Bid My Soul Farewell

by Beth Revis

  My eyes were on my sister’s face. I saw the exact instant her body filled with life—just a moment, but impossibly and undeniably real. Her eyes snapped to mine, her mouth opened. “Ned,” she whispered, and it was her voice, real and true.

  And then gone again.

  I turned the blade over in my hand. The light was gone. There had barely been a wisp of it to start with.

  More, I thought. I need more.

  The clock tower’s bell rang out, the sound deafening. I thought I could almost hear the echo of Yūgen’s matching clock in Northface Harbor.

  And past Yūgen—the Governor’s Hospital. A place full of death. If not there, the morgues. The whole city offered possibility. If I drained the energy from a new corpse into the knife’s blade, it would likely be much stronger than the wisps of light from my revenants. Maybe enough to give Nessie more than mere snatches of moments. I could go across the bay and find fresh corpses full of potential energy. I would take what I needed.

  Time to go to the city.

  FORTY-FOUR

  Grey

  AN ENORMOUS WOODEN platform had been erected in the Imperial Gardens, not too far from the spot where Nedra and I once took a nighttime walk, where I’d told her stories of ghosts in the castle and she’d pretended to be spooked for an excuse to be closer to me. The platform, I thought, was ugly. Rough-hewn wood, with a long, heavy beam extended over the top. A red banner hung from the crossbeam, with the words ORYOUS SAVE THE EMPIRE painted across it in white letters trimmed with black.

  “Tables here,” a man said, and servants started hauling two long tables up onto the platform, one on either side of the podium in the center. The tables were draped in black linen, and bunting decorated the podium.

  It was early yet, but people were already milling about the grounds, watching as the last-minute touches were added to the platform—more bunting along the edge of the railings, enormous vases of fresh flowers in front of the tables, gilded chairs behind them. An entire orchestra set up beneath the stage, the sounds of tuning instruments drifting through the boards.

  Hamish appeared at my side. He frowned at the platform and the decorations. “It’s not enough,” he muttered.

  “What isn’t?” I asked.

  “This.” Hamish waved his hand, but didn’t really seem to indicate anything specific. When I didn’t answer, Hamish elaborated. “The rally. All the ‘goodwill’ stuff the Emperor is doing.”

  “You don’t think the orphanage is a good idea?” I asked, thinking of the newspaper clipping.

  Hamish’s scowl deepened. “Of course we needed one. We need half a dozen now, thanks to the plague. It’s just . . . showy.”

  “Showy?”

  “All the news articles on it, the speeches, this.” Hamish gestured again to the platform, then turned to face me. “You.”

  “Me?”

  “Your mission. The Emperor has been talking about it for weeks. You’re the face of change for the north, Astor.” I thought of the article I’d seen in the news sheet. I’d assumed it was the first, but perhaps more had run while I had been away.

  Behind me, the crowd was growing. Food vendors pushed small carts full of honey buns and stick meat, calling out their wares. Cheerful volunteers passed out tiny replicas of the Allyrian flag. Children ran by, laughing.

  It felt odd, being called “the face of change.” But by being something of a public figure, I could draw attention to the problems of the north and garner support.

  “Maybe being showy is the point,” I said, looking at the crowd and not Hamish. “The Emperor is trying to build up national pride.”

  Hamish mumbled something I didn’t hear.

  “What?” I asked.

  “We’re not a nation, though,” he spat. “He’s building colonial pride.” He looked at me the same way my father had, the last time we spoke. “There’s a difference.”

  Before I had a chance to answer, Hamish withdrew a pocket watch. “We’re starting in an hour,” he said. “You’re to meet behind the platform with the others.” Hamish pointed the way, and I left.

  A large tent had been set up behind the main platform. The orchestra was louder here, as were the people. A man with a leather portfolio kept checking his paper and shouting directions at people. His eyes skimmed over me, then settled on my face. “Ah,” he said, “Astor. You’re after the awards.”

  I’d never met this man before, but I guessed he recognized my face from the news sheets. I followed him to the section of the tent where he pointed. Half a dozen people stood around, sipping sparkling wine. They were mostly common people—I recognized a factory owner named Berrywine, and the others introduced themselves as a merchant, a city worker, a potion maker, a forester, and a butcher. The merchant and the forester were from the north; the others were all from Northface Harbor.

  “I must say, I am deeply honored,” Berrywine told me. It was clear he thought the others were beneath him; while they talked among themselves, Berrywine maneuvered me into a corner of the tent, away from the workers.

  “To think the Emperor chose me, of all the elite businessmen of the city, to be recognized in this way . . .” He droned on, but I was able to glean from his blustering talk that the Emperor was granting special citizenship awards today.

  “Places!” a woman shouted.

  A servant rushed forward, herding us into a line. “Astor?” the servant asked. When I nodded, he pulled me in front of the award winners.

  The orchestra started playing the Allyrian anthem, and I could hear singing from the crowd of people in front of the platform. Before I could wrap my head around what was happening, we were pushed forward, up the stairs, and onto the platform.

