Page 22 of Fit for a Prince (Fit For A Crown #1)
My vision went blurry as the clues came crashing together, despite my mind trying to protect me from the horrifying truth. They were debating if they should kill off the remaining Ivalonian prisoners.
I shook with rage, my hands grasping at my skirt and nearly ripping it to shreds as I bit down hard on my tongue.
“Poison is costly, too,” the elder with the beard said. “We also have to consider the uses for the remaining roaches. They could easily carry disease into other kingdoms for us and take out enemy forces.”
Is he talking about sending them off as soldiers?
That wasn’t much better, but at least it didn’t involve killing them en masse.
“I agree with Lord Fenrick.” Lochlan’s voice startled me; it was the first time he had spoken throughout the entire meeting. “Killing the roaches this soon is foolish. They don’t consume nearly as many resources as we think, and it’s wasteful to toss them out so soon.”
I felt my heart drum so loudly I was worried the noblemen would be offended by it.
Lochlan had just defended my people—well, he’d claimed they were more useful alive than dead, but after all the nasty things he’d said to me for being Ivalonian, I was stunned that he didn’t want the prisons cleared out.
“You wish to let the roaches live?” The general leaned forward, resting his beefy arms on the table. “That’s not what I would have expected from you, Your Highness.”
“That’s because you expect too little,” Lochlan said snidely. “I have plans for the creatures. Plans that are worth far more than the resources they consume.”
“Plans?” Lord Fenrick raised a thick brow, then swept his gaze over to me with a distasteful grimace. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with the infestation of the roach’s queen, would it?”
The men murmured among themselves, and the whispers I caught were far from flattering.
“That’s none of your concern.” Lochlan didn’t look at me, but I could feel myself being pulled toward him like a curious fish eyeing the hook. “All you need to know is that an extermination now would be a waste of resources.”
“Ridiculous,” one of the other men grumbled under his breath, just loudly enough to draw everyone’s eye.
“I beg your pardon, Sir Randall?” Lochlan turned to face him .
“You’re being a fool, boy,” Sir Randall said bluntly. “I thought you were smart enough to know when to put your toys aside.”
“I can assure you, Sir Randall,” Lochlan said coldly, “I don’t indulge in toys .”
“No, you just toy with vermin,” Sir Randall snapped.
Heat flared through my cheeks. The urge to quip back at the old man was almost overpowering. This was the part I had expected Lochlan to enjoy, but what puzzled me was that he wasn’t just allowing them to rip into me.
“I agree with Sir Randall,” the general said. “Poison the scum and scrape it off the boot of our good kingdom already. The prince isn’t being levelheaded.”
“A level head is one that’s been impaled on a straight spike,” Lochlan said, casting a silence over the room as he glared at the general. “If you insist on having one, then that can be arranged.”
“What I insist on is you putting aside your personal affairs for the good of Aemastia,” the general said.
“What you're protecting has no worth.” He turned to look straight at me, his armor reflecting the fire burning in my eyes. “It’s pathetic. A useless piece of garbage that has no purpose on this earth. It, and everything like it, should have burned in the first extermination. Unless, of course...it has the intelligence to defend itself.” He egged me on, daring me to speak with a wicked grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Speak, roach. Tell us why your colony should be spared?”
I bit my tongue, my legs trembling with pure fury as I forced myself to stay silent. He knew what he was doing. One word uttered from my lips would be enough for him to take my head, or at the very least, Mara’s. I couldn’t speak.
“Speak, you dumb insect!” The general smacked his hands on the table, shaking everything on top of it.
“That’s enough, General!” Lochlan stood from his seat.
“Why? Have I insulted your future queen?”
“You have insulted me .” Lochlan gripped the edge of the table, forcing himself to match the power of the general. I reached for something on the table to write on, then scratched out a note while pulling one of the ribbons from my hair with the other hand.
“That doesn’t bother me,” the general said. “I have no issue offending a spoiled child who doesn’t know how to use the power he was born with.”
“You dare say such words to your prince?” Lochlan fumed.
“I dare to speak for my kingdom,” the general said. “And I refuse to be in favor of protecting a worthless collection of Ivalonian—What?”
The folded-up piece of parchment smacked him square in the forehead, breaking his train of thought and nearly causing him to fall out of his seat. Lochlan followed the path of trajectory and looked back at me just as I lowered the thick ribbon I’d used as a makeshift sling.
“What is the meaning of this?” The general snatched the piece of parchment and unfolded it, the red spot on his forehead twitching a smile at my lips. “Do you think you can simply—” His mouth dropped open as he read the note. “Y-you...”
“For heaven’s sake, what is it?” Lord Fenrick snatched the paper and read it, his old eyes nearly popping out of his skull as he read the vulgar insult that was probably too mature for his feeble eyes. “Y-young lady!”
The parchment was snatched up again, then again, until each set of eyes quickly consumed my insult and the entire table was torn between being baffled that a young lady even knew such a word and laughing their lungs out.
By the time it made it all the way around the table, laughter had won, and every man roared at the general’s expense.
“Enough!” the general shouted, his face red. “I want that girl dead! She should be beheaded for insulting a general during a meeting in which she had no place to speak!”
“Except she never spoke,” Lochlan said firmly, stepping away from his seat to stand behind me, his shadow chilling me in the process. “The lady has broken no rules. You have no right to harm her.”
My breath hooked in the back of my throat, preventing me from speaking even if I had wanted to. Lochlan held out a hand to me.
“Let’s go, Lady Diaspro. This meeting has been adjourned.”