VII. A Little Direction

One brisk fall day, Calanthe reached breakfast to find a note from Lerae Amdorius instructing her to come to the Council room instead of to the classroom. It seemed that she was to sit in on Council at last, and as she ate the bread that had been placed on the table before her, she considered this prospect with apprehension. She had not met any members of the Council aside from Lerae Amdorius and Lerai Aella since that first day, and given the way they had all examined her like some interesting scientific specimen, she had hoped for it to remain that way. Never mind the fact that she would one day have to head the aforementioned Council; in Calanthe’s world, this possibility was only a very vague notion reserved for the murky fog that was the future. For now, she was to stay out of the way and go where she was told when she was supposed to be there, nothing more.

Just before the third hour after dawn, Calanthe slipped into the Council room. Lerai Aella, already situated in a seat at the side of the great table facing the doorway, nodded toward a chair that had been set in the corner so that Calanthe could observe without being in the way. From this seat, she could see the entire Council arranged around the table in order of rank, it appeared, despite Lerae Amdorius’ insistence that the purpose of the table was so that all who sat around it would look at each other as equals.

Promptly at the bell chiming the third hour, Lerae Liber stood and said, “We shall now begin our discussion of the current state of affairs of the Church in Nilea. As all Nilean affairs ultimately affect us, I believe it is important to be properly briefed on this matter. Lerai Aella, would you care to indulge us?”

He sat as the redhead stood, rifling through a pile of notes as she did so. She aimed an innocent smile at Liber, whose back was to Calanthe, and said, “Well, it’s not as though I have a choice, now, is it?” Liber shifted in his seat, clearly disgruntled. Calanthe got the impression that the woman enjoyed baiting him. Knowing Aella, it didn’t surprise her.

“Very well, then,” the redhead said after a moment of shuffling papers. “The Nilean High Priest, Pius, is continuing to preach about the abuses of the monarchy. It seems, however, that his attacks are heating up.”

“It seems, or they are?” Liber interrupted.

“Well, as I have nothing to compare my experience with except hearsay, I am going to say seems. Why is this, Kelari?”

Calanthe jumped at being so addressed, though she should also have been unsurprised by this – she knew that both of her instructors would be examining her later. Apparently, Lerai Aella thought that now was as good a time as any to start.

“Because you cannot take any person’s words as the absolute truth. They must be treated with some amount of skepticism as a person’s words are often subjective. There is no such thing as an impartial observer.”

“Thank you, Kelari.” Aella made a show of reorganizing her notes before she continued her speech. Liber tensed visibly at this distraction. Calanthe struggled not to let a giggle escape her. It was obvious now that the woman was trying to bait the man.

“Anyway,” she continued, “I recently had the pleasure of witnessing one of the honorable Pius’ sermons. He preached so fiercely, I swear I thought the fires of Ashar were going to engulf me right then and there. I’m almost certain that I felt them.”

Calanthe shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She knew of the eternal struggle for dominance between Asha and Ashar. She just didn’t believe it, any of it. Unfortunately for her, a lack of spirituality was not as acceptable in Numerian circles as in the realm of academia she was accustomed to, and as such she was forced to keep her sentiments to herself. She still was unused to the centrality of religion in this region, however, and this emphasis discomfited her.

“What did Pius have to say, Lerai?” Liber asked impatiently. “As colorful as your narrative is, now is not the time or the place for storytelling.”

“Oh, the usual rubbish about how it’s time for the Church to reform the abuses of the government and rid Nilea of heretics.”

Calanthe grew even more uncomfortable at that last part. By High Priest Pius’ definition, she was one of those heretics.

“Oh, and he also might have mentioned something about putting women back in their proper place. Apparently Asha is angry about us overreaching ourselves, which is the reason Ashar’s influence is growing. Never mind the fact that Asha herself is a woman. That bit always seems to be conveniently overlooked.”

