Sophia looked down on the young couple between the guards. Given their situation; found guilty of threatening the stability of the kingdom and standing before the thrones, they probably should be looking a little more cowed. But Lord Grayson was looking smug and his wife, Lady Roselin was positively smirking.
As well she might, under normal circumstances. Usually, the punishment for such a crime was exile, and since Lady Roselin’s mother had just ordered an extensive wardrobe from the city seamstresses, all luxurious, light gowns, suitable for the balmy temperatures of the Sunshine Isles, it was clearly what they were expecting. Lady Roselin’s grandfather was Lord High Chancellor to the Sunshine King, so such a move would hardly be a punishment.
But banishment simply made this horrible, selfish pair someone else’s problem, and Sophia wasn’t the type to push her messes out of the door. She preferred to be a responsible adult, and monarch, and tidy them herself.
And it was just her now. Mother was deeply ill thanks to the actions of these brats, so the high throne was empty, as was the simple chair behind it where her father usually sat. He was busy tending to his wife. Even the heir’s throne was vacant. Hal was on the border, dealing with another outcome of this stupidity.
And so they’d had to bring her throne out of storage, and bring her out of the Temple, to pass judgement and sentence on two people who’d never had to face consequences in their lives and weren’t expecting to now.
Sophia glanced to her left. Good, he was there, and grinning evilly.
She stood, the pale gold of her ruler’s mantle covering her from shoulder to toe, pooling on the stone floor around her. “You have sinned against our country, and in recompense, you will now serve it.”
That wiped the smiled from their horrible faces, they looked blank.
She went on. “I hereby banish you from court,” the pair, and their parents relaxed, too soon. “but not from our land.”
Sophia beckoned, and her hidden ally stepped forward. “Duke Icewall, Lord of the North, is in need of a scribe. Lord Grayson, you possess a fair hand. You are now assigned to this role. Your wife will accompany you as a general helper and householder for whichever settlement you are sent to.”
The Duke scowled over them, silencing the protests of the guilty. “We leave in two days. I will only take the two of you. No attendants, servants, or frivolous pets.”
Roselin rallied. “You can’t do this.”
Sophia pretended to think. “You’re right, I can’t. You’re too incompetent to be able to contribute to a household. You’ll have to serve as an apprentice to whoever’s desperate enough to take you on.”
Grayson took his turn. “We’ll leave. You can’t stop us.”
Duke Icewall roared with laughter. “And where will you go in the North, boy, where you won’t die within days?”
Then came the parents, Sophia didn’t bother identifying which one was threatening an appeal to the Temple, or which was begging for leniency for their young and naïve children.
Time for the final piece. Sophia dropped her mantle, revealing the deep purple robes of a Temple Mystic beneath. The entire court gasped.
She stalked down the stairs, the world around her turning crystalline as she released the divine power. Her eyes would be glowing now, silver as the moon and unnerving as hell, or so she’d been told.
The guards held the two noble criminals in place as Sophia reached out, putting a hand on each of their heads. “The judgement of the Temple is thus. You will go to the North, to fulfil the duties required of you there. I further place a geas on you, to collect and record the folk tales and stories of every settlement and hamlet in the North. Only once you complete this task will you be released.”
Grayson fainted, Roselin started screaming.
Sophia left the room, hiding a smile at the wink from her burly northerner uncle.
The DNA of Stories 