Page 37 of Lord of Ruin (The Age of Blood #2)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Samuel

S amuel entered the room, feeling oddly like he was walking to his own trial.

For once, they didn’t meet in their private Council room, where they hashed out new proposals and debated for hours over precise word choice.

No, Belrose had called them to the grand chambers where the House of Lords met, the rows of seats spiraling ever inward to the ground floor where the others waited.

It was so empty with just the five of them, quiet as a tomb as he made his way down the stairs, steps echoing towards the high ceiling above.

He swallowed the fissure of anxiety that ran through him as he came to stand before Lady Belrose, dressed in a fine dress of dark silk, her hair cascading past her shoulders in loose waves.

The claws on her fingers glittered in the glow of the witch light, shining slivers of silver crossed demurely at the wrist. She looked every bit the Blood Worker—beautiful, refined, and oh so deadly.

Pulling at the cuffs of his shirt, Samuel stood a little straighter. He knew that he cut a similar figure, thanks to all the work Shan and Laurens had put into him, but despite all the preparation, he still felt like little more than a charlatan. Especially next to Lady Belrose.

He glanced around at the others—Lady Morse did not pay him a lick of attention, standing with military strictness with her arms crossed behind her back.

Someone had been kind enough to have a chair pulled up for Lord Rayne, which he relaxed into, his cane balanced across his knee, but he paid him no mind either.

Unlike Zelda, who shifted uncomfortably, her eyes looking everywhere but him.

Ah, so that’s how it was to be, then. He had been prepared for this, even if he wished it would never happen, but politics had people switching sides left and right, and he was a fool to think that Lady Holland would ever choose loyalty over political expediency.

Especially after how their last meeting had gone.

“Thank you all for joining me here today,” Belrose said, calling the meeting to order. “I know that it is an unusual gathering spot for us, but I thought it important to remind our members why we are here.”

She took a step back, lifting an arm to sweep wide, calling their attention to the very room they stood in.

“When we took these positions as part of the Royal Council, we all swore an oath. Our work is important to the functioning of the great nation of Aeravin, but we are advisers and councillors, not tyrants. We serve not only the Eternal King, but the House of Lords as well.”

Leveling her steely gaze on Samuel, he felt the snare catch around his ankle. He knew the trap she was going to lay even before she spoke it, and he had blundered right into it.

“Last year, our esteemed ruler came into this very room, this hallowed hall full of history, and levied a new series of laws without warning, ignoring the voice we are supposed to have in the governing of Aeravin.” Her lips twisted into a cruel smirk as she stepped closer to Samuel.

She might have been a head shorter than him, but with the power of her Blood Working thrumming in her veins, Samuel couldn’t help but feel so small.

“It appears that his heir thinks he can do the same thing, so it falls on me to remind him—you might carry his blood, Lord Aberforth, but even you are bound by the same rules as the rest of us.”

Samuel tilted his chin up, didn’t allow even the slightest hint of his anger bleed through. “Everything I have done was within the parameters of my position.”

Belrose met his gaze unwaveringly. “And yet, you wished to put this bill into action without a vote, without even bringing it to the attention of the House.”

“Because it does not need approval,” Samuel pressed. “This is a refinement of the rules and regulations already in place, of my domain.”

“Still—”

“Still, nothing,” Samuel pressed on, all the practiced speeches and carefully thought-out arguments running together in his head.

“The Guard are my duty and responsibility, and as such, I can determine if they need additional regulations, especially with the new responsibilities that have been added to our plate.”

That, too, had been an expansion of responsibilities without a vote, a command come down on high from the King himself, routed through his Royal Blood Worker. There had been no proposal, no vote—it had fallen in his lap like a rotten fruit, leaving him to deal with the mess alone.

And yet, his attempts to tame that injustice needed approval.

“All the more reason,” Belrose cooed, “for us to take it to a vote. The Royal Blood Worker’s proposal, while unorthodox, is in response to a national emergency. We could not afford to let it lie fallow for months more. But this? A little time will hardly affect anything.”

