Chapter Text
“At the end of the day,” said Armando, who was unfortunately here at the summit, “sorcerer clans’ demons are integral to their identities.”
“That’s stupid,” Sam said, just like he’d said it every other time Armando had said something stupid to justify reneging on the agreement he’d already made in Archer’s Rest. “If your identity rests on the presence of a monster that only isn’t eating you because it’s temporarily on a leash, you have no identity.”
“Your identity also does not give you the right to place other people in harm’s way,” said Dahlia, and Sam had to admit, she seemed useful. She’d stayed calm all day no matter how long this meeting lasted, and never once deviated from the goal she, Gabrielle and Sam had already agreed on. “The danger posed by your demons…”
“Is no greater than the danger posed by armies controlled by crowns and nobles,” said, fuck, what was her name? The leader of Clan Wizche whose name Sam kept forgetting. It was either Deborah or Pamela. “We do not hear you requesting that they disarm. We do not see you disarming your own armed forces.”
“The difference is that the armed forces controlled by our two monarchies are in service to entire kingdoms,” said Gabrielle, who also didn’t seem like an idiot. “The forces controlled by your clans are there to benefit nobody but you.”
“They are there to protect us from those who would do us harm,” said Armando. He had appointed himself the leader of the faction that wanted to keep their demons. Sam had thought about it and decided not to interfere with that, because nobody fucking liked him so it would do more harm than good in the long run.
Sam was about to remind him that armies were far less dangerous than a demon that could turn a city into glass, but Elmira spoke first. “Why do you believe that Clan Gjoil would do you harm?” she asked, and Sam felt him trip over nothing.
“Excuse me?” asked Armando, in what was almost a splutter. It was kind of funny.
“We’ve been nothing but amiable with our southern neighbours,” said Charles of Clan Gjoil, who sounded to be about a million years old. “We have no intent to harm you.”
“I never claimed you did, Charles.”
“You did,” Elmira pushed. Sam had a hard time not respecting the fact that she had absolutely no patience for Armando. “No other Kyainese clan has any demons any longer, so Clan Gjoil are your only sorcerous neighbour. If you keep your demons to protect yourself from threats, it is quite apparent who the threat must be.”
“As if proximity matters,” Armando insisted. “Most of us opened portals to arrive here. We could just as easily do that with each other’s front doors.”
And Sam would be doing that in a week if this summit ended with anything other than Armando seeming more the idiot than he already did. Sam picked up Elmira’s lead. “That doesn’t answer the question. Who in this room do you believe will attack you? Who are you afraid of, Armando?”
“I am not interested in being baited into an argument,” said Armando, who had been baiting people into arguments for two hours. He couldn’t answer the question a honestly, because he would have to say Sam and that would be embarrassing. He also couldn’t lie and say nobody, because he’d seem like an idiot. “There are many sorcerer clans in the world and they all have demons under contract. It is all well and good for those of us in this room to do as you demand, Samson, but what of the sorcerer clans in Yavhore? What of the eight in Enjon? We’ve no idea how many they have in Aergyre. They all have demon contracts. The ten of us choosing to disarm is a lovely concept but that it leaves us the only fools in a sea of monsters.”
“There has…never, in all of recorded history,” said Carson of Clan Nyumer, who sounded perpetually confused, “been a wide-scale demon attack on one sorcerer clan by another, Armando. Literally never.”
“Yes, Carson, the premise of that is known as ‘mutually assured destruction.’” Armando said.
“Okay,” said Gabrielle, suddenly. “Let’s break for the day. We will return to this discussion tomorrow.”
That was enough for people to start getting up, but Sam scowled. He didn’t say anything for now, listening to who was leaving and who wasn’t. He didn’t want to try to navigate the room while everyone was moving around. “You are doing very well,” said Elmira, near him suddenly.
“So are you,” Sam said, because it was stupid not to tell the truth. “I don’t know how you put up with Armando so effortlessly.”
“It is far from effortless,” Elmira admitted with a quiet chuckle. “However, I am enjoying antagonizing him and knowing he cannot do anything about it.”
That made sense to Sam. “Keep doing it, it’s working. It shouldn’t take much longer before everyone realizes that he’s annoying as hell.”
“I should hope not. I am going to go speak with Charles. I know you will not want to do this, but I suggest you try to speak with a few people this afternoon,” she said.
“You are right,” Sam admitted. “Unfortunately about both parts of that.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Sam,” Elmira said, and she moved away from him.
There weren’t as many people around the table anymore, so Sam got up and moved around it to where Dahlia and Gabrielle were. “That was very unproductive,” he said, sitting in another chair near them.
