The Ippos King (Wraith Kings #3) - Grace Draven Page 0,145
their tips. “I'm familiar with our laws, Kai woman.” A small frown stitched a line across his brow. “You realize this would be a fight to the death? You lose, you die, and so does the margrave. And there may not be anyone to accept your challenge; therefore, no fight.”
That very thing had been Brishen's greatest fear while they hatched this plan. Anhuset had a reason, a motivation, to lay down her challenge, but there had to be one of equal importance for an opponent to accept it and step inside the arena with her knowing they might well die there.
“Someone always accepts, Your Majesty, if the prize is great enough.”
A grim smile darkened the king's face, and his expression turned flinty. “I sense the Khaskem cleverness in all of this. What prize do you think is worthy enough to lure someone into the arena and risk their life to fight a Kai warrior?”
Brishen's voice echoed in her ears. “Will this steward face you in the arena if he was offered something of immense value? High Salure itself? Serovek controls it because it's his family's demesne, not because he's a margrave. This steward could be offered the holdings and let the king appoint a margrave to handle the actual governing.”
Anhuset had laughed at the suggestion. “From what I saw of Bryzant, he's a milksop who pays others to spill blood for him. The last time I saw him he practically wet himself while standing on a kitchen table to avoid a loose scarpatine. He wouldn't come near me.”
But Brishen's idea had merit with some alterations, and she presented it to Rodan now. “High Salure is a jewel in your crown, Your Majesty. It belongs to the Pangion family, which has no heirs except his lordship to claim it. While it may lie at your far borders, it's wealthy and strategically important. There are other brave, fighting men among your nobles who'd surely be tempted to make High Salure theirs.” Thank the gods Serovek wasn't in the same room to hear her say those words. He'd try to strangle her.
“This gets more interesting by the moment,” Rodan said. “Approval of judicial combat is at my discretion according to those same laws. You winning doesn't mean Serovek is absolved; he only earns his freedom to cause trouble for me at a later date.” Jealousy, envy, and poisonous suspicion which had turned the king against one of his most loyal subjects, practically radiated from his body. Anhuset inwardly flinched. Brishen's predictions had been dead accurate so far regarding Rodan's every move and the motivation behind them.
“It's why I submit my second proposal, Your Majesty.” How in the gods' name she managed to keep her voice this calm so far, she'd never know. “Should you agree to a trial by combat and I emerge the victor, then I will extend an offer of marriage to Lord Pangion. A union of Kai and Beladine human made in good faith.”
When Brishen first made such a suggestion to her, she had no doubt she'd looked at him the same way Rodan was looking at her now—speechless from shock.
“Don't look at me as if I've lost my senses,” her cousin had said with a humorless chuckle. “I assure you I haven't. The greatest dangers to Serovek are his reputation and his standing. He's a prime catch for every Beladine noble family with a marriageable daughter, powerful noblemen with large estates who can field personal armies and make alliances. You can win a dozen judicial combats and Rodan will find a way to have Serovek arrested again, and I fear the next time he'll resort to torture to wring an untrue confession out of our friend.”
Anhuset's stomach had plummeted not only at Brishen's words but at the shadow of memory behind his eye. If anyone knew the horrors of torture, it was him. His reasoning lay heavy on her shoulders, layers upon layers of hard choices that would directly affect the rest of her life in great and small ways if she followed the line of his thinking and agreed to it. “He's no longer a prime catch if he marries someone like me.” A bastard Kai woman who couldn't bear him children, was neither Beladine nor recognized as noble, who lost her magic and couldn't tie a hair ribbon properly, who knew much of war and little of feminine graces, who would never be a sought-after widow or gain an inheritance. A woman of no value at all