Chapter Thirty Four: The Sun's Upset
The kingdom come, the rise, the fall, the setting sun above it all -
I just wanna be somebody to you.
- Michael Joseph Nelson
That night, Yue dreamed of skating - skating, not in the artifically sterile and perfect surface of the Whites training rink, but across the river in Layeni. The horizon was silver and frosted, streaked with purple and red clouds that were lit from behind as though perhaps the sky was on fire. Beneath her skates, rainbow-streaked fish were frozen, crystalline, pressed against the ice as though yearning for some faint finger of sunlight. There was only the sound of metal on ice, the familiar scrape-and-give of movement along the river. Yue was alone, and smoke was rising slowly from the banks, from somewhere beyond the bell tower.
She woke to the sound of her bedroom door closing. Wan morning light was warming her face; the sheets beside her were rumpled, and still warm from the presence of someone who had just departed. For the briefest moment, she considered that perhaps she had dreamed their conversation the night before, had imagined the kindness of his voice or the stories he had told her or the intensity with which he had listened to her as she returned the favour by hesitantly recounting her first taste of victory on the ice - the way the crowd had roared, the way her skates had shaken beneath her as she moved in an arc around the rink to catch a thrown bouquet. But no, she thought, she could not have imagined it - for he had left his shoes, polished black brogues with delicate embossed flowers around the toe, at the end of her bed, neatly, like she imagined a soldier might leave their shoes. And the door had just closed.
She relaxed back into her sheets, and shut her eyes, and tried to calm her heart at the thought that, for the whole night - for dusk had melded into dawn - Demetri had lain in the bed beside her, and laughed, and whispered, and slept. It made her nerves jump; it made her arteries thrum with the question of what it all meant, and what it would create, if it meant anything and if it would create anything. She wanted, so desperately, to believe that he had understood her, and that he had meant the simplest of his words - that, at the very least, they were friends. At the very least, he saw her, and he liked her to be honest, and he wanted her to draw again.
Simple stuff. The most elemental of it all.
And he had spoken about his childhood, about Raphael and about the General. Yue had known that the General had been a killer - he had orchestrated the bombing of hospitals, had arranged for the derailment of trains, had ordered the destruction of entire towns - but she had not fully realised, not entirely come to terms with the fact, that he had taught all he knew of killing to Raphael, and to the others: to Uzohola, to Wick, to Demetri. That realisation had been something like a punch in the mouth. But he had clearly been a kind of father, not the doting kind, but a constant and reassuring presence, a reminder that if they fell there would be someone to catch them, someone to pull them up and keep her running, someone to patch them up and remind them not to let it happen again. Demetri had spoken of him in the sort of tone that people in Whites always reserved for the royal family.
He was gone - that was disappointing, only slightly, for she had hoped to wake up next to him, to see what Vardi had meant when she talked about waking up next to someone and not caring, not a bit, about what they looked like, how askance and askew they were, only seeing them as they woke up, watching as they moved from dream to waking. Yue's perspective of Vardi had been utterly transformed by sharing a room with her: watching all the tension and coiled anger fall from the face and lines of the small, sharp girl, as though in her sleep she escaped to a place where there was no source of tension, no reason to be angry. She wondered if that was true of Demetri as well - if he would seem younger, happier, more complete, than he ever seemed while awake.
But it was only slightly disappointing - for they had still had the night, and the slight, wispy hope of again.
Her eyes fluttered open again, on instinct or on impulse. Her room was on the cusp of the hall, nearest the balcony, and through the tiny sliver of door that Demetri had left ajar, she could see the shadow of someone slipping out of one of the rooms at the far end, and slipping down the spiral staircase. Judging by their silhouette, she thought, it looked like Liara - tall and thin - but it was hard to say for sure. These wooden floorboards were more forgiving than those in Raphael's house; it was harder to hear what was occurring around the château. It made her feel at once safely insulated and utterly alone.
And so she was determined not to be alone - she rose from bed. There were a narrow selection of clothes in her wardrobe; she chose a pale pink tunic dress, which came to her knee, a neat diamond embroidered in overlapping lines of black and gold stitching on her chest. She went downstairs barefoot; the ground was cool under her feet, despite the early warmth of the day, and there was a very light movement of air that stirred the lightest strands of her hair, suggesting that there had been a window opened somewhere in the depths of the house. It moved the lapels of her dress, very gently, and carried the scent of frying oil and something greasy beneath it - someone was cooking.
