The Blood Spell (Ravenspire, #4)(94)
Martin leaped to his feet, his fist lashing out at one of the guards. The other two slammed him into the table and pressed him forward until he was bent at the waist, his arms held firmly behind his back, his cheek lying against the wood as he locked eyes with the prince.
Pieder made a strangled noise in the back of his throat and began crawling across the table toward Martin, while Louis drew his sword.
“Stop!” Kellan held up his hand and waited until he was sure he had both Pieder’s and Louis’s attention. “You will have justice, but you will have it within the confines of the law. He owes each of you a blood debt. The crown offers to strip his immediate family of their noble titles and their place on this council and allow the two of you to choose which distant relation of his may have his place here. Further, his wealth and business holdings will be divided between the two of you, though we will hold in escrow an amount sufficient for the upkeep and security of the Roche quarter and kingdom holdings until we are satisfied that the person you’ve chosen as his replacement is capable of sustaining their obligation to their quarter and to the crown.”
“How could you?” Louis spat, his voice trembling with rage as the guards pulled Martin to his feet again. “You have a daughter of your own.”
Martin clenched his jaw and looked at the floor.
Kellan waited as Pieder and Louis hurled questions and accusations at Martin, their grief a wild, feral thing that filled the room until it seemed the air was growing thick with its fury. When the two men were spent, Kellan said quietly, “Martin Roche, pending the presentation of evidence to this council, you are hereby sentenced to death by hanging. I will give you one day in our dungeons so that your family may visit you to say their good-byes. It’s one day more than you gave to Marisol and Genevieve, and I want you to know that I do that as a courtesy to your family, and not to you.”
Martin spat at the floor, and the guards dragged him from the room. Kellan waited until he was sure the guards had had enough time to secure Martin in the dungeons before presenting the evidence, taking a vote on the verdict, and then dismissing the meeting. Once the last representative left, he sagged into the closest chair and covered his face with his hands.
The queen’s dress rustled as she sank into the chair beside him. Softly, she said, “You did well. I’m proud of you.”
He dropped his hands and met her eyes. “He didn’t even have it in him to apologize to them. To own the fact that he was willing to sacrifice their children for his own lust for power.”
“It’s an awful thing to see someone so corrupted by their own desires that they stop caring about how their actions affect others.”
Kellan stiffened. “If you’re comparing what happened with Blue in the garden to Martin—”
“I’m not.” She wrapped one hand around his and squeezed firmly. “There’s a vast difference between killing someone for power and kissing someone you can’t have because you’ve fallen in love.”
He was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “I didn’t mean to fall in love with her.”
The queen laughed sadly. “I know you didn’t. And if I’d ever dreamed there was a possibility of the two of you dropping your constant bickering in favor of kissing, I’d have put a stop to you visiting both the farmhouse and the shop long ago.”
“I don’t know how I’m going to offer to marry someone else.”
She gathered him to her and held him. For a long moment, he let himself be comforted, but then he pulled away. She didn’t have to tell him that he was going to have to master his heart and do his duty. He already knew it. His destiny was a long corridor carved from stone, and there was no changing it.
As if she could see the direction of his thoughts, she said quietly, “The ball is coming, and we’ll need to make the betrothal announcement.”
“I know.”
She waited as he scrubbed his hands over his face again before finally saying, “I’m going to choose Emmaline Perrin. I like her, she’s kind to Nessa, and I think we’re going to need a strong alliance with the military between our current problems with the Roches and the Faures.”
“That’s a good choice,” she said quietly, stone threading her words with the strength that had kept her on the throne long after her husband’s death, fighting to keep her kingdom together while she prepared her son to take his father’s place. “Now, let’s get some rest so we can be at our best during the ball.”
He rose, offered her his hand to help her to her feet, and then left the council room with purpose in his thoughts and a lonely ache in his heart at the thought of dancing at the ball with anyone but Blue.
THIRTY-NINE
BLUE DIDN’T RETURN home after kissing Kellan in the garden. She couldn’t face the thought of talking to Dinah, or worse, being asked to go down in the root cellar again. Instead, she went to Grand-mère’s, where Pepperell waited on the porch and dinner was quickly magicked onto the table.
If Grand-mère wondered why Blue was so subdued, she didn’t ask. Instead, she filled the evening with hugs and pastries and lovely stories about Blue’s mother as a child. When bedtime came, she tucked Blue in the way she’d done when Blue was small, sang her the lullaby her mother had written, and left a very sleepy Pepperell curled up on one side of Blue’s pillow to guard his mistress’s dreams.