Minul took a deep breath, praying to the Triplet Goddess for strength, before signaling to the guards to open the doors. She returned to the meeting chamber, the long rime oak table in the center of the room noticeably lowering the temperature. The furniture made her glad for the furred hides that somehow still had a stranglehold on elusrian dress fashion, even after all these centuries.

Inside, she found her councilors setting themselves up to continue the hour long meeting’s second hour. Dragged out would be too kind a word for this atrocity. This was their third meeting after the travesty that tore through the capital three weeks ago. All their meetings had run long, the councilors happier to act like children and throw playground insults at each other than actually council.

“Right.” Queen Minul said, stopping in front of her seat. She ran the fingernail of her pointer finger along the table, feeling the age grooves in the wood, cold seeping into her finger. “We here by continue this meeting, please secretary if you would begin.” She nodded to the woman sitting at a small desk off to the side. She had stacks of paper at the ready for her shorthand and was as well equipped with water and servants provided by the Queen.

“The meeting broke, discussing measures to appease the people of Elusria. In specific, the conversation was on the people who were becoming afraid of living within the Capital.”

“Thank you, Thorgunna.” Minul said, nodding for her to sit down again. The woman quickly did, grabbing her writing implements ready to take note.

“We did as we were supposed to.” Tonna Tage opened the ‘discussion’. She was wearing her family’s colors, black accented with gold. On her back, between the shoulders, she had the form of a wolf obscured by fog cross-stitched. “We’ve opened our stores and helped the people, yet it didn’t really work.” She gestured to Minul, without ever glancing at her Queen. “We did as her Majesty said, yet somehow the people don’t like us anymore than they did before. Wonder why?”

“Well, if the lap dog isn’t acting like she has teeth.” Ulf said, his voice stern like he was redressing an errant pet. “We did as best we could. How were we supposed to predict a riot of that scale. No one, and I mean no one, predicted an action of that scale.”

“Your students tore half the city apart.” Tonna replied immediately, though she looked behind her for back up. Inga didn’t react to her lapdogs action. Her leader was instead pre-occupied examining an empty seat on the Lord’s Council side, the chair next to Lord Starstone sat empty. “Your academy attacked the people it was supposed to heal, their powers ripping apart the very buildings our people reside in. If you had controlled your kind better, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“We’re training warriors and soldiers.” Ulf said. “This whole healing clinic was a bad idea from beginning to end. I always said as much.”

“Really?” Hildrid barked, nearly standing up from her chair to look at her fellow councilor. While the two tethered were marginally on the same side, that didn’t stop them from sniping each others representative institutions. “I could’ve sworn it was your excitement I’d heard in my office when we were examining the groups. I must’ve heard wrong.”

Lord Starstone visibly blushed alongside a series of snickers from the less grown up councilors. Lord Sworden had already scooted back a little from the table and was talking with a small man, his eyes were always flickering everywhere. He reminded Minul of an animal from Ankiria. Lizards were small four legged creatures, always scurrying about with their protruding eyes and tongues. Sworden’s assistant reminded Minul of nothing so much as a lizard, though, she’d seen lizards eagerly run to their death none the wiser, and she knew the assistant was whip smart and taught most of the Sworden boys, everything that didn’t involve physical action.

Again, Minul’s eyes turned to Inga, vaguely aware that Tonna had been roped into Ulf and Hildrid’s argument, turning it into a three-way discussion of throwing blame. Inga diverted her eyes immediately from Minul, as the Queen’s landed her. This wasn’t the first time she’d caught the noble looking at her.

After Minul’s talk with Leif yesterday, she knew that word was spreading throughout the higher tiers of society. She knew Hildrid and Ulf were aware of it, though they seemed to have taken to no ill reaction to it. Which meant they probably thought Leif would be joining under them. Inga had always had excellent spies. If Minul was being honest, she would’ve said Inga had the best people and tools out of any of her nobles, if not for the Varumgándr twist at the end of the riots.

Serpent-Vein had not only foreseen the events taking place, they’d also taken steps to benefit from them and somewhat manage their dangers. They cut what would’ve been a devastating loss of life into a tragedy. By Minul’s last count, there’d been nearly two-thousand students in the city that night. Almost two-hundred of those had been warp. Of those two-hundred, eighty had been first-stage. She knew from experience that was enough.

Soldiers and tethered could sometimes forget a warp tethered’s impact on the battlefield, blunted as their power was against the flesh-torn. But Minul had seen a second-stage warp tethered use their shroud to kill fifty soldiers in less time than it took for her to manipulate her own power at the ready. If not for the Master nearby, he could’ve easily killed three or four times that.

