Chapter 16 #2
It was given to each of the exiles when they first arrived on Cedre Station and cleared quarantine. And all his mother would say about it was that it was a profound violation.
“I apologize for my interruption,” Elegy says, her voice suddenly cold. “Please. Go on.”
“I was just about to ask Mr. Forint to explain why, if he is not one of Rava Vidar’s lessers, he found himself in a position to interrogate you in House Vidar.”
“There’s no ‘if,’ Your Highness.” He’s relieved that his voice comes out steady, despite his racing heart. “I wasn’t afforded any status in House Vidar.”
“Oh?” Larke leans forward, ever so slightly. Her focus is back, as needle--sharp as it was before. “Then how would you describe your role there?”
“Rava . . .” He’s aware of how the name sounds in his mouth, familiar, like he’s spoken it a thousand times. And he has, he has. “Rava Vidar made use of me as she would a blade. I had all the status of a valuable weapon, and no more.”
Larke laughs a little. “Surely she has more skilled warriors in her house than a Cedre--born captive.”
“That’s not the kind of weapon I mean,” he says. “I read people. Preternaturally.”
“You would hardly be the first among the Talusar to read memories,” Larke says. “Isn’t that what their truthsayers are typically known for?”
“I don’t read memories.” He shifts in his chair. He doesn’t like discussing what he can do. It makes him feel like he’s stripping down in front of everyone. “I read their—-feelings. Which includes deception.”
If this surprises her, she doesn’t let on.
“As someone who also occupies a powerful position, surely you can understand how I might be uniquely useful as a truthsayer.”
“I can see how such a weapon would be difficult to wield, if the truthsayer in question comes from among your enemies,” she says. “It’s difficult to trust the word of someone like that, whatever his special talents, if he isn’t loyal to you.”
“How is it that you think Rava Vidar won my loyalty? By dragging me across the desert and infecting me with Fever? Or was it by killing all my friends?”
“Watch your tone.”
He squeezes his hands into fists in an attempt to get feeling to return to his fingers.
She’s not listening to him. Not really. Her mind is made up, and he won’t be able to dissuade her. But maybe he can force her to admit it.
“What is it you’ve decided, Your Highness?” he says to her.
This seems to catch her off guard. “I beg your pardon?”
“You’ve already decided something about me. I think it would save everyone a lot of time if you would just tell me what the hell it is.”
Her eyes search his. All around the room, people shift in their seats, uncomfortable with her silence, with his daring, with both.
“Fine.” She folds her hands on the table in front of her, and leans into them. “I will indulge you, Mr. Forint.”
The plastic bites into his wrists. He tries to calm down.
“You are the son of an exile, conscripted to serve the office of the Sword when you were a child. Judging by the intelligence I have collected from the other exiles in the wake of the Getty attack, you are the only one of their children who was raised as a Talusar—-taught to fight, to speak their language, to follow their customs. Your mother, Kesia Forint, then proved her true loyalties by betraying my mother and sister to our enemies, resulting in my mother’s death.
An occasion on which you were . . . less than helpful, I think you might agree. ”
He winces.
Coward Knight, Rava called him.
He blocks everything out as hard as he can. He doesn’t want to feel Elegy’s shock as she remembers that the man she just risked her life to save betrayed his oath at the first opportunity. That if he hadn’t, maybe her mother, her husband, would have survived.
The Sword goes on: “And now you turn up four years later in House Vidar, apparently the sole survivor of the Knights, serving as Rava’s trusted truthsayer. So what I have decided is that, like your mother before you, you are not loyal to Cedre.”
His feet are numb now, but he doesn’t think it’s from the cold.
“Did you ever interrogate a Cedrae captive for Rava Vidar?”
“No, Your Highness,” he says, quiet now.
“Not many Cedrae captives make it all the way to Valla, I suppose. So would you say you primarily assisted Rava Vidar with the political machinations and maneuverings of her own kingdom?”
“Yes.”
“And, perhaps, with Cedrae traitors who were eager to do business with our enemies?”
“From time to time.”
“You admit, then, to strengthening the position of one of our deadliest enemies? To aiding in the treasonous activities of our very own disloyal citizens?”
He can feel, now, the focus of the Sword’s certainty. The needle of her, digging into the heart of him. There’s no answer to her questions but “yes,” and no defense possible. He tries to steady himself, to breathe. To find an answer that doesn’t land him directly under the truth serum needle.
