A Sky of Spells (Book #9 in the Sorcerer's Ring) (8 page)

Kendrick shook his head.

“We must try to unify the
kingdoms peacefully. The Ring has seen enough war. Win their hearts at this
difficult time, and you will win their loyalty.”

“The McClouds are a savage
people,” Erec said. “No diplomacy, no gestures, will win them. They are who
they are, and their nature will not change. They are not us. Pacify them, and
they will turn on you. Now is the time to wipe them out. It is the only way to
assure true peace in the Ring.”

“The McClouds fought for us
when we needed it,” Bronson reminded.

“Yes, but they only did so
because they were also under attack,” Erec said.

“Gestures of peace and
kindness can be interpreted by some as acts of weakness,” Srog said. “Our
kindness to them might embolden them to attack us.”

The men broke out in
disagreement, arguing amongst themselves, and Gwen thought it all over quietly
as they did.  She wondered what her father would have done if faced with this
situation. Then she shook her head and realized that did not matter. She was
ruler now. She had to trust herself.

Gwen finally cleared her throat,
and the room fell silent.  

“There is greater might in love
than fear,” she said.

The men turned and looked to
her, quiet, hanging on her every word. She could see the love and respect in
their eyes.

“We must try to make the McClouds
love us,” she continued. “We must try to unify the two Rings. If we attack , we
may occupy them for a while; but not for the long run. Force is short-lived;
the greater strength lies in harmony. Which of you would want to make peace
with a kingdom that has slaughtered your wives and children?”

All the men looked down,
humbled, silent, realizing she had a point.

“Peace may be the harder course,”
Gwen continued, “but it is the course we must embark on. The McClouds may look
upon as an enemy still; but they may also be looking to us for leadership. We
must assume the best in them until they give us reason otherwise.”

“Yes, my lady,” Aberthol
said.

“Bronson!” Gwen called out.

Bronson stepped forward, kneeling.

“You have served our kingdom
bravely in our fight with the Empire. I owe you an apology. You should have not
been mistrusted due to the deeds of my sister.”

Bronson bowed.

“Thank you, my lady. All is
forgiven. I am grateful for your taking me in and giving me a second chance.”

“To reward your loyalty,”
Gwen said, “I will give you leadership of the Eastern Kingdom of the Ring. You
will rule the McClouds, and you will rule with my name.”

“My lady,” he gasped,
shocked. “Are you certain? I am but a simple warrior.”

Gwen shook her head.

“You are far more,” she
said. “You are the son of a king. And you are a McCloud. The McClouds know and
respect you. You know them. Who better to lead them? Embark and cross the
highlands and act as my emissary. Show them love and peace, and help them rebuild.
Unify our armies.”

Bronson nodded quickly.

“As you say, my lady.”

“A most wise and tempered
decision, my lady,” Aberthol said. “Your father would be proud.”

He cleared his throat and
pulled out another scroll, squinting as he read.

“While we’re on the topic of
the McClouds, there is another, more unpleasant, matter that needs to be dealt
with. Your sister. Luanda. She has been caught.”

Gwen gasped. So, her sister,
who had betrayed them, had survived after all.

“What shall be her fate?”
Aberthol asked.

The men broke into an agitated
murmur.

“She must be hanged for her
crimes,” Srog said.

“She betrayed all of our
people,” Erec said.

“She betrayed Thorgrin most
of all,” Kendrick said.

Gwen burned as she thought
of it. She turned and looked at Thor.

“My lady,” Thor said. “I
hold no grudge against her. She is your sister, after all.”

Gwendolyn thought it all through,
debating. Luanda had been a thorn in her side her entire life. Her ambition was
limitless, she had a streak of ruthlessness in her, and Gwen knew that would
never change.

“My lady, if I may,” Bronson
said, clearing his throat, stepping forward. “Forgive me, I do not mean to
intrude on affairs not my own. But Luanda is more than your sister—she is also
my wife. I do not dispute her faults, or her wrongdoing. And yet, I ask you a
favor. I ask for your forgiveness,  your mercy, on her behalf. If I have done
any good to merit it, please forgive her. It is greater for a leader to show
mercy when underserved than to punish when it is.”

Gwen paused, debating,
seething with conflicting emotions.

“Where is she?” Gwen asked
Aberthol.

“She waits outside, my lady.”

Gwen thought long and hard, debating.
Finally, she nodded.

“Bring her in.”

Aberthol whispered to an attendant,
who ran from the room. Shortly, he returned, accompanying Luanda, hands bound
behind her backs with ropes.

The men parted for her as
she walked down the center, placed before her sister. Luanda hung her head low,
not even meeting her eyes.

Gwen was shocked at her appearance.
She looked much aged. She looked broken. Her head was shaved, her face covered in
bruises and scratches. She looked as if she had been through hell and back.

Luanda also wore a look that
Gwen had never seen: humility. She continued to look down to  the floor, her lips
bruised and chapped, her cheeks swollen. Despite everything, she could not help
but feel some pity for her.

“Forgive me, my sister,”
Luanda said, and she dropped to her knees and burst out sobbing. She wept, and
as Gwen watched, her heart went to her. She’d always had a rivalry with
Luanda—one of Luanda’s own making—yet despite that, she had never wished her
harm.

“I am ashamed of what I have
done,” Luanda said. “Not just to you, and Thor, but to the entire Ring. To our
family. I do not know what overcame me. If I could take it all back, I would.
It is your prerogative to have me killed. But I beg your forgiveness. I do not
wish to die.”

Gwen watched her sobbing, the
room quiet. Gwen sighed, realizing all eyes were on her.