She went towards the kitchen, much as she had the day before - there was, she thought, the skeleton of a routine taking shape now. She wondered if Eden had decided to make breakfast for Demetri again, and she wondered why her stomach twisted slightly at the thought.
She was wrong, however. The château's kitchen had the appearance of a place from much deeper within the earth, like the baths in the palace, the look of a chamber that had been hewn directly from the stone surrounding it. The stove was a huge apparatus, black and brittle, that took up most of one wall; much of the northern face of the kitchen was taken up by a dining table made of pale and polished pine, while the southern face was studded with bay windows looking out onto the patio, hemmed in by low stools, upon one of which perched Liz, stirring a teaspoon in a cup of tea. There had been a radio tucked into the nook over the kitchen door, from it music was pouring - a soft, melancholy kind of music, all deep notes and repetitive lyrics, and Yue wondered whose taste in music this was: was that you in London? A trick of the light... the old smoke gets thicker, so where are you now? I don't need an answer...
And Demetri was cooking. The aroma of cooking meat and mixed spices was hanging low over the kitchen, covering them like a blanket. He had his sleeves rolled up - a different shirt, Yue noted, a pale blue with little striped lines, rather than the stiff starched white of the previous evening - and his arms braced on the counter, as he spoke to Liz with an enormously amused tone: "I feel like there was a nicer way for her to say that."
And Liz replied, "I'm not sure Liara is one for niceness in times like these."
Yue said, "times like these?"
Demetri glanced over at her, and flashed her a very slight smile - like the one from last night, drawing higher on one side. She had thought he had smiled like that last night because of some inebriation, a vestigial impact of the alcohol served so liberally at the palace. Instead, it seemed like perhaps that was just how he smiled sometimes. "Good morning, Yue."
Liz shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "I was just updating his Highness on the gossip from last night."
"There doesn't seem to have occurred," Demetri said, with faux disappointment, "any great scandal in my absence."
"No," Liz agreed, "Eden and Uzo kept us all in line. We really missed you after you left, Yue. I hope you're feeling better?"
Yue was keenly aware that Demetri's gaze had been levelled upon her. "Too much berrywine," she said, slightly weakly. "And not enough food."
"Probably the only one who could say that," Liz said. She was, Yue saw, still wearing the cotton pyjamas which seemed to have been dispensed to every girl - a long sleeved, collared shirt and shorts. "The second part, I mean - I'm pretty sure I'm still hungover."
Demetri said, "you're all up very early for how late you were partying. I was going to bring you breakfast in bed - some small apology for being so absent over the past few days."
Yue shook her head and Liz waved her teaspoon as though to physically disperse the king's words. "You've been very busy, sir. We understand entirely."
"Entirely too kind." Demetri flashed an even, warm smile and glanced out the window. "Shall we eat on the veranda, then? It seems like a lovely day - and we might not again get a chance to relax until this evening."
"Lots planned?" Eden spoke from Yue's shoulder, her voice slightly hoarse as though she had sung or shouted too much the night before. Her hair was still pinned up in the gorgeous conglomeration of braids that had made her look so monarchical and elegant the night before, but she was wearing her pyjamas, a pair of shorts and a tank top that bared her long legs and her long arms.
Demetri nodded. "I'll explain the itinerary over food." He turned back to the stove. "There should be plates and cutlery on the table outside - I'll carry this out."
There was. He did.
There was a long glass table beyond the backdoor, set on a delicately mosiac'd tile patch which had in turn been set a little further into the overgrown garden so that hanging ivy blossoms obscured the château from view. On all sides wild roses and lilies and rainflowers grew to head-height like so much camoflauge.
Demetri had made some strange set of breakfast foods - a trayful of bacon and sausages and black blood puddings, grilled and spiced strips of chicken and pork alongside skewers of smoked fish and spicy beef, sticky rice porridge with fried eggs laid carefully across its surface, strong-smelling nātto spread on slices of toast, and bowls of little cottage cheese dumplings that he called syrniki. Demetri caught Yue looking and said, ruefully, "we need to go shopping."
