As it turned out, that was easier said than done.
The third and fourth days of deliberations slipped by in a haze of threats and increasingly macabre ways to use me against my family, followed by some very unappealing offers at the evening dances.
At least the nighttime offered some reprieve. Theo still hadn’t moved his bedroll back, and every night I fell asleep with his hand on mine after a flurry of stolen kisses.
Still, even that wasn’t enough to distract me from the very real possibility of my death in three short days.
So far, Clans Lynx and Viper were allied firmly with Elk, while Eagle and Bison argued vehemently against it. We all knew where Bear stood, and that left three clans floating somewhere in the middle, occasionally arguing on both sides of the issue.
Until the fifth day.
Until the moment that Sir Mikhail from Clan Ram, the same duke who had twice now suggested that he could be persuaded to change his vote for the low price of my body and my hand in marriage, spoke up again in defense of my death.
“If the girl dies, King Logan himself will come,” Inessa’s father argued, not for the first time.
“Let him come,” Sir Mikhail said. “We can easily outnumber their forces here, and then the castle will be ripe for the taking. And so will the heir to the throne.” He leered when he said it.
Fear shot through me, numbing my fingers with its intensity, and white-hot fury followed on its heels. I had listened with increasingly stony silence as the various means of my death were described at length, but this time, they went too far.
This time, they threatened my sister.
“Need I remind you what happened the last time someone attacked a castle my mother was defending?” My voice held nothing but lethal calm, the still tension of a mountain lion just before it goes in for the kill. “And tell me, how many people needlessly died when you came against my father’s forces, when you convinced yourself you had a reason to go to war.”
Audible gasps sounded around the room.
Meanwhile, Iiro looked like he might murder me, and Theo’s eyes widened in horror. I ignored them all.
My body trembled with the force of my rage, and I realized that if the Summit was going to vote against me anyway, I sure as hell wasn’t going down as some silent, de-stars-damned-mure, lady.
I met each of their eyes in turn, cataloging looks of fury and disdain and a cruel sort of amusement—that last one on Lord Evander, of course.
“If you’re going to kill me, get on with it, but don’t fool yourselves.” A low laugh escaped my lips, but there was no humor in the sound. “You are no match for anyone in my family, least of all my mother, and sure as hell not my sister.”
Avani would have an arrow through the eye of every man who tried to come near her. I almost wanted to see them try.
Instead of responding to me, Duke Mikhail looked at Iiro, narrowing his eyes.
“Our clans have been considering our alliance because Ram respects your strength. But I’m not sure that is the case anymore,” he seethed. “It seems, these days, you cannot keep a single girl in check.”
Iiro flushed with fury, but his voice was calm when he spoke. “I think that’s enough deliberation for now.”
I got to my feet and stalked out of the tent without asking for their permission or waiting to see how they would respond. Whatever I had just done, I couldn’t undo it now. Maybe it would give them something to think about, for a change.
Maybe they could all go straight to hell.
Footsteps followed me urgently, crunching on the fallen leaves, but I didn’t turn around until Theo’s voice sounded behind me.
“Rowan,” he breathed.
I turned slowly, raising my eyebrows.
“Do you realize what you’ve just done?” he demanded.
“What I should have done the first day,” I spat back.
He shook his head in bafflement, but I held my ground, even as cold reality seeped in.
“Don’t pretend you could have sat there in silence for five days while a group of pretentious arsehats debated the many ways in which they could hurt you or your family and not said a single stars-damned word.” Though, as I spoke the words, I wondered if he could have. Maybe it was only my self-control that was left constantly wanting.
He shook his head, somewhere between sadness and frustration. Before he could come up with a response, Iiro appeared behind him, his features a mask of anger.
“Congratulations, Princess Rowan.” His tone was acerbic. “Now that you’ve challenged their pride and their bravery and mocked the sacrifices of their loved ones, it’s safe to say you’ve managed to lose what little support you had garnered.”
Iiro glared at me. His words were sobering.
Tendrils of fear crept down my spine, the weight of my outburst finally sinking in. “At least they have a few days to calm down before the vote. I’ll just…win them over again.”
Iiro didn’t dignify that with a response. He only looked meaningfully at Theo before turning back to the tent. Theo’s expression turned thoughtful, but before I could question it, Lord Evander strolled out of the tent.
He examined Theo’s features, then mine, before letting out a low whistle. “You know, Korhonan, I never took you for a sociopath. But the two of you seem awfully…close. Yet when the Princess manages to piss off an entire council that would just as soon let her burn as douse the fire, you don’t show a trace of fear. Interesting.”
He walked away before giving us a chance to respond.
It was the second time he had indicated that Iiro and Theo were keeping something from me. I would have brushed it aside, would have written it off as more of the lord’s baiting, but the expression on Theo’s face stopped me short.
It was guilt.