  I squinted out at the crowd. Several hundred people were here, staring up at us in eager anticipation. I was seated directly to the left of the podium, Berrywine beside me. The orchestra shifted from the Allyrian anthem into trumpet-heavy fanfare. The crowd erupted in screams and cheers, and I looked around just as Emperor Auguste mounted the stairs. He waved at the mob of people with an elegant twist of his wrist as he made his way to the podium. Just before he took his position in the center of the platform, he clapped a hand against my back and gave my shoulder a comforting squeeze. I felt Berrywine shift his seat closer to mine.

  “Oryous save the Empire!” the Emperor shouted as he stood behind the podium. The crowd roared the words back up at him, cheering until he put out both his hands to silence them.

  “Today, we want to honor those citizens who have helped Lunar Island during one of her most trying times,” the Emperor said. He proceeded to call forth all the people I’d shared the tent with, singling them out and describing how they went above and beyond the call of duty to help save others during the plague. As each individual was called forth, I noticed that certain parts of the crowd cheered louder. The Emperor had wisely selected a person from each borough of the city, giving each district their own moment of glory through one of their citizens.

  “And let us also praise the council for the progress they have made these past weeks,” Emperor Auguste announced after giving Berrywine his medal of honor.

  The council was seated to the Emperor’s right, and each member stood and gave a brief report, focusing on the improvements, planned or recently finished. “Here to help revitalize the north after its devastation is Greggori Astor,” the Emperor said finally, gesturing to me.

  I stood, swallowing. I didn’t know how the people in the back of the crowd could hear me, but I shouted out the plan for new mercantile trade with Miraband, keeping my report as short as possible. I detailed the plans for a new factory in Hart that would create many new jobs, with the promise of more if the sales were effective. I added that the tariffs from the new trade would be funneled back into the north, in a new library, schools, and public buildings—all of which would provide even more opportunities for employmen
t for northern folk. I didn’t realize how badly I was shaking until I finished, collapsing back into my chair with a clatter I hoped most of the crowd didn’t hear.

  “Good man, good man,” Berrywine whispered to me, clapping me on the back. His medal glinted in the sunlight, blinding me for a moment.

  A ripple moved through the crowd, then a shout.

  “What about the thirteen?”

  A ring formed around the man who had yelled as people stepped back, not wishing to be associated with the person who’d disrupted the rally. “Make them pay!” the man shouted.

  “The thirteen?” I asked under my breath.

  I hadn’t expected an answer, but Berrywine heard me. “Those street rats they arrested,” he said. “Hickory and the lot.”

  I remembered then what Hamish had said in the council meeting, about a group of commoners awaiting trial for conspiracy against the Empire. I had seen the whispers of treachery among the people, and the article in the news sheet. Lord Anton and his ilk had led the fledgling revolution. Men like my father. I hadn’t heard of any commoners who had done anything that could have been half as damaging as what the nobility had plotted, the men with power and means to actually disrupt the system.

  I squinted at the crowd. The man who’d shouted about the thirteen traitors first was now leading a chant—“Hang the traitors! Hang the traitors!” Since no Imperial Guard came to stop the man, the people nearby were emboldened to join in. The crowd quickly picked up the chant, turning it into a demand as they faced the Emperor.

  I glanced up at Emperor Auguste. His face looked grim.

  The crowd had lifted the shouting man on their shoulders, and they bounced him high above the rest of the mob as the chant spread throughout.

  I sucked in a breath.

  I knew him. That was Finip Brundl, one of the men on the council. He wasn’t dressed as a lord, though—he wore tan pants and a navy shirt, clothing common among dock workers. The people on the grounds looked to be embracing him as one of their own, unwittingly raising a lord above their shoulders as a champion of the common people.

  My eyes shot to the Emperor.

  Red-suited guards rushed onto the platform, swarming around the Emperor. The award winners were rushed offstage, but Emperor Auguste refused his guards, raising his hands above the crowd. They didn’t quite silence, but the chanting grew softer, soft enough for the Emperor to shout out, “I have heard you, my people!” before allowing himself to be escorted to his carriage and whisked away.

  The remaining council members onstage followed him off. Coaches awaited us, a barrier of the Emperor’s Guard keeping the mob at a safe distance. Their chant of “Hang the traitors!” was just as loud as ever, drowning out the orchestra as they tried to shift the attention to another rendition of the Allyrian anthem.

  I headed to one of the waiting coaches, but felt a tug at my sleeve. “This one,” Hamish said, pulling me into a different coach. A few council members were already seated, but they turned to Hamish respectfully as he shut the door and the coach rumbled up to the castle.

  “That was Finip Brundl,” I said. “Did you notice? He started the chanting.”

  Hamish stared darkly at me. “Of course he did.”

  “He’s on the council.” Why did no one else think it odd that a council member broke up the Emperor’s rally with a mob demanding blood?

  The woman opposite Hamish snorted. She was Prinna, another member of council—or at least she had been. I recalled how her spot at the council table had been empty since I returned from Miraband. Hamish shook his head subtly at her. “Don’t you see, Greggori?”

  “The point of the rally was to instill pride among the people,” I said slowly. “Make them remember what’s good about Lunar Island so they forget about the tragedy of the plague.”