"It looks amazing," she said. She meant it. The food was set on the table, and they took their seats, Liara emerging from the house with a yawn and a stretch of her arms. There were six seats around the table, but places were chosen without care - Demetri eschewed the seat at the head of the table in favour of serving out platefuls of food as best he could, Liz at his elbow. Eden was at the head of the table, contemplating her glass of water with a focus Yue had usually reserved for final bouts in competitive sports. Liara seemed to still be half-asleep, her head bent over a cup of strong black coffee that Yue had slid, very gingerly, into her hand.
"Looks like you got back late, Lady Liara," Demetri was saying, very amiably. He was answered by another yawn from the girl in question that Liz was quick to interpret.
"Somewhere around five in the morning." Liz sounded rueful. "Did you know there was a second dinner just after three?" She sighed deeply. "I just might want to stay here forever."
Demetri smiled, a little tensely, at this pronouncement; Yue wondered if he thought Liz was serious. Yue wondered if she was. "I'm glad they're looking after you."
"Where's Täj?" Liara asked.
"He left the house last night," Yue said, "after he brought me home..."
"He's like a stray cat," Demetri said with a chuckle. "He'll be back once he gets hungry."
Yue accepted a plate from him, heaped high with meats and carbs. Liz had brewed a pot of tea, emanating fragrant steam out into the air, like she had plucked and boiled the blossoms that dripped from the trees around them. As they started to eat - "sahten," Liara murmured, and Yue bowed her head thinking of Agares - there was, for a brief moment, silence but for the scrape of cutlery on plates and sipping of tea. It was peaceful. Demetri had been right - it was a lovely day. The sun was soft, and the sky was warm and music was still leaking slowly from the kitchen window.
And Demetri had been right - here Täj came now, ducking past the hanging leaves, still dressed in the remnants of his suit from the night before: braces over a red shirt, black trousers, newspaper rolled in his hands. He had a look of such focus in his eyes that he barely seemed to notice the girls, or the food, only went straight to Demetri, and put the newspaper on the table, and said, "the phone's been ringing off the hook."
Demetri frowned, setting down his cutlery and staring down at the headline. "Täj, what...?"
"T'yago thor mā." His voice was curt.
Yue stared at what little of the newspaper she could make out. Big Cyrrilic characters, black and angry, like the Russian signs she had seen in Sochi when she was competing at the international friendlies: ПОКУШЕНИЕ. Familiar enough that their unfamiliarity was infuriating.
Demetri rose immediately. "Khun di rab...?"
"Zaria."
"Ladies," Demetri said, "please. Excuse me."
He moved quickly, calmly, past Täj, and disappeared into the house. Eden said, sounding a little alarmed, "I heard Thiago's name...?"
"Is Marjorie okay?" Liz asked immediately.
And Liara said, quite simply, "Täj...?"
He just turned on his heel, and followed Demetri back into the house. The girls were left staring after them, the king's carefully made food lying forgotten on their plates.
For the rest of the morning, the mood in the chateau was subdued. Atiena arrived in a new attendant's suit, this one black also but emblazoned with the crest of the Ndlovukazis over the heart, her hair still shockingly shorn. Liz thought it would take her some time to adjust to the sight - it made Atiena's face seem somehow sharper, more hollow, despite her frequent friendly smiles. She seemed more relaxed here than Liz could ever remember seeing her - not, of course, that the two girls had known each other all that well during their time in the Selection. Liz had always been closest with Lissa, poor lost Lissa, and Atiena had mainly hung around with the rebels - Uzokuwa, Anzu, Phineas and Mikhail.
Liz surprised herself by remembering their names. It felt like a lifetime ago, and like they had lived in this chateau for much longer than just two days. Indeed, the ghost of a routine was taking shape - Atiena had arrived to bring them back down the little worn path to the guardhouse and test them on their shooting again. She seemed surprised that none of them had practised in the thirty hours since they had first learned how to shoot; moments like this, Liz thought, made her wonder when and whether Atiena ever slept.
