The Attendants serve honey and fruit and cakes, usually my favorites. I’m sure my mother ordered them as a special treat for me, but they taste too sweet. False on my tongue. I push the delicacies around on my plate until the bell before the Evensong rings.
All the guests rise, even the Lexors, Archons, and Basilikons who don’t need to leave follow the bells. I guess everyone in New North is used to having their days structured by the Campana. As I take my place at the front door to say my farewell, I realize that everyone’s waiting in line to receive my blessings—not my father’s. In the course of one day, power has shifted from my father to me. Me. Eva. It’s too weird.
When the front door finally closes, I collapse into my father’s waiting arms.
“You must be exhausted, dearest. Why don’t you go to bed? Tomorrow will be time enough for us to talk about the future.”
“The future? I thought my future was pretty well set. You know, being an Archon and all.”
“Well, there’s Jasper to consider now, too,” he says.
I’ve just won the Archon Laurels, and they’re already talking about my marriage prospects? I’m not exactly surprised, but it’s a bit overwhelming right now. Especially since I have no idea how I feel about Jasper beyond friendship. “Jasper? I can’t even think about that—”
“Of course not, Eva,” my mother interjects. “There will be plenty of time to consider Jasper’s offer in the days to come.”
Offer. The word spins in my brain. Has one already been made? I don’t dare ask. I’m not ready for the details.
My mother hands me off to Katja. “Please get Eva settled in her bed. She needs her rest for the days ahead.”
I start up the stairs, when my father calls out, “One last hug, Eva?”
Perhaps he’s aware of the power shift, too. Perhaps he wants one last moment to think of me as his little girl. I race back down the steps into my father’s arms. Only then do I realize that Lukas has been standing alongside the solar wall, listening to our conversation the entire time.
How can I sleep? I’m bone-tired, but my mind won’t rest. What is Lukas going to tell me? That the Testing is a sham, and that Eamon meant to challenge it? I’ve already started believing that myself. Or is it something else entirely?
Not for one more tick can I sit in this claustrophobic bedroom, doing nothing. I can’t take the heat anymore; my body has grown too accustomed to deep cold. I slip on my kamiks and put my sealskin cloak on top of my nightdress. Slowly, I creak open my bedroom door and check the corridor. No one stirs in the house, so I tiptoe down the hall to the turret doorway.
The heavy wooden door groans when I push it open. I stiffen, certain that someone will wake up and catch me. But I hear nothing, so I proceed. My kamiks glide up the familiar spiral stairwell, and I settle onto the hard stone bench lining the turret wall. The night is blue and still and cold, but not nearly as frigid as what I’ve felt outside the Aerie. I wrap my sealskin cloak around me like a blanket, and within a few ticks I’m comfortable enough. I spend the bells recording the past days in this journal.
When dawn comes and daybreak crests over the turret wall, I’m waiting.
Lukas jumps when he sees me. “How long have you been out here, Eva?”
“Not long. A few bells,” I lie as I stand up to face him.
“That’s long enough on a frigid night like this.”
“Not when you’ve been beyond the Ring, Lukas.”
“You’re right. Sometimes I forget that you were really out there.” He looks a little sad. As if it was somehow his fault that I’d entered the Testing. But I have no more patience for his so-called “secrets.”
“What do you have to tell me? About my Apple altar?”
“I think it might be better seen than told.”
Lukas is still making no sense, and I’m furious. “Are you deliberately trying to confuse me? Do you know what I’m risking?”
“Of course. But you have to understand: this isn’t what you think. You were taught in School that this is a diptych, a folding altarpiece like many New North people keep in their homes to pray to their Gods. Except, supposedly the pre-Healing people used this to pray to the false god Apple, instead. Right?”
“Right.” Why is he stating the obvious? Something every Schoolchild in the Aerie knows?
“It’s actually something called a computer.”
“A computer?” I’ve never heard the term before. Now he’s speaking gibberish.
“It’s a Tech device through which the pre-Healing people received images and information.”
