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From the Diary of Jasper:
(Recorded in the Sanctuary)
Queen Rose has found the…"focal point" she has spent so long searching for. I haven't the slightest idea what it actually is, but I have never seen her so happy in all of my life. She shivered with excitement while she told me of the full month she spent studying it, learning how to unlock the doors inside it—but that is surely impossible, because she only found it yesterday. I have a theory, and it frightens me. After Sir Walter's death, Rose came to me and asked me what I knew about the Will spells her mother had learned over the course of her life. She was almost feverish, poring over diaries that made no sense upon close inspection, considering the old Queen's unnaturally brief life. Queen Sparrow accomplished so much in the short amount of time she was allowed to live. I always assumed that it was because, well…she was a Hero. According to what Rose has told me, I was partially correct. But there is more to it than that. Queen Sparrow owed her supernatural speed to a Will spell that was meant for use in combat—she could, for a brief stretch, control Time, itself. It made her faster than lightning in a fight, and now I know that it also gave her the ability to do in thirty years what ought to have taken a century. Industrial revolution, the nearly overnight development of the Brightwall Academy and the magical chambers beneath it, the invention of new Cullis Gates, and this Sanctuary…countless other things we may not even know about. And the mystery does not end there. She…knew things. She left the Book of Heroes in the Sanctuary, along with a note with my name on it, which I would not find until nearly twenty years after her death. She told Samuel, the librarian of Brightwall, that a challenger bearing the Guild Seal would come to open the Reliquary, and that is exactly what happened. I now suspect that she discovered a way to truly control Time, at least partially, rather than simply slowing it. If that is true, and if her daughter has also learned how to do this, I scarcely know what the future will hold for Albion. I can only pray that Rose uses this new power with utmost care. She is walking in the footsteps of the gods, now. If legends are to be believed at all, that does not end well for mortals.
I had bathed again, dressed, eaten, and plied myself with wine, and still the Queen had not returned. The sun was hanging low in the sky, tongues of pink and orange fire bleeding into the horizon. I was beginning to feel the first stirrings of impatience. I wanted very much to know what she was doing. Despite her many pleasant attributes, she had a nasty little knack for rattling me at my core, and I did not like mysteries.
My eyes wandered over to the letter Logan had left on her desk.
Oh, why not.
I picked up a bright little pen knife and carefully prized the wax seal from the paper. Satisfied that I had left no damage, I opened the letter and smoothed it out on the desk. The sight of Logan's tight, cramped handwriting gave me a touch of nostalgia; he was such a tense fellow. It showed in everything he did.
Your Majesty, it read, with predictable stiffness. I have indeed been receiving your letters. The royal courier is not to blame for my silence. I simply found that I could not bring myself to open them when they first arrived. I know it was foolish, and by the strictest definition of the law, you could have me arrested for ignoring the summons of my Queen. But Rose, I told you that Albion would heal better without me. Have I not done enough, already? With respect, my returning to live with you would be a mistake. The people love you, sister, but I must remind you of their cries of rage when you decided to spare my life. You stole from them the opportunity to avenge themselves and their loved ones, harmed or killed by my commands. My shadow must never darken the castle's halls again. Do you not see that? You are the Queen, now, and you must harden yourself against those things which would threaten your position and your plans. It is not easy, I know. I tried so hard to shield you from this burden, to let you have the childhood that I never experienced. It never occurred to me that I was walking the path of folly until it was too late. I should have spent more time with you; perhaps your goodness would have rubbed off on me. Instead, I attacked you in exactly the place I knew you to be the most vulnerable—your heart, your unfaltering compassion for others—thinking that it would make you stronger. Perhaps it did. But please believe that I would do anything to take it back, now. I still find it astonishing that you actually miss me, when you ought to hate me for what I've done. I have dishonored our mother's memory. I am a monster. I see that, now. And it is because of you that my eyes have opened, dear sister. You never knew her, but you are so like our mother. Your goodness, your gentle heart, your personal sacrifices—all of the very same things that made her so strong a leader are very much alive in you. And I must be one of those sacrifices, Rose. You must let me go, for Albion's sake. You cannot save everyone. That is one lesson you seem unwilling to learn. Even now, as I write this, I know that you will ignore my requests. It is in your nature. But I am duty-bound to make them, regardless, for your sake and the sake of the people. Turn your back on me, Rose. Let the people forget me. Let yourself forget me. I once thought of Albion as mine, as the most precious thing in my existence, but that is not true. It is you. There is nothing that matters more to me than you. You must abandon me and live your life. I love you, and I always will. Let me have only that, and I will find peace.