When Liara asked her if she knew what had Demetri and Täj so on edge, Atiena had looked utterly non-plussed. "Nothing the Ndlovukazis told me about," the Tammins girl replied, throwing spare magazines into an empty box near the makeshift shooting range she had set up. Uzokuhlenga had sent over some actual bullseyes upon which the girls could practise shooting, joking as he did so that the Saharans were becoming convinced that the Selection was some strange blend between harem of beautiful concubines and squadron of Amazonian bodyguards. He had nothing to worry about, Liz thought ruefully - she had barely struck the outermost black edge of the circle opposite her. She had blamed her hangover; Atiena had, blessedly, not called her out on the obvious lie. "But," Atiena continued, watching proudly as Yue hit, for the very first time, one of the blue lines, "Täj spent the night at the Russian embassy. Maybe he heard something there."
Liara's expression had not changed, but some shadow had flitted across her eyes. "He did?"
Atiena nodded. "So Kuhlenga told me."
"You stayed with Uzo last night, Atiena?" Eden had been studying the hem of her dress as though she expected there to be some hidden message stitched within.
The bodyguard shrugged. "Something like that." She straightened up from her crouch, and brushed off her hands. "Busy day today, right?"
"Not that anyone's told us," Liz said, folding her arms and leaning against the wall of Atiena's little guardhouse. "I think you're probably more informed than us, Tee. Out of the Selection, into the know."
Yue said, lowering her gun with an unwieldiness that suggested she was not fully comfortable with the weight of the killing thing within her hand, "to be fair, Demetri was going to tell us. Before he and Täj got the news..."
"Whatever news it was." Liara cut her off with a shake of her head.
"Shame," Liz said, almost mournfully. "It really was a lovely morning."
That lovely morning was melting slowly into an early afternoon - still lovely - when Uzohola arrived to the lounge with an itinerary in her hand and a bright red pen in her hand. "There's been some changes of plan," she said briskly. The girls, scattered around the room, exchanged looks - Liz thought that Yue looked the most apprehensive, but perhaps that was because Liara always hide her emotions well and Liz still hadn't figured out how to read Eden so smoothly. "Nothing too alarming, but we've trimmed down today's schedule due to some... unforeseen news."
"What happened?" Eden asked. Liz was glad that she did.
Uzohola seemed unwilling to answer - or maybe she honestly did not know, for she replied, "I haven't been informed. Demetri was summoned to speak to Enhle at very short notice this morning. Other than that..." She shook her head. "You know as much as I do."
She handed a sheaf of paper to Yue, who began to carefully distribute them to the other girls. Looking down at the page as it was given to her, Liz traced the shape of their schedule - only a few engagements, she noted, and wondered whether Demetri would be alright to fulfil even these. When they had come into the lounge after Atiena's drills, they had found the rotary phone lying on its side on the ground, the receiver hanging from it, missing great black chips from its handle like someone had struck it repeatedly against the ground, smashed it against the tiles until it had cracked apart in their hand. Liz wasn't sure if it had been Demetri, but clearly - clearly - the news had been bad. They hadn't seen Demetri or Täj since breakfast.
Uzohola was saying, "we've moved the trip to the monastery of Saint Catherine to tomorrow, we need an early start for those... so just the Garden of Hesperiidae, and the Bridge of Sighs, and then hopefully the pyramids of Tipersis either side of dinner..."
Below this schedule, Uzohola had printed a map of Masr with the places they were visiting highlighted in gold, and written some very simple words and phrases for the girls to use. She had the phonetics neatly labelled beside them, to show them how to make small talk or to make little requests. Liz tried to sound them out silently. She was determined that this, at least, she would learn.
Misa' il khayr. Good afternoon.
"Misa' il khayr," she said to Maseli Nyguzi when she found herself sharing the car with him. Beside them, Atiena glared out the window as though the sun had personally upset her, the wire of discretely placed earphones snaking down her arm as she watched them wind their way through the city.
Maseli Nyguzi stared at Liz. His hair was as wild as his adoptive sister's - or maybe they were blood related, for they had the same broad lips, the same slightly sleepy look to their eyes, the same shield-shaped faces - but his was shorter, resembling a crown rather than a halo. He was wearing a navy jacket, military-style, with gold embossment on his epaulettes and cuffs. He stared at her, and Liz was beginning to fear that she had tragically mispronounced the words from the paper and had instead insulted his mother or his sister or his dead grandmother when...
