Chapter 28 #3
Roy followed the Governor’s gaze to the left corner, twisting in his seat with his fingers still clamped protectively around Percival’s arm, and let out a hoarse gasp.
The ghost of a stunningly beautiful middle-aged woman drifted noiselessly in the shadows.
Though her passing had reduced her physicality to a murky humanoid shape, when she cupped her hands and placed them over her face—as Roy had seen a ghost do in the Orphic Basilica—her features, and the circumstances of her death, gradually grew clear.
A ragged hole went through her left cheek and exited out of the top of the right column of her neck.
Her full lips were curved into a shaky, crestfallen smile.
She raised one hand, covered in a fingerless glove, toward the Governor.
Then she curled it into a fist and pressed it over her heart.
The Governor planted his hands against the desk and leaned forward, his face marked with a look of grave sadness . . . and fascination. He looked utterly spellbound.
Silent, the woman stared at him with increasing studiousness.
She tilted her head, and though Roy attempted to make sense of what seemed an innocuous gesture, he couldn’t quite interpret it.
There was some sort of unspoken conversation taking place here, but the nuances were so intimate that Roy sensed he wouldn’t be able to plumb any deeper for answers if he tried.
Yet still, something struck him as odd—a bizarre incongruity.
Several months earlier, when Roy had inquired to Dimestra as to the reason behind the Governor’s absence, why Roy hadn’t once in his life met the man who was dictating his immediate future, Dimestra had answered, The Governor has been .
. . absent since his wife passed some few years ago.
But as he took the recency of the tragedy into account, alongside the obvious youthfulness of the woman before him, Roy couldn’t help but wonder whether Dimestra had gotten the story wrong.
Had the Governor really married a woman easily fifty years his junior?
As far as Roy knew, in Northgard, it was uncommon but not unheard-of.
Even so, he couldn’t quite quash his suspicions.
It was then that two details came before his mind’s eye, instantly ruling out the possibility that the Governor’s and Cordelia’s marriage was simply an unorthodox union—the black metal necklace and Atticus Walestone’s puzzling allusion to resurrection.
Even if I could exercise such powers, that sort of sorcery has been forbidden for thousands of years and was only recently discovered to be impossible. The repercussions are . . . troubling.
Before Roy could continue ruminating on his speculations, the ghost of the woman redirected her attention to Roy and Percival, though with decidedly less interest. She looked back to the Governor, the ruby light in her eyes quickly diminishing and petering out.
Then she pivoted, and as she turned, she vanished.
“Come back!” the Governor shouted at the empty corner, his voice gruff but filled with sorrow, his eyes scanning the semidarkness with despairing hopefulness. “Cordelia! My dear Cordelia, please! Come back!”
There was no answer. The shadows had already filled in the space the woman, whom Roy could only assume had been the Governor’s deceased wife, had once occupied.
The Governor kept his eyes trained on the gloom nevertheless, his gaunt and fragile hands crumpling the documents beneath them.
He raised one of them, though, and absently toyed with the black metal necklace around his throat.
It felt to Roy like minutes had passed before the Governor finally addressed him and Percival, but the dejection was gone from his face.
He glared, his brows lowered and his wilting skin covered in a slimy veneer of sweat.
Death had its sure grip on him, but he was holding on.
He’s going to lash out, thought Roy, panic spreading hot and eager within him. We’ve fulfilled our duties, honored our—his—commitments, and now he’s going to pull out of the deal. He’ll take everything out on us. His frustration, his resentment, his fury and grief and sadness.
Roy was so confident his fears would come true, that he and Percival would not be dismissed until they’d been castigated, that he was stunned when the Governor’s expression softened.
He took a few seconds to avert his gaze and compose himself, and when he set his eyes back on them, he was wearing a shrewd half smile.
“Here is what I will do,” he said. “I will allow the scholars to safely come out of hiding, those who have survived the Old Ones’ invasion and the ghosts’ subsequent attack, but with the added stipulation that they all help change the Law of Intervention and expand Northgard’s influence.
I will give them a year to do this. No sooner, no later. What do you say?”
Percival said, “That’s not our deal—”
“And you did not fulfill yours,” the Governor interrupted. “Not to the letter, as you admitted. So, as before, an amendment.”
Doubt snuck into Roy’s gut. He felt inclined to protest, to slam his fists against the desk in defiance, because he knew how treacherous this was.
He knew from experience. He had been deceived by this man before, and so the consequences of agreeing to the Governor’s new conditions couldn’t be clearer.
Then Percival took Roy’s hand underneath the desk, which sent a reassuring, pleasing warmth though Roy.
“We say yes,” said Percival. “You have our approval.” He interlaced their fingers and stood, pulling Roy up with him and tugging him toward the door.
He turned the knob and they both stepped out with haste, afraid that the Governor would change his mind.