Chapter Thirty Six: Our Troubles Disappear
Science says you're dead and gone forever, reason says I'm talking to the air -
But something in my heart, some secret hidden part, illogically insists that you are there.
- Kaley McMahon
Ysabel refused to leave Mordred's side for many hours. Set had been called to try and persuade her away, promising to stay at the young king's sickbed for whatever sparse hours she spent sleeping instead of watching her son's strained breathing, his pale face. Even once she had agreed to leave, her fingers nearly needed to be pried from his blankets.
"I swear to you," Set had said. "He will be fine. But you will need to make decisions for him while he is ill… the kingdom needs you rested. I will stay with him."
He had watched her leave, and felt guilt settle over him like a mantle. No, he thought, he should not have sworn to that. The doctors, exchanging nervous glances, had been reluctant to break the news – that his chances were slim, that he might easily pass this hour or the next, and that their only hope was that his lungs and heart survived long enough to allow treatment to begin working – but they had been sensible to leave this bad news until Ysabel had retired to her bedchamber, ordering her chambermaids to rouse her in two hours come-hell-or-high-water.
The doctors had left, and Set had pulled his chair up against the wall to begin his vigil, and the night had pulled in very closely indeed. Akiva had sent word that the rebels had broken through the Angeles border, and were next planning to lay siege the city with the intent of seizing the palace, and Set could only sit in that infirmary and watch his nephew slowly die.
About an hour into his watch, the door to the room had swung open, in his peripheral vision, and a silhouette had moved across the threshold. A maid, Set thought, a maid with long dark hair and severe black bangs, who set a tea tray on the counter and looked at Mordred very closely indeed.
And seeing that - well, Set could not contain himself.
"Did you do this?" Set had heard his own voice sound so hollow only one other time – that night, so many years ago, kneeling in his brother's blood and hearing that Demetri had been taken. "Was it your poison?"
He knew she had heard him. She was studiously avoiding answering, approaching the bed slowly instead.
"Don't you fucking dare touch him."
"No." Her voice was soft. "I wouldn't do this to... I would never do this."
"Then what the fuck good are you," Set said, his voice low, "if you didn't tell me this was coming?"
She tilted her head, and again was silent for a long moment. She was looking at Mordred with a… was that a fascination in her remaining dark eye? "I didn't know."
"You didn't know."
"This is not," she said softly, "the work of the Kingdom."
Set set his jaw. "And I suppose I'm meant to believe you?"
She smiled, a little sadly. She was badly scarred, Set could see now – not only missing an eye, but one lip corner twisted up by a burn so that even her smiles seemed an inexplicably ugly expression. "Well," the girl they called Vardi Tayna said softly, "you usually do."
The mood was utterly subdued when the girls returned to the château that evening. Demetri had left them under Atiena's watchful eye as he returned to the palace for another hasty meeting with the mansa and the Russian ambassador, so it was just the girls in the limousines for the whole journey back, in stilted silence broken very occasionally by some small talk about some landmark outside the window, which was usually receding in the rearview mirror before anyone else could think to look as well. Liz spent the whole journey looking at her hands, and hoping desperately that no one would cry or start an argument before they could get back to the house.
The bastard prince. Poisoned. Maseli Nyguzi had murmured it in her ear just as they were departing the Bridge of Sighs, his hand in hers as he had helped her down from the steps. "Knowledge is currency," he had said, and Liz had just been grateful that someone in this whole mess was trying to help her out – even if that just meant giving her the information that everyone else in the Illéan contingent seemed to derive from the air itself. She hoped she had communicated her gratefulness to Maseli adequately, murmuring a low abaraka in gratitude and receiving a smile that indicated he understood.
So – Mordred, dead or dying. Liz couldn't muster up too much grief at that fact – at least, not on Mordred's account. She could worry plenty about what this meant for her, for her family, for the farm, and for the Selection. She could definitely concern herself with just how unstable things might get if the Crown lost its head at such a critical moment of the war – and by poison, no less. A coward had dealt with him, and that had the potential to create so much more death and destruction for every single person who still dared to call Illéa home.
