Iron Kin: A Novel of the Half-Light City (25 page)

I would have bet on the Favreaus being most in favor with Ignatius, but apparently the Beasts hadn’t yet made up their minds completely.

As the Roussellines moved toward the hall, I suddenly spotted Martin standing amidst the other Kruegers. He saw me too, and his lips drew back in a silent snarl.

Damn. My secret was out. Not that I could’ve kept it any longer than the next hour or so of the naming ceremony, but still, ice formed in my stomach as I read the rage in Martin’s eyes burning into me from across the square.

I’d known my choice would bring a reckoning with my erstwhile relatives, so I would just have to deal with it when it came. Hopefully
after
the treaty, after I had earned the right to rope Guy and maybe some of his other Templar brethren into helping me deal with whatever that reckoning turned out to be.

It seemed to take a long time for the rest of the delegates to process into the hall. The Templar delegation wasn’t the last of the humans to go in, so I didn’t have to wait until the very end.

But as I crossed the threshold and felt the tingle of wards brushing across my skin, I was forced to wonder again what exactly I thought I was doing. Then Saskia came up beside me, her hand moving subtly to brush against mine, easing the pressure building in my head, and I remembered.

I could just picture my mother laughing at me. “All that for a girl,” she’d say. “Only fools let love lead them around by the nose, Fen lad.”

She’d tried her best to teach me that lesson, but apparently I was a poor student of common sense as well as protocol.

I followed the rest of the delegates into the entryway, keeping pace with Saskia and, like many others, craning my neck to look around me, now that I was actually inside the mysterious Treaty Hall. I hadn’t really known what to expect. All four races had contributed to the construction of the hall, in money or labor or materials, and it was a testament to leashed power.

The floor we walked was a polished gray stone—granite, I thought—the color of the dark heart of a frozen river. From it, the walls rose to curve to a vaulted ceiling far, far above our heads. Or, I thought, suddenly confused, as I considered the outward appearance of the hall, perhaps that was an illusion. The chamber we stood in seemed taller than the walls outside. The walls were covered in an intricate mosaic depicting each of the four races and parts of the City—some of which I didn’t recognize. Perhaps the buildings in them had fallen into obscurity and ruin long ago. The hall was old, like the treaty itself.

But as astonishing as that room was, it couldn’t really distract me from the room we were walking toward: the Treaty Hall itself. Tall brass doors stood ajar at the end of the entrance hall and the delegates were filing through, one by one, past the Fae guards who were checking names against the pages of a thick leather-bound book. From beyond, I heard the hushed humming of many muffled voices, but I couldn’t yet see the room itself.

I reached the door and got my first glimpse of the hall—it was even more imposing than the entrance hall. The walls here weren’t tiled; instead they were paneled in carved woods. Arches and columns twined with vines and flowers and tiny animal faces, seeming to grow up toward the ceiling like a forest run riot. The four sides of the hall were lined with tiered rows of seats, each divided into subsections by carved wooden screens, some waist high, some higher, so that the space seemed to be almost like a series of small rooms. Each wall had two narrow aisles running up the tiers to allow access to the seats. Behind the top tier was another series of screens that I had been told hid the corridors used by the servants of the hall and the guards who accompanied the most important members of each race.

The tiers were filling with the delegates, those who had entered first taking the prime seats nearest the front, closest to the floor.

A floor of white marble veined with the palest of green, the expanse of it broken by a sparkling golden circle inset in the stone. This was the speakers’ circle, where those addressing the delegates stood while they held the floor. It marked the dead center of the room, and around it, several feet back from the circle itself, the four points of the compass were marked by smaller circles of black stone set in the marble. On the circles stood pedestals of the same dark stone—each of them about four feet high. The pedestals were topped by polished ebony chests, bound with locks and chains of gold.

The circles served only to draw the eye to the circle. I was glad I wasn’t going to have to stand there under the gaze of so many hostile eyes and speak my piece to try and convince the races to agree to one concession or another. No, it was bad enough being part of the delegation without bringing myself to further attention than was necessary.

