“Thank you for coming,” he said. “I realize sending the carriage was presumptuous of me after you refused my first invitation, but I didn’t feel it right to let you miss this monthly council session. There are certain . . . matters to be discussed that I think will interest you all greatly.”
“Is this the part where we’re lauded as heroes and granted wealth and fame in exchange for all our dedicated service?” Evander asked.
Ansel smiled again but shook his head.
“I’m afraid not,” he said. “The council doesn’t know that you’ll be there, but your pardons remain valid, and you will be under my direct protection.”
“Comforting,” Evander noted dryly, but he didn’t say anything further.
Ansel led the way out of the chapel, still spry despite all the evidence of his weariness. Vesper exchanged looks with the others. They didn’t look particularly thrilled, but none of them objected as they followed the chancellor.
By the time they reached the Central Keep, most of the citizens had already taken their seats. By law, anyone was allowed in the monthly council session, but usually the majority of those in attendance were nobility from the upper echelons. Seating was crowded and limited, and the citizens from lower tiers who did come were relegated to standing around the edges of the chamber. Like the Judgment Hall, this room bore a ceiling mosaic depicting the elder seers in various states of dreaming. There was a dais at the front with an ornately carved lectern where the chancellor and the councilors would stand to speak. Off to the side of the dais, five equally ornate chairs sat in a row. Four were already filled by the councilors, each in their ceremonial robes, each wearing a practiced expression of blank disinterest.
Those expressions crumbled when they caught sight of the chancellor making his way to the dais with his guests in tow. The weight of all the stares in the room was overwhelming. There were four chairs in the front row that had been reserved. Newt, Evander, and Alys filed in and sat, and Vesper followed suit.
Chancellor Dane climbed the steps to the dais and went straight to the lectern. He hadn’t even bothered to fasten his robes over his suit. The room hushed.
“Thank you for coming.” His voice carried, though not without visible effort on his part. “Today’s session will be a short one, I’m afraid. There are only two items of any import to discuss.”
The councilors were exchanging glances and shifting uneasily in their seats—well, most of them. Tempest Adara sat perfectly still, with her hands folded neatly and her full attention on the chancellor.
“First,” Ansel went on, “I am announcing my retirement. Today will be my last day serving as your high chancellor. I am grateful for the honor of your trust these past four years, but it is time for me to step down.”
A buzz of whispers rose in the crowd. Vesper blinked at her uncle. She knew the rigors of his office had been wearing on him, but how could he possibly retire now, when they had just succeeded in crippling the council? She looked at her friends, but they were staring right back at her with wide eyes. She shook her head helplessly.
“My successor is someone far more qualified than I.” Ansel looked toward the council, his face holding nothing but gentle benevolence. “Tempest Adara has served on the council for many, many years with distinction, and I’m sure she will serve you just as well as high chancellor.”
More whispers. Again, Tempest was the only councilor who showed no reaction to Ansel’s words, other than a bare smile. Andras was glaring at her with silent, restrained fury. Delia’s fury was less noticeable, but the iciness in her eyes was fatal. Grantham Barwick was turning a startling shade of purple, with veins bulging in his neck and temple. Vesper wasn’t sure if the rest of the crowd could understand what was happening here—she barely understood herself. They did seem to realize that whatever it was, it was momentous. Historic.
She sneaked another look at her friends. Alys was frowning in thought, and Newt seemed equally bemused. Evander was grinning at the councilors’ disturbed reactions. His fingers tapped a wild rhythm on his knee.
Ansel cleared his throat a few times, and finally the dull roar of the crowd quieted.
“The second order of business is a difficult one. It will raise many questions and doubts and fears, but I ask that you remember that Eldra was here long before any of us were born, and it will be here long after all of us are gone. I take comfort in this knowledge, and I hope you will too.”
The silence in the room was almost absolute now. Ansel sighed deeply.
“We have reached the end of an era. Three months ago, the last seer in Eldra died. There are no prophecies left. I’m afraid the distant future is no longer ours to know.”
