Severance (The Sovereign Book 1)

by Michael Pritsos

  “Thalassa honors us with ambassadors,” one of the five councilors announced. Though Gaia’s elders all regarded themselves as equals, Xander took this man to be the famous Niv. He was known as the Voice of Gaia. Collectively, the High Council regarded themselves as a single entity or emperor for Gaia, but each councilor differed from the next.

  “Greetings, High Council of Gaia,” Patrick began. “My name is Patrick, of House Adliger, and beside me are Brennus, son of Cadeyrn, and Xander, son of Nemo.”

  One councilor shifted uncomfortably at the mention that Xander was one of Gaia’s orphans. Niv spoke with vigor. “And to what do we owe this pleasure, Lord Patrick?”

  “Unfortunately our business is not one of pleasure,” Patrick stated. “We are here to discuss the death of Daemyn, Prince of Thalassa.”

  “An unfortunate business indeed,” another councilor agreed. There was a young man standing behind his chair, the only other person in the room but he did not share the attention span anyone else did.

  “It has become clear to us that the young prince was murdered,” Patrick started.

  “Surely you should be looking on your archipelago for those who would be responsible for such treachery,” Niv suggested casually. “Although it does sadden me to hear of dissent within your people, there is not much we can do to help.”

  “I beg to differ,” Patrick said. Xander grinned in spite of himself. His initial assessment of the nobleman was wrong. He’s no coward, Xander thought wryly. He just needs the right battlefield.

  “The treachery has led us here, Your Grace,” Patrick went on. His hands were parted from his body as if to say the whole of Gaia was responsible for Daemyn’s death.

  “Guard your tongue, my Lord,” a pinch-faced elder said abruptly. “There are none among us who would allow treachery in such a vile form such as murder.” He was hugely fat, and it was his own weight that caused his face to collapse in upon itself. Xander thought that he looked like a great boar without the tusks that would give it menace. He curbed such ponderings and glanced back at Patrick.

  “After investigation on Triton, we have discovered that Prince Daemyn was killed by a Gaian. Furthermore, we believe this act was ordered by the ambassador and tax collector, Nicolette.” At that there was a hush in the room. Xander’s hand instinctively felt for his sword’s hilt for reassured safety but his weapons collected dust at the palace’s entrance.

  “That is my niece you speak of,” one of the elders said with a shocking calmness in his voice. “Thalassa is bringing about a grand accusation in this, I warn you.”

  “Tristan,” Niv said coolly. “Give the man room to speak.”

  Patrick continued as though Nicolette’s uncle was not present. “Nicolette is to surrender herself to my charge and will be taken to trial before our Lord King.”

  “By the gods, she will do no such thing!” Tristan exclaimed, eliminating his feigned cool with one outburst. He looked ready to leap from his seat. Xander placed himself in the line of sight between Patrick and the outraged uncle. The marble chairs of the council’s semi-circle were fifteen feet away but it was best to be safe.

  “Calm yourself, Tristan,” Niv said, some force in his ever steady voice. “You bring no proof, Lord Patrick, and I’m afraid your word is not substantial enough to arrest an ambassador of Gaia.”

  “This young man investigated the matter personally,” Patrick said with a gesture to Xander.

  “A man whose mind betrays that he was friends with your prince long before his death,” Niv answered with a shrug. “Personal vendettas and fancies of the imagination are hardly proof, good nobleman.”

  “I had no fancies of the imagination,” Xander said curtly. “Nicolette gave herself away in her last meeting with Lord Patrick. After things were clarified enough for me to proceed, she tried to have me murdered as well. Undoubtedly to shut me up and prevent a meeting such as this.”

  “Speaking of which, where is the ambassador’s second guardsman?” Niv asked. His eyes betrayed that he knew full well the answer. Upon just mentioning the event previously Xander’s thoughts were of his bloody struggle with the Gaian. “The man called Armand. Nicolette said he was nowhere to be found when they left.”

