“It is done,” the Sovereign said.
There was a resounding finality to his voice. Goosebumps ran down my arms.
“Innkeeper, take Ellenda to the portal. Once she passes through it, the Dominion will chart a ship to take her back to her homeworld. No citizen of the Dominion will ever trouble her or her branch again.”
On the screen one of the Frown delegates, a man wearing white and green, stood up and walked down the aisle to the door.
Where the hell was he going?
The man reached the table where the Holy Ecclesiarch sat with his entourage.
A transparent column shot out of the ground, sealing the holy man and his retinue inside. Wind jerked their hair as Sean flushed the inside of it with fresh air. At the same time a second column caught the man from the Frowns delegation, cutting him off from the dining hall. He jerked and collapsed.
I turned the volume back up, and the sound roared in, beings jumping to their feet.
Sean leaped over the tables and landed in the middle of the room, his gray robe flaring around him. The staff in his hand split, releasing a brilliant green spear head. His mouth opened, and he roared in the deep snarling voice of an alpha-strain werewolf. It was the same voice that had thundered over the battlefields of Nexus.
“Freeze!”
The three hundred creatures in the dining hall stopped as one.
18
When we last left the inn, Kosandion’s date with the Uma candidate, Ellenda, did not go to plan, and her delegation made a move against the Dominion’s Holy Ecclesiarch. Will Dina and Sean manage to eliminate the dangers gathering around the Sovereign? In this week’s episode of Sweep of the Heart…
The prisoner hung from the ceiling of the throne room, his body wrapped in the inn’s restraints. The Kyporo delegation stood under him, grim-faced and ready for some sort of action if only they could figure out what that action might be. Calling them Team Frowns in my head no longer seemed appropriate.
The rest of the delegates had been asked to return to their quarters. Only the Sovereign faction and the observers remained. The feed was going live to the entire Dominion. Kosandion was making a point: he had nothing to hide, from his people or from the rest of the galaxy.
He sat on the throne now, his expression harsh and cold, watching the massive screen behind the prisoner. On it, Tony led Ellenda to the portal. Her head was held high. They stopped before the round gateway. She turned, looked back at the camera, and gave us a brilliant smile.
The lights on the rim of the portal flashed, the green glow swirled, the Uma woman stepped into it, and her presence vanished from the inn.
Kosandion looked at Sean. “What happened?”
“That man tried to kill the Holy Ecclesiarch,” Sean said.
“How?”
“Poison. A microcapsule sealed inside his tooth. He bit it and exhaled the poisoned vapor.”
And Sean sensed it despite being forty feet away. Hundreds of innkeepers had watched him crush that assassination attempt. Not even one would disagree with a simple fact: Sean Evans was amazing.
“The antidote is already in the prisoner’s system,” Sean continued. “He will survive.”
“Unfortunate,” Kosandion said. The word landed like a brick.
The leader of the Kyporo delegation, a spare, ascetic-looking man, stared at Kosandion with open hostility.
The Holy Ecclesiarch smiled. Every time I had seen him, his kind face all but shone with benevolence, but in this moment his expression changed, as if a different man rose from the depths to the surface. Shrewd. Smart. Powerful. It was there for a mere fraction of a second and vanished back into a soft caring smile. Something wasn’t right about this.
“Well,” the holy man sighed. “At least I’m still important enough to be murdered.”
“Obviously, Sar Ramin had a lapse in judgement,” the leader of the delegation ground out. “We had no idea he held such extremist views.”
“How quick you are to throw your people into the fire, Odikas,” Kosandion said.
“He is young and impressionable,” Odikas said. “A group should not be penalized for the actions of one individual, nor should it bear responsibilit—"
“I thought you were a man of vision,” Kosandion said, his voice harsh.
His pose was relaxed, almost languid, but the intensity in his eyes was frightening. His body signaled that he didn’t condescend to view Odikas as any kind of threat, and his face assured that retribution was coming, and it would be swift and brutal.
“Alas, I was wrong, and you are blind. What is it you said about my father? A weakling controlled by a woman, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Resven confirmed, his voice so buttery you could spread it on toast.
“You brought an Uma woman here, because you thought I missed my mother so much, I would forget my duty, lose my mind, and throw away the nation’s interests for a chance to bed someone who looks like my parent.”
The Kyporo delegation collectively winced. Yes. Ew.
The cavernous room was so quiet, you would hear the proverbial pin drop.
“Did you plan to use her to influence my policy decisions, or was I supposed to die once the heir was born, so you could pull her strings and play at being regent?”
Odikas clenched his teeth.
“How long was I supposed to remain alive? Would you have given me the courtesy to see my offspring being born?”
No answer.
Kosandion shook his head slightly. “The Uma value their freedom beyond everything else. You forced Ellenda to come here against her will. If I had chosen her, she would either have killed you or killed herself. All those years you blamed my mother for the reforms my father implemented, and yet you never took the time to learn anything about her people.”
The gray skin on the older man’s cheeks turned darker. Odikas looked a hair from losing it.
Kosandion glanced at Resven. “Explain it to him.”
“You knew Ellenda was in danger of being eliminated when you saw the preliminary rankings,” Resven said. “She refused to debate, so you counted on the date to save you. The moment she reclaimed her freedom, your plans collapsed, so you sent your favorite subordinate to murder the Holy Ecclesiarch in hopes that his death would force us to void the selection and begin again. It is painfully obvious, and yet you’re making excuses, as if the whole world has lost the ability to reason, and you are the only one still thinking.”
A grimace twisted Odikas’ face. He bared his teeth.
Resven stared at him, derision plain on his face. “It’s not the plotting. It’s the sheer, obnoxious stupidity of it that irritates me. A man of grand ambition yet meager talent should at least strive for hiring a capable adviser.”
Wow. I had no idea Resven had it in him. There had to be some history there.
“You!” Odikas choked out.
“Look into the sensors, Odikas,” Resven said. “We are here to witness the funeral of your career. At last, the Dominion is watching just as you always wanted. All eyes are upon you. Are you not pleased? Was it everything you hoped it would be?”
Odikas clenched his fists, choked by his own outrage.
“The Kyporo delegation is disqualified,” Kosandion said. “All their asks and honors are void.”
“You can’t do that!” one of the delegates shouted.