A heartbeat more of silence. Then the room erupted. People shouted questions, disbelief, dismay. The councilors’ anger at Tempest had shifted into shock at what the chancellor had just done.
He’d told the truth. Vesper couldn’t believe it. After so many years of secrecy, after all the council’s desperate attempts to hold on to their power, to keep the city from seeing the decline of the elder seers’ bloodline—after everything, Eldra would know the truth.
Cassa would have given anything to see this, Vesper thought. And then, with a hollow ache in her chest, she realized that Cassa had given everything for this.
Heat was building behind her eyes, and she wondered miserably if she was about to make another spectacle of herself. Alys grasped her hand, smiling tightly. Vesper could see that her eyes were also shining with unshed tears. Vesper squeezed her hand and returned the smile.
The chancellor held up both his arms in a plea for quiet. It took several minutes, but finally the crowd settled enough for him to continue speaking.
“As I said, I know you will have many questions. They will all be answered in time. In the past, the council’s main duty has been to interpret and preserve the prophecies for the good of the city. Obviously that purpose has now become obsolete.” On the last word he shot a glance toward the council that even the dullest citizen couldn’t misinterpret. “As such, when Chancellor Adara has sworn her vows, the present council will be dissolved. A new council will be elected with a representative from every ward of the city.”
He had more to say, but the room was in an uproar once more. Tempest kept her seat, but the other councilors had jumped to their feet, their angry demands drowned out by the crowd. The citadel guards who normally stood watch unobtrusively around the edges of the room made themselves a little more visible, though no weapons were drawn. The citizens who had been whipping themselves into a frenzy quieted perceptively. Many were already leaving, no doubt to spread the news. Vesper saw that the guards Grantham and Delia were ordering to arrest the chancellor were ignoring them completely. This was more than the end of an era. This was a coup, orchestrated from within the council’s own ranks.
Ansel and Tempest must have struck a bargain. He would reveal the truth to the city and dissolve the current council, and she would carry the city into its unknowable future as the high chancellor. Tempest wasn’t perfect, but she was driven by duty rather than greed. With the other councilors out of the picture, she might be able to build something good.
Vesper couldn’t help but smile. Maybe Ansel wasn’t as ruthless or relentless as the councilors, but he knew how to play the long game. He always had. This didn’t change everything, but it changed enough. Her part in the game would probably never be known to the city. Neither would Alys’s or Newt’s or Evander’s. Neither would Cassa’s. History would remember Chancellor Ansel Dane, who had ended a century-long rebellion, and Chancellor Tempest Adara, who would usher in a new, unforetold era. History would remember Caris and Luc Valera, the legendary rebels who raised up a city and nearly brought the citadel to its knees.
The rest would be forgotten in time. People died, and their secrets died with them. Gods perished. Memories faded. The world moved on.
Maybe it wasn’t fair, but Vesper didn’t think it mattered much in the end. Even when thei
r futures were foretold, people could still make their own choices. Even when their pasts were forgotten, people’s lives still meant something. Cassa might not live forever, even in memory, but she had lived, and she had mattered. Vesper couldn’t help but think that was legacy enough, even for Cassa Valera.
FIFTY-ONE
NEWT
Newt hadn’t expected to ever stand across the street from his father’s house again, to see the scattered, fading rose petals in the garden, the pristine white door with the polished brass knocker. He’d left it behind more than six months ago, when he’d finally realized he could survive on his own. When he’d finally realized that there were no more lessons to learn. Even now, with only the empty street and a decorative iron gate between him and the house, he couldn’t bring himself to move closer.
Newt knew his father was home, though he hadn’t seen him. Where else did he have to go? The ghosts of Luc and Caris Valera still haunted him, tethering him to the house he had paid for with the trust of his fellow rebels. Newt thought wryly that Cassa would love to join her parents in that task, and then he wondered if thinking that was irreverent. Cassa probably wouldn’t think so. Cassa would have laughed. A smile teased his lips, accompanied by a dull ache in his chest.
