Chapter 31 Mance
Mance
Sometimes when you visit a place you haven’t seen since you were a child, everything looks so much smaller than you remember it.
Not the Citadel, though.
The sky crackles with green energy above us as we approach.
The magic has swelled, spreading like disease across the horizon.
It’s darker, too. Still that vivid, poisonous green at the top, but a deeper, shadowier green near the base, like the magic is burned or rotted.
In the Citadel itself, the green is so dark that it’s almost as black as what lies within. I shiver.
The other Primes walk beside me, their expressions stiff.
No one is excited to be here, and tension is thick in the air.
Reltas told his crowd of magic users to stand down, and they did.
But they also followed us here, through that awful rift in space, and they keep looking at their Prime like his words might be a bluff. One he’ll take back at any minute.
I’m not even sure they’re wrong.
And even if Reltas does behave, I can’t shake the feeling that one wrong move could set them all off anyway. Given the staggering array of unknown magics they possess, that would be very, very bad. We’re not on the other side of this yet.
Plus, if I’m honest, I’m not sure I can count on any of the other Primes either.
Their magic may be known, but that doesn’t make it less dangerous.
Especially considering the fact that it’s all gotten darker in the last few weeks.
It could push any one of us to our breaking point, even if we weren’t in such a tense situation.
It feels like we’ve all been crammed into one of Prime Gore’s bottled explosions, ready to go off any moment at the flick of a cork.
“So,” Prime Azele asks quietly, “what now?”
I take a deep breath, steadying myself, before taking a step forward and turning to face the gathered leaders. They look back at me with varying degrees of guardedness and apprehension.
“I think this event has shown,” I start, “that the Citadel’s existence is more of a danger to our realms than a benefit. Perhaps it is time for a new Treaty.”
“What good will that do?” Prime Artro grouses, pulling at his unkempt beard. “Prime Reltas’s actions are illegal under the Treaty we already have, and it didn’t stop him.”
“It’s true,” Prime Tibits interjects, voice booming. “And we should dispense with its justice first. It is within our rights to strip Prime Reltas of power. Even to execute him.”
There’s a stirring in the crowd behind us and Reltas smirks. “Try it,” he taunts. “See what happens.”
I shoot him a “you’re not helping” look.
“Perhaps if we had more truth around the purpose of the Treaty, then Reltas wouldn’t have broken it.
Instead of pretending it was something noble like the end of the wars, we should have been honest that it was more about our own survival.
More about not losing ourselves to the darkness than it was about protecting anyone else from it.
Maybe then he would have thought twice.”
I’m hoping Reltas will take this opportunity to back me up, as doing so would make him look more sympathetic, but he only shrugs, like he might have done this either way.
I am beginning to regret not chaining him up.
“As the only one of us who was there when the Treaty was signed,” Prime Artro pipes up again, “I can tell you that I never had any intent to deceive. I have been truthful about it in my own realm. What your parents and grandparents told the lot of you is not the fault of the Treaty itself.”
“Then perhaps there is no Treaty that can protect us,” I snap angrily. “Not even if we all vowed never to use the Citadel again. Perhaps this level of power is too great a temptation to exist at all.”
“You speak as though it could be otherwise,” Prime Apea says coolly, her expression as impassive as ever. “The Citadel does exist.”
“Well, has anyone ever tried to take it down?” My words are met with a heavy pause, as though even the suggestion of it has stunned them all into silence. There are a lot of pursed lips and rolled eyes.
“Such a thing is . . . a monumental undertaking for any one person to consider,” Prime Azele says gently, after a beat.
“Well, what if it wasn’t just one person?
” I press. “What if it was all of us? The only thing that can affect magic is other magic, right? We all know that. And, yes, the Citadel has a lot of magic. But we have a lot of magic at our disposal now, too.” I gesture around at our circle, and then beyond it at the hovering crowd. “We could work together.”
My words are yet again met with hesitance. Primes eye one another, give sideways glances at the restless magic users behind us. I can see that no one is going to be the first to trust. The first to believe we could all be on the same side for once.
So I’ll do it.
I break off from the group and summon my predators, lingering a moment on how good it feels to have their ferocity accessible to me again. The roar of my grizzly reverberates through my body and when I summon the wolf, he comes out howling.
I look up at the Citadel, intentionally dwelling on everything that it’s put me through. The way it twisted me, twisted my family, twisted the world until nothing felt safe anymore. The way I hate it. The way I fear it. The way I want it gone.
