Chapter 17 #2
Or they’ll send me down to the mines and let me die a slower, agonizing death.
My hand flies back to the necklace again, my touchstone to the past, to my mother. Illonia would rip the book right out of my hand and toss it in a fire. I see her in my head, the thunderous look she got when she felt the hand of fate taking control away from her.
Elspeth and I had fallen asleep on the chaise lounge in the parlor one evening, nestled together like fox cubs in a den. Caught between sleep and wake, I’d listened to the low murmur of my parents’ talking, the conversation punctuated by Mother’s sharp inhalation.
“They can’t make you go, Michael. You’ll never come back.”
My father had sighed and, resigned, told her, “There’s no choice left. I go where I’m told. Orders are orders.”
When I’d cracked an eye open, I saw their shadows dancing in the firelight, their heads pressed together.
And glancing up, my mother’s face…
Stormy, lined, and worried. She’d never speak it out loud when her face gave her away.
She’d give me the same look now and warn me of the dangers of this conversation. Or maybe not. Maybe she’d only pretend outrage at the written exchange and hoard the book to study it later, ignoring the written questions in favor of the priceless information.
“Momma, what would you do here? What would you want me to do?”
The necklace has nothing to tell me.
There aren’t any answers in the chain, or the pendant. It all comes down to me and my decision-making skills because no one is coming to save me. No one has the answers for me, for any of us.
It boils down to one thing—what I want to do, and who I want to be? How great is my need for revenge?
My loyalty to the crown? A joke.
Brash, imprudent, I take the pen and scrawl out a long message, the truth dotting every I and crossing each T.
I scribble until my wrist cramps and I have to shake it out to get rid of the ache. It’s more than a little stupid to pour my rage and anger into the paper. My scrawl is deep enough to leave grooves in the subsequent pages.
What will this accomplish?
“Absolutely nothing,” I mutter.
I scowl at my letter, my nostrils flaring in disgust. As good as it feels to get it out in the open, there is nothing here for me. A mad general and his pet king? What good does it do to write it?
My fingers pinch the corner of the page and I tear it out. I shove it in my pocket and push the tip of the pen to the paper.
My loyalty is to the person who inspires it, I start to write.
This is the lie they want, the one everyone wants. People crave the lies because they are palatable in the face of our personal fear, if ignorance is no longer an option.
This message answers the author’s questions and toes the line of a loyal subject, not a traitor.
It sickens me with every stroke of the pen. The ink is much lighter now, my scrawl not nearly as neat as it used to be. Almost like the pen knows every word it writes is garbage.
I’m close to throwing up by the time I finish the note. It will appease the reader and probably keep them happy and writing. The conversation will continue and they will hopefully be too distracted to worry about who is stealing their book and defacing the margins.
My skin crawls and my chest burns as I drag the note I’d crumpled out of my pocket.
I stare at both of them for a long moment, glancing back and forth. There’s a decision to make. One with the potent weight of change. One note will tell the author what they expect to hear, what everyone expects to hear.
The other brands me a traitor.
I know which one makes more sense to include.
Just like I know the consequences of leaving the first in place. The pendant is heavier now than it was before and digs grooves into my neck.
“Ether take me.” I crane my neck, my eyes blurring.
The war stole both of my parents from me and left me not only an orphan but alone. My sister is gone, too, and the future she might have had in our world stripped away. Living is worse. The responsibility of carrying their memories makes every new sunrise a burden rather than a blessing.
What should I do?
Finally, I put the truth back in the book and close it, gripping the pendant until my skin warps around it in a permanent indentation. I won’t betray my mother’s memory by bowing to their lies. Lying might get me down the road but it won’t help me to the finish line.
Lies won’t hold the blade against Roman Ryson’s throat.
Only truth has the power to make change and if it starts with me, with one voice rising up against the screams of the masses who buy the General’s justifications—
I’ll be the monster, gladly growing fangs and claws and fur. Let them see what their cruelty breeds.
I push to my feet with my back curved from hours hunched over the book. And in the moonlight’s glow, my own crooked and misshapen shadow is a beast in the night.
A smile pries my lips apart.
No one is going to tell my story. I don’t need them to. I’ll write it with action instead of words, and the steps I take toward justice will burn themselves into the annals of history. The orphan, the price she paid, and the monster she willingly became to save her kingdom.