Alex Lidell - The Cadet of Tildor

A peace offering. Savoy swallowed, accepting the change in conversation and letting his heart reclaim its normal beat. His men were coming. Verin had handed him the stack of documents that morning, including permission for the Seventh to lodge at the Academy’s guest barracks. For all his words at the year’s start, Verin knew a unit worked best when whole. “Under guise of ‘inspection and training.’ ” Savoy replied, and allowed a smile at Seaborn’s snort. “Should be here toward autumn’s end.”

“A mission?”

“A precaution.” Savoy stretched his shoulders. “The Madam ordered the Queen’s Day attack. She is unlikely to give up after one bout.”

On the sand floor of the salle, Renee leaned into a stretch and shuddered against the chill of the morning. Beyond the window, red maple leaves lost their grip on branches and drifted to cover the stiff yellowing grass. Despite Alec’s grumblings that she was wasting time learning moves she’d never use, Renee still returned to the salle each dawn.

Kneeling a pace away, Savoy bound his forearm with a string of thin lead weights. Healer Grovener had promised to skin him alive for overworking the joint, and Savoy swore to do the same to Renee if she reported him.

The weights unwound and slid to the sand. Savoy growled.

Renee rose to help, but he shook her away.

“Very well, struggle on.” Remembering herself, she added, “Sir.”

His face rose from his task, the corners of his mouth twitching, but then he cocked his head and frowned at the opening door.

Despite the early hour, Master Seaborn appeared in a dress uniform, his face set in grim lines. “Servant, cadet.” He offered a small bow to each of them.

Renee tensed at the formality.

Savoy rocked back on his heels. “Skip the horse shit, Connor.”

Seaborn sighed. “As the guardsman overseeing the investigative team, Fisker is charged with presenting the findings on the Queen’s Day attack to the Board of Inquiry this afternoon.” Seaborn handed a sealed parchment to each of them. “Your presence is mandated.”

“Our presence?” Renee looked from one man to the other. She and Savoy had already been interviewed. Ad nauseam. “But we did nothing wrong.”

Savoy glanced at her, his brows raised. “A room full of bodyguards lose control of the situation to a maid, and the royal family gets near massacred in the Crown’s own palace. Do you not see a problem?” He turned back to Seaborn. “What else?”

Seaborn sighed again. “I’ll be the magistrate running the proceedings.”

Savoy chuckled.

“You think Fisker questioning you is funny, Korish?” There was something in the way Seaborn said the second “you” that caught Renee’s notice. “Or that I wish to administer such an inquiry?”

A darkness passed over Savoy’s face as the two men exchanged a glance that she could not interpret. Then Savoy shrugged and, taking up his blade, stepped toward the center of the salle. “It is as it is. De Winter and I have time to make something useful of the day yet.”

Renee’s shoulders tightened from the rising tension. Shaking herself, she slid away from Savoy’s coming blow, which streaked through the air a bit faster than usual.

Tense, quiet chatter buzzed beneath the domed ceiling of the Justice Hall courtroom. The brown velvet drapes were pulled back to let in wide rays of sunlight. The Board of Inquiry, a four-man panel of judges pulled from the Palace Guard, the military, and civilian officials, sat with Seaborn at a polished wood table at the head of the room. These four would evaluate Fisker’s conclusions and decide what charges, if any, were to be pressed. And against whom.

A gray-clad clerk herded Renee, Savoy, and other members of the protection detail into a roped-off area on the left, across from a gated witness box. A few paces from them, the palace maid wept into her hands. Renee settled into a hard chair and clenched her jaw. The woman cost Savoy an arrow in the shoulder and near murdered the royal family. There was no redemption for that, not by anyone’s measure.

Beside Renee, Savoy tipped his chair back, balancing it on its hind legs and ignoring Seaborn’s scowl. Spectators crowded the benches. Among the solemn bodies, Renee made out the anxious faces of Alec and Sasha, Verin’s intense gaze, and Lord Palan’s forehead. Dabbing his face with a gold embroidered handkerchief, Palan leaned down to speak to a bored-looking Tanil, who was not one to pass up a chance to miss classes. Palan sighed at his nephew, then heaved over to make room for another man. The two shook hands in greeting and Renee felt the hair stir on the back of her neck. The dark coat, the set of the newcomer’s shoulders . . . The man turned and sat, drawing the breath from her lungs. Her father. What in the Seven Hells was he doing in Atham?

Before she could sort her thoughts, the clang of a bell swallowed the room. The proceedings opened. At Seaborn’s direction, Fisker rose.

“Vipers are an abomination,” Fisker announced to the Justice Hall. “An abomination that should be eradicated from Tildor’s soil. And with them, all those who aid them, who heed them, who spread their seed. Vipers—”

“Guardsman.” Seaborn rubbed the side of his nose. “If you would be kind enough to detail your findings on this case in particular?”

Fisker bowed, his face reddening, and continued in a more relevant vein. “While the Vipers undeniably orchestrated the assault against the Crown this Queen’s Day past,” he concluded, tenting his nine fingers, “the actions of several others, whether in assisting the Vipers or showing egregious incompetence in their duty, pose concerns the board may wish to address.”

Incompetence? Renee caught a glance Fisker threw at Savoy and frowned.

Savoy grinned at the guard.

Fisker’s eyes flashed, but he drew a breath and requested that the maid take the witness stand. Her hesitation bought her an armed escort.

“You are Mistress Olivia?” Seaborn’s usually kind voice held a note of cold indifference that chilled Renee. He waited for Olivia’s nod before proceeding. “Guardsman Fisker believes your words will help the Board of Inquiry understand what happened during the Queen’s Day attack. He will ask you questions designed to show a fact pattern to the board. Note that the board may find your actions suspect. If it does, you will be charged with a crime and have access to a defense advocate. Do you understand?” Seaborn waited for another nod and gestured to Fisker. “Go ahead, sir.”

Fisker brushed stray strands of silver hair from his long face. “You opened the window shutter in the palace dining room and, when leaving, obstructed the door lock, is that correct?”

“Yes, sir,” she whispered.

“Why?”

“A letter.” She twisted her hands in her lap. “The third of three I received, all with instructions. When I refused the first, my boy Jakie disappeared. He was a happy, healthy lad. Four years old and lively like a bumblebee.” A tear ran down her cheek. “He was returned but a day later, too weak to lift his head by himself. I . . . I had a bit of savings and I scraped all I had for a Healer. My Jakie, he saw the mage fire around the Healer’s hand and howled and howled, as if he knew what it was. And . . . he did know.”

Nausea brushed the back of Renee’s throat.

Seaborn waited a moment to let the witness regain her composure and prompted her to continue.

“The Healer said a mage violated my Jakie. Ripped his Keraldi Barrier and bled the life energy from him. Left so little that my boy could but breathe. A chill would end his life.” She hugged herself. “I tended him and fed him soft food and a month later he sat up himself again. He is a fighter, my Jakie.”