fever put him near to the throne and made him a part of the courtly intrigues within the crystal palace. And then he would not leave it.”
Aerax’s narrowed gaze she felt upon her. With the fire burning in her gut again, she raised her brows, daring him to challenge her.
He did not. And just as well, for she was not done. “And there is also Degg the Red, who despises Aerax because the bastard prince did not earn his rank. For that is the promise of Koth—you must only work hard, and you might rise to be whatever you wish to be. So our royals labor to earn the ranking they are born with. All snow-hairs are taught royal lessons until they have the strongest of minds and are the sharpest of warriors. But instead of royal lessons, Aerax spent every day and night providing for his mother, because she could find no help or trade with the locals who shunned her for having a nameless bastard son. So when that feral prince was given a place in the crystal palace without having worked for it, Degg would not forgive him.”
She looked to the councilor, who was exerting so much effort not to hear her that his face and ears had flushed to nearly match his hair. “Degg will tell you that he earned his place on the council by working so very hard, too. And likely he did. But what he will never say is that everyone works hard. From the mines to the palace, everyone labors. Yet they do not rise. He will say it is because they do not work hard enough, or fail to focus their efforts in the right way—but he will never admit that his place now is the result of opportunity that others who worked as hard never had, and merely because his father knew Lady Junica.”
Who regarded Lizzan now with a calm, steady gaze. A woman who had voted for Lizzan’s exile.
But Lizzan had no arrows for her. “I have nothing ill to say of you,” she said, her throat tightening. “I have long admired your fight to reform the law so that the books serve as a record instead of as a judgment. And I can only imagine the depth of your grief when the red fever took all of your family.” Parents, sisters and brothers, husband and children. And it must not only have been grief, but also guilt—for Lizzan knew too well the pain of being an only survivor. “But despite all that you endured and lost, still you have heart enough to care for all of Koth and her citizens. And I do not fault you for believing what was said of me. When I met with the council, you at least asked me what occurred and listened to my story. But you did not know me at all—and there was no one who would speak to my character—so you could not also know how everything I said was twisted into shameful cowardice.”
She turned her gaze to Uland, who stared at her in silent fury. “But Uland might have known, if he’d but taken a moment to think. Never once while we served together did I run and hide. Not when we were all puking as we cleared the island of bodies taken by the fever. Not when we searched for marauders in the outland forests and encountered a family of ice walkers instead. Not when we were mired in a devourer’s mudsink and certain we would never escape. Never once did I falter or set my own life ahead of other Kothan lives. Yet you accepted a story that I had deserted my soldiers and lied about the wraiths? You believed that I was a coward, despite the evidence of the years you have known me? It is as if your brain was scooped out and replaced with a rabbit’s fart.”
Uncertainty flickered through the rage Uland still leveled at her, but Lizzan cared not at all what he thought now. She reached for Aerax’s mead and took a deep swallow to wet her parched tongue, then turned to Laina again. “So that might do for proper introductions. What did you wish to hear from me?”
Laina appeared bemused—and of course could not speak. Instead it was Riasa who said, “What was it that killed your soldiers? If our warriors are to head north, I wish to know what we will face.”
A sensible request. “Wraiths,” Lizzan said. In response