Chapter 273: Your Word Against Theirs

"Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

Verdrak suddenly burst into loud laughter, rocking his head back while his pointy beards shook fervently. Everyone looked in his direction.

"Can you believe this?!" he bellowed like a man who had been told the funniest joke ever. "How do we even let this scoundrel speak this way in front of us? He just stood there and proclaimed that the truce we made with the Second World never happened."

His laughter abruptly ended, a sign it was never even real in the first place, and he glared right at Lancet. Almost through him even. "We must imprison him and punish him at once!"

Lancet gave him a pointed look that showed he wasn’t at all moved by the man’s exaggerated antics and obvious attempts to silence him. This angered Verdrak the more.

"That will be enough of that, Verdrak," Obel warned, giving the man beside him a cold leer.

Verdrak gave his friend and superior a disbelieving look. "But Obel. He stands there and insults us. We made the truce ourselves."

"Be that as it may, Verdrak," Obel shunned the man. "This is a council and a court. However insulting his words are, he will be questioned on them and they will be used against him when it’s time to cast judgement. What we do not do is jeer and laugh so shambolically.

"Not only is it an insult to the Council but it is an insult to the Sovereigns who have blessed us with their presence on this day."

Verdrak’s eyes went wide, realizing himself. He raised his head and looked around at the massive floating blocks above the Council table. The Sovereigns were all looking at him with irritation. His fellow Council Members had shared guilt and shame on their faces.

Spectra enjoyed the awkward silence. She smiled all through. Astensia was glad to see that the Kingdom Council treated people with respect and called out bullies. Thor, of course, thought a simple scolding wasn’t enough.

"Sovereigns," Verdrak spoke, his voice softer and submissive under the intensity of the world leaders’ glares. "I overstepped. I am sorry. I was only a bit over spirited as I truly fear what the repercussions of their actions might be. Forgive me."

The silence stretched as the Sovereigns considered his apology. Verdrak sat back on his chair, a small creak that would have otherwise gone unnoticed, echoed in the silence.

When he and Lancet locked eyes, Lancet shot him a mocking glare that almost sent him off the edge again. But the warning of the Council Lord rooted him.

"Council Lord Obel," Romsgard spoke, his voice godlike after the long silence. "Continue with the interrogation."

Obel sat upright, placing his hands on the sides of the giant tome before him. He raised one palm and used magic to record what Lancet had first stated.

He looked up at the young Summoner. "You do recognize the weight of the words you have just spoken? To claim there was never a truce in the first place is to call us liars? Are you suggesting that the Kingdom Council lied to the citizens of the world?"

Lancet shook his head once in a heavy motion. "Of course not," he spoke like some noble child, trained in regal etiquette. It was impressive to the Council Members, especially given his background.

"Perhaps I should explain further."

"You should."

Lancet cleared his throat. "There was a truce struck between the human world and the world of Demons, of course. But what I meant was that only one world kept to this truce, while the other has been defying it from almost the very moment it was agreed."

The Council Members froze, then glanced at each other, their mental conduits experiencing high traffic as multiple thoughts traveled from one person to the other.

Obel recorded his words with a shocked expression. Verdrak looked at Lancet as though he wanted to eat him alive. The Sovereigns, especially Romsgard, were struggling with shock as they tried to reconcile with what Lancet was suggesting.

"Are you trying to suggest that the Second World had never kept the truce from the very day it was made?" a female Council Member asked Lancet.

He looked to his right where she was and nodded. "Yes."

"That is a massive accusation," another said at the opposite side. "Why would you believe your word? We’re the ones who made the truce and we have capable Kingdom officials who oversaw that half-citadel before you invaded it."

"Agreed!" a dark skinned Member concurred. "Saying that the Second World defied the truce is the obvious excuse to get yourself out of trouble."

"It’s your word against theirs," remarked another.

Lancet looked particularly at the one who had made that last statement, a younger Council Member with red hair and scanty mustache. "It’s not just my word," he said. "It is my word, the words of Astensia Valengard, Thor Stormchild, Spectra Hexerra, Espel Fyrebloom and Kestrel Highcastle."

The Council Members fell silent. The kings and queens, watching from the floating screens, intensified their expressions.

"If you’re going to doubt me," Lancet went on, shrugging with his hands splayed to the sides. "Then you’re also doubting the Heroines who protected this world."

The silence that followed was not empty. It was dense, charged, alive with the weight of implication.

Every Council Member sat frozen behind the ironwood table, their faces caught between disbelief and the dawning realization that they could not simply dismiss what had just been said. The mental conduits between them, usually so busy with whispered strategy and political calculation, had gone utterly still.

There was nothing to say. Nothing they could say. Not yet.

Because Lancet was right.

If they doubted him, they doubted Astensia Valengard, the Ironwill Knight who had held the line at the Greatest Gate when all hope seemed lost.

They doubted Thor Stormchild, the Valkyrie who sacrificed her life to clear the world’s deadliest Demon Citadel. They doubted Kestrel Highcastle, the Emerald Blade, who protected a bastion city from Demonic takeover.

Spectra Hexerra might seem like someone to distrust. But the Villainess was rarely known as a liar. And Espel, a student of the Awakener Supreme, wouldn’t lie to the Council with her education on the line.

Could they dare?