Liz found herself watching Liara carefully, and marvelling at how well the girl from Angeles kept her emotions under control. The only indication that something might have been wrong – and Liz was quite sure she would not have noticed this a month ago – was the slight tightness in her lips, like she was holding herself back from saying something, or from screaming. Even as Liz thought this, Liara glanced up, caught her eye, and smiled, a perfectly measured and controlled gesture that seemed all the more unnatural for how perfectly natural it was. Beside her, Yue was gazing out the window with a melancholy expression on her face, her hair slightly bedraggled after the wind on the bridge so that it hung in delicate tendrils about her fine features. Eden, well…. Liz felt like Eden was still playing the game with a desperation that suggested, unlike the others, she still had a lot to lose.
She wasn't alone. Liz was still here for a reason. Losing one person – no matter how important – still left you with the whole world. She wished she could say that to Liara now, but she didn't dare. It didn't feel like her place, and she didn't dare embarrass the girl from the palace in front of the other Selected, and she wasn't sure it would comfort her even if she did say it. It had taken a while for Liz to fully internalise that fact – that life went on, even when Wyatt was cold under the ground, even when your mother was left hanging from the city walls, even when you had no idea what you were going to do with yourself or with your future.
You just kept going forward. That was all you could do. You just kept moving.
They pulled up at the chateau in exceptionally sombre mood, and Eden was the first to leap from the limo, looking impatient to be out of the car; Liara took in a deep breath, smiled again, and followed Yue into the house. The smaller girl from the north slipped a hand gently around Liara's arm and squeezed, very gently, smiling sweetly at her in a paltry attempt at comfort. And Liz and Atiena, standing on the front porch, exchanged looks quite silently.
"I couldn't say it," Atiena said. "With her there. But if that spineless bastard is dead..."
"One less enemy for the revolution?"
"One less name on the list." With her shorn head, Atiena looked more vicious than Liz could ever remember her looking. In her all-black ensemble… Liz imagined this was what assassins looked like, if they were hitmen worth a damn. The low glow of dusk illuminated her brightly, as though she was wreathed in an amber halo of sunlight. "A few less souls to avenge."
Liz said, softly, "who do you think did it?"
"He pulled in so many hostages for that Selection of his. He surrounded himself with enemies, and thought that would end well? He had to be lucky every day; they only had to be lucky once." Atiena smiled, very slightly, her cuspids very apparent indeed. "Maybe Opal finally made us proud."
And Liz said, "I feel bad… not feeling bad."
"Why would you?"
"He was Demetri's brother." Liz paused. "Liara clearly loved… loves him. I care about those who care about him, and it should feel like it should matter, and it doesn't. Liara..."
"She shouldn't," Atiena said, quite bluntly. "Love him. That's her own fault."
There was a very faint breeze – at home, one wouldn't have even noticed it, but here in Masr, where the air was so very dry and still, it was as lovely and as welcome as a cold bath. The chateau, in front of them, was all ablaze with soft warm light; Liara was pacing in front of her window, her long, slender silhouette flickering back and forth. Liz said, "can we stay here?"
"I don't know." Atiena shook her head. "I really have no idea. If it was Demetri, then..."
Liz thought of her grandparent's farm at home, all the acres of verdant green grass, stretching from river to forest in miles and miles of rich earth; she thought of the rebellion bunker in the Wasteland, and all the long nights spent with the other girls watching Enyakatho's Report from the comfort of the armchairs in the break room, throwing food back and forth; Liz thought of Layeni, and she thought of Enhle's palace, and she looked up at the chateau, and she said, "how long do you think we're going to have to run?"
"I think," Atiena said, "it will be a fraction of the time that they have been running."
Uzohola had attended the house, enormously briefly, to inform the girls that their planned trip to the Tipersis pyramids had been adjourned to the next day, owing to the sudden news from the east and Demetri's immediate disappearance back to the palace, and that they were to entertain themselves for the evening. Eden wasn't sure if they needed to be told as much – she was sure the girls could have figured that out themselves, what with vague air of apocalypse permeating the whole chateau – but she suspected that Uzohola had used it as an excuse to check on them.