“Where they received information from the false god Apple?”
Altar in hand, Lukas moves closer to me. “No, Eva. It’s a device were they received images and information from other pre-Healing people. They didn’t use it to pray. They used it to communicate. Like we do by carrier pigeon. It’s hard to explain, so maybe I should just show you.” He starts opening the altar and pressing its edges.
“What are you doing?” I gasp. Instinctively I reach for it. I don’t like him handling it so roughly.
Lukas gently moves my hand away. “Turning it on.” He tears his gaze away from the altar to look at me. “Eva, this device captures power from the sun. I’ve been charging it since dawn. Just watch.”
I stand next to him so I can get a better view of the altar’s face. I still have absolutely no idea what he means by “on,” but I figure I should wait and see. In a few ticks, the face of the altar begins to come alive with a jumble of color. I stifle a scream and jump back. It’s evil, just like we’ve been taught. It has powers not of the Gods—not the Earth or Sun or Moon—nor The Lex. This is Tech. I have a terrible premonition that just by witnessing its power, I will die.
Lukas reaches out a hand to steady me. “There’s nothing to be afraid of Eva. This is what I meant about turning the computer ‘on.’ In a few ticks, we’ll see what kind of images it stores.”
I have no choice but to stare. I am too paralyzed with fear. The face turns bright blue. Pictures of the constellations begin to appear on it. How can the nighttime sky be appearing on this thing? It makes no sense. Without realizing, I reach out to touch it. To see if it’s real.
Lukas grabs my hand before I make contact. “Don’t. After all that time in the ice, it’s pretty delicate. We don’t want to break it before we see what’s inside.”
“We’re going to open it up?”
“No. I don’t mean actually opening it. We’ll look at the screen.”
“The screen?” All these new terms are making my head spin. How does Lukas know all this? And why hasn’t he ever said anything about these things before?
“What you’d call the face of the altar,” he clarifies. He begins to press on some small squares on the other side of the altar, and after a tick or so, a rectangle appears on the face. He taps on the altar again, and Elizabet’s image emerges.
“By the Gods, it’s Elizabet!” I’m so excited to see her face that I nearly forget the terror. Lukas clamps a hand over my mouth, but I’m squealing underneath his fingers.
“I want to see her,” I mumble.
“Will you keep quiet?”
I nod, and Lukas removes his hand. I stare at the image. The blonde hair, light eyes, and sinewy limbs are exactly the same as all the pictures in her pink pack.
“It’s really her. She looks just like the images in the Kirov Ballet book,” I say.
“Would you like to hear Elizabet speak?”
“Speak? You can make her speak?” I sound like a child. I feel like one. It’s as if my wish to make Elizabet come alive is becoming true.
The ever-humble Lukas puffs up a little. “I think so. Let me try.”
He presses some squares again, and she moves. Her voice is shaky, and although her English is accented, her words are articulate and clear. She speaks directly to the computer. And there are tears running down her face. “Robert, are you out there? It’s me, Elizabet. I’m just praying that you get
this post. Our connections have been getting weaker as the ocean waters have risen. Do you have any Internet connection left? I haven’t received anything from you since last night …”
I’ve stopped breathing. The world has shrunk to this miraculous vision.
Elizabet pauses to wipe the tears away from her eyes. Her eyes are bright, and very blue. “My kultanen, I saved your message.” She rubs the amulet around her neck. “Here, so I can keep it close to my heart. No matter what happens. The captain finally told me where we are going. Our course is due north, once we make it to the North Sea from the Baltic Sea, that is. We are heading for some obscure island in the Arctic, a place the captain says will be safe from the rising ocean waters. My family supposedly will be waiting for me there.”
Shaking her head, Elizabet says, “I’m still trying to make sense of what he told me. I mean, how did my family know to go to this Arctic island? How do they know it’s safe? The melting of the polar ice caps happened so suddenly. What would make them leave the safety of their Finnish palace almost a week before the catastrophe started? The captain said that my dad and the men from some of these other families were there because they’d been working on a joint venture oil project on this Arctic island. But that still doesn’t explain the timing.”
