Abaddon's Call

Chapter Forty-One

"Whipped?" Jasor roared. "You whipped my child in public? Bared her back? No—don't you dare open your mouth to me. Crossborn or not, you have laws!"

The Kaulu representative stared back at Jasor.

He had trouble placing him, though he recalled identifying the man over the summer. He hadn't looked so young, then. Perhaps it had been the hat casting shadows and making him appear older.

Couldn't even grow a beard, yet there he sat, representing one of the most powerful families. Did he not realize people laughed at him behind his back? The boy made a mockery of everything the great Kaulu lineage stood for.

"Are you finished?" the boy asked as if unimpressed.

"Kaulu will watch their tone," Lord Lugh murmured.

Always the pushover, Lugh sat there, likely weighing the cost of making Jasor go away. He, at least, would attempt to reach the common ground. Trathor sat scowling, pouting, practically.

The dean had sent a duly signed letter advising Jasor of an event involving Naena. By the time Jasor arrived, all that remained of the Kaulu platform was a pile of bits. Naena was long gone, and the staff refused to give answers.

No one owned the scene because there was no scene.

Which meant he had no answers.

Apparently, the teleporter office was the limit of his father's spell. He was bound to seek justice for Naena as he might have any woman he loved dearly.

A strange sensation, for Jasor had never loved anything.

They had bared her before hundreds of men and then whipped her until she bled. No one could answer for what had happened to her, and he certainly didn't trust Pan to do what was right. The boys were probably back in their dorms, furiously racing one another to completion over the entire display.

And no one cared.

Jasor had to track down the Kaulu representative only to have him refuse to so much as greet him without a lord present. He had been dragged before Lord Lugh, and then he had simply let them have it rather than wait for them to explain.

At some point, Trathor showed up, but Jasor couldn't recall when. The man might have met him at the doors of the university. There they were, a shield family lord and the dean, standing against Kaulu and Lugh over their immoral treatment of a woman.

They didn't seem to understand, but Jasor knew his rights.

"I want a formal complaint—"

"No," Lord Lugh said.

Jasor stared at the young lord. He expected a sneering response, but Lord Lugh was simply placid, unbothered or perhaps expectant.

"No, Lord Salord, Naena is a war mage," Lord Lugh responded. "Subsection F, clause four hundred b-dash-three-dot-f, 'a war mage, either male or crossborn, shall participate in and be judged by Kaulu trials. Failure to comply shall result in the death of the war mage and possibly a lord if he actively gets in the way.' Actively means actively plotting, though. That doesn't mean you can't voice a complaint over a finitely adjusted subclause. This is the only time Salord is the same as any other. I'm sorry. My hands are tied."

"Kaulu has done nothing wrong," the representative said.

"What was your name again?"

The representative smiled and lied.

"Trild."

Jasor knew he lied because that wasn't who he recalled the man as. He decided to go the other route. He'd work his way in through the boy's new wife. She could probably use a warm body after bedding with her dragon of a husband. Jasor would show her what a real man was, and she would tell him whatever he wished to know, like all the women before her.