She was returning immediately to the palace to assist Demetri – Eden suspected that she was keeping an eye on him too – but was quick to reassure them that her cousin, Uzokuhlenga, would be contactable at any time during the night, and that Atiena would remain on guard at the edge of the property. Eden had asked, "what's going to happen?", and had been answered by the way Atiena's eyes dropped to the tiles and Uzohola's lips tightened.
"Hard to say," the other woman had replied. "We're not getting much information – but if the Kingdom is blamed, we can expect retaliation. It might be a good thing we're here rather than there. An attack on us now would be an attack against the whole Federation."
And Yue had said, her voice tremulous, "will the others be safe? In Illéa? Saran, Wick, Ekaitza…" She did not say Corvina Rouen's name, but Eden could tell that she was thinking it.
"Hard to say," was all that Uzohola could offer them again, but she offered them a slight smile on her way out the door that seemed to reassure Liz some and set Eden even more on edge. "We'll be fine. I must leave you to your own designs tonight, but tomorrow, my family wish to host you for a meal. We'll do the pyramids afterwards, and then I believe – if the climate has settled – we owe a visit to Manden."
That was all they could do, Eden thought – grit their teeth, keep their chins up, and get it over with. Just keep smiling for the cameras. She privately wondered what the enormous upheaval was, for her first thought, upon Enyakatho murmuring the news to her, had been that poisoning the king seemed an enormously pragmatic move. All this war and bloodshed, when all it had taken was access to the man's food and a moment's privacy. But looking at Uzohola's pallid face as she departed, and the way Liara held her jaw like she was unwilling to let the other girls see her upset, and the simple fact that Atiena set off for the perimeter with a semi-automatic machine gun rather than her usual rifle… yes, Eden thought, she was beginning to understand why this might have been a problem.
Liara had gone to her bedroom, and Yue had seemed dazed after the rush of the last few days, so Eden had tried to make herself useful by slipping into the kitchen to rustle up some strange mixture of lunch and dinner – for they had not eaten since breakfast and, as Demetri had observed during breakfast, there was not a whole lot of food left in the cupboards. She found, not entirely to her surprise, that Liz had clearly had a similar idea: there were sweet potatos baking in the stone oven, and a pan of onion and garlic sizzling peaceably on the stove while the girl from Midston kneaded mince on the chopping board.
"You read my mind," Eden said, rather ruefully, and Liz smiled.
"Wanted to get my turn in early… and it's been a while since I was allowed to cook."
Of course. Liz had been at the bunker, all ready-made meals and canteen vibes. Eden and Pa had always exchanged turns making dinner, though Eden had found that the older woman was rarely capable of letting her cook a single meal without coming over to micro-manage some aspect of it, be that the softness of the rice or how crisp the skin of the chicken. It had been nice, Eden thought, and wondered if this was what other people thought about when they thought of the word motherly – the pleasant idea that Pa was interfering, not out of any sense of perfection, not out of a fear of what others might think, but because she thought Eden would enjoy it more this way. Eating had not been accompanied by a rapid litany of errors, sometimes Eden's and sometimes someone else's, but by a quiet, companionable silence broken only by a quiet observation from either side of the table about the chance of rain, or the state of the land, or the levels of hay in the barn. Another world, Eden thought, and a beautiful one.
This was a beautiful new world as well, as she took up a place next to Liz and, observing the other girl carefully, mimicked the way she was making meatballs – a few onions to give it texture and egg to bind it together, minimal starch because that's how they do it commercial, you know? Would defeat the point of doing it ourselves. There was not the silence of Pa's place here – Liz was willing to talk, and Eden was well-practiced at responding, so the chat bounced back and forth quite amicably. Liz had clearly had a bit more fun at the party the night before than Eden had – the miracle of having minimal responsibilities at the event, Eden thought ruefully, though without resentment – and a mostly positive impression of the Federation so far. Eden supposed that probably came from more exposure to the people; she and Demetri had been speaking to foreign dignitaries all night long, while Liz and Yue had been dancing and drinking with the Saharan royals.
