Ascended (War of the Covens 3)
Instead she straightened her spine and followed Derren until he stopped in the center of the room.
Am I on trial?
She really wanted to ask but was frightened of messing up this ceremony—or whatever it was.
Once Derren was seated with the others, an elegant man stood. Caia recognized him as the guy who hadn’t seemed to like her much when she’d first met with the Council to tell them about the underground labs. He should be fun.
Like Derren, his voice boomed around the entire court. “Caia Ribeiro, allow me to introduce myself.” His dark stare wasn’t at all friendly. “I am Benedict De Jong, a member of the Council. We have just spent the last thirty minutes—”
Thirty minutes? That was all?
“—listening to a young man with no affiliation to the Center tell us of your plan to kill Marita and ask us to make you Head of the Daylight Coven to gain control of both Midnight and Daylight trace, all with the intent to perform a rite soliciting the aid of the gods to remove the trace from the supernatural world, thus freeing its inhabitants.”
It sounded really cool when he said it.
“Is this or is this not true?”
Caia nodded. “Yes, sir, it is.” She almost flinched when she realized her voice was just as loud. There must have been a speaker spell of some kind on the room.
A rumble of murmurings followed before De Jong gestured for them to be quiet.
“Such a request would have been completely dismissed if not for the support given by not only Saffron, one of our most trusted and experienced shapeshifters, but also Vanne, who has helped lead this coven in war for decades. These are supernaturals who have sacrificed many things for the cause, and now they are risking their good name for you. Why? Why should we believe you, a girl of Midnight blood, a girl who has been thrown out of her own pack, who has aided and abetted the escape of a young female Midnight imprisoned at this Center, who trusts the words of a Midnight Prophet, and who hides out in the home of the former Regent of the Midnight Coven?”
Caia had to stop her mouth from dropping open. She glanced up at Reuben who gave a barely perceptible shrug. The son of a bitch had told them everything and hadn’t even had the decency to warn her first. She stiffened and met De Jong’s gaze. He was making it sound like she was a traitor.
“If Reuben has revealed all of this to you, then he must have explained the circumstances.”
“Yes.” Benedict smirked. “Nikolai Petrovsky is a double agent. The Prophet is neither Midnight nor Daylight at heart, and Laila is—”
“The purest soul I’ve ever met,” Caia interrupted, squaring her shoulders and blasting him with a ferocious look.
Gasps echoed around the room.
Benedict curled his lip into a sneer. “A Midnight … pure? Please do not tell me you still believe this nonsense that there are ‘good’ Midnights.”
She wanted to punch the arrogant bastard. She sneered right back at him. “It isn’t nonsense. There are good Midnights. Many of them.”
More gasps. Great.
The warlock glared at her. “I rather doubt it.”
“Between the two of us, last I checked I was the one who has the trace, so you can stand up there with your 99 percent certainty of doubting it. But I stand up here 100 percent knowing there are Midnights out there who don’t believe in the war.” She turned, letting her voice carry to the spectators on the benches. She glimpsed the familiar faces of Desi and Ophelia and the other Center friends she’d made. “The trace has kept this war alive far longer than it ever should have!” She spun slowly back to face Benedict, determined. “Let me go after Marita. If I kill her, make me the Head of this coven, and I will free us from the trace. It is the first step to ending this war. I don’t just believe that,” she stated assuredly, “I know it. I know it with every fiber of my being.”
The magik clenched his jaw. “Your word is not enough. Neither is the word of three other supernaturals—”
“Then let us see.” Penelope stood, looking up into the crowd. “Are there any others who would back Caia?” She smiled softly. “Outside of the Council, that is.”
Benedict glared at the interruption. “That is pointless. She would need at least twenty others of significant background.”
Caia wondered if that was a jab at the Travelers. People were kind of snobby about them since they couldn’t really do powerful spells, but they could use a communication spell to take them anywhere in the world, regardless of whether they’d ever been there before.
Penelope shrugged. “She is afforded the right of demonstration.”
The Council looked to the crowd expectantly, and Caia wanted to die. It was like being in high school with humans all over again, waiting to see if anyone would sit with her at lunch or ask to be her lab partner when they were told to pair up. No one ever did.