It would affect quite a lot, Samuel was not enough of a fool to discount that, but he knew he could never manage to convince Belrose.

The shift had already happened, Aeravin’s sudden and immense crackdown on the rights of the Unblooded had freed even the most cautious of political creatures to lean into their hate.

Her mind was made up, but there were others he could reach. “A vote, then,” he said, turning to the others, even as ice curled in his stomach. Morse looked bored as ever, Rayne was muffling a yawn behind a thin, veined hand, and Holland was still avoiding him like the plague.

There would be no allies here, and as he turned back to Belrose, he realized that she knew it as well.

“Yes,” she said, smoothly. “A vote before the entire House, I think. Do not worry, Lord Aberforth, you will have plenty of time to refine your arguments. Perhaps even gather some data to prove that these regulations are necessary at all.”

From the tone she took, it was clear that she didn’t believe it was in the slightest. None of them did. But he would fight it, tooth and nail. He couldn’t live with himself if he did not.

“Very well.” He dipped into a low bow, short and perfunctory and not proper at all. A slight snub, but one that couldn’t be called out without Belrose being seen as petty. “Is that all?”

Her claws clenched ever so slightly, but she nodded.

Samuel didn’t even bother saying goodbye, seeing himself from the room with a quick pace. Footsteps followed after him, but he did not turn to look at his follower till they had emerged from the chamber, her hand reaching out to catch him about the wrist.

It was Lady Holland, looking at him with such pity in her eyes as she pulled him into an empty room.

It was one of the many, many meeting rooms in the Parliament House, there for confidential meetings to hash out all the deals that kept a government running.

It wasn’t aired out—the furniture covered with sheets and the fireplace empty, giving the air a distinct chill.

It was uncomfortable and awkward, the two of them staring at each other without a place to sit, but it did give them a modicum of privacy.

For what, Samuel wasn’t sure—she had already fed him to the wolves, so why should she care who saw this?

“I tried to warn you, Samuel. The plan was too bold,” Zelda said, and there was just a hint of a plea in her tone, like she was trying desperately to reach him, as if he was acting out and needed to be pulled into line.

“Perhaps,” he returned, knowing that he dripped acid, “if I had any backup, things might have gone differently.” She didn’t flinch. She was unrelenting, and normally, Samuel appreciated that about her. Today, though, it just made his stomach churn.

“Picking your battles,” she said, like she was imparting great wisdom, “is the most important tool at our discretion.”

And she was right—truly she was. But Samuel could not live like this, making these sorts of calculations, throwing entire groups of people into suffering for the mere hope that he could do something about it later.

He was so terribly unsuited to this work, and here he was proving it all over again.

“We can still remedy this,” she pressed. “I am willing to tutor you—it’s not your fault that you never had the proper training.”

“What, like I am a child?” Samuel couldn’t control the anger that cut through him.

It was one thing to be hated, it was another thing altogether to be patronized.

They all thought him to be a fool because of his background, because of his lack of a formal education, because he actually gave a shit about people before their grand calculations.

Her expression shuttered, the attempt at kindness vanishing as Samuel saw the exact moment she decided that he wouldn’t be reached. “Really, Aberforth, this is embarrassing.”

“Don’t,” he began, that insidious darkness awakening within him, unfurling like the bloom of a flower, as deadly as nightshade in his veins. But Holland continued on, blissfully unaware of the danger she was courting.

“We live in a precarious time, and I know you’re not too stupid to understand that ,” she went on.

“And by all that this nation stands for, one of us needs to make sure that you do not undermine what little control the Council has left. So, you will either work with us or I will report your ineptitude to the King himself.”

“Enough!” Samuel barked, and that sliver of power in his chest burst forward, slithering through the air on his command as it wrapped itself around Holland.

Her hand flew to her neck as she worked her throat, desperately trying to form words that would not come, her dark eyes glittering with the purest, most sudden fear that he had ever seen.