Chapter 548: Worth Fighting For
"Wasn’t it?" Owain asked sharply as he frowned at the engineer. After months of trading barbed words with her, he was enjoying watching her use her viperish tongue against someone else for a change, but he couldn’t help but feel that this latest barb was aimed more toward him than it was toward Baron Hanrahan. But for that to be true, she would have to know about Loman’s intention to contend for the throne...
The thought that she might be aware of Owain’s struggle to inherit the throne that should be his by birthright shook him to the core. His eyes narrowed and his brows lowered as he scowled at Isabell, who seemed completely immune to any form of intimidation. Was this really an idle comment in response to Jocelynn’s childish infatuation with stories of true love? Or had the entire story she told about the civil war in the Emerald Kingdom been intended to allow her to make this point?
Owain had no way to know for sure, but knowing what he did about the sharpness of Isabell’s mind and the keenness of her wit, he wouldn’t put it past her.
"As the eldest son and heir," Owain said carefully. "The throne was his by birthright. Or do you mean to tell me that the Emerald Kingdom practices some heretical version of the faith that denies men the position they were born into after meeting their struggle in their past life?"
Owain’s question instantly drew the attention of most people at the high table, though a few of them seemed to bristle at the implications of his statement. It seemed odd for Owain to couch his question in the doctrine of the Church, though those closest to him understood that it was likely a reaction to the threat he felt from his own brother.
Owain was looking for reasons to shore up the legitimacy of his claim to the throne wherever he could find them and the Church’s teaching that people born into positions of privilege had earned them through struggles in their previous lives was just one of the many straws he was grasping at as he searched for an escape from the possibility that his father would pass the title of Marquis to his brother Loman.
Bastian, on the other hand, gave his half-brother Hugo an intense, dark look, as if to remind his younger brother that there was no doubt between them about who would become the next Baron Hanrahan. Small though the barony might be, and struggling as it was, in Bastian’s mind, it still belonged to him, and any problems the barony faced would quickly be swept away when he rode Owain’s coattails to greater heights in the coming Holy War against the demons.