That didn’t absolve Serpent-Vein, he could’ve gone to her with his suspicions and earned her trust. Instead, he’d positioned himself as the most favorable noble house—only favorable, really—and twisted her arm. Though as things were looking now, she was looking forward to an unscrupulous ally rather than an incompetent council.

Her eyes returned to Inga, again seeing her gaze flicker away. Minul had purposefully positioned one of her spies in the room with her and Leif, making sure the information got back to her. Inga had competent tools, but her management was and always had been sloppy.

Tonna could barely count the rings on her finger, let alone rule her house without Inga’s guidance. She’d also had Vifil Blackstone, who’d mostly been a husk by the time she’d beguiled him. She had a great set of tools available, but she only trusted herself to make the decisions and surrounded herself with idiots.

Yet, now she’d grown much more contemplative. Especially so over the last few weeks. Minul wanted to fidget at the sudden change in the woman’s behavior. Unfortunately, it might tell her all she knew. Despite Inga’s general competence, she—like all the other councilors—had always underestimated Minul. Partly, because Minul had spent her formative years in Ankiria, training in their courts, under private tutors, instead of back at Elusria. Partly, due to her predecessor’s famous indiscretions.

Minul had half a dozen bastard half siblings spread across at least three nations. Proper Ankirian style. There was a saying in the courts of Bacchis: ‘There are enough Sun King Bastards in the United Alliance, to start a nation all their own.’

Though without the activation rituals the royalty went through the yellow eye color would never awaken. Like Saif’s orange eyes. There hadn’t been a direct descendant of the Sun King born with true yellow eyes for centuries to Minul’s knowledge. Even her own eyes had been awakened as part of the ceremonial celebration before she left to take over Elusria.

Yet, recently some bastards eyes had been born so dark as to just be a normal brown. Idly, she wondered if they would go away entirely, so even an awakening couldn’t change them anymore. She thought that would be a tough day for the ankirians, but it, hopefully, wouldn’t be her problem. She had enough problems with her own yellow-eyed Princess.

Minul spent much of the next hour, cycling between idle thoughts and attempting to bring the discussion back on track. Her each and every attempt was almost immediately derailed by either Tonna, Ulf, or Hildrid. If it wasn’t one of those, then it was another councilor’s inappropriate comment, just barely catching the silence and destroying any hope Minul had of future debate.

Finally, Queen Minul stood up placing both hands on the table and leaned forward, glaring at her councilors, her ‘parliament’ as it was. It took nearly a full minute before everyone quietened down, despite there barely being thirty people in the room, only about ten of which were speaking regularly.

“So in conclusion of today’s meeting, what decisions have you reached?” Minul raised her hand to the secretary as the woman stood up to reply. She would no doubt spill some non-confrontational twist on nothing and that wasn’t what Minul wanted right now.

There was a long silence as all the members looked at her. Some of them arrogantly, some of them indifferently, one of them nervously.

“Well, that is telling, isn’t it?” Minul said. “Today- the last three weeks, actually, have been more unruly than a room filled with children. After three weeks of deliberation all you’ve been able to come up with is… what? Awkward silences?”

She looked across the room. Finally, she was seeing some reaction from the her leaders. The people that’d been put in charge. Finally, she saw more than absentminded arrogance and blanket ignorance on their faces.

“Are you my advisors?” She continued. “What have you been doing for the last three weeks… Hell, the last three years? What’s one groundbreaking…” She waved her hands in the air. “One anything that you’ve contributed to Elusria over the last three years?”

She looked across the table, staring each in the eye. Most of them had enough arrogance in them to meet her glare, only Inga avoided it like the plague. The room was choking in the silence, Minul wanted to tear her hair out. She could tell they all recognized her point, but damned if they didn’t still completely refuse to understand. If she did nothing more, simply aired out how little they’d accomplished in the last few years they would soon be back on their old tracks running headlong into each other.

She turned to the secretary. “I think that’s enough for me. Cancel the rest of the meetings.”

“Meetings, your Majesty?”

“All the Council Meetings, cancel them.”

“You can’t do that!” Tonna exclaimed, standing up from her seat.

Minul ignored her. “After we’re done here summon some servants and have all the furniture brought into storage.” Then she turned to councilors who stared at her with mixed looks of disbelief and skepticism. “If you have any advise for me over the next few weeks bring it to me in the audience chamber. I guess we’ll determine then if you’ve even belonged here at all.”

Then she turned and walked out of the room, the guards opening the door for her, before following her out. She’d never wanted to scream and shout and hit the councilors. Her jaw twitched insistently all the way back to her apartments.