Alena winced at that. She had helped quell the Lolani invasion, but her own contribution felt insignificant. She’d simply done what she could when she could.
“She’s the soulwalker.” The statement was half a question and uttered by the man who sat on Alena’s far right. His defining feature was the baldness of his scalp, a rare trait even among the elders.
Alena bit back a response. She still hadn’t been invited to speak. Sooni replied on her behalf. “She is.”
Alena worried she might collapse under the weight of the elders’ glares. But she kept her back straight and met their gazes. She would serve, but she would not let them intimidate her.
The elder who sat in the center, a woman as thin as a stick, spoke, her voice ringing with command. “You may speak, Alena. Dunne tells us you fought hard for this audience, so say what you came to say.”
Alena spoke of her discoveries about the gate. No doubt Dunne had already informed the elders, but Alena recounted all the pertinent details.
A heavy silence hung over the gathering as she finished describing her conversation with the emperor.
She wasn’t sure how they would react. In all her years with the Etari, she’d never quite figured out exactly how they viewed the empire. The forces skirmished on occasion. Once every few years, an imperial trader believed they could use a shortcut through Etari lands. The Etari would end the practice whenever they discovered it, raising tensions along the border for a year or so. Then the worry would fade and another trader would begin to think they would be the one who snuck through undetected.
The elders’ reactions, such as they were, were muted. She’d expected outrage or questions, but none came.
Eventually, Dunne asked a single question. “What would you have us do with this knowledge?”
This had been the source of their arguments the past few days. Alena insisted that the Etari link someone to command their gate in the same way that Hanns commanded his. To say that Dunne didn’t view that possibility favorably was an understatement.
The first time Alena had mentioned the idea, Dunne spat at her feet.
The elder still hadn’t apologized.
But Alena insisted the possibility be presented. “It is for the elders to decide. This is your gate. If nothing is done, I believe that eventually your gate will fail and the gatestones will become useless. Either an Etari must command the gate or efforts must be made to prevent more power being pulled to the other gates.”
The backs of the elders stiffened at her first suggestion. The thin woman sitting in the center of the elders responded. “We will not consider ‘commanding’ the gate, as you call it. But how might less power be pulled from the other gates? You’ve already said the emperor has no desire to cooperate.”
Alena had been chewing on that exact problem since she’d realized it was the most likely possibility. The Etari reticence to command their own gate complicated matters. “The most straightforward option is to command your gate and attempt to pull more of the source toward it.” She saw their reactions and charged forward. “But if that is truly out of the question, there are only two options. Either we break Hanns’ connection with one of his two gates, or we find some way to use the Falari gate.”
“Breaking Hanns’ connection to the gate might be considered an act of war,” Dunne mentioned casually, as though such an event wouldn’t cost thousands of lives and break the treaty that had largely held for two hundred years.
“And it would harm his ability to keep the Lolani queen at bay,” Alena added. She’d come to the same conclusion. She hated admitting it, but allowing Hanns only one gate didn’t solve their problems. The Lolani queen was part of the problem, too. It only took the poor management of one gate to throw the balance of the system off.
She knew she treaded the edges of proper address, but the simplest answer remained in front of them. “Why won’t you allow someone to command your gate?”
Alena had asked Dunne the same question and never received an answer. The Etari detested soulwalking, but they rarely turned away from a pragmatic option.
The elder in the center answered. “The gates are not to be commanded. This is an edict passed down among the elders. What the emperor and the Lolani queen do is against the very purpose of the gates, and their punishment will not be long in coming.”
The elder spoke with certainty, but Alena intuited a hole in the heart of the elder’s words. The Etari elders didn’t know the actual reasons why they avoided the gate. They had nothing but a command passed down through the years.
That lack of knowledge encouraged her. Perhaps they could be persuaded.
Then she thought again. The Etari had more history to call on than the empire did. Anders I had destroyed too much of what was known before. Even if the elders didn’t understand why their edict stood, the command had the weight of history behind it. The elders wouldn’t bend so easily.
“In that case, we must ensure that Anders VI doesn’t gain control of the Falari gate.”
It was the conclusion Alena had hoped to avoid, but one that had appeared inevitable for days.
Dunne didn’t approve. Any attempt to stop Hanns carried innumerable risks, and its odds of success were slim. Why waste precious Etari lives on a mission so likely to fail?
The head elder spoke. “Elder Dunne has spoken of your ideas. But we are of her mind. Besides the possibility of sparking a war upon the land, it seems foolish to risk Etari lives on such a scheme.”
And so they came to the crux, just as Alena had dreaded they would. She’d hoped for a different outcome, but none of the elders would bend. It left her no choice. “Then send me. Give me permission to act on your behalf.”
She understood the weight of her request. Despite her