  “And they left in such haste they did not bother to find him?” Patrick inquired. He could not help but smile. “Your Graces, the signs all point us in one direction. Let us end this farce and have the woman stand trial. If she is innocent then she will be found innocent.”

  “This is ludicrous,” Tristan declared vehemently. “Are we truly entertaining notions from an upstart noble, an orphan, and a mute?”

  “This man is no mute but has known Prince Daemyn since he was practically a child,” Patrick said with a heated sweep of his hand to indicate Brennus.

  “Aye, that’s true,” the captain began. “I can vouch that it was never in the prince’s character to take his own life.”

  “Regardless of whether Thalassa’s prince was suicidal or not, Nicolette will not be given over to your custody,” Niv declared.

  Xander bristled but Patrick calmed him with a motion. “You should know that until such time as she is delivered to us, King Philip is considering withholding tax payment to Gaia.”

  All the councilors were silent for a few moments and Xander realized they must have all been discussing the issue mentally. Niv raised his hands to compose them once again. “Philip is a vassal king, under Gaia’s rule. He should realize that this absurdity you bring us does not relate to gold and silver.”

  “I shall relay that information to him.” Patrick shrugged. “I doubt he will care how you feel about coins while you harbor his son’s murderer.”

  Tristan rose to his feet and began unleashing a torrent of obscenities but the three Thalassans stood vigilant. “Enough!” Niv shouted and Tristan reluctantly obeyed. He took his seat once more. “You have your answer,” Niv informed the Thalassans. “However, you should prepare the next payment. We will investigate this situation further and I am certain there will be no problems with our relationship in the future.”

  Patrick bowed and Xander and Brennus followed suit. The three turned on their heels to leave. As they passed between the doors’ guards, one smirked at Patrick. “I hear Thalassa’s bride is a beauty, give her a kiss for me when you get home.”

  “Shut your filthy mouth, Gaian,” Xander erupted.

  The man stepped back in surprise at the outburst but chuckled dryly. “Keep your dog on its leash, Thalassan, before someone puts it down.”

  Patrick sneered at that and the three men entered the hallway that seemed to stretch for miles. There were no decorations in the hall, unless wall sconces of twisted and patterned iron could be considered such. Despite the lack of adornment, there was elegance about Tellus’ castle that superseded even the Pontian palace. The walls and floors were all of perfectly carved stone blocks, each one measured to an exact size and placed atop one another with the mortar almost flesh with the stones so that the walls, floors, and ceilings appeared to be solid. It was as if the Gaians had found a massive stone and cut square hallways and circular rooms right out of the rock.

  “Thank you, Xander,” Patrick said suddenly, “for defending my wife’s honor back there.”

  Xander thought quickly. “No one offends the royal family while I am present, Lord.”

  The nobleman chuckled. “I see that now. You’re a good man to have at one’s side. Even still… this meeting did not go as I foresaw it.”

  “Gaia will realize their error,” Brennus said confidently.

  Xander glanced at the captain. He tried to feel the confidence that the older man possessed but it was not there. The gods only knew what the Gaians would decide. Xander knew that King Philip would wish to gracefully secede from their empire if Nicolette was not delivered up to him. They stepped outside and he retrieved their weapons from the castle guard. Patrick and Brennus both put up their hoods and Xander looked to the sky to find it a darker shade of grey than Tellu
s’ buildings. He followed their example. A storm was coming.

  The Diplomat

  “Vincent,” Niv called. The guardsman strode into the room from his post just outside the council chamber’s doors. He had a wide grin on his face that he tried to hide from the elders. Niv cleared his throat. “Fetch Lady Nicolette, we would all have a word with her.”

  The soldier nodded briskly and left the room. There was a silence that droned on for more than a few moments. The High Council were all pondering heavily on what had just transpired, although a couple were having a mental conversation over the audacity of the Thalassans.

  “What do you think should be done, my son?” Erik suddenly broke into his son’s thoughts.

