Chapter 14: Debate
The council chamber was a cage of warm wood and cold calculation. Spring sunlight cut in sharp angles through the high windows, illuminating dust motes dancing above a heated debate.
“It’s not a gift,” Eleanor snapped, her finger planted on the sprawling map of the southern trade routes. “It’s a leak. A deliberate one. The Baron of Cressa is letting passage rights lapse to the caravans from Kael, then personally financing their tolls through the back channels. He’s not being generous. He’s building a private mercantile empire with our sovereignty as the foundation.”
Lord Beringer, still smarting from the mining debacle months prior, shifted in his seat. “A bold accusation, Your Majesty, without ledgers—”
“The ledgers are the gap,” she interrupted, her voice like a tightened wire. “The absence where the numbers should be. He’s not recording the income because it never touches the crown’s coffers. It goes straight into his personal stronghold. We don’t need a ledger of his theft. We need to subpoena his ship manifests and compare them to the port master’s logs. The discrepancy is the proof.”
Alistair watched from his throne-like chair, his chin resting on steepled fingers. He’d let her run the dissection, a silent judge appreciating a skilled executioner. “And your recommendation?”
“A royal audit. Surprise inspection. Confiscate everything in his southern warehouse before he can burn the records. Make it public. Then strip him of his titles and use his confiscated assets to repair the very roads he’s been skimming from.” She looked around the table, her green eyes challenging. “Or we can sit here and philosophize about ledger entries while he buys his own army.”
A heavy silence followed, broken only by the crackle of the hearth. Garvin was nodding, a grim smile on his face. Others looked unsettled, the brutality of the solution laid bare.
That’s when the door, the huge, iron-banded oak door meant to seal in secrets of state, thumped softly. Then it nudged open a fraction.
A small, padded shoe appeared in the gap. Then a cascade of confused, delighted babbling.
Every head turned.
Lucien tumbled into the room as if pushed by a spring, his nursemaid’s pale, horrified face a flash in the doorway before it vanished. He’d grown. He was a solid little creature now, draped in a simple linen tunic, his thatch of copper curls bright in a shaft of sunlight. He paused, surveying the room of staring, bearded men and one frozen woman with wide, curious eyes the same piercing blue as his father’s.
No one moved. It was as if a wolf cub had wandered into a war council.
Lucien’s gaze swept past Alistair, past Garvin, past the frowning lords, and landed squarely on Eleanor.
A grin split his face, revealing tiny, pearl-like teeth. He let out a squeal of pure, unadulterated joy—a sound utterly alien in that room of whispered plots and veiled threats.
His feet, clad in soft leather, pattered a rapid, unsteady rhythm on the stone flagstones. He weaved between the heavy chairs, a determined little ship on a chaotic course.
Straight to her.
Eleanor’s world contracted to the sound of those pattering feet. Her breath locked in her chest. Her hands, which had moments ago been emphatically marking points of treason on a map, fell to her sides, limp. Every instinct screamed to step back, to put the solid bulk of the council table between herself and this incoming, undeniable fact.
She didn’t move.
He reached her, clutching at the heavy fabric of her skirts to steady himself. He looked up, his face a beacon of open, trusting delight. “Mmm-da!” he announced, confidently, to the entire silent chamber.
One sticky hand released her skirt and reached up, fingers grasping aimlessly at the air toward her. He wanted to be held. It was obscenely clear.
The silence was a physical pressure. Eleanor could feel the weight of every lord’s stare, but heaviest of all was Alistair’s from across the table. He hadn’t moved, hadn’t spoken. He was just watching, his expression unreadable.
Her mind was a white blank. All her strategies, her wits, her fiercely guarded walls offered no protocol for this. She looked down into his upturned face, saw a smudge of what looked like apricot jam on his chin, saw the absolute certainty in his eyes that she was the person he had been looking for.
Slowly, as if moving through deep water, she bent at the knees. Not a full crouch, but a lowering of herself to his level. Her movements were stiff, unnatural. She did not open her arms.
He solved the problem for her. The moment she was within reach, he leaned in, his small, solid body pressing against her, his arms wrapping clumsily around her neck in a damp, sticky embrace. He buried his face in the hollow of her shoulder with a contented sigh, as if he’d just completed a long journey.
The scent of him flooded her senses—soap, warm milk, the sweet-sour tang of fruit, and something else, something indefinably and wholly child. Her own arms, trapped at her sides, trembled. A violent, electric jolt shot through her, part terror, part something else so vast and frightening she had no name for it.
She did not hug him back. But her head, almost of its own volition, bowed slightly. Her cheek, for one searing instant, rested against the incredible softness of his copper curls.
The room remained suspended in silence.
Then, Garvin cleared his throat, a rough, gravelly sound. “Seems the young prince has a sound strategic mind,” he rumbled, a deep amusement in his voice. “Identifies the most formidable person in the room and goes straight for the summit.”
A few nervous chuckles rippled through the lords, breaking the spell.
The sound snapped Eleanor back. She straightened abruptly, dislodging Lucien’s gentle grip. He protested with a grunt, looking up at her, confused.
Alistair finally moved. He pushed back his chair, the scrape loud in the quiet, and walked around the table. He didn’t look at Eleanor. He bent and scooped Lucien up with a single, effortless motion, settling the boy on his hip. Lucien, distracted immediately, grabbed for the silver brooch at his father’s shoulder.
“Council is adjourned,” Alistair said, his voice calm, utterly normal. “We’ll reconvene tomorrow to draft the audit order for Cressa. See it’s done.”
The dismissal was clear. The lords rose, bowing, shuffling out with sidelong glances and murmured conversation. Garvin lingered for a second, giving Eleanor a look that was neither pity nor mockery, but something like reassurance. Then he too was gone.
The heavy door thudded shut.
Eleanor stood rooted to the spot, staring at the map on the table, the lines and routes now meaningless scribbles. The warmth where his small body had pressed against her felt like a brand.
Alistair bounced Lucien lightly, looking down at the boy who was now trying to fit the brooch in his mouth. “Your timing,” he said softly to his son, “is impeccable.” Then he looked at Eleanor.
She forced herself to meet his gaze. Her face was pale, her expression carefully, devastatingly empty.
“He got away from his nurse,” Alistair said, as if explaining the weather. “She’s likely having a heart attack in the corridor.”
Eleanor found her voice. It sounded thin, far away. “You should… see to that.”
“I should.”
He didn’t move. Lucien fussed, dropping the brooch and now reaching a hand out, not for Alistair, but back toward Eleanor, fingers flexing.
“Mmm,” he insisted.
Eleanor’s composure cracked, just a hairline fracture. She took a sharp step back, colliding with her chair.
Alistair watched the retreat. He adjusted his grip on Lucien, turning him gently away. “Come on,” he said, his voice dropping to a register she’d never heard him use—low, warm, almost tender. “Let’s find your woman. And possibly some more apricots.”
He walked to the door, opened it, and was gone.
Eleanor stood alone in the vast, sunlit silence. She lifted a hand, slowly, and touched the spot on her shoulder where his cheek had lain. The skin there felt altered, sensitized.
She looked at her fingers as if they belonged to someone else. Then, with a shuddering breath that was almost a sob, she clenched that hand into a fist so tight her nails bit into her palm. The pain was clean, familiar, a anchor in the sudden, storm-tossed sea of her own heart.
She did not go to her study. She turned and walked blindly in the opposite direction, needing stone walls, empty corridors, and the crushing, merciful weight of her own solitude.