Page 132 of The Warrior
“You sound tired. Are you okay?”
“No, I’m not fucking okay. I haven’t slept for a month and everything is in chaos.”
“I’m sorry to hear it. I truly thought you and your new co-ruler would be better off without me as the third wheel.”
Khan groaned. “Don’t start, Magni. Pearl can never replace you and you know it. She and I are strong strategists, but your expertise is in controlling the soldiers. No one does that better than you, and the men are loyal to you.”
“I’m not interested in coming back to work, if Pearl is going to outrank me.”
“That won’t happen for at least ten years.”
“Good, then you have plenty of time to find a solution without me.”
“Magni, for fuck’s sake, just come back and help me get things under control. We’ll figure out a solution once we get there. Pearl had an idea although it’s a really bad one.”
“Tell me anyway.” I scrolled down and grew nervous when I counted at least twenty calls from the school. “Is Mila okay?”
“Yes, Mila is fine. She just misses you a lot.”
“And Laura?”
“Everyone is fine. And we all want you to come back home.”
“I’m waiting to hear Pearl’s idea.”
He groaned as if it was painful to say it out loud. “She suggested we’d make a Council to include you as an equal to both her and me.”
“Pearl said that?” I lowered my wristband and looked out the window over the snow-covered trees beneath me.
“Yeah, but I told her ‘no’ of course.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a fucking bad idea, Magni. The only reason to make Pearl a co-ruler in the first place is to honor the demand from the Motherlands Council that equality will go both ways. Setting up a Council in the Northlands with only three people won’t offer equality since it will still be you and me outweighing Pearl as the only female.”
“I see.”
“We would need at least four members in the Council and two of them would need to be female.”
“Hmm.”
“Now you see why it’s such a bad idea? Pearl is opinionated enough – we don’t need another strong woman like her to complicate things further. She’s already threatening not to sleep with me if I don’t release the Huntsmen.”
I froze and lowered my voice. “What are you talking about?”
“Franklin and seven of the Huntsmen were convinced that I was holding you prisoner, and they came to rescue you. The fucking fools held Pearl, Laura, and me locked in my office demanding to know if I had killed you.”
“Why didn’t you tell them to fuck off?”
“Because they were holding a gun to my head and wouldn’t listen to reason. Laura fought one of them, and I thought he might kill her.”
“Who?”
“Did he hurt her?” My voice rose as my heart pounded in my chest.
“No, at the time I was afraid he would, but looking back I can see that it was never his intention. She hit him hard with my marble cube when he tried to restrain her.”
I whistled. “Good for her. The Huntsmen must’ve known they were risking everything.”
