Pretentious prick. Now Vivia’s temper was actually sparking, although she kept her face bored.

To think that she and this vizer had ever been friends growing up. The Serrit she’d played with as a child was now Vizer Linday, and in less than a year, since replacing his deceased father on the council, Linday had become the worst of the thirteen noblemen standing before Vivia.

Noblemen. Every single one of them male. It shouldn’t have been that way, of course. The Lindays, Quintays, Sotars, and Eltars all had female heirs … who conveniently never wanted to leave their lands. Oh, but can’t our brothers/husbands/sons go instead?

No. That was what Vivia would say once she was queen. Whoever bears the vizerial bloodline stands at this table. But until then, Vivia had to live with the yes passed down by her great-grandfather.

“Now, Your Highness,” Linday went on, offering a smooth smile around the table, “I ran the calculations as requested, and the numbers are very clear. Lovats simple cannot support any more people.”

“I don’t recall asking for calculations.”

“Because you didn’t.” Linday’s smile widened into something crocodilian. “It was the Council that requested it.”

“Highness,” came another voice. Squeaky in a way that only Vizer Eltar could produce. Vivia swung her gaze to the rotund man. “The more people who enter the city, the more we vizers must shrink our portions—which is impossible! We all have our families and staff arriving for the prince’s funeral, and at our current rations, I cannot keep my own beloved family fed.”

Vivia sighed. “More food is coming, Eltar.”

“You said that last week!” he squealed. “And now the funeral is in six days! How will we provide food for the city?”

“Additionally,” piped up Vizer Quihar, “the more people we allow in, the more likely we are to let enemies into our midst. Until we know who killed the prince, we must close the Sentries and keep newcomers out.”

This earned a chorus of agreements from around the table. Only one man stayed silent: the barrel-chested, black-skinned Vizer Sotar. He was also the only man with a fully operational brain in this entire room.

He flung Vivia a sympathetic wince now, and she found it … well, more welcome than she cared to admit. He was so much like his daughter Stacia, who served as Vivia’s first mate. And were Stix here right now—were this Vivia’s ship and Vivia’s crew—Stix would lash out at these weak-willed vizers instantly. Mercilessly. She had the temper that Nubrevnan men respected most.

But Stix was inspecting the city’s watchtowers today, like a good first mate, while Vivia was trapped inside, watching slimy Serrit Linday quieting the vizers with a wave.

“I have a proposition for the High Council. And for you, Your Highness.”

Vivia rolled her eyes. “Of course you do.”

“The Purists have offered us food and the use of their compounds. Across Nubrevna and beyond.” He motioned to a map that Vizer Eltar was so conveniently unrolling at the perfect moment. “Our people could be safe, even beyond our borders, if the need arose.”

Sotar cleared his throat, and in a sound like stone on stone, he declared, “Placing our people outside Nubrevna is called invasion, Linday.”

“Not to mention”—Vivia planted her hands on the table—“there must be some cost to this. No one—not even ‘noble’ Purists—act for free.” Even as she voiced this argument, though, Vivia found herself staring at the unfurled map.

It was a simple outline of the Witchlands, but paint had been dripped wherever enemy forces were closest to Nubrevna. Yellow for Marstok, speckling the east and south. Black for Cartorra, scattered in the west. Blue for Dalmotti, gathering in southern waters.

And finally red, thick as blood, for the Baedyed and Red Sails pirates circling Saldonica and the Raider King’s armies, still far to the north … for now. Heavy rains kept the Sirmayan Mountains water choked and uncrossable.

Come winter, that might change.

Vivia dragged her eyes from the map. From all those colors and all the senseless death that they might one day become. “What do the Purists want, Vizer Linday? What is the price for their food and their walls?”

“Soldiers.”

“No.” The word boomed from Vivia’s throat. Explosive as a firepot. Yet as she straightened, sweeping her gaze across the table, there was no missing the interest that had settled over the Council. A collective relaxing of vizerial faces.

They had known what Linday planned to propose; they’d agreed to it long ago.

Serrit Linday ought to be castrated for this.

Vivia tossed a look at her only ally and found Sotar’s dark face withdrawn. Disgusted. He, at least, was as surprised as Vivia by this turn of political sidestepping.

“The Purists,” Vivia said, “will turn our people against the use of magic.” She launched right to march around the table. “They consider magic a sin, yet magic—witches!—are the one thing that have kept Nubrevna safe and independent. You, Linday, are a Plantwitch! Yet you see no problem in giving our citizens and our soldiers to the Purists?”

Linday smirked as Vivia strode past, but other than a slight tipping back of his head, he offered no response.

“What about your family’s Stonewitchery, Quihar? Or your son’s Glamourwitchery, Eltar? Or your wife’s Voicewitchery?” On and on she went, until she’d reminded every single vizer of the witches that mattered most to them.