Only Him

Chapter 14

"So, as you can see Your Majesty, we aren't fighting for the complete withdrawal of Moroi from the human world, just the limitation of interactions. We are aware of your—er—time among the humans and your friendship with the Alchemists," the disdain in the speakers voice was evident, "but that does not change the fact that humans are a great risk to our society. Why live in big cities infested with humans when we can create smaller towns that are self-sustaining? We'd reduce the risk of exposure and Strigoi attacks. With so many guardians around and the wards, the Strigoi will be all but powerless." I felt a muscle in my jaw twitch, the result of grinding my teeth together with such force while listening to Fredrick Voda's impassioned appeal to Lissa.

Lissa nodded, imbuing the simple gesture with the regal wisdom she seemed to carry as queen.

"You bring up some good points, Lord Voda, many of which have been brought up in previous discussions of this type. And you speak them with such passion that I cannot doubt your sincerity. I promise to take your concerns and opinions into consideration in the future."

The Voda lord flushed with pride and gave a slight bow to Lissa. "Thank you, Your Majesty."

He moved on to another crowd leaving Lissa and I looking after him with mixed feelings of disdain and befuddlement.

"Well he was slimy," I interjected once he was out of hearing range. "And stupid. There are so many things wrong with his plans starting with the fact that Moroi need humans for blood and ending with humans staking wards."

Lissa shrugged. "He is one of those people who choose to ignore the evidence of human involvement with Moroi." Despite the absurdity of that idea, there were a large number of Moroi who refused to believe or acknowledge the human factor in Strigoi attacks. They did not like to admit that an 'inferior' race was fighting back.

"Scary to think that his opinion gets so much attention," I muttered. Lord Voda had been going from group to group throughout the day, spreading his stupidity. I'd heard whispered conversations about it all day before actually meeting the man.

"Rose," Lissa sighed. "I'm sorry you don't like the man. I'm not saying that I do either. But politics isn't about liking people. It's about finding people with power and using them as a conduit to effect change. You may not like Lord Voda but he's got a lot of pull with the royals, particularly his second cousin, Lloyd Badica." Oh. I was beginning to see her point. Lloyd Badica held the Council seat for his family and was notoriously against anything that Lissa proposed in order to advance our society out of the dark ages. Lissa saw the dawning realization in my eyes and nodded in confirmation. "So I had to listen to his obnoxious comments and stupidity for a while. By doing so I established a connection with him. I've listened to him and promised to consider his opinions in the future, now when I introduce my bill for guardian reallocation in a few months I'll remind him of that and he'll feel obligated to listen to me."

Guardian reallocation was Lissa's way of referring to her plight to remove the biased lottery system of guardian appointment. She wanted to take away the current system for assigning guardians and restructure the system so that individuals—royal or non-royal alike—who lived high risk lifestyles were the first to get guardians assigned to them. Those who lived in larger communities—like many of the royals who lived at Court year round—didn't get guardians assigned and instead temporarily employed campus and Court guardians when making excursions outside of the wards. It was bound to upset a lot of entitled royals—including many of her Council members. But Lissa was adamant. Many victims of the increased Strigoi killings over the past few years had been non-royals who lived in human cities and had no guardians. A few victims had been royals with guardians but their numbers were significantly smaller.