Chapter 232 Court is Adjourned
ADRIANA
No one had been willing to represent Damien.
I hadn’t expected them to be, but knowing that and sitting with it were two different things. The calculation was simple and ugly — if the defense failed, the consequences would follow whoever had stood up and made the argument.
No one in that room wanted that exposure. So they had all found reasons to look away, to suddenly remember prior commitments, to be unavailable. And Hazel had stepped forward, the way she always did when there was something no one else would do, because she understood that some things couldn’t be left undone.
I would have stood up and represented him myself if it had ever been done before. It hadn’t.
A queen could not function as both the presiding authority and the advocate — the conflict made everything unravel. So I kept my seat and I kept my face neutral and I wrote down everything that was said, and I let Hazel carry the part of it I couldn’t.
The Elder presenting the original case against Damien stood first.
“My Queen, I submit the arrest report compiled at the time of his initial detention.” He crossed the floor and slid a thick folder across to me. “Upon searching his residential property, officers recovered aconite — classified as one of the most lethal substances in existence. Exposure to a wolf in any significant quantity is catastrophic. Officers also recovered items connected to known practitioners — witches, specifically. On that basis alone, the arrest was conducted lawfully. The evidence was physical, documented, and present at the scene.”
I had the folder open before he finished the sentence and was reading as he spoke, my pen moving steadily.
“Go on,” I said without looking up.
“During his initial hearing, Damien was unable to provide any explanation for the presence of aconite in his home. He denied all knowledge of it, denied all involvement, and maintained his position throughout despite the evidence in front of the court. The individual he was alleged to have targeted was Alpha Damon. Given both the weight of the evidence and the serious nature of a treason charge, sentiment in the room had largely solidified before deliberation began.”
I set my pen down and looked across the courtroom at Damien.
He wasn’t watching the Elder. He wasn’t tracking the proceedings with the focused attention of someone managing their own defense. He was looking at Hazel as she moved through the room, his hands clasped in front of him, his posture very still.
A man guilty of conspiracy did not look like that. Or maybe I was wrong. But I didn’t think I was.
“Alpha Damon was the named target,” I said. “That’s confirmed in the original documentation?”
“Yes, My Queen.”
I glanced at Nancy. She had gone completely still at the name, her hands folded tight in her lap, her jaw set. It wasn’t the reaction of someone hearing information for the first time. It was recognition. Damon hadn’t entered their lives at the point of Damien’s arrest — he’d been a weight they’d been carrying long before any of this came to a courtroom.
“Tell me everything that happened between the first release and the second arrest.”
The Elder shuffled his papers. “Following Damien’s release, the King received an anonymous communication — a warning describing a credible threat against his life and the life of the Crown Prince. Rather than deploy a full unit, which might have drawn attention or triggered a response if the warning was a setup, the King sent a small team to investigate the information provided. The team returned with several individuals. Damien was among them.”
“How many others were brought in?”
“Three additional individuals, My Queen.”
“And where are those three people now?”
The Chief Elder rose. “Following review, the King determined that Damien had been the primary organizer of the group and that the remaining three had participated under duress. They were released without charge.”
I was quiet for a moment. I let the silence extend just long enough to be uncomfortable before I spoke. “I’d like to understand the basis of that determination. What specific evidence established that Damien led the group rather than simply being one of four? What distinguished his role from theirs in a way that justified sending him to death and sending them home?”
Nobody answered.
“Is there documentation for that reasoning, or was it a judgment call made in the moment?”
Still nothing.
“Continue,” I said with an exhale.
“When the group was apprehended, the search recovered weapons, explosives, and aconite — again. Damien, as before, denied all involvement and refused to alter his account. The court was convened. The full body of evidence was presented. The verdict was reached unanimously. The trial was properly conducted, My Queen.”
I wrote the words properly conducted in my notes and pressed the pen slightly harder than necessary.
I understood, on some level, what Elijah must have been feeling at that point. He was not a man who made decisions carelessly. He was not someone who sentenced a person to death without being certain. Which meant someone had built a case that was designed to withstand scrutiny. They had used his standards against him. Used his certainty as the weapon.
That thought made me angrier than almost anything else in this room.
I looked down at my notepad.
“Aconite.” I kept my voice level. “You described it as one of the most lethal substances known. That also makes it one of the most difficult to obtain. You cannot source it through normal means. You need a connection to a witch with significant capability.” I looked directly at the Elder. “Do we have any documentation that connects Damien to a witch of that level? Any record of contact, communication, transaction — anything at all?”
No one spoke. So I moved on without commenting on it.
“I want all three of the men released in this courtroom tomorrow morning. I don’t care what the previous ruling was. If they were part of this operation, they answer for it here, in front of this court. One man does not carry a sentence that belongs to four people.” I stood, and the room rose with me. “I also want to know how the volume of weapons and explosives recovered was transported into this territory past active security without being detected. That is not addressed anywhere in these documents and it should be. And I want to understand why Damien was not given adequate time and proper representation to speak in his own defense at the original trial.”
I set the folder down.
“Court resumes tomorrow. Those three men will be present. Alpha Damon will be present. And I want answers that can survive a follow-up question because every answer given today could not.” I looked around the room. “We’re done for today.”