Chapter 499: What Power Is For

Chapter 498: What Power Is For

Lyria’s POV

"Then w-why do we s-seek power at all?" I demanded.

The words came out sharper than I had intended, but I found I could not help myself, and the cavern gave them back to me in a thin, trembling echo that did nothing to soften them.

"W-what is s-strength if we c-cannot use it? W-what is p-power if it cannot be e-employed to help those who n-need it most? W-what is the use of a-any of it?"

I drew a breath, but it did not steady me.

"Th-this is wrong. A-all of it is wrong. It m-makes no sense that p-people should be t-treated in such a manner. It m-makes no sense that l-laws should be b-bent in this fashion, when they o-ought not to be bent at all. It shows only h-how much corruption t-there is, and w-why is no one d-doing anything? W-what is the p-purpose of strength, if one c-can do nothing w-with it?"

A silence followed.

I was breathing heavily, my bosom rising and falling, and I did not need to look at the others to know that my vexation was plain upon my countenance. My hands, I perceived, were clenched so tightly about the parchment that it had crumpled between them, and I smoothed it with a care that was almost shameful, as though the paper itself had been a wronged thing.

Lucian spoke first, his voice soft.

"We may not be able to put an end to all of this now," he said. "But that does not signify that we shall never be able to do so someday."

"S-some day?" I repeated. "When? A-after more p-persons have died? A-after there is n-nothing left for a-anyone else?"

Duke Thorncrest spoke then, and his voice was harder than I had ever heard it.

"You speak rather naively upon this matter, Your Highness."

I turned upon him at once, but he did not flinch from my gaze. He regarded me with an expression I had not seen upon his countenance before, and there was none of that easy humour in it.

"Truly?" he asked. "Do you suppose that because a man possesses power, or bears the title of duke, he may do precisely as he pleases?"

He laughed then, though there was no mirth in the sound.

"That is not the case. Not the case at all. And you, of all persons, ought to know as much. There is always someone higher. There is always some authority above those who hold power, always some obstacle. And what is power, I ask you, if there be no avenue upon which to employ it? What is power, if it remains contained?"

"Is your p-power contained, t-then?" I asked him.

"Yes!" he said loudly, before mastering his voice once more. "Yes, my power is contained. Restricted. So bloody restricted that I wonder at times whether it exists at all. I may be a duke, but there is scarcely any difference between your position and mine."

"Do n-not use my p-position to v-vindicate yourself," I told him.

"I make no vindication of any sort," he replied sharply. "I speak only the truth, though perhaps you have no wish to see it. Yes, I am a duke. But what if I am only that in name, as you are but a princess in name? What then?"

He drew a breath, and the lantern light trembled upon the water behind him.

"And even so, I have tried to set matters right. I have tried to contend for what is just. But you forget that the chief persons I contend against are those who hold the highest power. And do you truly suppose that those who are drunk upon power, who profit from a corrupt society, who continue to benefit from oppression and wrongdoing, shall ever grant me, or any of us, the opportunity to pull down the very power that sustains them?"

"When we say there is only so much we can do, it is the truth. For the present, there is only so much. Abuse of this extent, against minors, against the lower orders, and even against some of the higher, ought to be punished. Yet instead, every noble who has committed such acts walks away without so much as a word of reproach, rewarded as though he had done something worthy of praise. And why? Because they have protection. Because there are those above them who shield them, and a system that has been built, stone by stone, to protect the very men who ought to be condemned. So when we say that power is limited, even in our hands, Your Highness, it is limited. That is the bloody truth."

There was a beat of silence after his words, and his chest heaved.

I said nothing. I had been prepared to answer him in kind, but the words died upon my tongue, for I saw that his hands, too, were not steady, and that the anger in him was only the outer garment of a grief far older than this night.

"How much do you know," Lucian asked me, gently, "of the kingdom itself? Of its history, from the oldest times until the present?"

"A l-little," I said.

"Then that is why you react as you do," he said softly. "You suppose that no one has ever fought against the Crown. You suppose that the cruelties you have seen are the result of indifference, of a failure to act, of a people grown too comfortable to care, perhaps?"

"N-not e-exactly," I said in reply. "B-but yes, I d-do wonder why n-no one has f-fought against t-this abuse."

"There has always been opposition to those in power," Lucian continued, with a sad smile. "From the very beginning, there have been those who sought to unseat the Crown, or to curtail its authority, or to see justice done where it was denied. And there has been even more opposition to the present rule than to any that came before it. But none have succeeded."

He paused, and the sound of the falling water filled the space between his words, steady and indifferent, as though the spring itself had witnessed every sorrow the earth could furnish and had learnt to run on regardless.

"The last coup," he said, "was over twenty years ago. Do you know of it?"