"We should invite Enhle's wives over here sometime," Liz was saying thoughtfully as they piled meatballs onto the baking tray. "If that's allowed. As thanks for their hospitality."
"Why wouldn't it be allowed?"
"Honestly, I've given up trying to understand how things work here, Eden. The normal rules clearly don't apply." She slid the tray into the stone oven, above the sweet potatoes, thoughtfully, "they're good fun. I was expecting them to be more… I didn't think they would…. you know, when Uzohola said Enhle had a harem..."
Eden thought she understood.
"But," Liz said with a shrug. "I was raised by octogenarians. I'm old-fashioned sometimes." She shut the oven decisively. "Not for me, though."
Eden smiled. "No?"
"I think I might be a one-man woman." There was melancholy in Liz's voice, but no true grief, like she was speaking about a wound that had healed well and left a painless scar – but a scar, nonetheless. "That's fine too."
"I mean," Eden said, "you're also… what, twenty one years old?"
Liz laughed. "Uh, twenty."
"Yeah. I mean, sometimes I think I'm cynical and then you come out with something like that." Eden leaned against the counter. "That kind of sounds like… you're not hoping for a win in the Selection."
Liz, still crouching to look through the oven pane, said, "is anyone?"
"There's four of us left. It has to be someone here."
"Like I said. I'm not sure the normal rules apply." Liz grinned. "And Atiena is still hanging around, so..."
Eden laughed at the thought of it. It was like imagining Demetri marrying Wick – theoretically possible, as anything was, but as incongruous a married pair as you could ever think up. But, she thought, they would be stable, and sensible, and maybe that was as much as anyone could hope for when it came to their kings and queens. She said, "Okay. Five of us left. Even so, that's a twenty percent chance..."
"I think you've got a lot more than twenty, Lahela, and I've got a lot less." Liz paused. "And Liara…"
"Childhood friends makes for a great narrative."
"There are no cameras here anymore," Liz said, almost mournfully. "What narrative?"
She could not have known how wrong she was then – but then, neither could Eden. They passed some time while the food cooked batting back comments about the Nyguzis, Maseli's standoffishness ("he really is very sweet when you talk to him!") and Deji's undisguised interest in Demetri ("I think she wishes she was in the Selection – does she realise that would probably hurt her chances?") and Kifu's strange, kind, strangely kind invitation to Manden ("it'll be nice to travel a bit before we're all inevitably poisoned by assassins, don't you think?") and then Liz was pulling trays out of the oven and Eden was calling the other girls down to the living room for their food.
Yue was hastily dispatched to the guardhouse to see if Atiena could be tempted into the house for dinner, and then again with a covered dinner when it seemed that she could not. The other girls settled into the living room, doling out cutlery and glasses and seating places, and Liz was trying to get the television working – was that smart, Eden wondered with a glance at Liara, if they were going to be reporting on Mordred's death? – and Yue was pouring out drinks and trying to tempt Liara with a glass of wine she had found in the wine cellar during the evening's wanderings.
"I was looking for somewhere to paint," Yue was saying, quite defensively, as Liz suggested maybe they should consider staging an intervention for the northern girl, who had clearly adopted the rebel's hard-drinking ways entirely too-easily. The television had settled on a Kemet channel showing what looked to Eden like a Saharan soap opera set in a small coastal town, the filming techniques indistinguishable from those used in Illéa for Diadem, even if the language was utterly unfamiliar. In the corner, Liara was staring down at her food like she was at fifty-fifty risk of throwing up or crying if she tried to eat, and Eden was looking down at the newspaper on the coffee table, the Russian one Täj had brought that morning, and flicking through looking at the pictures, when –
"Knock, knock."
The deep voice was familiar, and glancing over, Eden recognised Enyakatho leaning against the door of the living room. She still couldn't used to seeing him in dreadlocks, as he had been in the Garden of the Hesperiides, and in slightly less gaudy clothes than he usually wore, his waistcoat more muted in geometric shapes and jewel tones of emerald and sapphire rather than his usual bombastic patterns.
She grinned. "Enya."
"Little liar."
Simple words, and it felt like she was back at Pa's again. "Who let someone like you in?"