Alys had written his father a letter from the citadel while a physician was hemming and hawing over Newt’s wounds, but there had been no reply. Newt still didn’t know if he was relieved or disappointed. He’d been staying in the lower ward. Without much discussion, the Seras had opened up their spare bedroom for him once more. The apothecary shop didn’t really feel like home, but it was the closest he’d had for a long time.
A curtain at one of the front windows fluttered, and Newt’s stomach clenched. He stared at the front door, wishing it would open, wishing it wouldn’t.
It didn’t.
In moments like this, he could still feel Solan’s presence twining through his memories, suffocating all the good that Newt had left. There was world-ending hate buried somewhere deep inside him, and sometimes he was afraid it would find a way out. Sometimes he was afraid that he didn’t remember how to be happy. Maybe Solan had taken that from him too.
Something brushed his elbow, and Newt jumped. He blinked to find Evander standing next to him, raising an eyebrow at his reaction. Newt wasn’t normally caught by surprise. Normally he was sharply aware of his surroundings, of every exit, every object, every possible advantage he could take. Another lesson that had long since been learned.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I was just in the neighborhood,” Evander said with a shrug. He eyed the house across the street, taking in its subtle affluence. “Nice house.”
Newt wondered if the house that the council had taken from the Seras had been anything like this one. He studied Evander’s profile for a second. The sun glinted on his jet hair, and Newt found himself habitually searching for the telltale flash of silver. No coins though. There hadn’t been any since that night in the citadel. The dull ache throbbed again in his chest.
“It’s too small,” he said. He didn’t bother explaining what he meant or whose house it was. Evander would know. Evander knew more about him than anyone, though not everything. There were certain parts of himself that Newt couldn’t share, not even in the intimacy of warm summer days when the valley hummed around them and Evander was listening like there was nothing else worth hearing. Sometimes he wanted to though. Sometimes he even thought that one day he could.
“You spend so much time in the valley, I think any four walls would be too small for you.” Evander’s manner was relaxed, but his features held no hint of a smile. Those had vanished almost as entirely as the coins.
“Maybe so.” Newt managed a halfhearted grin. “The third ward is a strange place for a casual morning stroll.”
Evander shrugged again.
“I like it up here. There aren’t any murderous executioners or trigger-happy guards.”
“Even so,” said Newt, “I hear there are wayward children in these parts that’ll charm the silver right out of your pocket while they pretend to tell your future.”
Something glittered in Evander’s eyes.
“Sounds like a genius enterprise. Probably pays well.”
“Better than the chancellor pays anyway.”
Evander’s laugh escaped him, sudden and rich. His eyes widened as if he was surprised by the sound. The smile lingered on his lips as he straightened and clapped an arm around Newt’s shoulders.
“Come on,” he said, his voice lilting with the laughter. “Let’s go home.”
Newt let Evander lead him away from the decorative iron gate, the dying rose garden, the pristine white door. The knot in his chest loosened with every step. He did cast one last glance over his shoulder. The curtains were still now. The Valeras weren’t the only ghosts haunting that house. Maybe one day he would return. Maybe one day he would look inside himself to find that the world-ending hate had faded. He was bent, but he wasn’t broken. That was enough, for now.
FIFTY-TWO
EVANDER
The weeks crept by with aching slowness, but somehow Evander didn’t realize summer had come until one day the last rain of spring evaporated from the earth and the sun was so bright that it drowned out the blue of the sky. In Aurelia Valley, the heather was in bloom, painting the gentle slopes a vibrant purple. The waist-high grasses rippled in the warm breeze like a shimmering ocean of gold. On a day like this, when everything was stark colors and swaying motion, he could understand why Newt loved the valley so much.
