As she looked at him now, her face collapsed in distress. She pivoted back around to Lucan and the Council members. "No, wait! Please, hear me out. Kellan is no killer. He was trying to save lives - to prevent a dangerous technology from being released. That's why he took Jeremy Ackmeyer. I'm not trying to excuse what he did, I only ask that you consider why he did it."
At the far end of the dais, an elderly human with sunken eyes and an unhealthy pallor cleared his throat. "The Council has heard your argument. All factors will be evenly weighed as the Council makes its determination in this matter."
"Director Benson," Mira implored, turning to face the old man directly. "I realize that this hearing is personal for you too. Jeremy was your nephew. He was a good man, an innocent man. I am truly sorry for your family's loss. I want you to know that Kellan tried to save him. After he realized the truth, Kellan did everything he could to find Jeremy. He tried to correct his mistakes, but it was too late - "
"Enough!" The old man's outburst shot through the assembly like gunfire. His heavy-lidded eyes were sluggish as he looked around the chamber, his gray head drooping between his slumped shoulders. "I've heard . . . quite enough. Please, let's have done with this."
A look from Lucan brought Nikolai out of the audience to collect Mira. She struggled at first, throwing a worried gaze in Kellan's direction as Niko led her back to her seat.
Kellan felt her distress echo through his veins as the armed guards directed his approach to the dais. They brought him to a halt before the Council, and Lucan's sober eyes settled on him.
"Kellan Archer," he announced to all those gathered. "Because of the unique circumstances of your case as a former member of the Order, the Council has agreed to a private hearing of the charges against you and a determination of your sentence by majority vote today. We have reviewed the crimes you stand accused of and have heard statements delivered on your behalf. These are serious crimes, calling for serious punishment. Guilt on any one of the charges carries a penalty of death."
"I understand," Kellan replied, taking in the solemn faces of the men and women who would decide his fate. He saw little mercy in any of them.
Then again, he'd expected none.
He listened as, one by one, the charges against him were read, then he gave his response to each of them. He hardly registered the words. All of his thoughts - all of his senses - were trained on the only person in the room who mattered to him.
Mira stared from her seat beside Niko and Renata, her eyes swimming with tears, fingers pressed to her lips. It killed him that she had to know this fear, this dread. This damned feeling of helplessness as they waited for the Council to begin delivering its verdict.
And then that moment arrived, and Kellan steeled himself to face the end of a path he'd been trying to avoid for the past eight years of his life.
Lucan soberly addressed the Council, instructing them to state their individual votes one at a time, calling for either incarceration for life or a sentence of death. "As chairman, my vote customarily would be heard last," he said. "However, as a condition of this private hearing - because it concerns a former warrior under my command as leader of the Order - the Council has required me to recuse myself from today's proceedings. I will not vote on sentencing, and the Council's decision will be final."
Kellan nodded his acknowledgment, then stood at attention as the voting began. There was little deliberation. Each Council member announced his vote, arriving at a surprisingly split tally across the GNC's human and Breed members.
Seven votes, representing both races, cast for his incarceration.
Eight others called for death.
One vote remaining.
The hearing would either end in a tie or a firm decision for Kellan's eventual execution.
It all came down to the councilman slumped at the end of the dais, Jeremy Ackmeyer's uncle. Kellan peered at Benson, sensing something more than simple grief or vengeance in the old man's troubled gaze. He'd been drinking, Kellan suspected now, noting the boneless sag of his shoulders, the glassy redness of his eyes.
"Director Benson," Lucan prompted, sending a glance over at him. "Are you prepared to state your decision?"
The old man grunted, lifted his head to glare in Kellan's direction. When he spoke, the word was blunt, final. "Death."
Kellan heard Mira's sharply inhaled breath. He felt her stricken reaction course through him, jolting his pulse like an electric shock as her worry shot into him through their blood bond.
"No." Her voice in the seated assembly behind him sounded broken, choked with tears. "No! He didn't kill your nephew, Director Benson. He had nothing to do with the fire at Jeremy's lab or his death. You have to believe that! Do the right thing here. You have to show him mercy - "
"Mira, don't." Kellan pivoted to look as she flew out of her seat and started to rush forward in his defense. Alongside him, the four Breed guards went tense. He felt their alarm roll off them, noted they were all readying to draw their weapons.
"No!" Mira cried. "Lucan, don't let this happen, please!"
Kellan saw Lucan's grim look. Understood that the Order's leader had already done all he could. There was nothing more that could be said or done to spare Kellan.
"No," Mira sobbed, dropping her face into her palms.
Her anguish twisted his heart in a stranglehold. He hated that he was putting her through this, just as he'd dreaded all the years he'd stayed away, hoping to avoid this very moment.
At the far end of the chamber, Benson was shaking his head, muttering under his breath. "It's all gone too far," he slurred, his head hung low, face drooping as he spoke. "Too far now. I finally see that, when it's too late to make things right."
Kellan listened, curiosity prickling to attention as Benson rambled, morose and cryptic. There was remorse in the old man's voice, that much was unmistakable. And there was something else, something that made Kellan's blood pound in his temples.