"That guard of yours isn't very good at her job..." He winked. "I was hoping I could grab some interviews, maybe some filler footage of the house."
"For the Report?" Liz said, sounding bemused. "But we're..."
She gestured at their surroundings. Four Selected in the working class clothes they had brought with them from Layeni, sitting on the floor or on paisley couches, with plates on their knees and a soap opera in the background.
"Propaganda never stops, Lady Elizabeth. Whatever you are, we need to spin it to what you should be."
That was another thing Eden had always appreciated deeply about Enyakatho Imfazwe. He called his job what it was. Vivian Lahela always spoke about reporting honestly, about representing the facts, about the Axiom as a bastion of truth, but then she would turn around and entirely amputate one side of the story, twisting things however subtly to make sure that the Crown always came out looking pristine.
Enyakatho would always look you straight in the eye and tell you that he was Demetri's Administer for Propaganda and Keeping-People-On-Our-Side. It was refreshing honesty from a man whose job was to never be honest.
"What's your angle?"
Enyakatho tilted his head. "You're not fugitives. You're dignitaries. You were invited here for an official visit before the massacre at Layeni because the Federation is the first of many nations to recognise the Kingdom in Exile as the true government of Illéa. Fair?"
He was looking at Eden as he said it, and the heir of the Axiom responded rather slowly, mulling over her words as she said, "you don't think it'll work a bit better if we lean into the survivor angle?"
"Maybe this time last year, but we're advancing too quickly towards Angeles. It's better that we reassure people in Crown territories that we're respected by other nations, that we can represent the nation overseas, that we're not a pack of vicious, savage rebels."
And Liz said, her voice dripping with mirth, "we kind of are, though."
"Yes," Enyakatho agreed, "but they don't need to know that."
The girl who had spent her whole life running from her own feelings knew what a fugitive looked like. She couldn't blame him, but it still rather hurt to find him slinking down the steps so late at night, as though he had hoped to dissipate into the moonlight and leave them all wondering whether he had ever existed in the first place.
"Don't go," she said, and could not help the plaintive sound in her voice. "Täj..."
She had arrested him on the last step of the narrow spiral staircase; he turned, and she could see the exhaustion under his eyes that had not been there the day before, a bruise under his eye that had not been there that afternoon, the unmistakeable tension in the way he held his jaw. He had a dark green jacket on, like the one worn by the Russian ambassador's bodyguards at the ball; they had carried no bags with them to the Saharan Federation, so he carried no bags now, but she could see the swell of a revolver beneath his shirt. In this particular alcove, wreathed in shadows, he was just a shadow of pale light and the suggestion of a dagger-like silhouette – Yue could never remembered him ever seeming so malevolent.
She wasn't even sure why she had said it – she could not say that she and the pale man were friends – but she soon answered herself, saying, "we need you."
"Yue –"
She remembered thinking, just two nights ago, how still he looked – all the lines of his body tense and unmoving, a kind of inflexibility to the words he spoke like he only had a small list to choose from. He didn't seem like that now. There was a terrifying, half-visible thrum of something in the way he held himself, like he was on the verge of violence even here and now. For a split second, Yue feared she had made a terrible mistake by stopping him – the hangman, they called him, Demetri's dog, they called him – but then that moment passed and he was shaking his head, and she was saying, stubbornly, louder, as though she needed to speak over his gesture, "he needs you."
"No."
"He might be next –"
"He won't be."
"But if he is?"
Täj looked up at her. His eyes were shrouded in gloom; Yue abruptly realised that she did not know what colour they were. How silly, she thought, wasn't it, that she had never thought to look. He was such a non-entity sometimes, purposefully in the background, and she couldn't remember ever meeting his gaze for long – she couldn't remember ever spending much time with him in daylight. "It sounds like you're giving me orders, little Yue."
"No," Yue said, very softly. "I'm asking." She took in a breath, trying to make sure it did not shudder as she did so. "I'm so tired of losing people."
Täj only looked at her.
"I'm so tired," she said again, "and I can only imagine how the rest of you feel."
"If I don't go," Täj said softly, "I'll lose someone else. This is war, Yue. In every direction lies devastation."