"Misa' in noor." This was the designated response, Liz knew. His voice was flat. That was fine. She didn't expect him to be thrilled about spending an hour in close proximity with a strange girl from a strange land with strange customs - and if her short glimpses of Maseli at the reception the previous night was any indication, he was rarely thrilled about much.
More out of curiosity than genuine friendliness, Liz persisted: "izayyak?" How are you?
"Kwayyis," was Maseli's reply, short and blunt, "al... al ham... al hamdull... Look, you speak English, don't you?"
Liz blinked. "I've heard that's in dispute," she replied, keenly aware of her Midston accent bleeding through. She shifted uncomfortably on her seat, and then persisted. "You don't speak..." What was this language called, Federation-ese?
"This is the language of Kemet. I am from Manden."
"Manden? In the south?"
"Everything is south of here."
"Does every mansadom have a different language?"
"For the most part. I believe Zirid and Kemet are similar."
"That seems complicated."
"It is." Maseli looked out the window, and Liz did too, seeing that they had hit something that resembled a very empty highway and the miles were now simply melting away past them. In these cars, she thought, it was impossible to tell how fast you were going, or rough the journey was. "And I'm fine," the boy from Manden added, decisively. "Thank... thank you for asking."
Liz smiled. "How do you say thank you in Manden language?"
Maseli replied, "abaraka."
"Abrika?"
"Abaraka."
"Abera..." Liz shook her head. "Is this insulting?"
"No. It's nice that you want to learn."
"I thought the Ndlovukazis were from Manden as well," Liz said slowly, "but their language doesn't sound anything like this."
"A lot of people in the Federation have family roots in Kalahar, or the Bantu Kingdom. They carry their languages with them."
"So you usually learn more than six?"
"Many people never leave their mansadom. They have no reason to learn. Those who learn one language usually end up learning nine or ten."
"Then," Liz said, watching as the city gave way to shifting sands and broad winds. "I can probably learn one word. Abarika?"
He smiled, for the very first time. "You're getting closer."
The Garden of Hesperiidae was, quite simply, an immense castle made of sand - immense and perfectly sealed, rising like a solid block of earth from the shifting sands and enormous dunes that composed the horizon towards which the royal convoy was barrelling like some sort of demented black freight train. They had long ago left the road behind; dust rose from their wheels like so much smoke, obscuring the windows like they were driving through a wildfire. Their driver was a very silent black-suited attendant; in all their time in the Saharan Federation, Eden thought, she had still seen no hint of a guard or soldier. Was this what life was like, she thought, somewhere there was no war, no fighting, no bloodshed? Was this what the Kingdom hoped to achieve - what Demetri thought Illéa could be?
Eden had never really thought of Demetri as naïve before, but it was beginning to strike her that this whole damn business of the Kingdom in Exile was naivete like no other. What hope was there for peace when zealots like Vivian Lahela still drew breath and still printed bile?
Zealots. Eden had always thought that of her mother, but she had never quite used the word before.
And it didn't matter if she was. She was still Eden's mother. Eden loved her, even if she didn't like her all that much. And if she was alive - she was alive, even Eden the pragmatist had to assume as much - then Eden was going to do what Eden did best, and that was survive, survive and ensure the survival of all those around her.
So, when the cars drew up to the Garden - that was not a garden, but was a castle - Eden stepped out, and scanned the group for Demetri. Was he even here, or was this a diversion intended only for the Selected? Atiena had said that he had been summoned to the palace to see Enhle, which Eden thought could not possibly be a positive omen… like, she thought ruefully, being called to the editor's office immediately after submitting a controversial first draft. But no, here Demetri was, stepping out of the jeep he had shared to the Garden with Täj, adjusting his cuffs with an expression that suggested he had spent most of the drive lost in his own thoughts. They shared that much, Eden thought, as she scuffed her heel across the sand and stared up at the kasbah. It was beautiful, she thought, and wondered again what a hesperiidae was. What was this meant to be a garden of? Somehow she could not imagine that it would be anything of much practical use.
