Chapter 29 #2
“He’s lost,” Percival said. “Without his Blighted soldiers, he doesn’t have his authority. And without his authority, he’s just a bereaved grump. This deal is his only pillar of support, and even if we do expand the Law . . .”
“We’ll still have our people back.”
“Yes,” Percival whispered, his voice turning glum. “If not the library.”
Roy, having already started his own grieving of the library, had been mulling something all this time, though. “But is it truly gone?”
Percival regarded Roy carefully, hopeful but not entirely comprehending. “What do you mean?”
“Well, the catacombs,” Roy said. “It was a necropolis, remember? And much larger than the base of the Orphic Basilica.”
“So we could get in . . .”
“Underground,” Roy finished. “And who knows underground better than a bunch of scholars in hiding? Maybe we’ll be able to dig out enough—and learn enough—to build it back again.”
Percival grinned. “Let’s get started, then.”
They ambled out of the courtyard, hand in hand.
The few remnants of clouds they’d seen before entering the Governor’s office had since dissipated.
Tufts of light gray hung in the sky, but with the weather still turning, they were already melting into the great wide blue.
A pleasant chill teased the air, though it was barely noticeable beneath the warmth of the sun, which shone bright, freed from its smothering cage of black clouds.
Roy started down the hill on which the Governor’s manor stood, then passed through the opened gates ringing the expansive, snow-speckled property.
The complexes, streets, and back alleys of Rasileus, all now flooded with sunlight, sprawled out before him.
People emerged from communal shelters—which were ruined nearly beyond repairment by the battle between the ghosts and the undead—and blinked, gaping with varying expressions of amazement.
Some civilians wandered helplessly through the lattice of streets as though in a catatonic night terror, their faces dazed and streaked with blood.
A woman was calling out for her son. She screamed and wailed and, amidst her confusion, tripped over the carcass of an Old One.
As she struggled to get to her feet, leaving a bloody handprint on the soldier’s chest plate, a ghost materialized before her, the crimson shade of its eyes rapidly disappearing.
She accepted the proffered hand, then stared longingly at the ghost’s features.
“Jonny?” she whispered. “My . . . My Jonny, is that you?”
His heart swelling with hope, Roy averted his eyes from the scene, then went still.
He hadn’t realized that Percival had left his side until he saw him standing near the mouth of an alley, speaking and laughing with a ghost. Percival nodded at something the ghost had said, then pointed to Roy, who waved while passing Percival a questioning glance.
Owen, Percival mouthed, then went back to his conversation.
Roy folded his arms around himself, smiling.
Well, said a voice from Roy’s left. The Governor may be crooked as they come, but at least he picked out a handsome one for you. That being said, you never told me you fancied blonds, Roy.
Even before Roy faced his sister, his eyes were spilling over with tears. “Briar?” he murmured, suddenly forgetting all about her two-faced carving, buried somewhere in the ruins of the library.
Because she was here.
Aside from her voice, whose sweet sound he could never misplace, it was reasonably difficult to discern Briar’s features.
He could see the roundness of her eyes, but not their brown depths.
He could see the angular shape of her face, but not the skin or the blue veins running underneath.
When she lifted her hands and covered these indefinable characteristics, though, as if embarrassed, the chilling details of her fate came forth: a thick length of rope pulled taut around her neck, her face littered with bruises and footprints.
Roy’s eyes widened. “Briar, what did they—”
I don’t wish to talk about it, Roy, Briar interjected. I don’t want to ruin these last moments with you.
It took everything in him, every lingering trace of self-discipline, not to cry out in frustration and demand from Briar the truth of her murder, no matter how harrowing it was or how much hearing it would hurt him.
But he honored her wishes, mostly because he didn’t want them to part on bitter terms.
Even so, I guess we can’t get out of discussing Gabriel, Briar said, her red eyes flashing with an emotion that was hard to parse through the shadows enshrouding her.
I saw him, Roy, after you and Percival freed us from purgatory.
He was ripping through the Old Ones. His eyes were infernos.
His screams sounded like laughter. He was a barbarian, a beast of a man, but I suppose his liberation presented him the chance to do what he did best .
. . and, in some sort of twisted way, redeem himself.
Roy was promptly caught off guard, but he couldn’t find a persuasive argument to support his denial.
Gabriel had always demonstrated a streak of sadism when he’d abused Roy, and so Roy found it no hard feat to picture Gabriel soaring through Northgard, cackling and gibbering like a lunatic, slipping beneath the Old Ones’ armor and driving them to sheer insanity from the inside out.
I’m sorry, Briar whispered. Perhaps I should’ve kept my silence.
“No, I’m glad you told me,” Roy said. “I don’t think I’ll ever remember him without feeling some fear, nor do I think I’ll ever be able to disassociate him from my weakest days, but it’s become a little easier to talk about him.”
A touch of amusement entered Briar’s voice. Because of Percival, you mean.
Roy rolled his eyes. “Am I that transparent?”
Maybe, Briar said. Or maybe you’re just happy. When Roy smiled at the ground, she placed a smoky, tenebrous hand on his arm—which passed through the top layer of his skin. No, don’t do that. Don’t act coy. You deserve this love. We both know you do, Roy. Don’t hide what you have with him.
“I don’t know if I love him,” Roy said. “I don’t think we’re there.”
Not yet, but unlike some of us, you both still have time. Briar shooed him away. Now, goodness, why are you still bickering with your little sister when you have a man to get back to? That’s rather sad, don’t you think? Go and kiss him until he’s breathless and red in the face, you idiot.
Roy laughed. “All right, all right. So long as you find Irene before you go.”
Don’t worry, Roy, I’m one step ahead of you, Briar said, then glided toward a tall ghost loitering on the corner of a sunlit street. She hooked her arm through the ghost’s—Irene’s—elbow, and they set off together for one final stroll.
Roy was still smiling and watching the two ghosts drifting around the corner and out of view, his eyes filling with tears, when Percival joined Roy after his reunion and farewell with Owen.
“It went well, I assume?” Roy asked, sniffling.
“About as well as yours, it looks like,” Percival said. He kissed Roy’s temple. “Apparently Owen knew Tessa and a couple of Briar’s other associates. Perhaps we can start there. Are you ready?”
“Maybe a little later; there’s no rush,” Roy said. “I think, for right now, I just want to find a place to sit with you in the sun.”
“I think I want that, too.”
They did not have to look too far. For down the cobbles of every street and on the summit of every hill, there was sunlight. And for the first time in what felt like forever, that sun brought warmth.