A few of the men on the Council muttered darkly at the end of Aella’s outburst while Liber said, “Thank you, Lerai. That was a very empowering speech you just made.” The woman scowled at this statement and sat down, muttering angrily to the woman sitting next to her, the only other woman on the Council. It was clear to all in the room that Liber’s words were meant to sting, to put Aella back in her place. The man was the current head of the council, and no one was to forget it.

Calanthe very much hoped that the man would be dead by the time she came to head the Council, as would be her duty one day as Kelari of Numeria. He disgusted her and she knew already that if she had to work with him, her reign would be a very difficult one. The atmosphere in the room was tense, and most of the tension was centered around two people: Liber and Aella. Calanthe could see now why she had been necessary as a compromise candidate; there were two parties, divided down the middle, with many of the younger Council members siding with Aella and the older with Liber. From what she had seen, it did not appear to Calanthe that Lerae Amdorius was on either side. She could envision now how each side must have been courting his support for their claim to the throne, and how, rejecting both, he had listened to Vantandal’s compromise idea.

“What is our next order of business?” Aella asked through gritted teeth. Calanthe could practically feel her hair standing on end, the tension in the room was so electric.

“Our next order of business is how we should treat this new threat from the ecclesiastical quarter,” Liber said.

“It is hardly a new threat,” Aella pointed out. “He has been spewing this bile for quite some time.”

“It was never a cause for concern until now,” the man replied, waving her concerns away. Thoroughly unabashed, the redhead sat back all the way in her chair, slouching with her arms crossed over her chest, exactly as she had instructed Calanthe not to do. “Ideas, anyone?”

“I think the wisest course of action would be to ignore the threat until it concerns us directly,” an older man to Liber’s right said. “There is no need to draw attention to ourselves in a matter that does not have anything to do with us.”

“But it will concern us eventually,” Aella shot back. “We cannot be ignored forever, especially not when Pius knows what a strong base he could potentially have among the Eltrive. No, mark my words, he will be courting us sooner than you think.”

“And would that be such a terrible thing, to join forces with the Church?” Liber asked her. “It is not as though his conclusions are wholly unfounded. The monarchy is crumbling. A change of direction could be healthy for the country.”

“You know as well as I do that the Hrume would never accept an Eltrive ruler, and that Pius would never relinquish such authority to you,” Aella snapped. “He will only dispose of you as soon as your services are no longer required, as every other Hrume has ever done.”

There was no mistaking it this time – the tension in the room was electric. That’s when Calanthe noticed that the weather shifted with every change in Liber’s mood -- it seemed that his ability was Weather. The electricity in the room was from the lightning that was starting to ripple across his skin, a result of the anger that he was coming closer and closer to losing complete control over. It was then that she chose to take drastic action.

Calanthe closed her eyes and emptied her mind. She was so used to it by now that it was not difficult to push all of her distress and the myriad jumbled thoughts aside for the time being; she practiced meditation on a daily basis as it was beneficial to her control. Once done, she reached out for Liber’s strand, easy to find due to the energy crackling along its length. She touched it tentatively before immediately dropping it, the amount of power it contained taking her aback. She then extended a tendril of power toward his thread again, this time taking it in a firmer grasp.

Immediately, she was engulfed by an anger so fierce, she almost lost control over herself. She struggled to put up a wall to prevent her from being entirely lost to the emotion, but she eventually succeeded. She then had the insurmountable task of first neutralizing the anger with a cool calm she found somewhere within herself, then, when this was done, pushing this calm along the connection between her and Liber. Once the lightning had more or less disappeared, Calanthe severed the connection.

She almost collapsed onto the floor, putting one hand against the wall and gripping the chair with the other to prevent herself from doing so. She was sweating and gasping for air as though she had just run a long distance. But the tension in the room had also decreased drastically, though not completely. When she looked up, she noticed that Liber was glaring at her.

