Chapter 19
It’s obvious when Cedre Station’s gravity catches her—Elegy’s hair falls across her cheek, and the weight of her dress settles against her shoulders again.
Evacuation Day is the celebration of Cedre’s founding, three hundred years earlier.
The earliest records to emerge from the Empty Time—-the black hole in the planet’s historical record—-described a Talusar decree requiring that every person receive their god, the Fever.
All across the world, so--called heretics rebelled against the decree, refusing the Fever.
After a great deal of bloodshed, the Talusar, then not as mighty as they are now, permitted the heretics three quarantine zones where they could live separate from the Fever: Losan, Austra, and Nusanta.
Evacuation Day marks the day that deal was made.
No one knew then that the Talusar would go back on it mere decades later.
Everything else that made Cedre what it was—-the restoration of Cedre Station; the repurposing of city land for food, water, and production; the colonies all over the world who chose to fight the Talusar from where they were instead of evacuating—-came later.
Evacuation Day, Larke insisted, was the best day for Elegy to make her public debut as the Hope of Cedre.
Elegy, thinking of General Thompson’s insistence that she didn’t need to believe in the prophecy in order to make use of it, agreed.
It was as good a time as any to finally confirm the rumors—-and going public will give her some political leverage over Larke, in case she needs it.
Her mother’s intention had been for the Hope of Cedre to become a political advisor to the Sword. She gets the feeling that Larke would rather hurl herself into the sun than listen to Elegy’s advice on anything.
Hela chose her dress. It’s a black sheath, its only adornment the overlapping metal plates that make up the strong shoulders, like the scales of a fish.
It looks like armor. You should look like a warrior, not a politician, Hela said, her head over Elegy’s shoulder in the mirror. Elegy had only nodded.
The loading dock doors in Cedre Station open, and the ship drifts toward the space. Elegy’s palms are sweaty. She wipes them on her skirt.
All she can think is, Shir is supposed to be here for this.
That was their plan: go to the Getty for the Knight ceremony, then fly together back to Cedre Station for the formal announcement.
I’ll be right next to you, Shir said. Bursting with pride.
And now here she is, wincing as the ship touches down, listening for the closing of the loading dock doors, unbuckling herself.
Standing, straightening, checking her reflection in the hand mirror Hela shoved into her tiny, ineffectual purse.
She tucks a strand of hair into the tight knot at the back of her head, and leaves the purse behind.
She’s not carrying a bag the size of a waffle into Cedre Station.
At the top of the hatch steps, she breathes deep. She’s jumped out of hatches like these dozens of times, spear at her back, only jungle or desert or mountains in front of her, Talusar soldiers waiting just out of sight. She was never this afraid.
She goes down the steps.
A crowd stands at the bottom, held back by barriers made of delicate rope.
Flanked by guards in black uniforms just in front of the barriers is Larke.
She wears her formal military uniform—-such a dark red it’s almost black, and more gilded than her casual uniform, the buttons shiny and the braiding over her shoulders glittering.
Her face is powdered enough that her freckles don’t show, the only thing that makes them look like sisters buried under makeup.
As Elegy descends, Larke gives her a warm smile, which almost makes Elegy stumble.
Larke has never looked at her like that in her life.
When she reaches both hands for Elegy, she gives a warning look, and Elegy reaches back.
Larke pulls her close, and kisses her cheek.
With her mouth still close to Elegy’s ear, she says, “Play along.”
Elegy isn’t good at playing along, but she tries to smile.
She has her father’s perpetual pout, so she’s not sure it’s effective.
Larke loops an arm through hers and turns toward the crowd, her teeth white and her eyes crinkled at the corners.
Elegy can’t help but stare. She’s never seen Larke look so .
. . normal. Like a sister Elegy might have grown up with, instead of the one she inherited after their mother’s murder.
“We’ll go through the maintenance tunnels to the banquet hall, and then stop at the monument for a picture,” Larke says. “Just smile for the crowd.”
Larke knows how to smile for a crowd. How to wave, and wink at children to make them squeal with excitement, and how to move at just the right pace toward the door at the back of the dock, the one that leads to the maintenance hallways.
