Proditor : Book 5 of the Heku Series (8 page)

Kyle looked at the doctor, and Emily saw
their lips moving quickly, but couldn’t hear what they were
saying.

Dr. Cook looked at Emily, raised an eyebrow,
and then left the room.

“
What did you say to him?”
Emily asked.

“
I just told him you’re
afraid of him, so he better leave,” Kyle explained.

Emily’s eyes narrowed, “I’m not afraid of
him.”

“
Rest. I’ll have your
tailor make you a robe for tomorrow’s trial,” he said, and left the
room.

Kyle blurred outside of the palace and met
up with the second-floor guards, who were getting yelled at by Mark
while the Elders watched.

“
Is she ok?” Chevalier
asked, glaring at the guards.

“
She hurt her back, but
won’t admit it,” Kyle said, and watched Mark. “What’s he finding
out?”

“
They’re new to the palace
guards, and apparently hadn’t caught Emily’s scent before,” Quinn
explained, irritated.

“
She agreed to help us with
the trial. I’m having a robe made,” Kyle told them.

Zohn nodded, “Good, we can get it out of the
way then.”

“
I’ll go check on her,”
Chevalier said, and headed inside.

“
Elder?” Kyle called to
him. “She’s in my room.”

“
Why?”

“
I have no
idea.”

Emily carried the dark green robe into the
council chambers and saw that the others had already arrived.

“
I’m here, now what?” she
asked.

“
Put it on and sit here,”
Kyle said, and pointed to an empty chair between him and
Chevalier.

“
How do you not cook in
these robes?” Emily asked, slipping it on and sitting
down.

Kyle grinned and turned around. He didn’t
want Emily to see he was laughing.

Emily glared at his back, “You do realize
this robe isn’t fooling anyone. I’m obviously not heku.”

“
Hmm, she’s right. We
didn’t think about that,” Zohn said, looking at the drastic height
difference.

“
They will just have to
deal,” Chevalier said. “Turn on the fan, pull up your hood, and we
can begin.”

Emily shrugged and pulled the hood up so it
shaded her face, and the rest of the Council did the same.

“
What’s with the robes and
hoods anyway? You don’t normally do all this,” Emily asked
Kyle.

“
This trial is different.
It’s not as casual as the others.”

“
Hmm, ok,” Emily said, and
turned around.

Four guards brought in two haggard looking
Valle. They were obviously starving, and their skin had begun to
wither and crack. One of them looked right at Emily and studied her
for a bit before he was pushed to his knees by the guards.

Papers were handed down to each of the
council members. Emily looked through them, but none of them were
written in English, so she grabbed her pen and started doodling on
the back of them while the council members read through the
details.

Emily jumped when Quinn spoke. His voice was
ominous and echoed through the chambers.

“
Ingram and Selhman,
charges are brought against you and you will be tried and punished
in this court,” Quinn said, while the two prisoners watched him,
cowering.

Quinn sat down, and Chevalier stood to
speak. His voice was also malicious and made Emily’s skin crawl,
“Charges against you are for the murder of 426 heku from the
Randolph Coven. The charges include committing treason by giving
information to the Valle, and providing them with the information
they needed to carry out the attacks.”

Emily frowned. She hadn’t heard about the
deaths, but was already getting upset at the thought.

Chevalier sat down, and Zohn stood, “Do you
have a defense?”

Ingram stood up. He was hunched over and the
bones in his back stood out against his thin skin, “We didn’t do
it! We were victims.”

“
Noted,” Zohn said, and sat
down.

“
Please,” Ingram said. “You
have to believe us. We did nothing wrong! We are
Equites.”

“
Kneel,” Quinn yelled, and
the heku dropped to his knees.

The Council turned back to the papers in
front of them, so Emily did the same, continuing to doodle oddly
shaped flowers across the page. After an hour, her legs started to
ache. Her feet didn’t reach the floor and her legs had gone to
sleep. She leaned back in the chair and put her feet on the desk in
front of her, then moved the paper to her lap and started sketching
a horse.

Zohn cleared his throat, and when Emily
looked up, the entire Council was watching her. She quickly dropped
her feet off of the desk and sat up straight again. Kyle took her
paper and wrote on it quickly, and then handed it back to her.

Do you need a footstool?

Emily started to write a nasty response, but
sighed and just wrote,

Yes

Kyle left the council chambers quickly and
came back with a heavy wooden box. He slid it under Emily’s chair,
and she heard him chuckle as she propped her feet on it.

Emily stifled a yawn as the second hour of
silence drew to a close. She was also starting to get hungry, and a
quick glance at her watch showed her it was well after noon. She
wondered how long it was going to take the Council to read whatever
it was that was written on the papers on which she was drawing.

Just after the fifth hour of the trial, the
Court Reporter handed down another stack of papers. This one
containing gruesome color photographs of the carnage left by the
Valle. Emily flipped through the pictures and her heart ached at
the sight of hundreds of dead heku, killed for no reason while they
went about their daily lives. There were bodies piled along the
streets, and blood dripped from walls and ceilings.

Emily stopped at a photo. It was inside a
small house located within the city. There were beautifully
engraved wooden chairs and tables. The soft couch had embroidered
pillows with matching curtains. There was a blood soaked book open
on the table, and pieces of a female heku were lying across the
chair behind it. The décor reminded her of the ranch she grew up
on, and her heart tightened at the thought of how terrified they
must have been when the Valle descended on their peaceful
lives.

A tear fell down her cheek as the pictures
continued. She glanced up at the cowering Valle and wanted badly to
burn them. She could feel the anger rising within her, the fury
that made it harder to resist. She wondered if anyone would be mad
if she burned them for a few minutes, let them feel pain for what
they had done to the Equites.

