barely as he turned to Helen, "back to the issue at hand?"
Helen felt her cheeks heating up before turning away from him and clearing her throat, "ahem, we have to find people that either have a history of fighting and were previously trained or quick learners who can pick up the art of war in 3 days or less."
"I know of only a few families in this kingdom with that background, but that only provides us with a handful of fighters," another council member suggested before sighing, "but that's definitely not up to a thousand and we still have to have at least a few hundred here to defend the kingdom in case of attacks."
"I do-" Helen began.
"Are the people in this kingdom for decoration?" Boris sighed interrupting Helen.
"What?" Helen asked.
"You heard me, do we not have commoners who have served in the army or health males roaming the streets?" Boris explained, "in the time of war are we really going to rely on those rich families who haven't bothered training their children to fight because they live a life of luxury, when we have people in the streets who have learned to fight on their own."
"Are you suggesting we go into the streets and pick out people to fight for us?" Grayson asked.
"Yes," Boris nodded, "you have no idea how many people out there are searching for manual jobs and would do anything for money so they can live. We simply pay them for their work and they go into war. The people in our kingdom should be ready to devote themselves when wartime comes, afterall we provide them with food and land to live on, right?"
The council members nodded in unison.
"It makes sense," the eldest member, Noah A. Angus, "we have ample people in the streets in search of work and we have every right to make use of them."
"Right," Boris replied.
"Then what's the plan?" Feline asked, "are you going out there to select them yourself?"
"Who else is going to do it?" Boris replied, "you?"
"Doesn't that seem like a risky idea?" asked a council member, "our prince is at war and you're the person he left in charge... if something happened to you…"
"Andrew, the streets were once my home and now I am blessed to call this palace my home," Boris replied, "if I didn't know the way around my own house would it be my home then?"
Noah nodded his head in agreement, "when shall we head out?"
"Now," Boris answered standing up from his seat, "call 10 guards, I'm taking all of us out there."
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JUST FOR HELP NAVIGATING THE CURRENT CHAPTERS:
Kalmin's part with Claudia was way ahead in the future because he did other stuff before coming to feed her, therefore the excerpt in which he fed Claudia is a few hours AFTER Boris and the meeting. Basically, when Boris is still in the meeting, Kalmin still hadn't finished the other tasks before Claudia, when Boris leaves the castle, Kalmin is on the last task before meeting Claudia. And while Boris is out of the castle walls, Kalmin will be walking down the 5 flights to Claudia's cell. And later when Boris returns well.. you guess from there.
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For those wondering how Kalmin could have so many tasks before talking to Claudia, he was the one left to look after Boris by Dominic, and he is a council member and even moreso, the HEAD, so he was also left with some(a lot actually) kingdom affairs. He's like a secretary lol.
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I hope this helped you! (leave comments pls) Have fun reading XD