CHAPTER 30
The carriage climbed a winding road veering through the steep hills southeast of the city.
I pulled the curtain aside, letting the night air in.
Kair Toren lay on my right and below. The night had barely begun, and windows and lanterns still glowed bright, the city shining with sparks of man-made fire like a swarm of fireflies cradled in the gloved hands of the dark, ridged hills.
Above it the bottomless night sky soared, with Prata still full, and the other two moons in waxing crescent, Drao, red and angry, and Broe, glowing an eerie, magical green.
Across from me, Everard sat on the carriage bench, a liquid dark shadow.
After Solentine had left, Everard helped me down the stairs.
Two men came to see him, both wrapped in worn cloaks, probably his retainers.
Solentine had referred to them as two human statues and that wasn’t far from the truth— both looked stone-faced and stoic.
They’d gone into our basement to discuss something.
Now one of them was driving this carriage and the other one rode shotgun.
While Everard had his discussion, I went into the kitchen, drank very hot tea with too much honey in it, and nodded as Shana and Clover discussed the menu for the next week. I approved Clover’s budget.
I should’ve gone into my study, but instead I loitered.
I sat in the courtyard in the sun for a while, then in the kitchen with Shana, and after Clover came back, I made a fresh batch of soap, half with breberry and half with maiden-flower.
And every time I zoned out, a little voice in my head asked What if the Butcher came back to life?
By the time evening rolled around and Everard came to find me to take me on this trip, I was ready to rip my hair out.
There was no logic to it. Solentine was right. Dead people didn’t rise again; unless they were me. This was trauma rearing its ugly head. Remember how you died? How much it hurt? Remember beating a living person to death with a mace?
I needed to put a period on this so I could move on. The Sun Margrave’s assassination hung over my head like a sword. No matter what I did, Hreban seemed untouchable. If only I had some way to nuke that asshole . . .
“Dark thoughts?” Everard asked.
I glanced at him. Eventually we’d have to discuss my new family name, and I wasn’t looking forward to that conversation. “Thinking of Chesterton’s fence.”
“And that would be?”
“It’s a parable. A person comes to a fence erected across the road.
It is blocking their way, so the person says, ‘I don’t see the point.
Let’s tear it down.’ Another traveler comes along and says, ‘If you don’t know why it’s there in the first place, I won’t let you break it.
Figure out why someone invested time and effort into building it and then we can talk about tearing it down. ’”
He considered it. “There are three possible outcomes.”
I nodded. “Suppose the fence is blocking the road to a mountain where medicinal herbs grow. The nearby village desires the herbs to prosper.”
“They break the fence and profit,” he said, “or they break the fence and a dursan hiding on the other side devours them; or they do nothing at all and continue as they were.”
“Exactly. Hreban is a fence post.”
He raised his eyebrows. “In what way?”
“I’ve read the code of laws.” I’d found it in Derog’s study.
It was thick and I had mostly skimmed it.
“At first glance, Sauven’s power comes from military might, but unlike the transient dictatorships, the monarchy of Rellas has deep historical roots.
It is steeped in tradition. Sauven isn’t claiming the divine mandate to rule; nor is he terrorizing the population to maintain his power.
The system endures because it enables most people in Rellas to survive.
It works. Yes, there are those who exist in poverty and those who struggle, and there are not enough safeguards to keep the vulnerable from being preyed upon, but most people have shelter, food, and leisure.
There is a thriving and numerous . . .” middle class “. . . group of people who not only survive but do well. Craftsmen, merchants, healers, government officials.”
He nodded.
In terms of social order, Rellas was in the beginning stages of a mixed monarchy.
It had abolished slavery and serfdom in favor of tenant farming.
It had codified the principle that everyone, including the monarch, was subject to the code of laws.
Those laws were created and ratified by the Konderar, a council that included representatives of the Eight Families, the knight orders, the Basilica, and most importantly the biggest guilds and merchant companies.
Rellas was beginning to flirt with democratic ideas, but right now it was balanced on a sword’s edge.
It could either right itself and continue evolving or it could tumble backward into a dictatorship.
