“Enough.” Kamran stood up with such force he nearly knocked over his chair.
This was madness.
He could neither continue sitting here in this damned hair shirt, nor could he listen any longer to these insipid excuses.
The minster blinked slowly, his vacant eyes shining like glass beads. “I beg your pardon, Your Highness, bu—”
“Enough,” Kamran said again, angrily. “Enough of your blathering. Enough of your insufferable stupidity. I can no longer listen to another ridiculous word that comes out of your mouth—”
“Your Highness,” Hazan cried, jumping to his feet. He shot Kamran a look of death and dire warning, and Kamran, who was usually in far better control of his faculties, could not summon the presence of mind to care.
“Yes, I see,” Kamran said, looking his minister in the eye. “You’ve made it plain: you think me young and foolish. Yet I am not so young and foolish as to be blind to your ill-concealed passive aggressions, your weak attempts to pacify my genuine concerns. Indeed I know not how many times I will need to remind you, gentlemen”—he looked around the room now—“that I have only a week ago returned from an eighteen-month tour of the empire, in addition to recently accompanying our admiral on a treacherous water journey, during which half our men nearly drowned after we collided with an invisible barrier near the border of Tulan. Upon arrival in Ardunia, traces of magic were found on the hull of our ship—”
Gasps. Whispers.
“—a discovery which should concern everyone in this room. We have been at odds with Tulan for centuries, and sadly, I suspect our incumbent officials have grown comfortable with that which has become commonplace. You seem to grow blind when you turn your gaze south,” the prince said sharply. “No doubt our exchanges with Tulan have become as familiar to you as your own bowel movements—”
There were several protests at that, exclamations of outrage that Kamran ignored, instead raising his voice to be heard above the din.
“—so familiar, in fact, that you no longer see an obvious threat for what it is. Let me refresh your memories, gentlemen!” Kamran pounded the table with his fist, calling to order the moment of chaos. “In the last two years,” he said, “we have captured sixty-five Tulanian spies, who even under extensive duress would not reveal more than limited information about their interests in our empire. With great effort we were able to conclude only that they seek something of value here; something they hope to mine from our land, and recent reports indicate that they are nearing their goal—”
More protests broke out at this, and Hazan, who’d gone scarlet to his hairline, looked as if he might soon strangle the prince for his effrontery.
“I say, gentlemen,” Kamran said, shouting now to be heard. “I say I do much prefer this method of discourse, and I would encourage you to direct your anger at me more regularly, so that I might respond to you in kind. We are discussing war are we not? Should we not shed the delicacy with which we approach these hardened subjects? I confess that when you speak to me in circles I find it both detestable”—he raised his voice further—“both detestable and tiresome, and I do wonder whether you hide behind wordplay merely to disguise your own ignorance—”
“Your Highness,” Hazan cried.
Kamran met his minister’s eyes, finally acknowledging the barely restrained wrath of the only man in the room he marginally respected. The prince took a steadying breath, his chest lifting with the effort.
“Yes, Minister?”
Hazan’s voice all but shook with fury as he spoke. “It has only just occurred to me, sire, that I require your immediate guidance on a matter of great importance. Might I convince you to meet me outside so that we might discuss this crucial business at once?”
At that, the fight left Kamran’s body.
It was no fun to fight a horde of idiots when Hazan suffered an apoplectic fit as a result. He tilted his head at his old friend. “As you wish, Minister.”
The remaining officials exploded with outrage in their wake.
Hazan said nothing until he’d all but bullied the prince up to his chambers, where, only once the rooms had been cleared of servants, did he close the door.
Were Kamran in a different frame of mind, he might’ve laughed at the demented look in Hazan’s eyes.
The young man had gone nearly purple.
“What the devil is the matter with you?” Hazan said with dangerous calm. “You ordered these men to leave their posts—for some, dozens of miles away—on a whim for what you deemed an essential meeting—and then you all but rip their throats out? Are you mad? You will lose their respect before you’ve even claimed the throne, which y—”