On Liara's suggestion, the girls had all dressed so similarly as to be identical but for the colours of their dresses: spaghetti-strap sundresses coming to mid-thigh. Yue's was pale pink and baby blue, and Eden's was yellow and white, and Liara's was black and grey, and Liz's was purple and red, and somehow, those colours made perfect sense to Eden. They looked like a matching set, she thought, a united front. It was strange that this had been Liara's idea. It was strange that Liara was so concerned that the rebel Selection should look as polished as possible. And it was strange that Liara Lee's concern was not more strange.
Eden caught Demetri's eye. His warm, rehearsed smile was back in place, she thought, just as it had been the night before, when he had tricked her into taking that same old role - as her mother had. Eden Lahela the polished socialite, Eden Lahela the perfect daughter, Eden Lahela the smiling mask. And he had tricked her, she thought, and her guts twisted at the thought - he had tricked her, and she had fallen for it, and fallen was the right word, for it had been as uncontrolled and abrupt as a drop from a very tall height.
She had realised quite a few things in that moment, before the door had swung open to reveal her on Demetri's arm. His deception had been only one realisation, of course.
And he met her eye like a challenge. He was smiling. Of course he was smiling. And she smiled back, as the girls gathered around her, chattering like birds in an aviary. He came their way, and said, "I hope you enjoy this. The Garden is one of my favourite places in Kemet."
Eden said, "have you ever been here before, your Majesty?"
Demetri cut his gaze to the ground. "Not in person, Lady Eden."
"Strange to have a favourite," she said, "if you've never seen it before. Seen it properly, I mean."
He was smiling. He was still smiling. "Exactly why I insisted on having it on the itinerary."
The other girls were watching them, Liz's eyes bouncing between them like their rapport was a tennis match. Eden just smiled peaceably. "I hope it lives up to your expectations, then."
They fell into step as they were guided towards the enormous sandstone slab doors of the kasbah. The Nyguzis were ahead, walking with Ulpia and Kahina, the first and second wives of Enhle bending their heads together, gold and black, and speaking in intense quiet tones. There was an inescapable frisson of tension in the air, Eden thought; it felt rather as though someone had died.
Quite purposefully, Eden fell into step with Demetri and, with a knowing look, Täj sped up and moved more quickly, leaving them in what amounted to privacy in the Selection - privacy, if they spoke quietly, and Demetri did not seem inclined to speak loudly. "You seem unhappy."
"You're astute."
"Have I upset you?"
"You should know now." They were in the shadow of the castle of sand; Eden flicked her gaze up to its ramparts, its wide walls, the embedded suggestion of windows that had been filled up with stone. "I don't like presumptions."
"Have I presumed?"
"Presumed," Eden said, "That I will play my role without expecting something in return."
"Are you playing a role, Lady Eden?"
"Can't we cut the back-and-forth?"
"I'd rather we didn't. It's the most entertaining part of my day."
She rolled her eyes. "Last night…"
"Last night I invited you to accompany me. You didn't seem to object to this idea when I suggested it to you."
"Clearly," Eden said, "a few months in the Selection have blunted my common reasoning. I didn't see sense until the last moment."
"And what," Demetri said, pleasantly, "is sense, in this case, Lady Eden?"
"You expect me to do what many people expect me to do. I made nice. I impressed the diplomats, the dignitaries. If I had chosen at any point not to play along last night - if I had decided to be rude, or make an unfunny joke, or get all flustered…"
"Now, why," he replied, "would you ever do that?"
"Why wouldn't I? Would that be such an awful strike against a wife - to be anything less than perfect?"
"A wife." They crossed through the shadow; on the other side, three doors led into tiny cells, which were sealed afterwards. Demetri, purposefully, guided Eden towards the cell on the far left. It felt like they were stepping into a tomb of sand, especially when the doors slid closed after them. "Or a queen?"
"The same question. Should a queen be perfect?"
"Not at all." In the dark, she was more aware than ever of how deep Demetri's voice was, of how closely they were standing together, of how warm the air was and how arid the scent of wild rose on the wind. "But, certainly, she should appear so."
"Then," Eden said. "Surely - you should make it worth my while to appear so. And surely we should work together, to ensure I can maintain my usual level of perfection."
He sounded amused, but not entirely dissuaded from the idea. "Is this arrogance, Lady Eden?"