Saskia and I followed Liam, filing up the stairs to take our place in the fourth row of seats, behind the councils’ delegates and the official representatives of our own delegation. I managed to ensure that I sat next to Saskia. I might as well have some small pleasures in the days to come. Though as I settled myself beside her and breathed in the scent of her skin, I began to think that that might be a mistake. I needed to focus on what was about to happen here, and she was a definite distraction.

But it was too late to move. Protocol demanded that once you had taken your seat, you moved only at the allotted times for breaks or discussions or to leave the chamber for the official sessions of negotiation and bargaining that each delegation undertook in the myriad rooms that filled the rest of the building. We would be locked in the Treaty Hall from dusk until dawn neared and the Blood had to retire for the day. Then everyone would leave and the hall would be sealed again until the next day.

I watched the seats around me fill. The humans had the east side of the hall and the Blood the west. The Fae were north and the Beasts south. The volume of conversation in the room grew louder and louder as the delegates continued to take their places. The buzz of voices had a nervous edge to it.

The process of getting everyone situated took a long while, during which time I had nothing to do but sit and watch. The seats were padded, but only thinly, and my legs already felt cramped. Perhaps humans had been shorter in the time when the hall had been built. I was a little taller than most human men, thanks to my ancestry, but it didn’t usually disadvantage me. Now I was beginning to think that the next two weeks might cripple me.

After the seemingly endless parade of delegates making their way into the hall, they had all finally taken their places. The keepers of the hall—one representative from each race who had been tasked with opening the building and ensuring the security of the wards—then appeared and took their places at the four pedestals around the speaker’s circle.

The whispered conversations died away instantly, the tension in the room rising. All eyes turned toward the keepers. One by one, they stepped forward and produced the keys that were the symbols of their position. Then, each of them in turn used the keys to open the boxes on the pedestals and draw out the treaty stones, raising them to display to the delegates before placing them on the pedestals.

One by one, the stones glowed to life, turning a warm gold. The power of the stones added another tingling layer of magic to the room. They were supposed to enforce peace and truth for those who stood under the lights and spoke from the circle. I had a feeling that it would take more than four ancient glowing stones to make that happen for this particular round of negotiations.

Looking across at the carefully controlled smirk on Ignatius’ face as he watched the keeper only confirmed my fears.

Duties done, the keepers withdrew and the Speaker for the Veil rose to his feet from his position at the queen’s right hand and moved across the floor to step into the circle.

When he reached it, he paused for a long moment before circling to face each of the races in turn. I fought the urge to roll my eyes. The endless protocol lessons had been dull enough, but actually seeing the rituals in person was somehow worse. With so much at stake, this posturing and pointless ceremony seemed like the games of children vying to secure the possession of a favorite toy.

I couldn’t see that it mattered that the Speaker stood a certain way or that the stones glowed or that the ceiling was the right shade of whatever. What mattered was that the races would manage to come to an agreement and prevent the City from falling into chaos and anarchy.

I moved on my seat, my head already starting to ache in the presence of so many people in one place. The visions were an added layer of strangeness, swirling so quickly I could barely make anything out.

Saskia shifted beside me and once again, as though she could sense my mood, her hand brushed mine in a movement so subtle that I doubted anyone but me would have noticed.

All too soon she moved her hand away again, but even the brief respite had let me catch my breath and clear my head.

I schooled myself to patience, letting my mind drift a little into the haze of the visions, trying to slow their crazed circling and see if there was anything useful to be gained from the jumble. But nothing came clear.

The Speaker began to recite the text of the treaty law that governed the negotiations. The rules of order and the bindings that all the delegates were agreeing to submit themselves to. His recitation took a long time and because I’d only so recently had the words drummed into my head, hearing th
em yet again made it even more difficult to concentrate.

The visions surged forward, making my head throb sharply as my focus slipped. I made myself snap back, settling my free hand over my wrist to press the iron more firmly against my skin. Beside me, Saskia turned her head, eyebrow lifting slightly. I shook my head at her and turned my attention back to the Speaker.

