Miranda beamed at the glowing water, but Hern’s smug smile only grew wider.
“So,” he said, “just to make sure I have this right. You were given the choice between death at Monpress’s hands or service to Spiritualist Lyonette?”
“I don’t like how you say it,” Mellinor rumbled. “But if you insist on reducing a complex situation to its most base components, then yes, that is technically correct.”
Hern turned to look out over the rows of Spiritualists, spreading his arms to encompass them all. “Though it scarcely needs to be spoken,” he said in a ringing voice, “I would like to remind everyone present of the first rule of servant spirits, as it is written in the founding codex of our order: ‘Servitude of a spirit is by the spirit’s choice alone.’ Choice, my friends, a spirit’s informed, free choice is the cornerstone of all the magics of the Spirit Court. What happened that night in Mellinor was not choice. We already have a name for when the only options are death or service.” His face clenched in a disgusted sneer. “Slavery. That night Spiritualist Lyonette and the thief Monpress put Mellinor in a situation where there was only one outcome. Though he took the oath, Mellinor did not enter her service by his free will, but rather because there was no other choice.” He paused gravely for a moment, letting that sink in. “Though it doesn’t fit the technical definition,” he continued at last, “I think we can all agree there’s little else to call it but Enslavement.”
“Are you stupid?” Miranda shouted, all her calm crumbling around her. “You heard it straight from Mellinor! He’s here because he wants to be! I saved his life! ”
Everyone was shouting now. Spiritualists shot up from their seats, arguing over each other in increasingly loud voices while Banage shouted for order. Gin was growling furiously, with his ears flat and his claws out, digging into the stone. Only Hern was quiet, watching the chaos as a victorious commander watches the routing of his enemy. Miranda was so angry she could barely see straight, but Mellinor’s anger dwarfed her own. It throbbed through their connection like a tide as his surface shifted from calm blue to an angry, choppy, steel gray.
After several minutes Banage finally regained order. When the room was quiet, he nodded at the water spirit. “Do you have anything else to add?”
“Only this.” Mellinor’s voice was like a breaking glacier. He turned to Hern, and his water grew very dark. “I have been Enslaved, Spiritualist. I know the madness, the agony, and the humiliation better than any spirit who still has their mind intact. If you presume to call my contract with Miranda Enslavement again, then I will exercise that free choice you claim to value so highly to drown you where you stand. And none of those weak flickers you wear so gaudily on your fingers would be able to stop me.”
Hern blanched, and Banage let him squirm for a moment before turning to Miranda. “Spiritualist Lyonette, please control your spirit.”
Miranda had a choice answer for that, but a look at Banage stopped her tongue. As much as she would love to let Mellinor do what the spirit was aching to do, any hope of beating the charges against her would vanish if she didn’t stay to the right side of Court law, which meant no drowning. With great effort, she tugged at Mellinor’s connection, and the spirit reluctantly pulled back, but his cold light never lost its focus on Hern until the last wisp of water vanished.
“You have all heard the charges,” Banage said. “The accused will now exit the chamber while the Court deliberates.”
Dismissed, Miranda climbed off the stand and marched across the open floor, doing her best to ignore the whispers that followed her. Behind her, she could hear Hern chatting with the Spiritualists around him, his voice ringing confident and cheerful over the hum of the crowd. Her heart sank in her chest as she walked through the double doors the apprentices held open for her, returning to the dark waiting chamber.
“That pompous idiot,” Gin growled, pacing in cramped, little circles through the long waiting room while the apprentices secured the door behind them. “You should have let Mellinor drown him.”
Miranda didn’t answer. She plopped down on the bench against the far wall and put her head in her hands. On her fingers, her rings were awake and asking questions, buzzing through their connection. With great difficulty, she sent them firm, reassuring waves of confidence. Everything would be fine. Slowly, her rings quieted, the smaller spirits first, and finally the larger ones. Even Mellinor settled down under the pressure. Tired from his earlier anger, he burrowed deep into the corners of Miranda’s mind where she rarely went, his mood dark and brooding and well suited to her own.