Chapter 5
Elegy stands in her underwear, staring down at the dress. It’s black, a simple sheath that falls straight down from the shoulder. She thought putting it on would help her to put the whole persona on, like an actor donning a costume, but suddenly she doesn’t want to.
This happens every few minutes now, this feeling of disconnect between who she is and who she’s been told she is. The Hope of Cedre. It sounds like a joke, only no one’s laughing.
She bites down on her thumbnail. There’s still salt under all of her fingernails, even though she’s scrubbed her hands more than once since yesterday.
With a sigh, she shakes out the dress and steps into it, leaving the back unzipped as she searches for her shoes in the small closet she shares with Shir.
She wanted to wear her formal military uniform for this, but the Sword refused.
You have to look more human than that. Elegy didn’t quite understand—-soldiers were human, weren’t they?
But the Sword’s intention was to announce Elegy’s place in the prophecy tomorrow, along with pictures of this ceremony, and when they circulated, she couldn’t look like a piece of military propaganda.
Even if that’s exactly what the Sword wanted her to be.
Elegy can’t think about that right now—-how this will be used. She has to focus on salvaging her marriage.
She finds her shoes and straightens, the straps dangling from her fingers. Shir is in the doorway.
“Hi,” she says to him.
“I think the last time I saw you in a dress was our wedding,” he says.
He hasn’t said much since last night, when she woke him to tell him about the prophecy.
He didn’t get upset—-at least, not visibly so.
He just sat by the window with her and watched the sun rise over the buildings of Losan.
Then he went for a run, and when she asked to go with him, he said no. I need to think.
“Yeah, well,” she says, “it wouldn’t really be practical on a search and rescue operation, would it?”
Shir smiles. She’s so relieved to see it she almost bursts into tears.
“I’m so sorry,” she says softly.
“Shit, El,” he says, and he crosses the room to take her hands. “This is not your fault. I didn’t mean to make you feel like it was.” He squeezes her fingers. She put her wedding ring on properly today, so it shines on her left hand, warm gold.
“What the augurs told you is a miracle,” he says, like he’s decided something.
“If saving Cedre means you’ll love two men at once .
. . well, it’ll be worth it. And maybe you won’t.
Maybe they misinterpreted something. It doesn’t matter.
” He touches his forehead to hers. “I love you, and I believe in you.”
She nods, even though his words make her feel uneasy, unbalanced.
Yesterday feels like a dream already, standing on that mirror, the sky reflected back at her, the sun burning through the oculus overhead.
Shoulder to shoulder with Rava Vidar, the Butcher of Calgara, supposed container for the souls of dead warriors.
Tumult and rupture. It felt so huge in the moment, big fate, big responsibility.
But now, it’s . . . less. Now she has rough tile under her feet and Shir’s warm hands in hers, and this is reality.
The man she loves, and the promise she made to him.
He might believe in this prophecy. But that doesn’t mean she has to.
“We’ll carry this together,” he says.
“I love you,” she says.
He kisses her like they just survived something—-and maybe they did. His hands are tight on her waist; his teeth scrape her lower lip. She presses closer, and his hands slip around to her bare back, the dress still unzipped. His fingers trail up her spine, and she shivers.
“We’re going to be late,” he says, against her mouth.
“I don’t give a shit,” she answers, and she drops her shoes on the floor. He tugs the dress down from her shoulders, and they spill into bed together like they’ve been poured from a pitcher.
The Getty is up ahead. White and lonely on its hill, a relic of the city that was.
It’s odd to think of a Losan that wasn’t packed with high--efficiency farms and greenhouses, small factories and water purification plants.
The nation of Cedre has never been just one land mass—-it’s a constellation of them spread across the globe.
The Talusar have been putting out each star in that constellation by force, one by one, for hundreds of years.
Now there are just three left on the planet’s surface: the megacity of Losan, in the western hemisphere; the continent of Austra, in the east; and north of it, the island chain of Nusanta.
In the very beginning, Cedre Station struggled to survive.
All of Cedre tried to help, but Austra was a haven for those fleeing the Fever, and a base of operations for the military, and Nusanta was embroiled in conflict with the Talusar, and all the other territories—-conquered now, of course—-were too small to offer much to Cedre Station.
Only Losan had plenty to give, and that’s the reason Cedre Station exists now.
Shir eases their ship down to the landing pad. The Sword waits at the edge of it, her hair pulled back so tightly the wind doesn’t budge it. She’s wearing her formal military uniform, deepest red with all kinds of patches on the sleeve to indicate her status, her service, her honors.
“You’re late,” she says, and she says it to Shir, like it’s his fault.
“Couldn’t find my shoes,” Elegy says. “It’s only ten minutes, anyway.”
The Sword’s eyes narrow by a fraction. Ten minutes is significant to her, no doubt.
“Everyone else is here, and the Getty has been secured,” the Sword says. “Just a precaution. This ceremony is highly classified. No one knows who you are yet.”
“Aside from ‘the spare,’ you mean.”
“I wish you wouldn’t call yourself that.” The Sword sniffs in a way that seems disapproving to Elegy. “Your Knight has already arrived. You should go meet him.”
“Meet him,” Elegy says. “What am I supposed to say, exactly? ‘Sorry you got traded away to the state before you were even born, hope it’s not too lame for you’?”
“We are not guaranteed infinite choices in this life,” the Sword says. “You and I know that as well as he does. If you wouldn’t want to receive his pity, perhaps you should not offer yours.”
She turns on her heel and walks into the building. Stung, Elegy follows. She hadn’t thought of it that way—-that from the moment the augurs summoned her, they winnowed down her choices. Her path is so narrow now there’s only room for one person to walk it. The same is true for her Knight.
To be honest, she pities them both.
“You’re ready to go to Cedre Station with me after the ceremony?” the Sword says, over her shoulder, as they walk past the endless galleries of the Getty. “You can meet with my army there, after the announcement, to determine your rotation of guards.”
“Not sure why I’ll need a guard—-isn’t that what the Knight is for?”
The Sword raises an eyebrow at her. “A little redundancy never hurt anyone.”
“I’m also not sure why I have to announce myself as the Hope of Cedre like some debutante.”
“If you ever intend to lead anyone, you need them to know what you are.” She looks over her shoulder, and her eyes soften a little. “Larke wants to spend some time with you, anyway.”
Larke is the Sword’s other daughter. Technically Elegy’s sister, though Elegy rarely thinks of her that way. She already has a sister: Hela, who promised her a bottle of whiskey when all of this is over, even though she wasn’t important enough to be invited to the ceremony.
Elegy stops in the doorway of one of the galleries, and stares up at the statue of Cassandra inside it. It’s the statue’s expression that catches Elegy’s attention. The furrow of her eyebrows—-she’s frustrated. No one listens to her.
“She looks a little like you,” Shir says, in her ear.
She does, Elegy thinks. Something in the set of her mouth, maybe. Turned down at the corners.
“Let’s hope that’s just a coincidence,” she replies.