For some people, having a man whose family had the stature of House Mivar so close would have been intimidating. In that moment, Gavin realized he was not most people. In that moment, everything Marcus had tried to tell him about what it means to be Kirloth snapped into perfect clarity. Gavin still didn’t agree with Marcus’s methods, and he certainly didn’t believe the ends justified the means. Still, though, Gavin was not going to be someone who didn’t hold to his convictions in the face of adversity.
“I don’t really know what you’re afraid of,” Gavin said, “nor do I care all that much. Right now, you’re angry and afraid for your daughter. You want nothing more than to put your hands around the neck of the filth who attacked her, but you can’t do that. So, you’re lashing out, except the person you happen to be lashing out against is under my protection.
“I’ll admit I haven’t been aware that I’m House Kirloth for all that long, but part of what I’ve learned over the last several weeks is that House Kirloth takes care of its own…whether anyone else realizes that or not. I don’t like the turn this conversation has taken, but I’m not about to permit you to demean or browbeat anyone I name ‘friend.’ This conversation will end only one of two ways, and you will determine what path we take next. Now, choose.”
Gavin took a half-step to his left so that Andrin could make eye contact with Kiri.
“Let’s all just take a step back for a moment,” Torval said.
Gavin’s eyes never left Andrin as he said, “Sir, with all due respect, you’re not the one who has made an ass of himself. This isn’t your affair.”
The silence extended past the point of awkward until Andrin sighed and bowed his head. When he lifted his eyes to Kiri once more, Andrin said, “Miss, I apologize.”
The thick blanket of tension covering the hallway evaporated like a fog bank before the morning sun.
Kiri smiled and said, “I forgive you. How could I refuse to forgive a man who loves his daughter as much as you clearly do?”
“Miss-” Torval said.
“Please, call me Kiri.”
Torval cleared his throat and resumed, “Kiri, do I understand that you believe it to be unwise to have Lillian recount what happened before the Conclave?”
“Is this Conclave made up of people she looks up to or whose good opinion she values?”
“Yes,” Mariana said, before Torval could speak. “Lillian has felt like she has something to prove for several years now. She doesn’t feel like she has what it takes to follow in her grandfather’s footsteps.”
Kiri closed her eyes and shook her head. “Sir, I don’t feel anything good will come of making her recount what happened. She feels weak, vulnerable. One of the things she said last night is that what happened would never have happened to Mariana.”
“That’s not true!” Mariana said, her voice rising. “It could just as easily have happened to me!”
“I know that,” Kiri said, “and you know that. Lillian is still developing her understanding and awareness of that.” Kiri turned her attention back to Torval. “The conversation we had last night was very good for her, but this isn’t the kind of thing one conversation will mend. Mariana, tell them how Lillian was before Gavin brought me to the room.”
Torval and Andrin looked to her, and Mariana said, “She seemed fine. She was laughing and happy. I saw her lying naked on that stone block, unable to move, but you would never have known anything had happened, interacting with her last night.”
“I think the only reason she is talking with me is that I’ve survived what she’s been through and worse. Is there any way to have your Conclave without forcing her attendance?”
Torval took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling for several moments.
“Well…her presence would not be required to convene the Conclave if Mivar did not summon the Conclave, but I still feel the other Houses need to know what happened.”
“What if I want to go?”
Gavin, Kiri, and Mariana spun to face the door to Lillian’s room as Andrin and Torval shifted their attention. Lillian stood in the open doorway, a pastel blue dressing gown wrapped around her and matching slippers on her feet.
“Lillian-”
“I know, Kiri; you’re worried for me. I heard. What I want most right now is to hide under the covers and curl up in a ball, and that’s exactly why I can’t. Even if I were not a student here at the College, I have responsibilities as Heir of House Mivar. I’m not saying I’m some pillar of strength, for I’d feel ever so much better if you went to the Conclave with me. But I should go.”
Kiri turned to look at Torval. “Am I allowed to attend the Conclave?”
“I don’t see why not,” Torval said, before his eyes developed a mischievous gleam and his mouth curled into an impish grin, “and if any of the others don’t like it, they can speak with Gavin.”
Chapter 26
Torval, Gavin, and the rest stopped on the third floor of the Tower to collect Wynn and Braden, as they were the Heirs of their respective Houses, before making their way down to the Tower’s entrance.
As the group exited the Tower, they encountered a group of six upper-Tier students starting to enter. Their eyes locked on Lillian, and each displayed a predatory smile.
“There she is,” the student in the front said, as he led the group over to Gavin and the others. “We’ve been looking all over for you. We want to speak with you about those slanderous lies about our friend you passed off as truth.”
Before anyone else could react, Gavin stepped to the front of his group and approached the student who had spoken.
“The fact that you call such dishonorable filth as Rolf Sivas ‘friend’ tells me more about your collective character than I want to know, but that’s not really germane to the discussion. You should know that Lillian Mivar is under my protection; if you would ‘speak’ with her, you must first face me.”
“You’re a brave fool, standing in front of all these people,” the student said, “and there’s six of us. You can’t be with her all the time.”
“You tell him, Van!” a student in the back said.
Another said, “We’ll get her eventually; we always do.”
“My mentor spent some time a while back telling me what it means to be Kirloth, and I’ll be honest that I don’t really approve of the methods and conduct he said was necessary as Kirloth. That being said, you boys need to think long and hard about whether this is a box you really want to open.”
“Who do you think you are?” the student in front said. “You’re only one guy.”
Gavin stepped closer and spoke in a lower, though firm, voice, “I think I’m the guy who killed fifty-three slavers with just one Word, and there aren’t that many of you. Now, make your move…or be somewhere else.”
Gavin held eye contact with the student in front of the other five, waiting for him to do something stupid. In the end, though, the student displayed a slight glimmer of intelligence.
“Come on, guys,” he said, backing away from Gavin. “There will be another day.”
“There better not be,” Gavin said, his voice almost a whisper.
Gavin and the others stood on the steps of the Tower, watching the six students disappear down the path to the gardens. Once they were out of sight, Gavin and company started walking to the College’s gate.
“Would you have killed them just now?” Torval asked as he walked beside Gavin.
Gavin shrugged. “What matters is that they believed I would.”
During the Founding, Kirloth and the First Council divided what became the Kingdom of Tel into four duchies. Despite a great deal of resistance to the idea, Kirloth installed his four former apprentices as dukes of these provinces, even going so far as writing their families’ continued reign over these provinces into the new constitution, and since that time, Mivar, Roshan, Cothos, and Wygoth joined Kirloth to become known as the Great Houses of Tel.