“What’s this, Sara?” the Tower Keeper said, his voice dripping with insult. “The Lyonette girl? This is your plan? She’s cut from the same cloth as Banage. What good do you hope to accomplish, bringing in another traitor?”
“More than I can accomplish waiting on you to do more than complain,” Sara said, crossing her arms with what felt like a long-standing huff.
“Enough,” Prince Whitefall said, glaring at both of them. “If you must bicker like children, you can do it outside. I’ve got representatives from every kingdom in the Council waiting for audiences today, and that’s enough childishness for any man. Now,” he said, glancing at Miranda, “who are you, young lady?”
Miranda straightened up, self-consciously hiding the worst of her stained clothes by clutching her arms in front of her. “Miranda Lyonette, your majesty,” she said with a deep bow. “Spiritualist of the Court and former apprentice of the Rector Spiritualis Etmon Banage.”
She said this last bit with a pointed scowl at Blint, but it was the Merchant Prince who spoke next.
“Ah yes,” he said with a wry smile. “The one who keeps losing Eli Monpress.”
Miranda felt her face go red.
“You see?” Blint snorted. “Incompetent as well as treacherous, just like her master.”
“Now see here!” Miranda said, her voice quivering with rising anger. “Master Banage has never betrayed anyone. If anyone is a traitor here, it’s you, Blint. How dare a Tower Keeper speak ill of the Rector Spiritualis to outsiders?”
Blint arched a gray eyebrow at her. “Incompetent, treacherous, and ignorant,” he said, glancing at Sara. “You certainly can pick your champions.”
Sara’s jaw clenched, pressing her lips into a thin line.
“What is he talking about?” Miranda demanded.
Merchant Prince Whitefall looked pointedly at Sara. She tossed down her papers with a sigh and walked over to Miranda, grabbing her arm and steering her toward the large bay window that took up most of the office’s right wall.
Miranda tried to yank her arm away. “What are you—”
“Just look,” Sara said, pushing her toward the window.
Miranda stumbled forward and landed on her knees on the padded window seat, her face inches from the clear glass that separated her from all of Zarin. The city lay spread out before her, every street alive with activity and packed to bursting. But that much she had already seen, and her eyes moved up, following the city east, down the slope of the river, and then up again to the other colossal building that dominated Zarin’s skyline, the Spirit Court’s white tower.
Even from this distance, Miranda knew something was wrong. The Tower looked strange. Its sides were stripped of the usual red banners and the great red doors had vanished. The spiraling windows were gone as well, leaving the Tower smooth and solemn, an impenetrable spire of cold, white stone.
“The Tower is sealed?” she said at last, her voice shaking as the truth dawned on her. Every apprentice in the Court knew the Tower could be sealed, though Miranda had never seen it happen. But… she looked over her shoulder at Merchant Prince Whitefall. “Why?”
“As you no doubt know, our lands are soon to be under siege by a foreign power,” Whitefall said calmly as Sara returned to his side. “Any hope of survival rests on our ability to stand together. To that end, I asked Banage for his help in the fight against the Empress. He refused. The rest you can see.”
So that was it. Miranda swallowed.
“With all due respect, Merchant Prince,” she said, turning away from the window, “the Spirit Court exists to protect spirits from human abuse. We do not go to war.”
Whitefall’s eyes narrowed. “And whose land do you dig your heels into to make that statement? When the Council falls and the Empress makes slaves out of every man, woman, and child, do you think she will spare the Spiritualists?”
Miranda stiffened. “Every Spiritualist swears an oath to protect their spirits, to use them only in self-defense. They are not weapons.”
Whitefall sighed. “So that’s a ‘no’ for you as well, then?”
“I am a Spiritualist of the Spirit Court,” Miranda said. “I follow the will of my Rector.”
Whitefall leaned back in his chair. “And I suppose that appealing to your sense of duty to your country would be a waste of time? No point in reminding you how many of your countrymen will die when the Empress rolls us over because we cannot stand up to her wizards.”
“Or how she owes the Council her life, at the moment,” Sara added, resting her hands on her narrow hips.
Miranda swallowed against her suddenly dry throat. “I owe you my life and my freedom,” she said, picking her words carefully. “But you should know by now, Sara, I choose my oaths over my life every time. But even if helping you didn’t violate my pledge to guard my spirits, I would still say no. I am sworn to follow the will of the Rector. If Master Banage has already refused as you said, then his refusal is the Court’s refusal. Though,” she glared accusingly at Tower Keeper Blint, “apparently some Spiritualists understand their obligations differently.”
Blint rolled his eyes in disgust. “Spare me,” he said. “I’ve followed Banage longer than you’ve worn your rings, little girl. Long enough to see the cliff his absolute refusal to compromise is leading us toward. This is the real world, Miss Lyonette, not some morality play. Standing firm on the letter of our oaths may sound noble, but the reality is that the Empress is coming, and her wizards have no qualms over using spirits in the fight. We will all perish if we do not meet her in kind.”
“So because our enemy abuses her spirits, we must abuse ours?” Miranda cried. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“I’m merely stating fact,” Blint said. “The army with spirits defeats the army without. The Spirit Court represents nearly all of the wizards within the Council Kingdoms. If we all follow Banage and bury our heads in the sand, the Council will be defenseless. The Empress will conquer everything, and if you think she will let an organization like the Spirit Court remain when these lands are hers, then you are delusional.”
Miranda clenched her fists, her rings glowing like torches on her fingers. “I will not abandon my oaths,” she said fiercely. “And I will not abandon Master Banage.”
Sara and Blint both started to speak, but the Merchant Prince cut them off with a wave of his hand. He turned in his chair to look at Miranda directly, and when he spoke, his voice was kind and genteel. “I understand you’ve been through a lot lately, and this may all be a bit much. Please know that I admire your loyalty. I wish I had someone on my staff half as willing to stand up for me as you do for Banage, but a lot has changed since you last left Zarin.”
He stood up and walked around his desk, taking Miranda gently by the arm as he turned her back to the window. “Look there,” he said softly, pointing down, toward the streets. “Do you see those soldiers?”
Miranda nodded. She could hardly miss them. The streets of Zarin were full.
“Three days ago I called in the pledges for the first time in Council history,” Whitefall said. “Three days, Spiritualist, and already we have so many men ready to defend their homes. Every country in the Council is sending its army to help defend the whole against the Empress. Several of those men down there are conscripts, boys taken from their mothers’ skirts. Most have never even seen the coast they are going to defend.” He looked down at her, his eyes sad. “Banage told me he would not force the spirits to fight a war that has nothing to do with them, but those young men are here to fight a war that ostensibly has nothing to do with them either. Even so, here they are. They have come to fight because their countries have spent the last two and a half decades benefiting from the Council, and the time has come to pay.”
Miranda stiffened. “The Spirit Court is not part of the Council of Thrones.”
“No,” Whitefall said. “But the Rector has had a place at our meetings since the beginning. The Court has benefited from the peace and prosperity of the Council as much as any country. Maybe more. But even if the Court was as fully aloof as you claim, you and Banage and every Spiritualist who serves the Court were born on what is now Council land. Spiritualists you may be, but that membership doesn’t change the fact that you are all citizens of the Council, and you are beholden to the same rules that govern everyone else.”
Miranda stepped away. Though the Merchant Prince had not said it, she could read his meaning plainly. “You mean to conscript us too?” she said softly.