“It was,” Dahlia agreed. “I don’t think we were firm enough about the terms. They think this is a discussion about whether or not they will be surrendering their demons, but it’s about the terms under which they’ll be doing that. We can make that clearer tomorrow. I think you should speak with the head of Clan Nyumer, King Sam. He seemed to be on your side, which I wasn’t expecting.”
“He’s an idiot, he’s on the side of whoever scares him the most.” Sam sighed. “But that’s evidently me so that’s an asset. I’ll speak with him.” As he said that, he realized why they were having the afternoon break. Armando and whoever else couldn’t be everywhere at once. Breaking them apart so they weren’t all at the same table meant they could talk to the clan leaders alone and convince them.
Fuck, that was smart and it meant Sam didn’t get a break. This was terrible.
“Thank you,” Dahlia said. “Before you assume you have it worst, I’m going to speak with Armando to prevent him from bothering anyone else for a while.”
“Why?” Sam asked. “The more he bothers people, the more they’ll dislike him.”
“That’s true, but we can also make the whole process go faster if we steal his allies from him early, so I’m talking to Deborah and Franz is going to talk to Austin,” Gabrielle said. “I believe Giacomo plans to target Roarke of Clan Hylem.”
She didn’t need to say that they would probably fuck. They would probably fuck. Giacomo was a slut and Roarke was the only other clan leader who was close to Sam in age, though Austin of Clan Heyjen wasn't much older. “Fine. Jakob didn’t say anything all day so I’m going to make Henry intimidate him and make sure he hasn’t changed his mind about the agreement he already made with me,” Sam said, counting in his head. “Someone needs to talk to Owen.” The leader of Clan Vickn hadn’t said a single thing since the summit had begun.
“One of the members of my retinue is the lord of the territory his clan lives near,” Gabrielle said. “Hector will talk to him.”
“Fine.” That was it. Between the three of them and their husbands and Elmira, they had all the other clan leaders on leashes. “The conclusion here is foregone. It’s annoying that we have to go through all the steps.”
“The steps are what diplomacy is,” Gabrielle told him. “We all need to have dinner this evening. The point Armando made about there being other sorcerer clans elsewhere in the world isn’t invalid and we need to make sure we have a proper rebuttal for it tomorrow before it can gain traction.”
That was irritating. But it was also true. “Yeah,” Sam agreed. He didn’t like Armando being right, so a strategy to ensure that he could be wrong again was important. “Fine. I’ll talk to you both then.” He got up and headed out of the room.
“It would be cool to go up on the battlements,” he heard Giacomo saying in the hallway. “Oh, hold on just one second, Roarke. Hi, Sam.”
“Hi,” Sam said. He hadn’t been able to properly talk to Giacomo yet. “Your brother was supposed to be here to help.” He’d promised he would be. He was good at this shit, better than they were.
“I know. He feels bad about that.” Giacomo sighed. “Someone tried to kill him a while ago and he was really badly hurt. He’s recovering but he can’t travel. I’m talking to him every night to get his opinions. Listen, something we should talk about with Dahlia when we’re here is formal sovereignty for Ech’kent.”
“What?” Sam asked. Ech’kent was sovereign. “Why?”
“Because we’re here and it’s convenient if neither of us has to travel to do it in a few months,” Giacomo explained.
“That’s not the topic of the summit.” Sam didn’t have time for distractions.
“I know, but the thing about summits is that there are a lot of winding paths you can take to get to one, you know?” Giacomo sounded proud of that, as if it wasn't stupid. “Anyway, I have to go, me and Roarke are going to eat lunch on the battlements. I’ll talk to you this evening.”
“Fine,” Sam said, trying not to develop a headache. This was so much talking. “Where did Carson go?”
“I heard him mention to one of his clan members that he was planning to go shopping, I think?” Giacomo asked.
Sam sighed. “Okay.” He left them there, and headed for the main gates of the fortress. Henry would send one of the boys to come find him once he realized everyone was done talking, though it didn't end up mattering. He heard Carson talking to a guard near the gates.
“Thank you for that, I appreciate the advice. O-oh, hello, Samson.”
“Just Sam,” Sam said. “You're going to the market, are you? I'll come too.” He probably even managed to sound like he didn't want to die.
“Oh, okay. Okay! That's okay, sure, of course. You can call me Car if you want. Nobody does that but then I'm not the only one calling you by a nickname if that's weird for you.”
“Your name isn't hard to say,” Sam promised.
“Neither is yours...”
“Let's go. What is it about my proposal that made you agree so quickly?”
Of course it wasn't that simple to get a straight answer out of Carson, but at least they were in the market for three hours. Because if there was anything this summit needed beyond endless circular conversations, dinners where he had to talk about fifty different topics, and a million people Sam didn’t know or like, it was shopping.