State of Sorrow

by Melinda Salisbury

Luvian looked at her. “Let’s say you’re not the first person whose head he’s held underwater.”

  “Wow,” Sorrow said softly. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. He was good enough to only ever do it in clean toilets.”

  It was supposed to be a joke, a classic Luvian quip, but it fell flat because of the way his shoulders hunched as he spoke. Sorrow didn’t like it, it wasn’t the Luvian she knew, and a new burst of anger at Arkady Rathbone surged through her, not only because he’d hurt her but because he’d hurt Luvian too.

  “He loves me, in his own way,” Luvian said softly, breaking into her thoughts. “If he didn’t, he could have easily overpowered me in Rhylla. He didn’t have to run. I think we all know it’s a fight I wouldn’t have won.”

  “They haven’t bothered me since,” Sorrow said. “I thought it was your doing.”

  Luvian shook his head. “They’re probably waiting to see if I’m going to hand them in.”

  “But you’re not?”

  He swallowed. “Do you want me to?”

  He was offering her the choice. If she said yes, he would. She could see that. Because he wanted her to trust him, because he felt guilty for what had happened.

  “No,” Sorrow said finally. “But if you could somehow ask them to stop trying to murder me, I’d like it.”

  “Done.”

  Sorrow closed her trunk and sat on it, looking at Luvian, who looked right back. He could be lying. He was bred to lie. And to cheat, and to trick. He’d probably learned to pick locks before he learned to pick his nose. She knew he had no problem committing crimes, despite distancing himself from his family. He’d broken into the registry in Rhannon, and he’d stolen Mael’s portrait from the Summer Palace – despite only ever going there once for his interview.

  “Why didn’t you tell me on the night?” Sorrow asked. “When Arkady attacked me. Why didn’t you say then who he was? Who you are?”

  “Because I didn’t want you to look at me the way you’re looking at me now,” he said. “I liked it when you looked at me like a person. A friend. I liked…” He fell silent and shook his head. “I thought if I could help you win, then it would mean something. It would prove I was more than my blood. And it’s what you wanted too – to be more than just another Ventaxis. It felt like fate. Like I was supposed to do it. I didn’t want my family messing things up. But they did anyway. They always do.”

  His words were so close to her thoughts about herself that she had to stop herself throwing her arms around him and telling him everything was fine. It was only remembering Dain that kept her from doing it. If he’d been honest from the start, Dain might still be alive. No matter how much Sorrow wanted to put the last few horrible weeks behind them, she couldn’t keep from seeing Dain’s hopeful expression as she’d offered her a new life. Dain had trusted her. And Luvian, and it had got her killed.

  As though he could sense her thoughts, he stood slowly and walked over to her, kneeling in front of her.

  “I shouldn’t have lied to you. It’s the thing I regret most in the world, and I will carry that guilt for ever. My only defence is that you wouldn’t have hired me if you’d known who I was. But –” the ghost of a smile played at the corners of his mouth, and something inside Sorrow loosened at the sight of it “– you can’t deny I was a good advisor. And great company.” His expression became solemn once more. “I won’t lie to you ever again. I won’t keep anything from you. I’m on your side, until the end. No more secrets.”

  It was Sorrow’s turn to look away, scared he was going to ask her to promise, and knowing if she did it would be a lie, because she had a secret, something much bigger than his confession. It was that knowledge – that she too was lying about who she was in the hopes it would help her change things for the better – that made answering his next question easy.

  “Can you forgive me?” he asked, hope scored across his features.

  She nodded, and his face broke into a wide, beaming smile that made her heart flutter as her own mouth curved.

  He reached for her hands. “Thank you.”

  She squeezed them lightly, and then, strangely embarrassed by his sincerity, stood, returning to her dressing table.

  The liquid had almost gone, only the smallest drop remaining. But crusting the glass was a powder, one that Sorrow knew without smelling it, though she did, flinching at the familiar pain in her head. Lamentia.

  Luvian joined her, saying nothing as they both looked at the powder.

