She looked at the king who was still standing in front of her chair. Her smile didn't fade, but I could see sparks in her eyes, she was not to be taken lightly. "I believe you are between me and my chair, heart." She might have loved the man that was her king, or she might have tried to love the man that the council had seen fit to tie her to, but there was none of that in her eyes or her voice as she said heart. She had been a means to an end for him and now that was all he was to her. He was too dangerous to her people to let go.
"We were-"
"I will warn you only once to check with the men you called allies before opening your mouth again. You have insulted two masters and attempted to kill me. Are you going to challenge me to my face? Now that your plots have failed you again?"
I could feel the shield spell running down reactions. The king was still classified as family, but at the queen's words and his unresponsiveness to them in this room the shield had reranked him. He was now an active danger to the family, not just a threat. I wasn't sure what the full consequences would be but I knew the king wouldn't be able to regroup his power after, if he didn't back off.
The king crossed his arms, "You haven't been in a council meeting for over ten years. You have no sway left. Whatever trinket you wear."
The queen's eyes flashed again. "You really should have paid more attention to history, heart."
"Who your father was won't save you again." The room was silent when he stopped talking. It was clear he wanted to look around but he didn't dare, it would show that he wasn't as confident as he was trying to sound.
"No it won't." The king nodded like he had just won. He turned his back on the queen. The palace shield spell reacted before anyone else could. I looked around to see the elders trying very hard to suppress their shock and in some cases fear. All eyes were on the queen as she stepped up to the spot the king had been standing in. "The crystal and my own name will now." The queen was talking to the empty space that the king had been standing in.
The queen pulled her hair over her right shoulder and sat in the chair the king had vacated. The chair had looked big with the king in it. With the much smaller queen in it, it looked gigantic. It also seemed to fit her better then it had the king, in some odd way. Maybe it was just me, but she seemed more a part of the chair with all of its elven symbolism.
The queen turned her head to look at me pulling me out of my thoughts, "I am sorry to have to ask this, master Desdemona but your connection to the palace does seem better than my own. What happened to him?" No one had ever actually called me master before. I technically earned the title the first time I had earned a crystal weapon. I doubted the army title would mean anything here but from the reactions of the men standing around the table maybe the queen might have meant something else.
"Currently he is in your apartment. I have a feeling by the time you are ready to go back up there he will be in one of the places I still cannot see."
"He will get to see my room? That hardly seems right. The older brother certainly had a wicked sense of humor." The queen absently touched the tiger that now hung at her neck.
"The shield seems to follow the old adage, keep your friends close and true enemies closer."
The queen nodded and smiled at me, "I would ask you to take a seat but I cannot just yet. My boy will have some gaps in your education to fill in before you can make an informed choice. As for the rest of you." The queen looked at every man still standing around her table. "I believe you were debating a vote of no confidence in my ability to care for my people. You were going to install my husband as king at least until my son stepped down from serving in the army. I have a couple points to add before we vote on it. First being that my husband can no longer leave the palace. Not only can he not leave but he cannot go anywhere in the palace now without my consent. The second being that if I am not leading the meetings, and my son is not leading the meetings; there would be no reason for me to let them be in the palace."
The queen dropped her hand from the tiger, folding them in front of herself and leaning on the table. "Let us settle this issue at least. If you still support your puppet over me, then leave. If you are not willing to take my offer to start a civil war among the elves, and that is what you will be doing, then sit down and if there are still enough of you, we will begin working on the next issue." At first none moved one way or the other.
The prince let out a small sigh and started fiddling with something on his wrist. I noticed that he had the tie for his hair there. On the rare times I had seen him out of the training arena and not on the battlefield his hair had always been left down. From the way the queen was running her fingers through her long hair I was pretty sure that it was a well known sign that the royal family was not prepared for a fight at least not right that second, if their hair was down. The prince's hair was currently cut shorter so the tie must only be for show, but it might not too.
A good two minutes passed, with hardly even a shifting among the elders. Suddenly one of the elders at the end of the table spoke, heads all around the table snapped to look at him. "I have never supported the king, but why should I support you now, you vanished from us once. What is your end goal?" I was pretty sure this was one of the voices that had not agreed with the king.
The queen nodded, her eyes had seemed to be looking at something we couldn't see for a moment. "I am just a bridge, elder. There must be two banks for a bridge to work. God has a plan for his people. Free will is an important part of that plan, but that can make bridges that are too weak. I am no longer too weak. Now the question is are there still two banks or has one been washed away?"
"You don't intend to take what you want then?"
"Elves don't take, we build. Same as all the children of the light. I am an elf first." The queen must have seen something in the elders that I didn't as she continued, "I am not a soldier in the army, I am beginning to think I should have tried as hard as my son did to go to the academy but I did not. Outside of this room you have no promise that I will not lie. I could go to my room tonight and kill the king, you would never know. I could physically do it, I don't think my own demon is strong enough to make it fun. I am certainly having fun thinking about it, but we cannot forget what we are just because our teeth are rarely fangs anymore. We meet here because you don't have to be part of the army to be bound here. I want only to make changes that will help keep the bridge from collapsing for so long again. It will collapse, it may collapse for generations again. I want to be the voice of reason in an often upset world. I can only be sorry for my weakness, I cannot promise not to be weak again. Strength is not guaranteed in this world. I will be more careful."