  Stefan looked at his father in the marble chair before him. The old man was nearing seventy, but still as cognitive as ever. His white hair was kept trimmed close to his pink scalp but had receded into the shape of a horse shoe around his head. His eyes had a murkiness in them that had not taken full effect as of yet, like a drop of milk had been spilled into each brown pool.

  “I’m merely excited at having come today,” Stefan replied. “This is much less boring than our normal proceedings.”

  At thirty-one, Stefan was hardly close to being old enough for a seat on Gaia’s High Council, but his father had been sporadically taking him to meetings over the last six years in attempts to groom him for that eventuality. Stefan was already more educated than most Gaians, having attended more sessions than he could count with the most notorious of Tellus’ philosophers. He was of slightly less than average height, with pale skin and light brown hair that he kept short. His lips were full, almost feminine, but he tried to hide that fact by shaving at night so stubble always graced his face during the day.

  “You have no advice on the situation?”

  “It’s delicate,” Stefan replied carefully. “Every aspect should be taken into account before I could give my estimation of the predicament.”

  “Good answer, my son,” Erik said. He was ever a cautious man, and in his youth Stefan had detested him for it. There were still times that he wished his father would learn how to take a risk, or at least allow others to take risks. Or make their own choices, Stefan thought absently. His father glanced at him but turned back to his mental conversation with the elder Tristan sitting next to him.

  “High Council,” Vincent’s voice came from the door. Nicolette stood just behind him. Her head was held high, as it most often was. “The Lady Nicolette, daughter to Trevor.”

  “Come in, my Lady,” Niv said. Vincent lingered in the doorway until she was standing in the center of the chamber.

  “My Lady,” Tristan began, with an incline of his head. “As you may well know, ambassadors from Thalassa are in Tellus today. For the first time in ages they have come to Gaia and it is because they accuse you of murdering their prince, Daemyn.”

  Stefan watched Nicolette as her jade eyes flickered back and forth among the councilors. Her thoughts were guarded but she managed a weak smile. “Of course you all realize this is ridiculous. Why would I—”

  “Indeed, why would you?” Niv broke in. “One of their men investigated the death and found you responsible. Then you tried to have him murdered as well.”

  “This is all news to me,” Nicolette replied. She shrugged her shoulders as if to suggest it was all very miniscule.

  “Do not lie to us!” Erik yelled. “We know you killed the bastard. You gave it away when you walked in.”

  Stefan nodded concurrence with that although no one seemed to notice his presence anyway. There was no valid reason for her to have guarded her mind so readily in the presence of the High Council. There was no law specifically against such an action, but everyone knew it was near to treason to shield one’s mind in the presence of the elders, whether in the chamber or out on the street.

  Nicolette looked at each of them in turn and suddenly she began to weep. Her mind opened like a flower in spring and the elders unintentionally leaned forward as they soaked up the information. Stefan saw a smattering of details involving the young prince’s death at the hands of a footpad under Nicolette’s brief employ.

  “What has happened to this assassin?” Niv inquired.

  “He was killed when we got back on the mainland,” Nicolette explained. “I have received a letter from the man I hired to kill him assuring me that the deed was done.”

  “A letter? Even these scoundrels are educated now,” Harold observed. He shook his head and when he did his jowls quivered with the sway of his soot-darkened beard.

  Nicolette ignored the banter about assassins. “Daemyn was just…” she trailed off as she searched for the correct wording.

  “An inconvenience,” Niv finished for her. He straightened his back and leaned forward in the chair. His grey beard came down to a point just a few inches below his chin and it looked like an iron dagger hanging off his face. His dark eyes studied Nicolette fiercely. “We gave you position, and power, and this is how you repay us? Treachery?”

  “No treachery against you, Your Grace,” Nicolette pleaded. “I figured I would be able to interact with a better man than Daemyn, so I took a risk.”

  “And failed,” Niv said brusquely. Stefan thought that the elder seemed more perturbed by the fact that she did not come through with her intentions than the matter of having slain the prince of their vassal kingdom.

  “Who could have known the Thalassans would be clever enough to piece together this puzzle?” Nicolette’s uncle asked defensively.

