Ghost Silk (Ghost Perfume, Book 2) | ✔

3 - Promise me - Part 6 (Michael)

Lukas's voice, raised in anger, reached me as I strode down the hallway towards the Generals' Chamber.

"- cannot call a vote unless every member of the high circle is in attendance," he shouted.

Marcus answered him in his obnoxious way. "Or has made a sincere effort to be in attendance, but unfortunately cannot make it. Then we may move forward. Or are we to be held back by the whims of a man who insisted on taking a vacation despite our best efforts to persuade him against it? In these times? I'm afraid the council cannot afford to fritter away the days and weeks, the decades, as some would wish us -"

"Come, Marcus, you did not make a sincere effort that all members be in attendance, as you made no effort to advertise that you planned to call a vote in the first place," Gabriel interrupted. "Be reasonable and allow some time -"

"I told him to stay! I begged him to stay. I got down on my knees -"

The chamber roared with laughter.

"I'm sure I'd have remembered such a sweet memory," I said as I rounded the corner and stepped through the double arches.

The crowded chamber erupted in noise at my entrance.

My brothers kept their mouths shut. Their job was done.

Only Paulina, I saw when I glanced at her, failed to look surprised. She arched a brow at me before shouting for silence.

I noticed Tatiana whirl on Gabriel with a glare - teasing and mock offended, I supposed, that he hadn't told her I was coming - and Gabriel shrugged with an empty gentleman's smile.

He removed himself from her hold on his arm, under the guise of stepping up to welcome me.

I was glad to see they didn't seem to have called any vote; many generals were not even seated.

"Just in time," Gabriel murmured in my ear when he reached me at the edge of the floor. His voice was hard to hear under the din of voices.

The chamber was prone to echoes and amplified sound. It was high-ceilinged and round, with a black marble floor and black-silver walls. Several rows of heavy seats circled around its circumference, leaving a long expanse of empty floor. In the very center of this floor there was a smaller collection of seats, for the high circle.

I knew what irony there was in being called the high circle, when we literally sat the lowest.

Paulina already stood with her hands on the back of her seat. "Silence," she roared yet again, banging the back of the seat. The din softened with a chuckle here and there.

"I suppose there's no reason more to delay, is there?" Simon asked with his easy smile. Marcus scowled at him.

The milling crowd moved to take their seats. Capes rustled as they were thrown over shoulders. Scabbards clanked against silver armor.

I lowered myself to my own hard, uncomfortable seat in the center of the room. Simon, Paulina, Tatiana, Marcus, and Imogen sat with me.

"Well, Marcus, why did you call us together?" Paulina asked. Her voice was scratchy from yelling.

"The primary order of business is this - the numbers of worms reported near Lotus have nearly doubled since the last count," Marcus started. He rapped a paper that he'd spread on the circular table around which we sat. "To the north and east. It grows unbelievably. People grow uneasy. We can't explain why the worms gather like this. My people want reassurance after reassurance that the peace contracts are still in place."

He proceeded to rattle off the numbers of worms estimated to have begun arriving at the area, the disruptions to daily lifestyles as reported by the locals, and their increasing fears about going out alone on walks.