crisis only you can face? One that requires you to remain as Rector so you can continue Banage’s doctrine of destructive absolutism?”
The room erupted as he finished. The benches rocked as the Spiritualists turned on each other, shouting and arguing. Miranda banged her hand against the wood of the podium, but her calls for order were lost in the chaos.
She felt Alric shifting beside her. There wasn’t much time before the Lord of Storms arrived. If he saw the Court in such disagreement, he could rescind the deal. She had to get control, and she had to get it now. Clenching her fingers, she brought the Rector’s ring to her lips. Please, she mouthed against the smooth, warm gold, let me be heard.
The ring began to buzz against her finger, and Miranda had the curious sensation that the room was bending toward her. When she spoke again, her voice fell on the crowd like a torrential rain, drowning out all else.
“This isn’t about Banage!” she cried, the words booming loud as thunder cracks. “Not anymore. Forget your politics for one moment and think. Something horrible is happening, something far greater than Banage or the Council or even this Court. You’ve all felt it, haven’t you? Your spirits launch into a sudden panic and won’t tell you why. The Whitefall River overflows its banks in a screaming terror with no provocation. All around the Council Kingdoms, reports flow in of earthquakes and floods, of spirits turning on each other in terror, and none will say why.”
She stopped, her unnaturally loud voice echoing in the newborn silence, but all around the room, heads were nodding. Hands crossed over rings turned inward, and faces drew tight with worry. Strangely, Miranda felt a swell of relief. They knew what she was talking about, and they were as afraid as she had been.
“Your spirits won’t tell you what is happening because it is forbidden for them to speak of such matters,” she said, her voice gentle. “But it is not forbidden for me.”
And then she told them. She told them as the Shaper Mountain had told her, about the stars, about the Shepherdess. After that, she told them about Mellinor and his warning, and then she told them of her own research and calling the West Wind, about her trip to the broker and her promise to Rellenor, the Whitefall River. She told her story in a rush, letting the last three days pour out of her, stopping just before she’d left for the League’s stronghold. When she finished, the room was as silent as a tomb. Only Blint’s face was unchanged. But for all his haughtiness, his fingers were clutching the dark green ring on his right thumb, and Miranda knew that, whatever else lay between them, he believed her.
“I don’t have to tell you the scale of the disaster we’re facing,” she said slowly. “You saw it for yourselves yesterday, when the rivers flooded. You’ve felt it in your own spirits. The stars are the foundations of this world, but one by one, they are being pulled away, leaving the spirits who depended on them in free fall. As they unravel, so does the world we’ve sworn to protect.”
She leaned forward, and her voice dropped low. “Spiritualists,” she said, letting the title shake with emotion. “I don’t have to remind you of your oaths or your duty. When Rector Banage told me to call the Conclave, he meant it to reunite the Court. But I say that no matter our past squabbles or petty politics, we have always been united in our core purpose: the protection and preservation of the spirit world. For every ring I see in this chamber, I know your dedication, and I’m asking you now to act on it. I’m asking you to stand with me, to stand together as a Court, and do what must be done.”
“And what is that?”
Miranda turned to see Blint leaning out toward her, but though his face was screwed up in its usual glare, his voice was more pleading than angry. “You just told us this was the Shepherdess’s doing,” he said. “Before tonight, I’d heard of her only in the abstract, a spirit so enormous as to be completely separate from the scope of human magic. Now you tell us she’s not only real but she’s turning the world on end, ripping out the largest spirits in creation like weeds and leaving the rest to fend for themselves. A terrible problem, I’ll grant you, but what can we do about it? Every wizard in this room stands by their oaths, but there’s a bit of a jump between defending the spirit world and performing miracles.”
A smattering of nervous laughter went up from the crowd at this, and Blint crossed his arms with a smug smirk. Miranda tightened her grip on the podium’s worn wooden lip.
“We can’t take the place of the lost stars,” she said. “But we can help to calm the panic caused by their disappearance. The floods that devastated Zarin and every other riverside community weren’t caused by the vanishing river star but by the panic of the rivers once they realized their star had gone. That panic is the danger. We can’t stop the stars from vanishing, but if we could calm the spirit’s fear before it became dangerous, if we could have reached out to the rivers before they flooded, we could limit the damage, maybe even prevent it altogether.”
“And how do you mean to manage that?” Blint said. “Catching the panic means reaching the spirit the moment the trouble starts. We can’t be everywhere at once. Do you mean us to only comfort spirits in Zarin? Or is that why he’s here?” Blint’s hand shot out, finger pointed directly at Alric. “The League of Storms are demon hunters, last I heard. Their members are said to have strange powers, a rumor that was just proven by your own flamboyant entrance.” His eyes narrowed to slits. “Have you sold out the Court, Lyonette?”
Miranda clenched her teeth against her growing rage. “Must you see everything I do in the worst light possible?” she snapped. “Whatever you may think of me, this isn’t a power play, Blint. Yes, as you can all see, I went to the League, and yes, I went to make a deal. I saw just as you did that there was no way we could handle a problem this enormous as we are. We move fast, but not that fast. What good is it to go to calm a panic if you arrive days after the panic occurs? It is our duty and our calling to offer our help to the spirits, but for that help to be of any use, we need more than we can muster on our own.” She raised her hand, motioning to Alric. “The League also suffers from this crisis. No one wants this panic, and the League has agreed that we should combine our efforts to fight it.”
“Combine how?” Blint said. “What, do you mean to swear them in? Give them rings and pledge them to service like apprentices?”
“Not quite.”
It was Alric who spoke, his quiet voice booming thanks to his position beside Miranda. He smiled at Blint with the same tight-lipped politeness he showed everyone, but his eyes were burning with banked anger.
“If I may?” he said, looking at Miranda. When she nodded, he addressed the Court. “I am Alric, Deputy Commander of the League of Storms. This morning, Rector Lyonette came to us with an offer of aid. The League exists to prevent the spread of demonseeds. To this end, we have been given certain powers to help in our hunt. However, the current situation prevents our organization from operating as it should, and we find ourselves overwhelmed by the scale of the panic we are facing. With this in mind, the Lord of Storms has offered a deal to your Rector and the Spirit Court she represents.”
He raised his hand, holding it out palm up like he was making the room an offering. “We will grant you temporary use of our gifts, namely the power to open portals through the veil to any location in the world, the ability to hear the ripples of spirit panic so that you can respond to any outbreaks as soon as they occur, and the command to instantly crush any panic deemed dangerous to a spirit or those around it. The League will make these gifts available for as long as this crisis persists, and in return, the Spirit Court will supply the manpower needed to properly deal with the panics. This is the agreement tendered between my commander and your Rector.”
As he finished, the room began to buzz. Miranda let it. This was the crux of all her work, the pinnacle of these last, horrible days. Alric’s words were simple, but the ideas behind them were enormous and so far removed from the day-to-day life of the Court that some pushback was inevitable. She was a polarizing figure, Banage’s protege, a reminder of the recent strife, but Alric was neutral, and the League of Storms, while mysterious, was highly respected. Better they should whisper over his words without her speaking up and dragging the discussion back to the bitter anger of Blint and those like him.
Better still, with this, her role was over. The truth has been told. Alric had laid out the deal and the Court knew enough to make a decision. It was done. She’d fulfilled her promise to Banage and her pledge to Mellinor. Maybe now she could rest.
Miranda closed her eyes. The weariness went all the way to her bones, but though the Rector’s chair was right behind her, she dared not sit. First, it was Master Banage’s chair and she had no right to take it. Second, if she did sit down, she had no real conviction she’d ever be able to make herself get up again.