I watched the elder that had spoken the whole time the queen talked. He was far enough away that I couldn't see small movements on his face for how he might be feeling about the queen's speech. He seemed to nod then he sat down. Folding his hands in his lap he didn't look at any of the other elders. I watched as he looked back up at the queen after a moment, "I don't like you, my queen. It doesn't change the fact that you are the heir and you are the Queen. I will listen to the voice." He hadn't said he would agree with the queen, he hadn't said that he would follow where she led. There were no words of loyalty or allegiance in his statement, and the queen hadn't asked for them as a way to avoid the war she had seen.
A few more moments passed then a few more of the elders sat down. They gave no words to their thoughts and the queen didn't ask for them. I couldn't tell what the prince was thinking from his back. I wasn't trying to read his mind or anyone else but there was something about this room that seemed to be blocking that ability anyway. I could tell that quite a few of the people who were standing still were looking at me. It was the same look I got from most elders, like they were terrified of what I might do but they were more afraid that by asking they would give me the knowledge to actually do what they were afraid of in the first place.
One of them finally spoke, "Send her away. She shouldn't have any right to be here."
The queen frowned and drummed her nails on the table a couple of times. "I noticed you said shouldn't instead of doesn't." The queen was looking down at her nails now instead of at the man that had addressed her. "I will give you a chance to rephrase that sentence, using her name and title, or I will act like I didn't hear the statement at all. That goes for any of you that wish to voice the same opinion. If any of you can say she doesn't have a right to be here in that many words with no qualifiers or implications, I will send her away."
"She doesn't-" He choked on the next words. He took a breath and started again. "Everyone at the table has -" I wondered if the other elders could see my confusion. The queen had said the oath binds, in this room, even those who hadn't given it. Now the elder that seemed not to like what I am, was choking on his words. Just like the warning the oath gave when you were about to break it on accident. He knew what he was trying so hard to say wasn't true, no matter how much he wanted it to be. "We could de-"
The elder growled as he choked again. He was getting frustrated as he took another breath, "Desdemona, has no right to be at this table."
The queen nodded, "Good thing master Desdemona is not at the table then." There was a little force on the title of master when the queen said it. She had also put a little force on the table. The queen had said that as much as she may wish to, she could not invite me to the table. I was starting to get quite the list of questions to ask the prince if we were ever alone again.
The elder actually growled at the queen, "You know what I mean."
"Yes, I do." The queen looked up at the elder that sat a lot closer to the prince than I would like. It was clear to me that the elders that sat closer to the monarch controlled more power than those that sat farther away. Except the one the prince had sent to the end of the table. The king had thought he controlled a majority and I was pretty sure he hadn't been wrong from the number of elders that were still standing. I really didn't want these elders to use me as a cover for whatever they were really doing. I considered leaving but I was also sure I didn't want to ask to be dismissed any more than the queen was currently going to dismiss me. "You mean the same thing that almost got her key taken away from her, the day she got it." That got my attention back. "You mean the same thing that caused the people who should have been watching out for her to turn their back on her. You mean the same thing that almost kept her out of the academy in the first place. You mean the same reason that more arms masters pushed her much harder than they ever pushed any of the other students. You mean the same thing that caused the leaders to look the other way. Don't forget who you are talking to again. I may have missed way more meetings then I had any reason to even before I got sick, but I am the heir. I have been the queen for almost 200 years now. If you cannot actually say what you want to mean in this room, maybe you should consider that you are lying to yourself. You cannot say that she doesn't have a right to be here because you know that is a lie. I on the other hand can say that master Desdemona has more right to be in this room than any other person actually at this table. The only one that comes close is my son. It doesn't matter that she cannot sit at the table and you know it."
"What she is, is reason enough to keep her out of the chamber."
The queen shook her head and looked back at her long nails which she was now tapping on the table. "Really you want me to outlaw descendants of demons from the chamber?"
"Of-of course not, but you shouldn't talk about that with her here. She is not an elder."
"You don't have to be an elder to know that the brothers were half breeds. I do believe there are quite a few non elder scholars who could tell you which one of the brothers' parents was a demon. It most certainly is not common knowledge anymore but it isn't restricted either. If you wish to talk about things that are for elders only, I would have to dismiss my son as well. I would suggest those very well defined and specific topics be left until the end." Her nails stopped tapping and she looked back up at the elder that had been talking at her.
Wow she had said it straight out. There were no qualifiers in her sentences, there was no might be or could be in that sentence and if the people in this room really were bound by the oath while in here, which did seem like the case, then the queen was saying all the Islee and all the elves were half breeds. Well obviously not half breeds their blood was watered down now but they would still be part demon. That would explain how the elders seemed to know what I would need.
The elder growled when he was sure he wasn't going to get the queen to back down on this issue. "Very well, let the shadow darken your hall, when the city falls because of you, I won't tell you, I told you so." The elder turned and started to open the door.
"Of course you won't, Ashon." I saw his back stiffen as he opened the door, "If the city falls I would be dead, and unless you abandoned your role, you would be too." He snorted and left the door open as he marched out. I was not surprised to see more than a few of the elders follow him. What did surprise me was the number of elders that had taken a seat during that conversation. Clearly the queen had not expected to sway the man that had left and her words had not really been for him.
There were only about 5 still standing. Silence returned to the room and screeched on for minutes. I didn't let my attention to any possible physical threats wander even as I thought about what had been said and what it might mean to me.
I always just knew what time it was even though I never got tired like a normal person, or hungry even. It was well past sunset, my unit was going to be wondering where I was soon. I might wander off in our free time in the city but I never missed anything. The next class of the academy should have graduated today. It hadn't been ordered that anyone go but it had been implied, I put that thought out of my mind. It wasn't really important. It should be an horron to be reassigned as a vet to a new squad. Ok I didn't do a good job putting it out of my mind.