The Changeling

28

Cetlali scrawled Ovar's words as he said them. It wasn't until she was writing her very own name that the shock stunned her into near perfect petrification. The charcoal rolled from her fingertips, along with the papers fluttering to the floor. She focused a blank stare on the back of Ezren's chair in shock. Fortunately, few noticed her. The hall was silent for a long moment. When it broke, it was not at all by the Emperor's answer or the severe scowl forming on Athua's face.

"No!" Ezren stood up with a booming refusal. Almost every head turned to face him.

Ezren insisted, speaking to Ovar with stone-cold fury, "She is my steward and ward of my lands—,"

"Zeger's the Vassal now, and they are all the Emperor's lands," Ovar bit back at Ezren through snarling teeth.

"Silence!" Eraughn shouted. A rolling quiet spread through sporadic murmurs and whispers until the room stilled.

Cetlali stood there, breathless, feeling as inanimate as the chair Ezren almost kicked over with his eruptive dissent.

Eraughn looked back at Ovar, ambivalent and confused that a single request had caused such a ruckus. "I do not see why such a match should not be made."

Athua reached out and gripped her

husband's hand. He looked down at the painful grasp, raising his eyes to his wife's face. His gaze strayed past her, where Ezren stood with a severe glare leveled in his direction.

The Emperor swallowed and spoke with a slight waver, "Unless you have a reason to dissent, Vassour Elect?"

Cetlali could think of about thirty different reasons Ovar deserved to be stabbed in the head right there on the dais. No one had ever

punished him for them before, not a single one.

His value as a warrior for their lands always took precedence over his maliciousness. Ezren had never once spoke against the beast of a man because he'd utilized him to the fullest extent.

Now it was obvious Ovar was becoming something like an annoyance, and those never lasted long for Ezren.

"I served my realm and completed my duty as Vassal faithfully, Emperor. I alone raised my children, focusing singularly on their success.

My son Zeger is successfully entrenched as the Vassal of Wisteryala and my appointment as your Vassour Elect has become official. It was my intention to marry again and take Cetlali as my wife after her twenty-first name day."

The room erupted into chatter again. Over the din, there were specific noises that stood out. One of which was a vehement Masha's snarling protest. Caran and Zeger Armistead both barked out a harsh laugh with a disgusted tinge to it. Then they realized their father was serious and gaped at him in shock. It struck Zeger, stunned, but he quickly became

incensed. Caran at least had the mind to grab at Masha as she stepped away from him. Her hand wrapped around the handle of her ulu for reasons he didn't understand, but already knew well enough to stop. The other noise was a singular, enraged wail before Rocha fled from the hall without a single look back at anyone.

Cetlali's hands twitched up on the dais.

Struck horrified, she stared between Ezren and Ovar and tried to decide which was a worse fate to die from. She felt on display, on trial.

Twenty years of sins and suppositions were rolling around the room, magnified by the occupying minds and imaginations. All the eyes on her dissected her like a diseased carcass. She waited for someone to deliver the verdict of how she would leave this world, swift or slow.