None of them answered and Ann took the opportunity to seize the silence.
"You accuse me of sowing chaos, but you were doing this decades ago. You claim my compassion will drown us, but what you fear is that my truth will reveal your cowardice. You speak of strategy, of loyalty, of strength,but it was your bargains in the dark that risked this kingdom, not mine."
The weight of her words pressed into every corner of the chamber and she could see the pride in Bartholomew's eyes before he dropped them to the table.
"Those were compromises. They preserved balance. They…" One of the elders barked suddenly, desperate but Ann cut him off.
"They were lies," Ann snapped. "You decided which lives to save and which to discard. You picked winners and losers in secret, then stood in public and preached about purity. And you wonder why loyalty falters now?"
"They were different times!" One protested.
"No." Ann's voice rose, "They were the same times. You knew the King's cruelty. You knew he hunted his own. And instead of uniting against him, you hid scraps of resistance and hoped he'd be satisfied. He wasn't. And he never will be."
Maeve's satisfaction rippled hot through her chest.
"Yes. Don't just wound them,gut them. Hypocrites taste best when they bleed their own lies."
"You talk about magick as corruption. About bloodlines as curses." Ann continued brutally, "But who let Narcissa sit the throne in my mother's place? Who turned blind eyes to projects run through Veritas itself? Who profited from quiet shipments to research sites that produced nothing but corpses?"
That hit all of them right where she wanted it to. Even those who had entered wanting Ann to answer for her crimes and unaware of their own sordid past, now found their voices caught on silence.
Only the scrape of Bartholomew's chair moving broke the quiet.
"She speaks the truth," he said at last, his voice hoarse. "We did hide them. Lycans. Magick-born. Families marked for execution and other bloodlines of other races and species. We swore them safety in exchange for silence. Some of us told ourselves it was mercy. Others called it balance. But it was secrecy, and secrecy corrupted even the most well intentioned plans."
Ann seized on it before anyone could dispute his words.
"So when you accuse me of bringing the Lycan Kings' wrath down on us all, remember this: it was your actions that started it all. Your fear. Your hypocrisy. The wrath you fear is not mine, it is the harvest of your own lies. You fed this kingdom poison for decades, and now you're choking on it and flailing around wildly as you look for someone to be the scapegoat that your ego needs."
"You dare to…!" A voice came but Ann cut her off fiercely.
"Yes I fucking dare because I wear the crown that you all tried to weaken," Ann snapped. "I dare because the packs and the refugees look to me, not you. And I dare because I will not be complicit in burying the truth for the sake of your fragile pride."
The weight of her words hung in the chamber, the implication clear. No one moved. No one spoke and not one person dared to breathe too loudly for fear of drawing her attention.
"Hypocritical fucktards." Maeve snarled furiously, "Look at them all, frozen like rabbits as another piece of power falls right into your lap. They'll hate you for it, but hate is weaker than fear and these old farts are all too spineless to stand against you now that they know that you know all of their secrets."
"Perhaps not all of their secrets, but I know enough to keep them in line from now on I think." Ann answered.
She straightened her back and sneered at them all.
"If you have nothing more than accusations to throw at me, then leave. And as you run away with your cowardly tails tucked between your fucking legs, know this: I am not afraid of the Lycan King. I am not afraid of Ely. And I am certainly not afraid of hypocrites who seek only to further their own interests. I will bring every single person to justice that deserves it, regardless of the cost."
For a second, no one moved. Then the scrape of chairs on stone echoed loudly as one by one, the Elders rose. Some with stiff spines, others with faltering steps. None of them bowed, None of them met her stone faced gaze. They left in silence,their robes trailing like shadows.
Bartholomew lingered though, his hand pressed tightly to the back of his chair.
"You've just made enemies of them all." he said softly.
Ann met his gaze without flinching.
"No. They made me their enemy when they chose to present lies over truth and try to make me their scapegoat. I just said out loud what none of them wanted to hear."
He lowered his eyes briefly, then looked up at her with a faint smile on his face.
"You did well, my Queen. For what it's worth, I couldn't be prouder of having you as my Queen. It is past time the balance of power was redressed."
"I have a feeling I am not the quiet, demure and compliant Queen that they had hoped I would be." Ann said with a sardonic smile.
"You most definitely are not," Bartholomew chuckled, "But it is what we need. We do not need another puppet monarch that is nothing more than a mouthpiece for the Elders. As I said when I first met you. The Royals answer to the elders, and the elders should answer to themselves, but in times like this, I think we need to reevaluate. Perhaps the Elders should also answer to the royal line, and both sides be held accountable as the Elders seem to have forgotten their purpose over the years. They are more of a dictatorship than anything now, which was never the intention."
He smiled at her then, and she could see the tinge of sadness and regret in it as he turned and left.
Ann watched him leave with a mixture of feelings, but Maeve hummed happily in her head.
"They'll never forgive you for it. But forgiveness isn't power. And power, Queenie, is exactly what we've just taken from them. Now they know that there is nothing that they can hold over us to force us to conform, however hard they try."