I turn to Lukas, wide-eyed, but he raises a finger to his lips, his brow furrowed in concentration.
Elizabet laugh a little ruefully. “But you know me, I didn’t want to leave the Kirov until the last possible second. I just had to debut the La Bayadere at the Mariinsky Theater, Armageddon or not. I just had to secure that glory and fame, didn’t I? Stupid, huh? Stubborn, at best.” The laughter stops. “Did you get on that boat, my kultanen? You know, the one you tried for in Helsinki.”
As she fingers the amulet she wears around her neck, the tears start again. She says, “I’ve been praying that you did. I’ve been praying that your silence means you’re safely on that ship and you just don’t have any connectivity. And that soon we will be together again.” Her eyes narrow and darken. “I will never forgive my parents for not getting you on their ship. They’ve always been so controlling, but this is evil. I will never—”
The face of the altar—the screen of the computer—goes blank.
“What’s wrong, Lukas?” I clutch his arm. This can’t be the end. I have to hear what happened to Elizabet. What really happened, not what I dreamed up for my Chronicle.
“The battery is dead, Eva. I’ll have to play with the solar charging.”
Battery? Solar charging? He’s speaking another language. This is probably how he feels when we Aerie people speak and read in Latin in his presence. “What do you mean?”
“It’s hard to explain. I leave for the Boundary lands today. If you’ll let me take this back with me, I might be able to recover the rest of Elizabet’s story.”
“How in the Gods would it help to bring a Relic to the Boundary lands?” I ask, unable to keep the irritation out of my voice.
Lukas is acting irrationally. He must be playing a card against me. Those who live in the Boundary lands are native to New North—not those chosen by the Gods like the Founders. They are a wild and desperate lot, except for the few selected to serve in the Aerie homes. That’s why they need the support and structure of the Aerie rule. They’re not all like Lukas.
“Eva, the Boundary lands are nothing like you think. Nor are the Boundary people.” Breaking his gaze from the blank altar, he looks up at me. “Tech never died in the Boundary lands, Eva. After the Healing, when all Tech was outlawed, we Boundary people brought it underground and preserved it. I have the tools to fix your computer there.”
I am aghast. I stammer. “In-in-in violation of The Lex?”
“Yes. My people are used to keeping secrets. It’s part of our history.”
“Tech is evil, Lukas. Aren’t you afraid of it? Of Apple?”
Lukas takes his hands off the altar and wraps them around mine. “Eva, Tech is not evil in and of itself. Evil depends on the hand that wields it. And Apple is not a god or a demon, no matter what you’ve been told. The pre-Healing people never thought of Apple as a god. The Apple is just a symbol of their Tech.”
I can’t bring myself to look at him. I stare down at his hands. If the pre-Healing people never thought of Apple as a god, then my Chronicle is a lie. But how can that be true? I want to believe him, but it goes against everything I’ve been taught. Against everything that all of New North has been taught. “Is this what you meant that everything I believed in is wrong?”
“In part.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. Nothing makes sense right now. Not my appreciation of Elizabet and the pre-Healing life. Not my beliefs about Tech and the supposed false god Apple. Not the Lexors and Basilikons and Archons. Not even The Lex itself.
“If I let you take this … thing into the Boundary lands, how will I ever be able to see it again? There’s no guarantee that your next assignment will bring us in contact.”
“You might just have to come to me.”
My eyes fly open. “Seriously?”
“Come on, a Maiden like you who conquered the Taiga, the Tundra, and the Frozen Shores can’t handle the Boundary lands?”
I purse my lips. “I’m not in the mood for a joke, Lukas.”
There’s no humor in his face. “I’m not joking, Eva. There are ways into the Boundary lands that wouldn’t require you to scale the Ring or pass through the Gate. And, after all the stories I heard about you from my uncle, I think you can handle the route I have in mind.”