“Wow. Well, that got intense fast,” Elegy says. He doesn’t look at her, but she’s using that same brisk, casual voice she affected before. “Already moved straight to the accusation stage, and I didn’t even get to ask my own questions.”
“Your own questions,” the Sword says.
“Yeah, you know me, I just cannot turn off this pesky curiosity,” Elegy says. “And besides, it seems like you might need some help, Your Highness. There are a few things you’re leaving out.”
“Oh, by all means,” the Sword says, gesturing to Theren. “Have at it. You’re the one he almost got killed, after all. More than once, for that matter.”
“Debatable,” Elegy says, with a forced laugh. “But all right.”
She stands, and takes a pocketknife out of her back pocket. She flicks it open and reaches across the table toward Theren’s wrists.
The Sword straightens—-somehow—-even more. But she doesn’t object.
For just a moment, Elegy’s eyes meet his, steady. Then she cuts through the plastic around his wrists.
“Palms flat on the table,” she says to him.
He does it without understanding why. But as the Sword, General Thompson, and the unidentified man on the Sword’s left all lean forward to see his hands, he remembers the tattoos.
On his right hand: two simple black bars, stretching vertically between his knuckles.
On his left, a fragment of vine that twists between his first two fingers and follows the curve of his hand to the base of his thumb.
“What does that one mean?” Elegy says, pointing at the black bars.
He stares at her. She just waits for his response.
“The bars are markers of time served in the Crucible,” he says.
“The Crucible.” She sits in her chair again, the knife stowed in her pocket. “I don’t think I remember what that is.”
It’s a lie. If Elegy lying had a sound, it would be a sudden discordant note on a pipe organ.
It’s the Sword who answers.
“It’s a Talusar prison.” Her anger is building, just a simmer now in the pit of his stomach that doesn’t belong to him. “Distinguished by its particularly brutal practice of pitting prisoners against each other in hand--to--hand combat, for the entertainment of Valla citizens.”
“Right, right.” Elegy looks at Theren again. “So how long did you spend in the Crucible, then?”
“Two years,” he says.
“So you weren’t in House Vidar for four years,” she says. “Only two.”
“What is the point of this, Your Grace?” the Sword demands. “I hardly see how the length of time matters—-”
Elegy smiles, again with that forced cheer.
“Sorry, Your Highness. I’ll get to that,” she says. “First, though, I want to talk about the other tattoo, Theren. Looks like a vine. Did you choose it?”
He tenses. “No.”
Elegy isn’t even listening for his response. Instead, she’s digging around in the bag she brought in. She produces a pair of familiar--looking boots.
Theren’s mouth goes dry.
Elegy carries them to the other end of the table and deposits them right in front of General Thompson. The soles are clean, but the leather is still wet from the river she waded in during their escape.
“Can you look at the tongue of the right one and tell me what you see, sir?” Elegy says.
Thompson gives her a wry smile. He picks up the right boot and peeks at the tongue.
“There’s a vine etched into the leather,” Thompson says.
“Interesting,” Elegy says, and she leaves the boots there when she returns to her seat. “Whose boots are those, Theren?”
How did she figure it out? He doesn’t remember mentioning to her that he took the boots from Rava. He wouldn’t have.
“They’re Rava’s,” he says.
“Thought so. I noticed that vine in quite a few places when I was in House Vidar. The handle of Rava’s knife. These boots.” She nods to his tattoo. “Your hand. What does it mean?”
He understands, he knows why she’s doing this, but that doesn’t stop him from hating it.
“The boots belonged to her father,” he says, spitting the words out like they’re poison. “The vine is the symbol of the Vidar family.”
Elegy’s voice loses its energetic quality as she says, “It seems to me that it’s used to mark valuable possessions. Am I wrong?”
He remembers, now, that she saw him bow to Rava. Heard him call her my lady. Watched him receive that reprimand. Your time belongs to me.
He can’t look at her.
He switches to Talusar, and asks Elegy, in a low voice, “Is this how you see me? As some tortured innocent in need of saving?”
“Answer my question,” she replies.
“As you’ve already said,” he says. “It’s used to mark weapons or possessions.”
“Which one are you?”
“Take your pick,” he snaps.
He remembers it so clearly. Rava’s hand on his wrist like a manacle, holding him down as the tattooist worked.
Her fingers were cold and strong. The needle was painful, but the worst part of it was that she had invited her lessers to bear witness, so there could be no mistaking what he was from that day forward. Not a man, but a tool.
“I think I’ve been patient with your theatrics thus far, Your Grace,” the Sword says. “Get to the point.”