L.
I refolded the letter slowly, tapping it against my chin. "Logan, Logan, you poor fool," I sighed. Rose would never turn her back on him. She would never stop trying to heal his broken spirit, and she would never stop loving him. She seemed to believe that if she tried hard enough, she could salvage something from virtually any disaster. Logan knew this as well as I did. We had both watched her grow up, after all, albeit from a distance. But he was wrong about one thing—Sparrow had been an admirable, dynamic, virtuous woman, indeed, but she was also quite damaged, and with those damages came vices, fears, and weaknesses, though they were not easy to detect. Hero or not, she was still human. Logan was judging himself based on a fantasy. They both were. Sparrow's ghost was haunting her children.
I heated the wax and resealed the letter. No one would ever know that it had been tampered with. I was an old hand at subterfuge and deception. But I could not help but feel dissatisfied. The letter had contained nothing I did not already know and it would very likely cause Rose significant heartache. She would be in no mood for play tonight.
"Do you see what you've done, Sparrow?" I called acidly, raising my wine glass to the ceiling. "Your children are torturing each other. I do hope the Crown was worth it. Cheers."
Do you see what you've done?
Not Sparrow…
Me.
I did this.
"Preposterous," I muttered to myself. "She made her own choice. It didn't have to be her. The Judges demand only one life. The village girl was already there. It is not my fault that the fool woman took it upon herself to be a martyr."
The wine seemed to turn sour in my mouth. I did not want anymore. My dark mood was returning, as it always did when I allowed myself to dwell on the past. I put my coat over my arm and pulled the doors open, storming through a thicket of startled guards. I walked past the open doors of the empty Throne Room, down the long stairway, and out into the Royal Gardens. Logan's horrid statue glared down at me, pointing in the general direction of the tower that housed my temporary quarters—Rose's former room, where she had spent much of her young life. I made my way to it, trotting up the stone steps and throwing the door open with a sharp bang. A chambermaid gave a startled squeak and clutched at her featherduster, all wide blue eyes and wider hips. She recovered herself, curtsied, and hurried for the doorway.
"Beggin' your pardon, sir. I was told you'd be away. I'll go."
I caught her arm before she could escape. "I don't think you will, actually. I think you will stay."
"Pardon, sir, but I'm—I'm expected in the kitchen."
My fingers tightened on her upper arm like a vice as she struggled. "Well, I suppose you're going to be late, then, aren't you, my pet?"
"Please let go, sir!" I caught a glimpse of my bruised face reflected in her shining eyes and saw something deadly there. She saw it, too. She cringed away from me, starting to cry, now. "I don't want any trouble, sir! I'll c-come back after, and I-I won't tell no one, I swear!"
"You will do no such thing. I can see it in your face: you are lying," I snarled, pushing her roughly away. She hit the wall with a keen scream and a popping sound and fell to the floor. I was so very tired of the lies in this castle! I drew the Paramour and pointed it at the maid's red, blotchy face. She fell silent at once.
"Now listen to me very carefully," I said quietly. "You will not go to the kitchens tonight. You will stay here. You will not cry. You will not speak. You will do exactly as I tell you. Then, when I have finished with you, you will leave. Do you understand?"
She simply stared, her eyes and her nose streaming. Livid red welts were rising on her arm where I had squeezed it. Then her eyes widened even more, and she gasped at something behind me, wincing. I spun.
"Cease your movement, in the name of the Queen!"
I was staring into the black eyes of nine rifles.
"Drop your weapon, now!" I recognized Lance Corporal Tucker, one of the Queen's personal bodyguards, at the front of the phalanx. Lance Corporal Tucker, who had smiled with such satisfaction when his Queen had favored him with a private whisper. I now suspected the nature of that whisper. She must have ordered him to watch me. He must have been bursting with pride at having caught me committing such a flagrant act of indiscretion.
"Drop it!" he repeated, pulling back the hammer of his rifle. "Or by Avo I will drop you."
There was no chance. At point blank range, not even I could hope to survive a firefight like this. All at once, my rage departed from me, and I felt hollow without it. I dropped the Paramour into the maid's lap.
"Take good care of that, won't you?" I said tonelessly. "It was a gift."
The castle dungeon had been renovated. It was no longer the dank, damp, stinking hole it had been under Logan's rule, and Sparrow's. It was clean, well-lit, mildly comfortable, and the food was plain, but good. It was not a place of punishment anymore. It was simply a cage that prevented dangerous people from hurting anyone.