“Your uncle?” With each explanation Lukas offers me, I end up more perplexed.
“The Boundary Climber with the streak of white hair. I asked him to look out for you.”
So Lukas was with me all along. By proxy, anyway. I find some comfort in the knowledge that not all of my wild imaginings were off-base. I was being protected; I just never knew by whom. And it wasn’t my father. “That’s why he helped me.”
Lukas smiles. “So will you come? To the Boundary lands?”
“Even though I could be exiled for trying?” I ask. After the distances I’ve crossed—to survive beyond the Ring, to win the Archon Laurels, to endure my grief over Eamon—does Lukas truly mean for me to jeopardize everything? I could just as easily say goodbye and forget.
“Don’t you think the truth is worth the risk?” he asks.
Above my bowed head, I hear the Chief Basilikon’s words ring throughout the pristine cavernous walls of the Basilika—the most holy place in the Aerie. One cannot enter its massive inner sanctum without sensing that the Gods are there, too. The Sun: through the ice windows far overhead. The Earth: clumped into ancient brown mud that serves as the Chief Basilikon’s Highest Altar. The Moon: a sliver through the Moon-holes that line the wall. Now more than ever I feel the Gods’ presence. But now, for the first time, I want to shout at them for answers.
“On this morning, we say a special blessing for our new Archon, Eva. Soon, she will embark upon her training, and we ask the Gods for their mercy and counsel as she does. For New North needs a Lex-guided leader.” The Chief Basilkon’s voice is like a hot bath. He waves incense over me.
In the rear of the chamber, I hear the Aerie people chant back, “We ask for your blessing, O Gods.”
“Archon Eva, you may rise,” the Basilkon says.
The Sun’s rays, stained blue and red from their passage through the ice windows, warm my cheeks. I know it is Her signal to arise from my genuflection and face the worshippers. As expected from a Maiden and an Archon, I smile in what I hope looks like benevolent thanks for their prayers during this special ceremony just for me. Truly, no matter my misgivings, I am thankful for their wishes. In their faces—my parents, their friends, and all the rest—I see their hopes for the future of New North. And in Jasper’s face, I see his aspirations for a future Union. I see truth and stories in all.
But I’m not sure I can give them what they want. I am the lone fraud.
TO
NIGHT IS THE NIGHT for which I’ve been waiting twenty-one days. The Moon has shown Herself in full for the first time since Lukas left. I finally have enough light to make my way to the secret opening in the Ring.
It seems that Lukas is right. The truth is worth the risk.
The past twenty-one days have been interminable. I thought that I’d acted at my life before—as a Maiden, a Testor, as a sister past her grief. But I really had no idea what it meant to play a role. Not until the tick I left Lukas on the turret with my Apple Relic and I was forced to pretend to be Eva the Archon, Eva the dutiful daughter, Eva the possible Betrothed. Even though absolutely everything had changed.
The days of so-called freedom before I enter my Archon training have become a prison. I must abide by the rules of my parents’ household, the directives of the Aerie society, and the edicts for Maidens before marriage. I must pretend I don’t question The Lex, my community, the very history of the Healing, the truth of my people.
During these long days, I learned that I’m not good at the charade. In my siniks beyond the Ring, I lost the knack for a double life. So aside from required public engagements, I took exile in this journal and the quiet places of the Aerie. I frequented the diptych in my bedroom and prayer nooks of the Basilika, and everyone acted as though I was purifying myself for the Archon training. It enabled me to avoid Jasper, too. It wasn’t simply that I can’t face the marriage plans. I’ve felt a connection I can’t even articulate with Jasper since that last sinik of the Testing. A Union could represent everything good about life in the Aerie. He’s been so supportive since our return, appearing at my side at public events and meals and ceremonies. But I would be unable to hide this change in myself from him for very long.
Even now I feel torn. Yet I know what I must do, even though it means I must leave behind all that I’ve known and loved. I tell myself I have no choice.
Relic (The, Books of Eva I) Page 16