He continued to speak, the lines of convoluted legalistic language flowing effortlessly. I wondered exactly how many times he had spoken them before. I could probably figure it out if I wanted to, but math had never been my favorite endeavor. Not unless I was counting money.

The Speaker eventually fell silent, looking around the hall gravely. The last words he’d spoken were a challenge for anyone who did not intend to work toward the renewal of the treaty to speak first. The silence in the chamber settled deeper, but no one spoke.

The Speaker nodded once, then called the first of the delegation leaders to announce his delegates. In this case the first was Ignatius.

Ignatius stood and walked—no, “strutted” might be a better word—onto the floor. He too paused before he started to speak, taking his time to look over those assembled. I wasn’t the only one unwilling to meet his gaze, I noted. Still, the silence held as he spoke in his rasping voice, reeling off the names of his delegates with decisive force. I only recognized one or two of them.

Yet another cause for concern. I had a passing familiarity with those of the Blood who frequented the safer Assemblies and occasionally showed up at the Gilt or others of the theater halls. The more civilized of them. One couldn’t really function for long in the border boroughs without knowing some of the players.

The fact that I didn’t know many of Ignatius’ supporters meant either that they were newly risen to power—which I didn’t completely discount—or that they were of the Blood, who kept to their own world where they could play by their own rules. Older Blood who had perhaps been biding their time under Lucius’ rule, or indeed may have supported Lucius in whatever it was that he had been planning. But I’d never been able to judge the age of a Blood lord because of their ageless faces, so I had no way to tell which of the two theories was correct.

After Ignatius finished his remarks and returned to his seat, a slow whisper gusted across the hall, as though half the people present had let out a breath of relief. It seemed that more than just our delegation had been concerned that Ignatius might try something early in the process. Apparently for now he was playing by the rules.

Thank the Lady for small mercies.

After Ignatius, the leaders of the other delegations took their turns, announcing the names of their delegates and the other members of their delegations.

Eventually it was the Templars’ turn. Their Abbott General took his place. Only middling tall, his graying hair cropped short, and dressed simply in Templar gray and white, Father Cho had none of Ignatius’ strutting pride, but his quiet air of command meant that he caught and held the attention of the assembly effortlessly.

I schooled my face to stillness as I listened to the list of names he announced in his steady voice. Until eventually mine was spoken. I risked a sideways glance at where Martin sat with the Kruegers. His expression was grim, but he was pointedly not looking in my direction. From behind him, Willem’s lips had drawn back in a snarl. I got the feeling that when Martin decided to take his revenge on me for this betrayal, Willem would be the one volunteering to carry out the sentence.

Pity. I liked Willem, after a fashion. Still, I would fight him if I had to and do everything in my power to win if it came to that. Of course I would first do everything in my power to avoid having to fight him. Just what that might be escaped me right now, but I was sure I would think of something eventually.

After Father Cho, the parade continued. By the time we’d made it through another two or three delegations—the human council and the Guilds and one of the Beast pack alliances—the mood in the hall was starting to relax, the silence disturbed by people shifting in their seats and, here and there, by the unmistakable sounds of discreetly smothered yawns. Of all the things I’d imagined the negotiations to be, I’d never really considered that they might be boring.

I was close to smothering a yawn myself as we neared the last delegation. The Veiled Court. The queen stayed where she was, seated on a carved chair that looked more comfortable than the rest of our seats. Her veils moved slowly, though there was no breeze to stir them. The effect was both hypnotic and vaguely unsettling.

I wondered if she took advantage of the cover of her veils to hide boredom when she needed to. Or if she was even paying attention. The Speaker rose again from his place beside her and walked to the circle. He raised a hand, like all the others before him, ready to swear the oath of amity, when a groaning rumble suddenly sounded from beneath us and then, without warning, the room seemed to catch fire as the walls around the doorway exploded inward.