The turnkey opened my cell wordlessly and stood back. Queen Rose took his place, almost too tall to pass through the doorway without bowing her head. Her face was whiter than I had ever seen it, her lips pressed in a tight line of silent, barely-contained outrage.
"You may leave us, Mr. Norris," she said softly.
Norris bowed, put his keys back on his belt, and departed.
"Do you really know the name of every servant you keep?" I asked archly.
An explosion of white-hot pain blinded me as she slapped the bruised side of my face, hard.
"They are people, Reaver," she said, pulsing with azure flares of Will that climbed from her ankles to streak across her pale face. "You have no right to treat them like livestock."
I tried to clear the spots from my eyes, blinking my good eye rapidly. My left ear was ringing. "So, it is safe to assume that you heard about the chambermaid, then."
"Her name is Lillian."
"Remarkable. Truly, I don't know how you do it, Your Majesty. I have trouble remembering what I had for breakfast most of the time."
"You broke her collarbone in two places and separated her shoulder when you threw her against the wall," she said, her eyes blazing with angry tears. "I've been told there is a chance that she may not regain the full use of that arm. It hurts her simply to breathe."
"Well, I don't always know my own strength. Neither do you, come to think of it. I think you may have perforated my eardrum."
"Why did you do this, Reaver? What did she ever do to you?"
"Aren't you more interested in who blackened my eye? You missed a gentleman caller while you were out."
"Answer my question."
"It was your brother. His self-imposed exile has not much improved him. I gave him my word as a gentleman that I would deliver a message from him to you. He left it on your desk, along with his pistol. I see you've finally remembered your crown, so you've probably seen it already."
"Answer me!" she shouted. The room was aglow with the blue light of her rage. My hair stood on end, and I caught the static smell of ozone in the air. "Tell me why Lillian is lying in agony, unable to even feed herself or use a chamber pot without someone to help her! Tell me why she had to suffer!"
"Because you could not keep her safe," I replied cuttingly. "Because it is not possible to protect every man, woman, and child in Albion. People get hurt—that is life, my Queen, and all of your noble sacrifices and your Heroic gestures will not make a scrap of difference. Do you know why I lost my temper with Lillian? It is very simple: she was not you, and you were what I wanted. She was a casualty of your idiotic idealism, the belief that if you are kind and generous enough, it will make the world a better place. Poor, sweet Lillian paid the price for your arrogance."
I realized with morbid satisfaction that I had finally gone too far. Rose's breath caught in her chest. She squeezed her eyes shut with a scream of mingled anger and anguish, and the little cell crackled with electricity. Two monstrous white shapes burst from her back, scattering downy feathers everywhere. I felt my jaw drop and my bowels loosen. They were wings. They filled the small space almost completely, pulsing with the same blue shapes that burned on her body. The Queen was panting hard, a fireball in one hand and a cluster of lightning in the other, her arms outstretched. Norris the turnkey was on his bottom, pressed against the far wall outside the cell, his eyes bulging.
Do it, a mad part of me thought. Let this all end.
Queen Rose gritted her teeth and let out a moan of wretched misery, and the fire and lightning dissipated. Her arms dropped limply to her sides, and her wings drooped, fading slowly into nothingness. They were gone, and she was only Rose again, looking lost and broken. I realized that I had been holding my breath, and I let it out slowly. For a long while, we were silent.
At last, she spoke. Her voice was even, her words measured carefully. "Reaver, you are charged with the assault and battery of Lillian Tarley. I, Rose, Queen of Albion, after due consideration of evidence and of your willing confession, do find you guilty of this charge. Your assets will be seized and put in the custodial care of Ernest Faraday of Faraday Industries, who will manage Reaver Industries until you have repaid your debt to Albion. Your sentence is to be carried out immediately. You will serve this country in every capacity I deem necessary for a period of no less than two years. You are eligible for early parole if good behavior is demonstrated, and all of your assets will be returned to you at the end of your service. Do you understand the terms of this sentence as I have explained them to you?"
I gazed at her through my good eye. Her face was set in an expression of semi-divine detachment, but her eyes were soft with compassion. She was not going to harm me. As Logan had predicted, there was no changing her nature. She still believed she could save the world, and me with it. Now she had found a way to force me to allow her to try.
"Yes, I understand, Your Majesty. My life is in your hands."
From the Diary of Logan, Brother of the Queen of Albion:
(Recorded in the island community of Driftwood)
My sister's response to my letter was already waiting for me inside my caravan when I returned from the castle. She had sent a white rose with it, which somehow had not even begun to wilt, though it is many hours ride from the castle to this remote place. Her message consisted of a single word gouged deeply into the paper in her graceful handwriting:
Never.