  “You should tell Lord Day,” Luvian said. “This is enough to arrest Vespus, at least. The drug that killed the chancellor is the by-product of something only Vespus Corrigan can create. And he had almost unlimited access to your father. It’s enough.”

  Sorrow shook her head. She’d had a better idea. “I want to know for sure whether Mael is or isn’t a Ventaxis. With everyone else dead, Vespus is the only person who can answer. So I’ll use this knowledge against him. Unless he tells me the truth about Mael, I’ll tell Charon. And Queen Melisia.”

  “It’s not worth the gamble,” Luvian said. “Take it from me. Tell Lord Day.”

  Sorrow looked down at the powder and ran her finger through it.

  “No,” she said. “Not yet.”

  Daughter of Rhannon

  He didn’t try to persuade her, though his disagreement was obvious in the set of his mouth.

  “When?” was all he asked.

  “After the address to the Jedenvat,” Sorrow said.

  It was the final part of the election. Usually the candidate would present their mandate to the Jedenvat at the beginning of the election period. But this year the public vote would be split between two candidates. And in the event of the public voting evenly for Sorrow and Mael, it would be down to the Jedenvat to make the deciding vote. So this year, it had been decided they’d present to the Jedenvat at the end, giving both Sorrow and Mael a final chance to bring them onside.

  “Are you ready for it?” Luvian asked.

  Sorrow nodded. She was. Irris had worked with her as they’d travelled between public engagements, until she’d created something she thought would appeal to all of the Jedenvat – even Samad and Balthasar. They’d want to feel their positions were safe under her, and she’d tailored her address to that end.

  Whether she meant it was another matter.

  “That’s politics in a nutshell.” Luvian nodded approvingly when she told him. “Meaning it at the time.”

  “What do we do about you?” she asked.

  “I want to come back,” he said instantly.

  “How, though?” Sorrow said. “I told everyone you knew who my attacker was. If you came back you’d have to confess.”

  He nodded, the light dimming in his eyes. “I could lie.”

  “And say who?”

  “Meeren Vine? You hate him, I hate him, my family hates him. Everyone wins.”

  “I would have recognized Vine,” Sorrow reminded him. “And it would be too easily disproved.”

  “Oh. Yes.” Luvian licked his upper lip as he nodded. “So, impossible, then.”

  Sorrow reached out and squeezed his hand. “We’ll think of something.”

  He laced his fingers through hers. “You don’t know how happy I am that there’s a ‘we’ again.” Then the sincerity turned wicked, his eyes glittering as he said, “And you are too, admit it. You missed me.”

  “I did no such thing.”

  He stepped closer. “Yes, you did, come on now. Life is more fun with me around. Say it. Say, ‘I missed you, Luvian’.”

  “There is no way—”

  “Say it…” He took another step, bringing their eyes level. “For me?”

  “You’re not going to shut up until I do, are you?”

  He shook his head.

  “Fine. I missed you.”

  His lips curved into a wicked grin and Sorrow laughed. His gaze dipped, resting on her mouth, and the mischief lighting his eyes faded, becoming something else.

&n
bsp; “You should get back to your party,” he said slowly, meeting her eyes once more. “It’s been over an hour. You’ll be missed.”

  He let go of her hand, and Sorrow’s palm tingled at the loss.

  “Yes, you’re right,” she said, filled with the urge to clear her throat. “What will you do?”

  “No idea.” He frowned. “I can’t go home. I guess I’ll hide out somewhere until we have a better plan. Fortunately for us, evading capture is in my blood.” He paused. “Sometimes, at least. Let’s hope I have better luck than my father and brother.”

  “Do you need anything? Money, or…”

  Luvian shook his head and reached into the same pocket he’d pulled the bottle from, revealing a large gold pocket watch. “You hate Lord Balthasar, right?”

  She laughed again, and his face contorted, moving between smile and frown.

  “I should—” he began, but was cut off by the sound of a door banging. The outer door to the corridor.

  Sorrow turned to Luvian in panic. “Hide,” she hissed, throwing herself on to the bed. Luvian dived under it, and a moment later, when Irris and Arran Day, followed by a contingent of guards, flooded the room, Sorrow sat up, blinking and rubbing her eyes.

