ambition. It’s no secret that Banage is grooming you to be his successor. The special missions he sends you on are all highly irregular, and we won’t even begin to talk about the misappropriation of Court funds in hiring a bounty hunter, one Coriano, to track down Monpress.”
An enormous swell of noise went up at this, and Banage banged his desk for order.
“Hern,” he said, “if you have a problem with my policies, you will bring them up with me personally. In this trial, you will limit your statements to the matter at hand.”
“Of course.” Hern’s tone changed again. He was all sincerity now. “I merely mentioned this ugly situation to give our good Keepers a rounded look at the character of the woman whose fate we are deciding.” He turned back to Miranda. “After all, when her history of ambition and disrespect for Spirit Court regulations are considered, should we really be surprised that, when the opportunity arose in Mellinor to bind a Great Spirit, something no Spiritualist has done since the oaths were codified, Miranda Lyonette seized upon it?”
Gin snarled, and this time, Miranda didn’t stop him. “This is ridiculous!” she cried. “How can you stand there and pull these lies out of thin air? However badly you think of me, what part of my story, of
“Ah,” Hern said, “but that was the deal, wasn’t it? Looking the other way in exchange for his help. Of course, you’d fail in your mission, but who could fault you for failing to catch the famously uncatchable Eli Monpress? Such a small blemish is easily overpowered by the prestige of being the master of a Great Spirit. Frame it that way and suddenly your plan is quite understandable. Just another shortsighted and selfish grab for power hidden under good intentions.”
Miranda looked around in disbelief as the Tower Keepers nodded. “Where is your proof?” she shouted. “My report, Mellinor’s own report, the truth itself, do these mean nothing to you?”
“Proof?” Hern lashed back. “The proof is in your report!” He held up a stack of papers for all to see. “If taking Mellinor was not your final intention, why then did you pair up with Monpress instead of contacting the Spirit Court for backup according to the standard procedure for dealing with powerful Enslavers?”
Miranda flinched. “There was no time.”
“No time?” Hern said, astonished. “If Mellinor had time to send a bounty request to the Council, surely you had time to contact a nearby tower? The only reason I can see for your silence was that you wanted to keep your doings a secret from the Court. You paired up with a thief who wouldn’t question your actions, and in return you quietly looked the other way while he ran off with half the contents of Mellinor’s treasury.”
“There are no towers in Mellinor!” Miranda shouted. “Or anywhere nearby. That’s why I was sent there in the first place rather than leaving things to the local Tower Keeper. As for looking the other way, I was unconscious when Eli escaped because I had just taken in a Great Spirit! And if you don’t believe that Mellinor came to me of his own free will, then I invite you to ask him yourself!”
A great swell of talk rose up from the stands, and Miranda stood in the middle of it, stiff as stone. This was her biggest hammer, and she’d meant to save it until later, but Hern certainly wasn’t playing for a long trial. If she was to have any hope of winning, she couldn’t afford to dance around. Still, Hern looked cool and collected, giving her a little go-ahead motion with one narrow, jewel-covered hand, and that made her more nervous than any of his earlier bluster.
Banage silenced the court with a wave of his hand. “Spiritualist Lyonette is correct,” he announced. “Since the complaint is that she gained the spirit Mellinor under false pretenses, the resolution seems simple enough. We will question the spirit to see if it has been mistreated.” He looked down. “Miranda, if you would.”
Miranda nodded and closed her eyes, reaching down into the deep well of her spirit where Mellinor slept. He woke as soon as she brushed him, and a strange sensation rushed through her body, as though she were pouring out of her skin. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but neither was it pleasant, and it went on for what felt like a very long time.
When the sensation finally faded, the sound of water filled her ears. She opened her eyes and saw Mellinor hovering beside her. The Great Spirit of the inland sea had changed since she’d offered her soul as his shore. He still appeared as a great orb of water, crystal clear and glowing with his own shifting blue light, but he was smaller now, barely as tall as she was. She’d known he had to shed some of his size to live inside her, but actually seeing the once enormous globe cut down to something more manageable was a shock. Still, Mellinor did not seem troubled at all by his new stature. He hovered, turning to watch the wizards in the stands as they gawked openly. The more they gawked, the brighter the light in the water became, and Miranda got the distinct feeling that, diminished as he was, Mellinor was still the largest spirit most of them had ever encountered firsthand, and the ball of water knew it.
Banage leaned forward on the bench. “You are Mellinor,” he said, almost hesitantly, “Great Spirit of the inland sea?”
“I was.” Mellinor’s voice was like a crashing wave. “But my sea is long gone to grass and trees, so now I am Mellinor, beholden to Miranda.”
Hern leaped at this. “Beholden? You mean oath bound?”
Mellinor gave him what passed for a dirty look among water spirits. “Formalities are pointless. I accepted her offer of sanctuary and sustenance in exchange for service on the understanding that I am free to leave whenever I wish, which I currently do not.”
“So,” Hern said, ignoring Mellinor’s distaste, “you were given the choice of servitude or… what?”
He left the question hanging, and Mellinor’s water swirled. “I see where this is going, human,” the water spirit rumbled. “I am not bound to answer to you.”
“But your mistress is,” Hern said. “Answer the question, service or what?”
Miranda felt Mellinor give her a questioning prod. She nodded and, with a watery sigh, the Great Spirit answered. “Return to the sea. When I was free from the Enslaver, I attempted to reclaim my land. Miranda Lyonette and Eli Monpress stopped me, for it would mean the death of millions of spirits, as well as thousands of your kind. Monpress meant to return me to the sea, and defeated, I would have gone. It was Miranda who stopped him. Had she not offered the Spiritualist’s pledge to me, I would be lost right now, my soul pounded to nothingness beneath the waves. Servitude to a good master is a small price to pay for escaping that end.”
Miranda beamed at the glowing water, but Hern’s smug smile only grew wider.
“So,” he said, “just to make sure I have this right. You were given the choice between death at Monpress’s hands or service to Spiritualist Lyonette?”
“I don’t like how you say it,” Mellinor rumbled. “But if you insist on reducing a complex situation to its most base components, then yes, that is technically correct.”
Hern turned to look out over the rows of Spiritualists, spreading his arms to encompass them all. “Though it scarcely needs to be spoken,” he said in a ringing voice, “I would like to remind everyone present of the first rule of servant spirits, as it is written in the founding codex of our order: ‘Servitude of a spirit is by the spirit’s choice alone.’
“Are you stupid?” Miranda shouted, all her calm crumbling around her. “You heard it straight from Mellinor! He’s here because he wants to be!
Everyone was shouting now. Spiritualists shot up from their seats, arguing over each other in increasingly loud voices while Banage shouted for order. Gin was growling furiously, with his ears flat and his claws out, digging into the stone. Only Hern was quiet, watching the chaos as a victorious commander watches the routing of his enemy. Miranda was so angry she could barely see straight, but Mellinor’s anger dwarfed her own. It throbbed through their connection like a tide as his surface shifted from calm blue to an angry, choppy, steel gray.
After several minutes Banage finally regained order. When the room was quiet, he nodded at the water spirit. “Do you have anything else to add?”
“Only this.” Mellinor’s voice was like a breaking glacier. He turned to Hern, and his water grew very dark. “I have been Enslaved, Spiritualist. I know the madness, the agony, and the humiliation better than any spirit who still