Emily jumped when she felt a hand on her
arm. She looked up at Chevalier, who took the pictures from her and
held her hand tightly. He had noticed the tear streaming down her
face, and began to realize what she had in mind. He turned to Quinn
and whispered something.

“
Return the prisoners. We
will continue the trial tomorrow,” Quinn said to the guards, who
quickly ushered the prisoners out of the room.

Emily felt all eyes on her, so as soon as
the prisoners left, she stood up, pulled off her robe, and tossed
it on the chair, then quickly left the council chambers and ran
into the garage. Within a few seconds, she was on the road leading
out of Council City and turned off of the black-top, headed toward
the Durango.

The Durango held some peace, some glimpse of
the aloneness that she needed. She reclined in the passenger’s seat
and put her feet up on the dashboard. The blanket was freezing from
sitting in the cold Durango all night, but she pulled it up and
covered her face with it.

The Council stayed in their seats after
Emily left and listened to the Jeep take off.

“
I forgot about the
pictures,” Kyle said, stacking his papers neatly.

“
I think she was going to
turn them to ash,” Chevalier said, and turned to Quinn.

Zohn sighed, “It’s too late to stop now.
Talk to her and see if you can get her to agree not to turn them to
ash during the trial.”

“
Zohn’s right, we can’t
stop the trial now,” Quinn said, and looked through Emily’s rough
sketches.

“
I can guarantee she’s
going to want to see this through,” Chevalier said. “I’ll talk to
her.”

“
We may also want to
consider a lunch break. I don’t think she’s eaten since this
morning,” Kyle said. “I know we don’t normally break at all, but we
need to reconsider that.”

***

Emily sat up just after dark and looked
toward the trees. In the dark, they were scary, and she realized
what could be hiding in there, watching her. She quickly got into
the Jeep and headed into town, determined to go and get something
to eat.

She pulled up to a small Italian restaurant
and grabbed her book before heading inside and being seated at a
small booth. After ordering lasagna and a Coke, she sat back and
started to read.

“
May I join you?” She
looked up at Exavior.

“
Are you following me?”
Emily asked.

“
No, I was passing by and
saw you come in,” he said, and slid into the seat across from
her.

“
Have a seat,” she mumbled,
irritated, and started to read again.

Exavior watched her for a few minutes before
speaking, “Is everything ok?”

“
Not feeling the Valle love
at the moment is all.” She sat her book down as the waitress
brought her a drink and some bread sticks.

Exavior frowned, “Oh? Why is that?”

“
It’s a long story. Why are
you here? I mean, why are you even this close to Council City?” she
asked, and grabbed a hot bread stick.

“
I have a residence
here.”

“
What have we here?” Emily
heard, and turned quickly. She sighed when she saw Encala Elder
William walk up.

“
Looks like a party to me,”
Emily said, and then frowned when William sat down beside her. She
heard Exavior hiss slightly.

“
Odd to find you in the
company of the Chief Interrogator,” William said, watching Exavior
closely.

“
Odd to find both of you
here, when all I wanted was some Italian food,” Emily said, and
moved her Coke away from William. She noticed that William and
Exavior were staring at each other.

“
What were your plans with
her?” William asked.

“
Just visiting, we’re
friends,” Exavior explained.

Emily rolled her eyes. She knew that nothing
good could come out of this.

“
Do the Equites know you
are here in the company of a Valle?” William turned away from
Exavior to face Emily.

“
No, I just came to eat,”
Emily said, and sighed. “I didn’t realize there was a heku
convention in town.”

The waitress came up and handed Emily a
plate of lasagna, “Anything else for you?”

“
I’m good, unless these two
want to eat,” Emily said, and grinned as she grabbed her
fork.

“
No, thank you,” William
told her.

“
I’ll have what she’s
having,” Exavior said, and smiled at William.

“
Would you two stop glaring
at each other? People are starting to stare,” Emily
whispered.

The Valle and the Encala both relaxed and
sat back further in their seats.

“
How are you then?” William
asked her.

Emily finished her bite and then shrugged,
“Ok.”

“
She’s fine. The Valle
watch over her,” Exavior said.

“
Yeah right, last time I
saw you, you tried to kill me… twice,” Emily said, and grabbed the
bottle of parmesan.

William frowned, “You tried to kill
her?”

“
It wasn’t like that! She
got in the middle of a fight,” Exavior explained, and William
nodded, understanding.

“
I don’t care about the
circumstances. If you ever start to snap my neck again, I’ll ash
you first,” Emily said, now getting mad.

“
You can’t step into a heku
fight, it’s too dangerous,” William said.

“
You’re defending
him?”

“
No, defending our
species.”

“
Ok,” Emily said, and took
another bite. “I’m alive. You both can go so I can eat in
peace.”

“
I’ll stay here as long as
he is here,” William said, motioning to Exavior.

“
I’m not leaving you alone
with an Encala, either,” Exavior told her.

“
Great.” Emily took another
bite, now anxious to finish and get back in the Jeep.

The waitress brought Exavior some lasagna
and then smiled nervously at Emily before leaving. Exavior stirred
it a bit, and then took a bite while William watched, cringing.

Emily pushed the breadbasket towards
Exavior, “So, William, what brings you so close to Council
City?”

“
Rumor has it that Ingram
and Selhman are being tried,” William explained. “Therefore, I have
to be available.”

Emily frowned, “I thought they were both
Valle.”

“
The Encala have some
stakes in this as well.”

“
Like what?”

Exavior cut in, “Like something that’s none
of your business.”