  “I only meant to lie down for a moment,” she said, thickening her voice.

  The guards shook their heads and filed out, muttering to themselves, and Arran looked at his sister, who shrugged, before leaving too.

  Irris waited, suspicion clouding her features, as Sorrow swung herself off the bed.

  “What’s going on?” Irris asked, once the door had closed behind them. “Why are you really up here?”

  Sorrow crossed the room and picked up the make-up compact with Lamentia in. Silently she handed it to Irris, and watched as comprehension dawned on her friend’s face.

  “This is Lamentia. Why do you have this? Where did you get it?”

  Luvian crawled out from under the bed. “Behold my redemption arc,” he said.

  Irris somehow managed not to scream, and Sorrow and Luvian explained, in rapid tandem, how he’d come to be there, and what he’d learned.

  “You have to tell my father,” Irris said immediately.

  “That’s what I said,” Luvian agreed.

  “No. Not yet. There’s something going on between Mael and Vespus. That’s who I was looking for when Luvian found me. I think maybe they’ve had a fight? But whatever it is, I don’t want Vespus to know what we know while there’s still time for him to fight back. I want him to think he’s done it, and then I want to confront him. I don’t want him to have time to plan, or run.”

  Irris nodded slowly. “That makes sense. In that case, perhaps wait until after the election?”

  “Yes,” Luvian said, his eyes lighting with a spark that Sorrow knew meant he was scheming. “That way, if you lose – not that you will – but if you do, you still have a way to discredit Mael, because of his connection with Vespus. You can still defeat them both. It’s a back door. And I love a back door.”

  “Talking of which, shouldn’t you be finding one?” Irris said. “We need to return to the party before someone else comes looking.”

  “You’re right,” Luvian said.

  “So, after the election, we tell Charon about Vespus and Lamentia, and then confront Vespus?” Sorrow said.

  “Agreed.”

  They left Luvian in Sorrow’s rooms, returning to the party and mingling. Sorrow went out of her way to greet everyone, apologizing for her absence, summoning staff to supply drinks and canapés to the people she spoke to. She saw Luvian a little later, trying to sneak out, only to be furnished with a tray and sent into the crowd, and she tried to smother a smile, even as a frisson of alarm went through her. But no one recognized him, or even looked at him, hidden as he was by the camouflage of his servant’s clothes.

  She remained in the gardens until the last guest had left, waving as a local justice and her husband wandered tipsily towards the gates. Irris, Arran and even Charon had long since retired, and so Sorrow was alone, save for her guard as she returned to her suite.

  She washed, and changed into her nightclothes, her childhood bed feeling unfamiliar now. As she lay on the pillow something rustled beneath her cheek, and she reached inside the pillowcase to find an unsigned note, telling her to watch for the “handsome moustachioed chap in red” at the Jedenvat presentation.

  She smiled at the note, smiled into the dark. Luvian hadn’t betrayed her. And he was back. Somehow, it meant the world to her.

  Four days later, Sorrow waited inside an empty classroom in the University of Rhannon. Based in Istevar, the university was one of the oldest parts of Rhannon, established over seven centuries ago. It was Sorrow’s first time there. The classroom was large, with wooden benches and desks set in a tiered semicircle around a small stage, where she now paced.

  Irris had been sent to scan the crowd for Luvian, so Sorrow waited alone, save for four guards, two either side of the door, and two near the large windows at the rear of the room. Sorrow knew she was safe, given what Luvian had said about his brothers, but she was also keenly aware that this was the first time she’d be in public after the murder attempt, at a specific place and time. If Arkady and the Sons of Rhannon decided to attack her again, today would be a solid opportunity, albeit a difficult one.

  There was a knock at the door, five taps, then two, then three, the code they’d developed to let the guards know not to swing freely when Irris returned.

  She opened the door a moment later, and stepped into the room.

  “Quite the crowd,” Irris said.

  “They’re only here to see if I’m assassinated onstage,” Sorrow muttered, sipping at the ginger tea Irris had given her earlier to calm her stomach.