  “Well they have,” Erik announced. “By an uneducated orphan, no less. Now what are we to do?”

  “I will not surrender my niece to that humiliation,” Tristan said vehemently. Nicolette looked about the room in terror.

  “I agree,” Niv said. “That would be inappropriate. Regardless of whether or not we give her up, Philip will still be considering secession.”

  “Secession?” Erik inquired. “You cannot be serious. Our military outnumbers theirs three to one. We have superior intellect, we have—”

  “I do not require a status report on why Gaia’s Empire is so great,” Niv said briskly. “The man just found out his son was murdered by a diplomat who collects hundreds of pounds of gold from him every single month. What would you do?”

  Harold glanced from man to man. “Currently we are under contract to receive a total of two thousand six hundred and forty pounds of gold from Thalassa every year. That pays for our government almost in its entirety. It goes toward every city governor’s salary, as well as those working directly underneath them, and has a heavy hand in the payment of our military on both land and sea. It also helps with the funding we need for explorations to the east and west of the mainland. Garrisons in our eastern provinces.”

  “Our own salaries as well,” Douglas said. He was a soft-spoken man, the youngest of the High Council, but managed to find something to say when his own money was threatened. Stefan thought he had probably heard the thinning fifty-year-old speak a total of four times. Whether in his mind or aloud.

  “Gaia’s taxes are low, and its people are happy, because we tax Thalassa,” Niv declared. “Take that away and we look for money in our own pockets.”

  “Why not attack them?” Douglas suggested.

  “An excellent notion,” Nicolette said. The look all six men in the room gave her prompted the woman to silence herself.

  “If we attack Thalassa upon no grounds, how will we look?” Niv asked for all of them.

  “They have offended our honor,” Tristan suggested. It sounded more like a question than an actual statement, as though the man was grasping for anything that might give levity to their predicament. “A small pre-emptive strike will slap down any ideas Philip may have about rebelling.”

  “Why not attack the source then?” Erik said. “Send a force to Triton, some fifty or so soldiers… then destroy the garrison there and set up until things are calmed down with Philip.”

  “Triton’s Guard has
about fifty soldiers,” Harold said.

  “Fifty Thalassan soldiers,” Erik replied with a chuckle. “We shall ambush them anyway. It will be an easy victory and with that isle in our direct control then Philip will see the logic of steering away from war.”

  “Kill all of Triton’s Guard?” Tristan inquired.

  “Yes,” Erik confirmed. “That takes care of the youth as well. Uh, Xander.”

  “What of the captain there?” Douglas asked. “Any nobility?”

  “If Patrick of House Adliger is present he should be spared,” Erik stated. He looked to Niv briefly and received a nod of support.

  “They have no captain there but a constable, Aldous of House Herre. The family hails from the Varuna isle,” Harold stated. “He’s an obscure relative, I believe, but one to spare nonetheless. Killing either him or someone as highborn as Lord Patrick would seem… ruthless.”

  “It’s settled then,” Niv declared. “A small force of fifty men will strike Triton.”

  “Who will lead them?” Douglas inquired. He seemed almost as though he wished to be granted the opportunity, though it was unheard of for a High Councilor to lead military forays.

  “Vincent will suffice for this task,” Niv said. “He’s a good, trustworthy man. To throw Triton’s soldiers off we need someone else though.”

  “I volunteer my son to take Nicolette’s place in ‘receiving tax payments,’” Erik said. Stefan’s head whipped up to find all the elders staring at him. “It’s quite simple, my son. You go and put on a farce of being there to collect, they will turn you down, then after say… two days, a force of fifty shall arrive in the night to attack the guardsmen.”

  “That sounds dangerous,” Stefan said, a little more as a complaint than he had hoped it would sound.

  “You will be perfectly fine,” Niv assured him. “You shall go on Thomas’ ship. They will probably refuse you payment but they cannot refuse hospitality towards you, so you shall make it seem that you are there to talk this situation over. After two days our force will arrive, and you shall come back to Gaia after everything is settled.”