Was this war? Had she allowed herself to forget? No, she thought, no – the acrid scent of Layeni burning still lay on her like a shroud. When she closed her eyes, she still saw Raphael. Her hands shook, sometimes, like she was still holding that gun and looking Wick in the eye and fearing, for a split second, no longer than that, that he had been the one to turn on them, and fearing, for longer than that, what she might do with something so dangerous in her hand.
She had not allowed herself to forget. She had dared to allow herself some simple moment of rest – and the war had rushed up to their doorstep to make itself known again.
"I won't beg you," Yue said, "not for him. Not on his behalf. But for her –"
Täj took a step back. "Yue."
That was the third time he had said her name, in such a short conversation. And before arriving in the Federation, Yue thought ruefully, she had so doubted he even remembered what it even was.
"You might at least," she said, "say goodbye to her."
"If I do," he said, "I won't leave."
"I know."
She put her hand on the banister. It was cool; the day had darkened so quickly, and the night had swept in with such a chill. She thought of Cor, and what Cor might say, but Cor was a pragmatist and a manipulator and Yue had only ever been favoured like a pet or a baby sister might be coddled; she thought of Saran, and what Saran might say, but Saran was so straightforward and emotionally astute and Yue so often had to deal with her emotions like they were a physical burden that might be expelled or purged with enough effort; she thought of Raphael, and what Raphael might say, but Raphael had been a soldier and a survivor and Yue was just… Yue.
And so, in the end, Yue said, "I'm making tea. Should I make two cups?"
And Täj said, "no."
And Yue said, "I might anyway."
She walked down the stairs. For a split second she thought he might not move to let her pass, but then, almost reluctantly, he did, stepping to the side so that she could ghost past him, onto the ground floor, and was keenly aware of his gaze boring into the base of her skull as she slipped through the foyer and into the stone-hewn kitchen. Dishes were piled up on the sideboard, still slowly drying after dinner, and Liz had drawn a smiley face in the salt spilt beside the sink; Yue was loath to clear it up, so she left it as it was as she pulled out two mugs and filled the metal kettle to put it on the stove.
She heard the front door slowly open, and shut again sharply. She stared at the chip on the teacups, and worried at her lower lip. She had tried, she thought dully. She had tried.
She made two cups of tea anyway, brewing them carefully, slowly, the way Agares had taught her and Liara. It reminded Yue of how her governess, Grace, had made her green tea when she was younger, when she was waiting to have her measurements taken for a skating costume or facing into an interview about a tournament, and her nerves were jumping under her skin and her bones were trying to jump out of her flesh. Slowly. Gradually. Letting it infuse, and letting herself enjoy, for a second, the silence. It struck her, not for the first time, that this chateau was so utterly unlike the Smertisko house in Layeni – without that sense of life, as though the house itself was breathing and settling on its foundation, that someone in the household was awake and alive and busying themselves even as everyone else around them dreamed. Instead, this whole house felt so still and serene. Yue could focus almost entirely on her own breathing, the sound of her heart.
She had tried, she thought again.
She picked up her cup, and wandered back to the sitting room, to the bay doors through which she and Täj had spoken on their first night in the chateau – just the night before last, she thought ruefully. She eased the door open, and slipped out onto the patio; she considered, for a moment, taking up the pale man's usual seat by the door, but eschewed it in favour of wandering a little bit further into the garden, where the table at which they had eaten breakfast was sheltered from the view of the house. She set her cup carefully on the tea and eased herself onto the seat, folding her leg up under herself; this little clearing was so thoroughly ceilinged by leafery that she could not even see the sky. It was cold, by Masr standards, and balmy by Whites standards, so Yue was quite comfortable, gazing up at the flowers overhead and imagining that they were stars.
If only.
Even if it had been, she thought, she wouldn't have known their names.
She stayed out there for maybe a half hour, not so much thinking as allowing her mind to wheel here and there, and mostly forgetting about her tea until it had all but gone cold.
Miraculously, the night was free of insects. She hadn't been expecting that.
When she returned to the house to wash her cup, Täj's mug of tea was gone.
She dared to dream.