  “They’re here because you invited them,” Irris reminded her.

  As well as the Jedenvat, the final presentation had – at Sorrow’s request – been thrown open to the public. She argued that because the last one had been hijacked by the Sons of Rhannon, it was only fair they allowed at least some of the people to hear this one. Which was why Sorrow was pacing a room that smelled of old socks and ink, instead of in the Round Chamber of the Winter Palace.

  “Anyone of note in the audience?”

  Irris gave a small smile and Sorrow’s heart lifted, but then a knock at the door sent her scrambling to her feet, upsetting the tea. Two of the guards moved to stand in front of Sorrow as the third opened the door.

  A petite woman stood there, eyes wide as she took in the guards. “It’s time.”

  The walk to the stage felt to Sorrow like a walk to the gallows, her heart ricocheting in her chest, a staccato beat that made her hot and then cold in turn. As she paused in the wings she closed her eyes, opening them again when a hand slipped into hers.

  “Every single person in the crowd has been searched. There are palace guards in disguise, mixed in with the crowd, and obviously the Decorum Ward are out there,” Irris said.

  “Not Vine?”

  “Not Vine. Everyone is from Dain’s unit in Prekara. All of them trained by her.”

  It was a small comfort to Sorrow.

  “I’ll be right here,” Irris said. She leant over and kissed her friend’s cheek before adjusting the sapphire-blue tunic Sorrow wore over grey trousers. “And Luvian is front and centre.”

  “With a moustache?”

  Irris smiled.

  Sorrow took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She’d tried to tell herself that this wasn’t that big of a deal, that the weeks travelling Rhannon and meeting with the people were more valuable, would have more of an impact on the election. But her body called her mind a liar.

  Because this was where she had to prove she’d meant every word she’d said so far. Every promise she’d made, she had to reinforce. Every person she’d spoken to, this was where she’d show she’d listened. Here, in this ages-old institution, in front of a council of representatives, influencers, nobles and clerics, and citizens. Every word
she said would be reported tomorrow morning across Rhannon. Every gesture, every pause. This was her best, and now only, chance to lay the ghost of Harun to rest and show that she could be the chancellor Rhannon needed. The only chancellor it needed. And she had no idea what Mael had up his sleeve.

  Then someone was calling her name, and Mael’s, the crowd was clapping, and she was walking onstage once more.

  When she turned to acknowledge Mael, she gasped.

  Four days previously, at the Gathering, he’d looked healthy and whole, if a little downcast. But the man who walked onstage now, grey-faced, shoulders rounded in, shadows beneath his eyes like bruises, looked as if he were suffering from a terrible illness. The applause died away as he reached the podium, and didn’t wave, or look out at the crowd at all. What had happened to him?

  Sorrow barely heard the announcer introduce her, and she tore her eyes away from Mael, and looked out into the crowd.

  Luvian was sporting the most spectacular handlebar moustache she’d ever seen. It curled elaborately at the edges. He must have put it on after arriving; it was so clearly not natural there was no way the guards wouldn’t have questioned it. He tipped her a wink, and she gave a surprised smile, looking out beyond him.

  On a raised platform at the back, the Jedenvat sat, with Charon at the centre. Bayrum beamed at her, and Arran Day offered an indiscreet thumbs up. Balthasar scowled, and whispered something to Lord Samad, but it seemed the sand lord wasn’t interested, as he waved him away. Interesting, Sorrow thought. Tuva Marchant gave her a firm nod. And Kaspira did the same. But before Sorrow could think about what it might mean, the announcer stopped speaking. It was Sorrow’s turn.

  “Good afternoon,” she said, her voice echoing into the space. “My name is Sorrow Ventaxis and I’m here to tell you why you should vote for me tomorrow.” She looked down at her paper, then out at the faces watching her raptly.

  The speech she and Irris had written was detailed and concise, outlining every single promise she was making to the people. It was thorough and professional, laid out in the style that had been used by candidates for centuries. But it was bland and stuffy. Remote. It went against everything Sorrow had tried to achieve when she went out to meet the people.