Piece of Qilin: A Fantasy Romance (Haret Chronicles: Qilin Book 7) by Laurel Chase

Author:Laurel Chase [Chase, Laurel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Laurel Chase
Published: 2019-07-24T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

DAIR

I’d been at the Council hall the entire day, and I was exhausted, mentally and physically.

The only thing that was keeping me going was the idea of my sweet Qilin, who needed me to sort this. The Council was my arena, and I needed to fucking manage it.

My mother looked as harried as I felt, too, and I wondered again what had happened to the First Chairperson. Not that she couldn’t handle things, but she should have a co-leader in such a turbulent time. Someone more experienced than me, at any rate.

When we’d siphoned down from the sky city, she’d had a look in her eye that said she might disown me if I left her with this mess.

Jai had taken one look at the Council’s disorder and matched her sentiments. He’d instructed me to stay here after transporting everyone, to be our eyes and ears. We needed insight into what the Council decided, so we could act quickly if Carlyle was in danger.

So, after siphoning Jai, Sol, Killian, and Toro back to Tibor, I’d slept a bare six hours before returning to the hall to answer questions, soothe egos, and propose solutions to problems that were almost entirely hypothetical.

It had been all too quick, and my magic felt dangerously low. Luckily, my mother had instructed the guards to build a magical barrier over the hall. In addition to their normal security checks, now we had a certain peace of mind. Nobody here could take advantage over another with magic.

This hadn’t helped the arguing, though. The members had slept as little as I had, and the hall was in a constant uproar of disagreement. The guards could barely contain the Council members, much less the continually growing crowds. And of course, with no magic, there were no silencing spells.

I had a goddamn horrible headache.

Turning to my mother, I leaned in close and admitted, “You know, I certainly agree with Patriam’s policy of open government, but I’ve never been so aggravated or overwhelmed by these crowds.”

Hundreds of citizens had crowded into the hall, exercising their right to watch the Council in action. Even with bodies packed shoulder-to-shoulder, more trickled in. Really, though, they were just using the event and the close quarters as an excuse to jostle each other and throw slurs.

More than one fistfight had already broken out.

“I’d rather have the crowds than the absurdity of our elected officials acting like children,” Tilda returned, pursing her lips at a pair of mages who were in a shouting match over who had a stronger interest in the proposed tariffs on the Path that had yet to be tested.

I sighed. It was impossible to focus them all.

I’d even procured a giant board for the front of the hall, and the Council members had been tacking their problems, questions, and proposals to it. Instead of creating order, like I’d hoped, it was just giving them a medium to nitpick each other’s ideas.

“Only a few more hours of this,” Tilda said. “Then I’ll force a vote.

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