I would defend this fragile sprout of democracy with my life no matter how many deaths it took to win. It had to be nurtured and allowed to grow. Tyranny had to be avoided at all costs.
“The laws grant Sauven supreme military power. If he were to go mad and become a true terror, killing ordinary people, confiscating their property, and infringing on their freedoms and safety, what would happen?”
“It wouldn’t happen, because the other Great Families would hold him in check,” Everard said. “I would hold him in check.”
“Precisely. The Great Families are a fence around Sauven. If he attempts to overstep his bounds, they will contain him, and if one of them steps out of line, Sauven will knock them down and put a new fence post in their place. Except that Sauven is too far gone. His sole focus right now is consolidating his power around Kiel because he must preserve the dynasty. It blinds him and creates an opportunity for someone like Hreban to seize power.”
“The answer cannot be removing Sauven,” Everard said. “He isn’t ready to go and there are no worthy replacements. Kiel isn’t fit to rule. It would mean civil war.”
“Exactly. So we cannot replace Sauven, even if we somehow were capable of it, nor can we count on Sauven to check Hreban’s climb.
There is a third force that can exert influence here.
They are the ones who constructed this fence in the first place.
They bestowed the Great Families with power to keep themselves safe. ”
“The people of Rellas,” he said.
I nodded. “To go back to the earlier story about the village by the mountain: As long as their lives are going well, the villagers will not risk destroying the fence. Like you said, there could be a dursan on the other side. However, if the village is ravaged by a plague, they will break that fence to pieces and use the wood to light their way up the mountain. Probable death is better than certain death. We must convince Rellas that Hreban is a plague. We must show it in a huge, overwhelming way, so his lineage, wealth, and status do not matter and Rellas no longer holds him immune.”
“How?”
“I’m trying to figure that out. We must demonstrate to everyone that in spite of Sauven, the balance of power still works.”
He studied me from the gloom. “You are very dangerous, Maggie. I don’t think you realize the full extent of it.”
“If only.” I sighed. “Maggie the Useless would be a better fit.”
The carriage slowed and came to a stop. A knock sounded through the front wall.
“We’re here,” the driver called out.
Everard got up, opened the door, stepped out, and offered me his arm. I put my hand on his forearm. He helped me out of the carriage and I stepped away from him.
A cold wind fanned me. I pulled my cloak tighter around myself.
In front of us, the road ran into the sheer rock face, as if a hill had been split in half with a knife like a birthday cake.
A fifty-foot gate protruded from the mountain, carved from the living rock—two blocky towers connected by a walkway.
Strange animals wound around the towers, depicted in contorted shapes, the carvings so ancient and worn, you could barely make out the edges.
Between the towers a dark cave gaped like a hungry mouth.
“Drigildarg. The city of the dead,” Everard said. “And here comes our guide.”
A faint yellow glow appeared in the darkness. A few moments and a guard emerged carrying a torch. She waited for us to approach and went back into the mountain.
We followed the guard into the gloom.
The tunnel was long and dark, swirling with a draft from deep within the mountain. The torch sputtered, casting chaotic highlights onto the walls. The sound of our steps sent echoes bouncing through the tunnel.
The air grew colder.
A strange feeling gripped me. I was walking through the tunnel next to Everard and I was also back on the table, with the Butcher leaning over me, cutting into my body over and over. The two realities overlapped, both tangible and illusory at the same time.
I killed him. I’d been powerless on that table, but I had taken my power back when I turned his face into mush. I’d reclaimed my sanity and my life. I would not let him haunt me.
Demons were meant to be confronted. I would face mine.
The tunnel ended, opening into a vast cavern steeped in gloom.
A stone floor of big square tiles, uneven and worn down by countless feet, stretched in front of us.
Here and there, tall stone pillars soared into the darkness above, some crowned by glowing lanterns.
The light of the lanterns slid over the pitted stone, playing on the ancient carvings on the cavern walls.
In the distance, deeper darkness tinting the twilight offered hints of passageways, framed with stone arches and guarded by fearsome statues.