"The first two dukes were killed inside the Blackmoss Spire," Jolthar said.
"The techniques used in those engagements were not precise in the way that leaves recoverable remains. The bodies were erased completely."
"I couldn’t control my attacks and those two dukes were completely gone."
Everyone in the hall felt that Jolthar was being arrogant. Some of the faces turned ugly while a few of them were smiling.
"Convenient," Richardus said.
The word sat in the air between them.
Bahste Fatler leaned forward slightly from his position, his thin fingers laced together on the table before him.
"The First Minister raises a fair point," he said, his voice carrying the measured quality.
He broke his silence since the court had started. He knew that Richardus’ words wouldn’t reach everyone in the hall.
If they were to oppose Jolthar, they needed a strong voice.
Jolthar had already proved that he was not a simple young man and by surviving a month in the depths, he had solidified his name in the capital.
If he wanted to raise doubts in the minds of the people present in the court, he needed to start talking and that was why stepped in himself.
"The mission was explicit. Three heads of dukes. The court has been presented with one head and an explanation for the absence of the other two that cannot be verified by any party currently in this hall."
"You are asking us," Halvren said from his position, "to accept on the sole testimony of the accused party that two of the required kills were made but that no evidence of them survived. That is not how imperial missions function. That is not how evidence functions."
"The Dreadland Depths are not a courtroom," Jolthar said.
"No," Richardus agreed.
"But this is. And in this room, what cannot be demonstrated cannot be credited."
He looked around the assembled court with the careful satisfaction of a man who has found solid ground and intends to stand on it.
"I would ask every person of reasonable judgment in this hall to consider what we have actually been presented with. One month was given. One head has been produced. The explanation for the remaining two is that they were destroyed so thoroughly that nothing remained - which is to say, we are being asked to accept an absence as evidence of a completion."
Milan’s smile was starting to fade and he was starting to feel the ministers were really pushing them.
To an extent, he understood what Jolthar had said. He had seen his powers first stand and knew that it can be quite dominating. He believed Jolthar but couldn’t help curse him for not holding back and should have been careful with killing them.
At least he should have taken their heads first.
While Milan had his own worries, people who were against Jolthar were starting to gain their happy faces, seeing that the Prime minister stepped in himself.
The Emperor, he didn’t say anything; he leaned back on his throne, watching them leisurely, waiting for the drama to unfold before him. Though, once in a while, he had been glancing at Haryntha, who was watching Jolthar with affection in her eyes.
The murmur that moved through the court this time had a different quality from the earlier ones. This one carried agreement, the uncomfortable sound of people who had been impressed by the entrance and the head and the wings and the ethereal woman but who were now being presented with a logical argument that was difficult to immediately counter and were finding themselves moving toward it the way people move toward solid ground when the surface they were standing on becomes uncertain.
Even among those who had no particular feeling about Jolthar one way or another, the minister’s point had a structural soundness that was hard to simply dismiss.
The mission had terms. The terms had not been fully met in any demonstrable way.
The explanation offered was unverifiable.
The hall’s mood shifted, degrees at a time, in the direction Richardus had been steering it.
Milan opened his mouth.
Jolthar glanced at him.
A small movement. The glance said wait, clearly enough that Milan closed his mouth again and held his position with visible effort.
Then he turned to look at Haryntha.
It was brief, the kind of look exchanged between two people who had already worked out a problem before it became a problem, the conversation having taken place somewhere over the Depths on the journey back, when the question of what evidence beyond a single head he could realistically produce had occurred to both of them independently and been resolved without much discussion.
I’ll show them, Haryntha had said then, simply.
I am what I am. Showing them what happened costs me nothing and proves everything.
She hadn’t needed to elaborate further and Jolthar hadn’t asked her to.
A being of the divine world, with dominion over magic, didn’t require complicated justification for an act of pure demonstration.
She wasn’t going to attack anyone. She wasn’t going to manipulate anyone’s mind or force any belief on them. She was simply going to let the hall see what had already happened, exactly as it had happened, and let the truth of it stand on its own.
Richardus drew breath to press his advantage further.
Haryntha stepped forward.
The movement was unhurried, but it drew every eye in the hall instantly, the way her presence had drawn every eye since she walked through the entrance.
She came to stand slightly ahead of Jolthar, and the air around her seemed to settle into a different quality, the ambient sound of the hall dropping as though the room itself were paying attention.
"This is Hari," Jolthar said, his voice carrying easily across the hall’s sudden quiet.
"She has been with me since I crossed the Veil into the Dreadland Depths. She guided me through the dark lands when I had no other way to navigate them, and she was present for everything that happened inside the Blackmoss Spire."
He took a moment, looking at the assembled ministers without any particular heat in his expression, simply stating facts.
"She is my witness. And she will show the court what she saw."