She thought long and hard
and realized there was much truth in what Bronson had said: there was more
power in mercy than justice. She knew that any good ruler must exhibit both,
and weigh both carefully.

“I will pardon you,” Gwendolyn
said.

Luanda looked up with shock,
and hope.

“But your face is not
welcome here anymore. I have dispatched your husband to the Eastern Kingdom,
and it is with him that you shall go, not to cross to this side of the
Highlands ever again, on pain of execution. Not because of what you did to me, but
because of what you did to Thorgrin.”

Gwen thought Luanda would be
relieved to have averted a death sentence; yet to her surprise, she seemed
dismayed.

Luanda wept again.

“You are my
sister
,” she
said. “This is my home. You cannot banish me. I love you.”

“No you don’t,” Gwen said. “It’s
taken me my whole life to realize that. You love ambition. Not your family.”

Gwen nodded, and two of her
attendants stepped forward and took Luanda’s arms, and led her away.

Bronson bowed.

“Thank you, my lady, for
granting her mercy. I shall never forget this kindness.”

Gwen nodded back.

“Accompany your wife to the Eastern
Kingdom,” she said. “Represent me. Our people are counting on you. I am
counting on you. A Ring divided will always be weak.”

Bronson bowed, turned, and hurried
from the room, and a long silence followed.

As Luanda was being dragged
from the room, she resisted, bucking.

“No!” she cried. “Don’t do
this! This is my home, too!”

The men continued to drag
her away. Before she reached the door, she turned and yelled out to Gwendolyn
one last time.

“You are my younger sister!
When we were young, you would do anything for me. What has happened to you?”

Gwen stared back at her,
watching her sister’s face for the last time, feeling much aged herself,
feeling, oddly, as if she were
her
older sister.

“I grew up,” Gwen replied.

The doors slammed behind
her, and they all stood there in the long, reverberating silence. Gwen saw the
glances of the men, and saw that they looked upon her with a new respect. She
had made a hard choice.

Gwen was already feeling tired,
older, weighed down by her rule; she heard the distant cheer of revelers, and
she wanted to be outside, to be anywhere but here. She could feel the baby turning
inside her, and she just wanted to be somewhere alone with Thor.

“Is there anything else that
is pressing?” she asked Aberthol, hoping the answer would be no. “I would like
to go back out and join our people.”

“Just one more pressing matter,
my lady,” he answered. “The fate of Tirus.”

Tirus. It all came rushing
back to Gwen—his betrayal. She had been foolish to trust him, and because of
her trust, many of her men, good men, had died. She felt ashamed—and determined
to set wrongs right.

“He was captured, along with
his sons. All of them alive,” Aberthol said.

“He must be executed, my
lady,” Kendrick said. “Tirus is a traitor of a different sort than your sister.
His treachery is far more insidious.”

“You set an example for all
traitors, my lady,” Erec added.

“Consider it all carefully,
my lady, before you perform any hasty actions,” Aberthol said. “The Ring will
never be truly stable until you put an end to the scheming nature of the men of
the Upper Isles.”

“As much as we may detest
them, we need the other MacGils. Your father knew that—which was why he
tolerated them. This might be your chance, my lady, to make history. To unite
the two warring MacGil factions, as they once were,” Srog said.

“We do not need them,”
Kendrick said. “They need us.”

Aberthol shrugged.

“That was what your father
believed,” he said. “He chose to deal with them by ignoring them. Yet as you
can see, that only left time and room for Tirus to revolt.”

Gwendolyn sat there,
thinking.

“Where is Tirus now?” she
asked.

“He awaits judgment outside
this hall,” Aberthol said. “This matter of the Upper Isles, of Tirus, cannot
wait. It must be resolved now. For the stability of the Ring.”

Gwendolyn nodded, sighing.

“Bring him in,” she said.

Aberthol sent an attendant, who
rushed out the room and returned shortly, several soldiers leading Tirus and
his three sons. They were all brought before her.

Tirus was defiant even in
captivity, even in his haggard state. He sneered up at her.

“You inhabit my brother’s
seat,” he said scornfully to her. “Yet you are but a young girl.”

Gwen was filled with
distaste at the sight of her uncle; she always had been.

“I inhabit this seat because
I am Queen,” she corrected in a confident voice. “The
lawfully
appointed
Queen. Because my father, your brother, the lawfully appointed king, placed me here.
You, on the other hand, stand before me today because you tried to usurp what
was not yours. It is not
I
on trial here, but
you
.”

Tirus’ three sons looked to
the ground, clearly humbled, yet Tirus, still defiant, turned and looked to
Kendrick.

“You are the eldest,” Tirus
pleaded to Kendrick. “The firstborn of MacGil, and a man, bastard or not. It is
you who should rule, if not I. Do something here. Tell Gwendolyn to know her
place and get down from that throne.”

Kendrick shook his head,
staring back at Tirus coldly and gripping the hilt on his sword.

“Watch your tongue around my
sister,” he said. “She is our Queen, make no mistake about it, and she carries
the full authority of our kingdom. Insult her again and you will face my wrath.”

Tirus turned reluctantly back
to Gwen.

“If it is an apology you
want,” he said, “you will not get one out of me. The throne you sit on is
rightfully mine. It always has been. I was passed over for your father, who was
a lesser man than myself.”

Gwendolyn felt her cheeks
redden at his words, but she breathed deep, remembering her father’s advice:
never let people know what you’re thinking. And never let emotions sway your
decisions. There were so many traps to avoid as ruler.

“You are nothing but an
ambitious traitor,” Gwendolyn said, “a disgrace to the MacGil blood line. By
all rights of our kingdom I should have you executed.”

Gwen paused, debating,
letting her words resonate in the thick and heavy silence.