“I did not request your help, Kelari, and I will thank you for not interfering in matters that do not concern you in the future,” he said.

Calanthe stood, standing as tall as she could, her knees shaking as her legs struggled to support her weight. She met Liber’s gaze squarely as she replied, “Actually, since I will one day be leading this Council, I believe the matters at hand do concern me. And as you are a member of this Council, your self-control is one of these matters.” She was dimly aware of Aella smirking somewhere in the background, but no one else moved. For her part, Calanthe’s attention was wholly focused on Liber.

“You are not in charge of the Council yet, wench, so it would do you well to remember who you are speaking to.”

“It seems to me that I speak to a tyrant,” she snapped, barely containing her own anger now. The hairs on the back of her neck rose in a silent warning that Liber was once again on the verge of losing control. It was then that Lerae Amdorius saw fit to step in.

“I think it is best if we leave now, Kelari,” he said quietly, taking Calanthe by the arm. For once, she obeyed his order without argument, allowing him to lead her from the room. It was only after they had walked out of the building that either of them spoke again.

“What were you thinking?” Lerae Amdorius asked shortly.

Calanthe, struggling to keep up with his brisk pace, shrugged before saying breathlessly, “I wasn’t, really.”

“That,” he replied, “is obvious.” He stopped abruptly, leading her to almost crash headlong into him. He gripped her shoulder tightly. It was all she could do not to cry out in pain as the pressure increased to a level that would surely leave bruises later. “It’s not that what you said to Liber was not unfounded, because it was. I, of all people, know this.” He shook her gently. “But trying to take charge of a political situation you have no understanding of? That was stupid, Calanthe.”

“No more stupid than watching it happen,” she muttered, eyes cast down toward the ground now.

“Hence the reason for the compromise. Rifts like this take time and effort to fix; change is not going to happen overnight. Did you expect to go barreling in there and fix everything immediately?”

Calanthe looked back up into the man’s face, a long way above her. “I wasn’t really certain what to expect. But certainly not for things to be as bad as they were.”

“I suppose you can see now the precariousness of the situation, why it is so important for you to work so hard.”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “I’m still not entirely certain you came up with the best solution, though.”

“Listen, Calanthe.” Lerae Amdorius shook her again, at the same time lessening his grip on her shoulder. “I know you are not ready for this, and never expected to be in the situation you are in now. I also realize that you think I am overly hard on you. But the only reason for that is because the stability of our province, and its very existence, rest on your shoulders. If we fail, we will be overrun by Hrume and will be ruled by them again. Do you know how long it took for them to make the concessions they did, allowing us our self-governance? Effectively, all of our fates are in your hands. And the other reason I’m so hard on you is that I think you are more than capable of ascending the throne and representing the Numerian people masterfully.”

This speech was the last thing Calanthe expected, but she did not even get a moment to let it sink in before she heard shouts in the distance. Both she and her teacher turned to see Lerae Liber coming toward them, features twisted in a frightening snarl. It was then that the wind picked up, at which point Lerae Amdorius relinquished his grip on her shoulder and said, “Leave us now. Your presence here will not be of any use.”

For once, Calanthe did not argue, instead doing as she was told and setting off at a half-run toward the palace. She did not dare look back lest she decide to disobey and stay, but she was also aware that, after the trouble she had caused at the Council meeting, her flight was probably for the best.

She entered the palace through a side door. Immediately she turned left toward her apartments, but not before she almost ran right into Vantandal.

“What happened?” he asked, reading her face easily. Calanthe shook her head, unable to speak. He sighed, saying, “I will ask again later. But for now, you need to come with me.”

“Why?” she asked, squirming as he took her by the elbow and started leading her the opposite direction down the sparkling marble corridor.

“You have a visitor.” He released her arm, pausing uncertainly before a door. “A family member.” Without warning, he opened the door and pushed her in gently. With a great feeling of dread, Calanthe looked up into the face of her uncle.