When Newt had invited him to come that morning, Evander had agreed only because the house felt more stifling than it ever had before. Even the city no longer felt like a haven. The streets were shadowed in memories of Cassa, and the statues of the elder seers were monuments to everything he wanted to forget. At least the nightmares had eased. For the first couple of months, he’d awoken in a cold sweat every night. His sleep was a cell with no door, a cavern with no exit. A bottomless pit into which he always, always fell. Even when he’d started sleeping through the night again, he couldn’t bring himself to douse the lamp. He wasn’t scared of the dark, but it suffocated him all the same. If his parents had noticed the waste of lamp oil, they hadn’t mentioned it.
Today was different though. Today the sun was so bright overhead that night felt like a distant dream. He was on his back in a patch of thick green grass, close enough to the river that he could hear its murmuring flow but far enough from the city that even the bustling noise of Merchants’ Bridge didn’t reach them. Beside him, Newt was so still that Evander stole periodic glances to reassure himself that he was breathing. He could understand Newt’s love of the valley, but he had never understood the ritual of stillness. Newt had tried to explain it to him before. Something about fading into the landscape. Something about escape. But for Evander stillness was a prison as suffocating as the dark. Movement was the only way he could reassure himself he was free.
He’d first met Newt on a day like today. He wondered if Newt remembered. His chest tightened with the thought, because it was very possible Newt didn’t remember. Evander wasn’t sure how much Solan took from him. He’d never figured out how to broach the subject. He didn’t even know if Newt would want to talk about it. Something had changed between them that night. Something indefinable but impossible to ignore.
“Why are you staring at me?” Newt asked without opening his eyes.
“I’m not,” Evander said. He realized that he was and turned his head to gaze again at the halcyon sky.
Newt, who hadn’t so much as twitched, didn’t reply. Evander fidgeted. The grass was prickly against his bare arms, and sweat was soaking the back of his shirt. He wanted to sit up, but he was afraid that if he couldn’t maintain some semblance of the ritual, Newt might not invite him next time. Evander liked coming to the valley. He liked the brightness and the landscape’s subtle movement and the earthy scent of summer. He liked being here with Newt.
He just didn’t like being still.
He thrummed his fingers in the grass by his thigh, and one of the silver coins in his pocket jumped with the motion. He’d forgotten he had them. Putting them in his pocket every day was so habitual that he didn’t even notice anymore, but he hadn’t used them in months. For a few seconds, he didn’t move. He could hear his own heartbeat and wondered if somehow Newt could too. Then, painstakingly, he eased one coin from its hiding place. The scar on his arm burned a little with the effort. The bloodbond was like a muscle that atrophied with disuse. He’d never had that problem before.
He redoubled his focus, and the coin leapt into the air over his chest and hovered there. The longer he concentrated, the easier it felt. The tension that had been building in his body began to unwind. When he summoned the other two coins into orbit around their brother, a delicious relief spread through him. It was like letting himself breathe for the first time since that terrible night. Devastation still echoed deep inside him, but out here those echoes were easy to ignore, just for now.
The coins danced lazily through spiraling patterns, and Evander let out a long, slow breath. He reached up and caught them in one swipe. Fading into the landscape wasn’t exactly possible with silver coins flying overhead.
“Don’t stop.”
Evander jumped at Newt’s voice, quiet though it was. He turned his head to find himself looking straight into Newt’s solemn eyes. Evander hadn’t noticed before how close he actually was. Without breaking from his gaze, Evander uncurled his fingers and let the coins rise between them. Sunlight sparkled on the whirling silver. Newt watched them with a content smile curving his lips.
“It’s been a while,” he said.
“I know.” Evander was having difficulty focusing, because he was acutely aware of how close his hand was to Newt’s in the grass. The first time they’d held hands was the same night they’d first kissed. The same night Solan had ripped memories from Newt’s mind. The same night Cassa had—but he didn’t want to think about that now. There was plenty of time for devastation in the dark. Right now, the sun was warm, and the silver was gleaming, and Newt’s hand was barely an inch away.
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