Elegy just follows along, her face frozen in an almost--grin and her hand clenched around Larke’s arm.
Once the door closes behind them and no one is watching, Larke lets go of Elegy and brings a hand to her forehead.
“Well, that was almost a disaster,” Larke says. “Could you have looked more like I was leading you to your execution?”
“You didn’t warn me the entire population of Cedre Station would be waiting for me in the dock,” Elegy says.
“I didn’t think it would be such a problem.”
“I’m a soldier, Larke. Not exactly used to being on display. If I’d had to fight them off with a spear, maybe—-”
“You’re a Scout,” Larke says icily. “I’m given to understand you’re all talented at subterfuge.”
Elegy stiffens, but she knows better than to respond in kind. She understands why Larke is angry, after what happened at Theren’s “hearing,” and she’s afraid of making it worse.
“Let’s just go to the banquet,” Elegy says.
They walk through the maintenance tunnels in silence, flanked by Larke’s guards.
Elegy listens to the churn of machinery and the hiss of steam and the clinking of her dress’s scales, and tries not to think about what awaits her at this banquet.
Questions about where she’s been. Sympathy for what she’s lost. Expectations as heavy as dread.
When they emerge from the tunnels, it’s crowded, since everyone has to move through a small antechamber on their way to the banquet hall. At first, no one notices them—-not until they reach the antechamber itself. Inside it is a stone plinth, and on top of the plinth is a decryption device.
No, she reminds herself. Not a decryption device—-the decryption device.
When the visitors from outside the solar system first contacted Earth, it was through a crash landing.
An object—-the records aren’t clear about what it was, exactly—-fell through the atmosphere, and all that survived the impact with the ground was the decryption device, a heavy metal cylinder with tiny characters inscribed all around it.
No one knows how long it took Earth to make sense of the message the cylinder carried, but when they did, they read an invitation to meet at a set of coordinates just beyond Mars.
It was there that Earth’s ship linked up with an extraterrestrial craft.
There are no transcripts of the conversation, no explanations of how a conversation successfully took place between people who didn’t speak each other’s language.
All that’s left is a fragment of a report from an Earth representative upon her return.
We have been invited to join a greater order, she said.
We do not know exactly where they were from, as they refused to tell us for their own security—-they’re as wary of us as we are of them.
But if we agree to their terms, they’ll lead some of us there, to another world.
Of course, they never managed to come to terms before Earth nearly destroyed itself.
Elegy stares down at the decryption device, trying to read the characters inscribed on its otherwise smooth surface. The only language she recognizes are bits of Old Hànyǔ, but she can’t read them.
“No one knows how they knew one of our languages,” Elegy says. “To this day.”
“There are theories.” Larke is standing at her shoulder, looking impatient. “Come on, smile for the picture.”
There’s a man with an old--fashioned camera standing across the plinth from them.
While Elegy was staring at the decryption device, he seems to have cleared the room of everyone but her and Larke.
Larke links arms with her and smiles; Elegy does her best to smile, too.
The man with the camera steps aside, leaving their path to the banquet clear.
Elegy reluctantly continues on.
The banquet hall is huge and lofty. In its center is a large, sprawling tree with delicate orange--yellow leaves. Above it is a light fixture, as big as the tree is wide, that fixes a beam of white light on the branches.
All around it is the shimmer of water. At first she thinks it’s a pool—-but then she sees someone walk across it, and she realizes it’s glass.
Beneath the glass are the tree’s roots, stretching out in every direction and tangling with the structure of the ship itself, all its struts and ducts and pipes.
“There’s one just like it in the Sundial’s arboretum,” she hears a man say as she passes, in conversation with someone else. “Grown from seeds from the same mother tree. So that when the Sundial launches, it will carry a piece of Cedre with it forever. Poetic, don’t you think?”
The man in question is wearing a pin shaped like the Sundial, the symbol of the Pilgrimage Party, the one that advocates for sending the Sundial in search of the visitors’ planet in the hope that the Cedrae will be welcomed there.
It’s optimistic of him to speak of the Sundial’s launch with such certainty.
The Restorationists—-those who are determined to reclaim Earth from the Talusar instead of seeking another home—-have the majority, now.