  “The point,” Prinna said, “was to find a scapegoat.”

  “Since you’ve been gone, the Emperor has been trying to boost morale with public visits among the people and plans for city improvements, but it’s not been enough.”

  “Cheap awards and a single orphanage don’t make up for thousands of dead and thousands more still adjusting to amputations,” Prinna muttered.

  My focus bounced between them.

  “The only thing that’s going to make the people happy,” Hamish said bluntly, “is a hanging.”

  I shook my head violently. The Emperor had given me his word. He wouldn’t hang Nedra. But he never said he wouldn’t hang the others. I was reminded of my father’s words, his fear of a death sentence without a trial.

  At my reaction, one of the other people in the carriage, a stocky man with a deep voice, asked, “Can we trust this boy?”

  Hamish looked me up and down. “I’m choosing to,” he said finally. “And if you run to the Emperor and give him all our names, Greggori, you’ll have to try to find a way to sleep at night, knowing it was you who put the noose around our necks.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” I asked, looking around with wide eyes. “What’s going on?”

  “We want you to help us,” Prinna said, leaning forward.

  “I may not have been important enough to be invited to your father’s rebellion,” Hamish said, a trace of bitterness in his voice. “But I’ve seen the way the Emperor works. He is a master manipulator, and we’re just hanging from his puppet strings.”

  “He needs to be the hero,” Prinna added.

  “The Emperor,” Hamish clarified. “Do you think the common people care about treason? They just want to live their lives, or what’s left of them after the plague. It’s the nobles—the ones who weren’t as affected by the Wasting Death—who are still angry about the taxes and politics of it all. They’re the ones who want to secede. But if the common people don’t want to rebel, then the nobles will have no support in their fight against the Emperor.”

  “The ‘good works’ were a start,” Prinna jumped in, her tone dismissing the Emperor’s attempts at charity. “But in the end, people still wake up every day without an arm or a leg, or without a husband or a child.”

  “It’s their rage, Greggori, that they will turn against the Emperor if he doesn’t find a way to appease it,” Hamish added, speaking slowly as if I were a child who didn’t understand the lessons of the day. He rubbed a spot on his hand where, I suspected, he longed to wear a ring made of iron like the ones Bunchen gave to the rebel network.

  “So he sets up a group of people for the commoners to focus their rage on,” Prinna said. “Perhaps, if Adelaide hadn’t been killed, she could have hung in their place.”

  That made me pause.

  “Why these thirteen commoners, though?” I asked. “Shouldn’t he try to hang the nobility inciting the rebellion?”

  “People like your father, you mean?” Prinna said. The carriage lurched in the opposite direction of my stomach.

  “Yes,” I answered bluntly.

  “There’s rebellion boiling on all fronts,” Prinna said. “The nobility might be appeased with tax reform. But some, like us . . .” She looked around at the others in the carriage, most of whom had been silently watching me. “We actually care. We want change, real change, that will help all of our citizens. The thirteen are just a symbol. A message from the Emperor, telling us that if we don’t stop, more of the people we want to save will die. And the more innocents that die, the more the Emperor will manipulate the common folk into blaming us and chanting for our deaths. All he has to do is twitch his fingers.”

  “Greggori, you really don’t understand politics at all,” Hamish said, a little mournfully. “This is about controlling the masses. This is about telling the people what they want, and then giving them exactly that.”

  “Has the Emperor told you anything?” Prinna asked, leaning forward. “He confides in no one, but we know he’s sought you out a few times. He trusted you with the trade commiss
ion. We can see only bits and pieces of his plan as they fall into place. It’s hard to counteract someone who’s pulling all the strings.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t really know his plans. He only said . . .”

  “Yes?” Hamish prompted when I didn’t complete my thought.

  “The Emperor swore to me,” I said. “He’s not going to go after Nedra.”

  Hamish looked at me pityingly. “And you believed him?”

  FORTY-FIVE

  Nedra

  I HAD TO take one of the emergency skiffs the hospital kept in storage to reach Northface Harbor. Nessie rowed for me; it was fortunate she never tired. We left before dawn, when the night sky was just turning pale blue and there was less chance of being seen.

  Blackdocks was surprisingly empty. There were, of course, still dock workers around, but they moved with the determined focus of men and women who were doing more than just their own job. While a few people noticed me as I disembarked with Nessie, taking in my white hair and mumbling near-silent curses as they backed away, most people were so intent that they barely spared me a passing glance. I pulled the hood of the cloak I’d gotten from the hospital over my white hair and made sure Nessie was similarly covered, then strode through the factory district undisturbed.

  My stomach unclenched—I had expected to have to fight my way into the city. My nerves were on edge, but my body didn’t know what to do with passivity.

  During the plague, the Whitesides hospital had been full to the brim with victims near death. I had seen the carts of infected people dropped off at the overflowing hospital, and I had witnessed the corpse cart that left just as full.

  But the plague was over. The hospital was still operating, but I could not go into the rooms of the sick without being detected. The building wasn’t overrun or understaffed, not like it had been a month ago.

  I cursed. I needed people who were freshly dead, with more vibrant energy I could channel into my sister. But short of going on a murder spree . . .