"Pragmatism. If we both want something…."
"What do you want?"
"I want you to give me your word." Even if they were alone, she nonetheless dropped her voice quieter. It sounded exceptionally like blackmail, when she spoke so softly. It sounded like sin. "Such that your word is worth - that when you take Angeles, you will guarantee the safety of anyone who worked, wrote, fed information to, the Axiom."
"That," Demetri said, "seems like it weighs heavily in your favour."
"Is it really just my favour," Eden replied, "that people should live, be safe, and thrive in your new Kingdom?"
He was thoughtful. "And what do I get?"
"I keep playing my role. Making nice."
"You seem pretty certain," he said, "that… this is what I want. That this is what I expect of you."
"I'm just looking at your other options. Can you blame me?"
This was a bold move. This was laying all her cards out on the table. This, she thought, had a chance of going wrong - a slim chance. She thought it was unlikely that it would fail. And if it did… she had the letters.
He paused. The wall behind them was being unsealed; a sliver of light arced across his face, lighting up one pale green eye. "Do you expect to win this Selection, Lady Eden?"
Eden said, "pragmatically, I like my chances - because I don't think you're making the choices here."
"Does that make a difference?"
"If you were in charge of the Selection." She turned to him, and smiled. "Can you really tell me that I would be in with a chance? That I would be… as guaranteed of winning as I currently am?"
The Garden of the Hesperiidae, she saw, was a massive garden of flowers. The kasbah was sealed at the top, like some great airtight container, and the sand cells had served as the kind of double-gated entrances that one so often saw at aviaries, to prevent birds from fluttering out when visitors came in. And everywhere, creeping all over the walls, coating the grounds, even crawling across the broad surface of the sand ceilings - flowers, flowers of every colour and size and shape, so incredibly vivid in colour that she wondered for a moment if she had never seen the world clearly before, if this was her first time glimpsing reality in the proper sharpness.
No, she thought - as they stepped out, the cluster of flowers nearest to them began to rustle fiercely, as though in a storm, and then alighted, very abruptly, as the blossoms twisted, and sprouted delicate wings, and took to the air with a twisting, contorting, glossy beauty. It was a garden of butterflies.
And she could see that Demetri could not bring himself to say yes.
But nor could he bring himself to say no.
She was glad, at least, that he wasn't lying to her.
They stepped out into the garden, and Eden's head snapped to the left as she heard a familiar voice, earthy, with a strong St Georges accent despite all of his many years in the Wasteland. "Well, then, shall we have a picture here? Your Majesty, does that suit?"
"Enyakatho?"
The propagandist, Administer of Communications, director of the Report, smiled broadly to see Eden. He had the look of someone who had been very careful to cover up the vestiges of violence upon his face - bruises on his eyes, cuts on his cheeks, the scatter of scrapes on his neck and shoulders - but he also had his camera around his neck and one of his colourful waistcoats, clearly chosen to mimic the bright colours of the butterflies that were still storming around them. Enyakatho Imfazwe had seen better days, Eden thought, but given all that they had survived, it was a miracle that he had lived to see this one. "Hey, there, little liar. You had me worried."
She wanted to sprint to him. She wanted to hug him. She wanted to ask him if Wren and Farid were still alive, and she wanted him to lie to her.
But instead, she just said - "glad to see you made it in one piece, Enya."
"More or less." He grinned. "Does that mean it does suit?"
"Yes," Eden said with a smile, reaching to take Demetri's hand. "Let's take a picture."
After the Garden, they went to the Bridge of Sighs. Demetri had been right - it was, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful things Liara had seen, competing with even some of the most auspicious glimpses of Layeni. The water beneath the bridge was a perfect cerulean blue, clear and crystalline; below its surface, schools of jewel-toned fish darted and danced, creating strange mosaics of colour as one shoal encountered another and scattered, like someone had thrown gems into the depths like so many dice. The water was very still, seeming not even to run - Liara, for a split second, could believe that the whole world had stilled for just this moment, so they could glimpse the Bridge of Sighs as it was meant to be glimpsed.
