Shadows and Light

When did we change? Why did we change? And if we continue to do these things that will tear our people and our families apart, will we truly be able to look in the mirror and not see something monstrous and evil looking back at us?“
    He looked at the barons. Grim faces. Thoughtful faces. Uneasy faces.
    “I never heard of the Evil One until I took my seat in these chambers yesterday morning,” he said quietly,
    “but I’d like you to think about one last thing. If there really is such a creature, where did it come from?
    What if these ideas about women and the things that are being done in the villages in the eastern part of Sylvalan are the work of this ... thing! What if it’s like a plague that buries itself in a man’s mind and makes something terrible seem right? If that is the case ...” Liam swallowed hard. “If that is the case, then the ones who died were the victims of this madness, and the ones who did the killing, or ordered the killing to be done ... they are the Evil One’s servants. They are the ones we should be on guard against.”
    The heat inside him was gone, leaving him feeling sick and shaky.
    Silence.
    Finally, the Baron of Durham said, “This meeting is adjourned until tomorrow morning when the votes will be taken on the decrees that have been proposed.”
    His legs shaking, Liam walked up the aisle toward the chamber’s door. Alone. No one else rose from their chairs; no one spoke. But his eyes briefly met those of an acquaintance, a baron about his age who had wed at Midsummer last year. Donovan gave him a barely perceptible nod. Encouraged, he glanced at the far end of the room where the western barons sat. None of them were looking his way—except Padrick, the Baron of Breton, who held his eyes for a moment before looking away.
    As he reached the chamber door, Liam noticed the blond-haired, blue-eyed man staring at him with brutal intensity. It was the same man he’d seen in the bookseller’s shop.
    You’d have no trouble using a scold’s bridle on a woman and claiming you were doing it for her welfare, Liam thought. You ‘d enjoy using your fists on her even more.
    He opened the chamber door and quickly walked through the corridors until he reached the doors that would take him out of the building.
    Perhaps he was becoming ill. He had no reason to think those things about a man he didn’t know. But there was something about the man that made him uneasy, something that didn’t feel right.
    He saw a hackney cab draw up a couple of buildings away to let out a fare. He ran to catch it before the driver turned the horse back into the flow of carts and carriages. As he opened the door and climbed inside, he thought he heard someone call his name. But he didn’t turn to look, and he didn’t hear the hail again. Just as well. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, didn’t want to think. He just wanted to get back to his town house and rest until this shaky feeling went away.
    Ubel stared at the closed door long after the Baron of Willowsbrook had left the room. Finally, he turned to study the remaining barons, his blue eyes assessing the damage that had been done by Baron Liam’s passionate speech.
    The eastern barons were protesting to everyone around them that just because they’d only recently been able to put a name to the source of trouble that plagued Sylvalan didn’t mean it hadn’t always been there.
    Fools. They were spilling oil on a small fire, encouraging it to turn into an inferno. If any of them had thought to say the obvious—that it was Liam who was under the influence of the Evil One—and had expressed concern for his family and the people he ruled, they may not have sufficiently persuaded any of the other barons to their side, but they wouldn’t seem to be the very thing Liam had accused them of being: men who were so greedy that they’d sanctioned killings for their own financial gain.
    Of course, he could understand their fear. If they couldn’t sway enough barons to vote with them tomorrow to pass the decrees that would assure that the restrictions they’d placed on the women in their control would be carried out throughout Sylvalan, they would be standing alone. That would be bad enough. But if the other barons became incensed enough because of that bastard’s speech to demand that all rights and property that had been taken from women be restored...
    A few short months ago, the eastern barons might have grudgingly given in to avoid the censure