Loreen's POV
Loreen himself said very little.
He sat on the platform and watched his council argue about his marriage and his life and the law that governed both, and he felt something that was not quite calm but was close to it.
Because regardless of what was agreed in this room today, regardless of what was examined or challenged or defended, he had stood in front of the sacred altar that morning and exchanged vows and signed his name in blood next to Sairis's.
Sairis was his husband.
That was not undone by a debate. It was not undone by Lord Huron's frustration or Lord Carthen's procedures or two hundred years of old law sitting in a dusty statute book somewhere in the palace archives.
He looked at Huron mid-argument and said, quite pleasantly, "Perhaps while you are all at it, you could discuss what punishment is appropriate for me. Since we seem to be covering everything today."
The room went briefly silent again. Then the argument started back up, louder than before.