On one bank of the river, the buildings were stark white and emerald green - a vast complex of religious buildings with spires and minarets and onion domes bedecked in tiling the colour of freshest grass. On the other bank, the earthy browns and reds of more mundane residential neighbourhoods, rooftop tiles that resembled those in Layeni, the brickwork more elaborate, etched with calligraphy of unfamiliar script spelling out unfamiliar words. The bridge itself could have been made of spun sugar - it was made of something like glass, refracting through the light of the afternoon sun, so that the tendrils of railing and anchor supports looked like gold that had been set alight with some strange Greek fire.
Liara thought again of the story Demetri had told her. This was the path of executions. This road led to the gallows. The only person who ever returned across the bridge had been the hangman. And it was so achingly beautiful, Liara thought her heart would break just from looking at it.
"You know," she said. "I haven't seen a single guard since I got here."
She sensed, more than saw, that this had stopped the pale man in his tracks. He was always doing that, she mused, and hated how fondly that thought crossed her mind. He was always just appearing at her shoulder, or in the doorway, or behind her - utterly silent, like a spectre, like someone formed not of flesh but of memory and mist. And she had caught him out. She was silently quite delighted.
"Why would they need guards?" Täj stepped forward, to lean on the railing beside her. The last time they had stood on a bridge together - the Layeni festival, Liara thought, in the dark, with barva berry staining her lips and warm whiskey warming her veins and the shroud of dusk giving her more boldness than she had ever realised she possessed. She should have leaned in. She had thought this in the moment after she had left him, and she had thought this in many moments after that. She should have leaned in. What would the harm have been? "We're all friends here. Right?"
Liara thought of the mansa's motto. Be careful of your enemy once, and of your friend a thousand times. "Right," she echoed, and looked at Täj. He looked tired - even more tired than he usually did. And he had spent the night at the Russian embassy. That didn't precisely mean that he had slept there, of course. Why? Liara didn't think that he was actually Russian, despite his fondness for that language, his slightly Scandinavian appearance, his strange name. He was an Anchorite… wasn't he? She thought again of the word Demetri had breathed to her at the previous night's reception: odnolyub. What on earth did it mean - what on earth could it mean? "Täj... " She hesitated. "Are you okay?"
He arched an eyebrow. "Have I been given reason to be otherwise?"
"Well," Liara said. "Whatever news you got this morning…"
He shook his head. "I'm okay, Liara."
He was lying. He was so clearly lying.
When had she learned to tell that so easily? When had she got to know him so well? When had she let her guard down?
"What does it mean?" She thought of the word she had seen printed on the newspaper that morning. Liara did not speak Russian - could not understand the words that she had seen - but she understood enough of Cyrillic lettering to sound out the headline, which had so clearly spooked Demetri, which had put that look of fear and anger into Täj's eyes, which had so totally upended their whole day. "Pokusheniye. What does that mean?"
"Pokusheniye." Täj's voice was quite flat as he replied, in a tone that suggested he couldn't figure out whether this was good or bad news. "Assassination attempt."
"Assassination….?" Liara's eyes cut immediately over to Demetri. True, he seemed tense, a little stressed, not entirely himself - but if there had been an attempt on his life - or maybe it had been Enhle - but Ulpia was here and so was Kahina, two of his wives, and would that really have been the case if - but if he wasn't dead - if it had only been an attempt - or maybe it was Kifu Nyguzi, or the mansa from Sao, Jephté - and the newspaper had been in Russian - in Russian - so had it been the Russian tsar, the Russian president, some Russian noble instead?
She could see the answer in Täj's eyes. All the rest was simply denial. She didn't want to believe it. It made it feel so much more real if she allowed herself to believe it.
But it was an attempt. And so he was alive. And that, more than anything else, was such an enormous relief that her knees nearly buckled.
And Täj was still looking at her… "You loved him."
"I…" Liara's mind spun, but she could not bring herself to deny it. Of course she couldn't deny it. Mordred, her oldest friend, her best friend, her… of course she had loved him.
"Were you in love with him?" His voice was oddly cold, so strangely detached, like he didn't think it still belonged to him. It was the voice of a hangman.
Liara blanched. "What the fuck kind of a question is that, Täj?"
"You know," he said. His gaze was fixed, quite solidly, upon the horizon. It looked like he was a thousand miles away. "It would have been so easy for you to just say no."
