“I had many members followed and discovered that Master Lorian had been meeting with some suspicious people. I had no evidence that he had done anything untoward, so I did not bring my concerns before the council. Then, an accusation came forward that Lorian had been selling illegal magical artifacts. The same ones that were connected to Basem Nix. We took this accusation seriously and had his home and study searched under a warrant from the presiding officer. We found illegal artifacts hidden in his study and home along with correspondence with the House of Shadows, detailing the sale of crates of them over the last year. Artifacts that many of us saw firsthand on the battlefield in Lethbridge.

Helly took a deep breath. “Thus, the evidence asserts that Master Lorian murdered Basem Nix in Society custody to hide his involvement in his illegal possession and trafficking of weapons to conspire with our enemy. An act such as this is treason, and I call for the council to determine the appropriate punishment for his actions.”

She nodded her head at the presiding officer and returned to her seat.

“You have heard the accusation. You may speak for yourself, Lorian, unless you have hired counsel to speak in your place,” Zoh said, already dropping the title Lorian had earned all those years ago.

Lorian had no counsel. He looked steely-eyed at his peers, tilting his chin up and not backing down an ounce. “This is a wonderful tale,” he said, clapping his hands slowly. “The clues all line up, leading you to believe that I must have done precisely what the honorable Mistress Hellina has said. Except that the facts are a fiction and this trial is a farce. I have never owned or sold an illegal artifact. In fact, if you remember correctly, I was the one who introduced the legislation for which artifacts needed to be taken off of the streets. I have no idea what you found in my study or in my home, but they did not belong to me. Nor have I ever communicated with the House of Shadows. I wouldn’t even know how to reach them or until the wall fell, where their home was.”

“You did argue on behalf of negotiations with the House of Shadows though,” Helly added. “You were the only one who wanted to speak with them.”

“Is it wrong to want to keep the killing to a minimum? Yes, I come from Venatrix, a war tribe, but I do not enjoy death and destruction, especially not at the scale of which we saw at the Battle of Lethbridge. I would keep that from happening if I could. I would always argue for an open dialogue before war.” He swept his arm aside, as if he could clear his name as easily.