As I let my feelings for the Citadel swell within me, my animals react. They fall on the sandstone walls, claw at the wisps of magic in the air. They attack with all their strength.
It . . . doesn’t seem to make much difference. The sandstone doesn’t crumble, and the magic only grows brighter in response.
One of the Primes behind me scoffs, and my heart sinks. My creatures sit back on their haunches, looking dejected.
But then Azele steps up beside me, laying her hand against the walls.
She closes her eyes like she’s trying to focus, and I hold my breath, waiting. When she opens her eyes again, though, her expression is disappointed, and the wall remains solid.
Even so, it’s enough to inspire the other Primes to step up.
Prime Tibits hurls a heat rock spear through the open door.
Prime Apea sings a haunting battle cry.
Prime Artro summons ropes and casts them at the side of the building.
Even Prime Reltas, though he rolls his eyes, scribbles the names of some citizens from his realm who never came out of the Citadel and buries it, unleashing a couple hands to claw at the sides of the ruins that killed them.
The Citadel seems to swallow it all.
Bile rises in my throat as the attacks slow down and then stop completely, everyone breathing hard and wearing expressions that range from frustration to despair. No one looks surprised, though. Not really.
I hang my head.
“It was a cute idea,” Prime Tibits says bitingly, adjusting his iridescent armor.
“But hopefully you see now how foolish it was. The only thing that matters in this world is power, and the Citadel is the most powerful thing there is. Don’t you see?
Someone like you can never stand up to a power like this. ”
I glare at the sand, feeling like a child. No older than the last time I stood here, and with no better idea of how to handle the problem in front of me.
His words are enough to awaken my old fear that my father was right. That I am naive for thinking I can stand up to things that are so much bigger than me.
Silver comes up next to me and holds my hand. I think at first that he’s just trying to give me comfort, so I squeeze his fingers without looking up at him. But then he leans over to whisper in my ear. “I have an idea, but I don’t think you’re going to like it.”
I give him a side-eye, measuring his expression. He seems serious. Solemn. So I turn toward him. “What is it?”
“I think . . .” I can feel him weigh his words. “I think we have to go back in.”
“What?!” I drop his hand, taking a step back. “I can’t go back in there, Silver. I don’t even like looking at it.”
He folds his arms over his chest, regarding me quietly. “How did it go for you when you didn’t want to look at or think about Livid?” he asks in a low voice.
“That’s different,” I protest. “She’s a part of me.”
“You don’t think the Citadel is a part of you?”
“Of course not. It’s something that happened to me. It’s not me.”
But Silver only shakes his head. “For better or for worse, you wouldn’t be who you are without the experience of going through that door. Right?”
Fear coils in my heart. There is a bitter truth to his words.
“I’m not saying it won’t change you again,” he continues.
“But it’s like what you said to Reltas. The Citadel is always going to have power over you until you stop letting it.
Power over all of us.” He looks around at the others.
“Every single one of them is as scared as you are. Some even more so. Probably not the ones you’d expect to be.
” His gaze lingers on Prime Tibits, who scowls, even though he’s too far away to hear what’s being said.
“You can see his fear?” I ask.
Silver nods. “And there’s a lot of it.”
This makes me feel better, but I’m still unsure. Attacking from the outside didn’t work. It only made me look foolish. There’s no real reason to think that attacking from the inside would go any differently. And there are much more serious potential consequences.
I’ve never heard of anyone going into the Citadel twice. Would it twist me again? Even further? Would it break me this time? Would I come out with a third dark magic? And if so, would the combination of the three be too much to handle?
Or would I not come out at all?
“The Citadel has fear in it, too,” Silver says.
I start. “What do you mean?”
“It’s not alive, so it doesn’t feel things the way we do. But fear is a part of it. Part of what created it. I can see it, Mance. Smoke in the magic.”
I look up at the Citadel in awe, futilely straining to see what he does. Then Silver turns toward me again.
“Trust me, okay?” he asks, holding out a hand. Echoing what I said on the tower.
And for all my other doubts, that is something I can answer without question. “I do,” I say, taking his hand.
We hesitate for a minute, looking at each other and entwining our fingers. Holding on to this moment as though it is our last.
Because it might be.
Then, without any further deliberation, we approach the Broken Citadel together.