Chapter 27
Elegy considered flying into Losan to attend the meeting Larke invited her to—-or summoned her to, hard to say.
She misses the public square where she and Shir used to book a veil for just a few coins and then find a dank, sticky tavern afterward.
Cedre doesn’t allow much personal technology—-quills, for messages, and a small selection of permits for private ships, but everything else is communal.
The library, the news pavilion, the veils.
It started as a way to conserve precious resources, but now it’s a principle, as sacred as the Imbuing Pool. We’re in this together.
She decides security is more important than nostalgia, in this case, since the summons is from Larke.
So she goes to a veil in Losan Stronghold instead.
She nods to the woman working the front desk in the administration building and walks the dim hallway, past a line of portraits depicting former Swords of Cedre, to reach the right room.
She doesn’t even pause next to the painting of her mother. No need to suffer unnecessarily.
The room is large enough to hold a group of ten, at least, and its walls, floor, and ceiling are all unadorned, but it’s softly lit and warm. The veil stands in the center of the space, a simple metal arch with a shimmering curtain hanging from it. It reminds Elegy of a soap bubble.
She takes a deep breath, and steps through the veil. The veil fabric clings to her face, her hands. It wraps around her body like a blanket, a little stifling at first, and then the sensation recedes, and a line of ghostly, glowing figures appears in front of her.
She was expecting only Larke, so for a few seconds she stares at them, unblinking, as they resolve into familiar faces. There’s Larke, of course. Her secretary. Generals Thompson, Saetang, and Okoro. Their secretaries. She seems to have walked into a very important meeting.
“—-don’t believe it’s that simple,” Saetang is saying. “The Talusar don’t attack for no reason, even if we don’t know what the reason is.”
“They didn’t take anything and they didn’t kill anyone,” Larke says. “We should offer our gratitude to whatever deities we do or do not believe in, and move on to more important matters.”
She looks pointedly at Elegy. Larke seems to have abandoned their mother’s affectation of dressing like she was in the army; she’s wearing civilian clothes, pressed black pants and a starched white shirt. Pearl earrings. Her hair tucked behind her ears.
Elegy can’t stop herself: “There was a Talusar attack where no one died?”
“There’s a man with significant memory trauma, but otherwise nothing,” Saetang replies.
“Then what was the point?”
“My question exactly,” Saetang says.
“I did not summon you here to comment on military strategy, Your Grace,” Larke interrupts.
There’s a crease between Larke’s eyebrows. Elegy is learning to dread that crease.
“I assume you summoned me for the same reason you invited me to the Evacuation Day banquet,” Elegy says. “To be useful to you. Your Highness.”
There’s a bite to her words. She still hasn’t forgotten how Larke dragged her up on stage to make her a symbol of the Restorationist cause. Where we come from is where we belong, indeed.
“ ‘Useful.’ Is that what you call it when one of my subordinates convenes a meeting of potential Talusar traitors without my knowledge or permission?”
It takes Elegy a moment to figure out what she’s talking about: the erczet ritual. By “potential Talusar traitors,” she means the parents of the former Knights of Cedre. And judging by the ever--deepening brow crease, Larke is very angry about it.
“The exiles—-who, as far as I can tell, haven’t done anything potentially traitorous—-came here yesterday for a mourning ritual, Your Highness.” Elegy keeps her voice level. “I didn’t think I needed your permission for a mourning ritual.”
“Describe this harmless ‘mourning ritual’ to me, then.”
Elegy feels Okoro’s eyes on her. Larke must have talked to her already. Larke must also already know what the erczet entails, or she wouldn’t be asking.
“Erczet is performed when there’s a witness to a loved one’s death,” Elegy says.
“The memories of the witness are projected to the family of the deceased. In this case, Theren Forint was either a direct witness of all the Knights’ deaths, or was informed of them, so I invited all the families to participate. ”
“Theren Forint is an asset of the Cedre government with significant knowledge of Rava Vidar and her associates,” Okoro says, crisp. “You allowed his memories to be shared with civilians with no security clearance, without even vetting them first?”
Heat creeps into Elegy’s face. “The Talusar exiles already have significant knowledge of Rava Vidar and her associates,” she points out. “Julia Martin in particular served as House Vidar’s memory healer before her defection—-”
“All the more reason not to supply her with sensitive information now—-”
“I participated in the ritual specifically to make sure that we had access to all the intelligence that could come from it,” Elegy says. “I learned more from Theren Forint in one hour than your battering ram of a specialist did in days of constant interrogation.”
“You wanted to make sure that ‘we’ had access. Right.” Larke’s hand tightens to a fist at her side.
“Who do you think you’re talking to, Elegy?
I know there’s no ‘we’ for you. There’s only you, and what gets in your way, which in this case is the pesky responsibility of respecting the hierarchy of our government and military. ”
“I hid it from you because I was worried that if you knew it was possible to project Theren’s memories, you would use it against him without even needing approval or oversight,” Elegy snaps. “After all, we don’t have any laws about using Talusar Fever abilities instead of truth serum.”
“I see.” Larke’s voice has gone soft, almost soothing. “So you stepped outside of the law to keep me from stepping outside of the law. That makes perfect sense.”
Elegy opens her mouth to respond, but she has nothing to say.
She can feel her heartbeat behind her eyes.
There’s no real defense for what she did, she realizes that now.
She was just so desperate to gain access to Theren’s missing memory—-to find out what it is he knows that Rava Vidar wants to keep hidden.
She forgot that this wasn’t a Scout mission, where the only important thing was getting the job done.
Larke must have made the same connection, because there’s a look in her eye that Elegy doesn’t like. It’s the same look Hela gets when she sees a way to win at chess but doesn’t want Elegy to know yet.
“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you think and act like a Scout,” Larke says, and each word is so carefully weighed and measured that Elegy wonders if Larke has been planning to say this all along. If this is the whole point of summoning her to the meeting.
“Larke,” Elegy says, warning.
“A Scout?” Okoro says. “Oh, right. Her father.”
“Her father, yes.” Larke’s eyes meet Elegy’s. “But she’s been following in his footsteps for the past four years.”
Cedre’s military hates and scorns Scouts for operating outside of the law. If Larke wants to discredit Elegy in front of Cedre’s military, to take away whatever social capital she has left after so many years in search and rescue, this is an efficient way to do it.
The silence that follows makes Elegy’s chest tight with anxiety. Okoro looks like she found a bug in her food. Saetang avoids Elegy’s eyes, their hands clasped in front of them.
Larke says, “You’re not embarrassed, are you? I didn’t realize it was a secret.”
“If we could return to the issue at hand,” Elegy says, fighting to steady herself. “The erczet ritual was part of a bargain I struck with Julia Martin in exchange for her help with Theren’s memory. I believe what she can recover from Theren’s mind will be of great importance to—-”
“Julia Martin will soon be on her way to Austra to examine the witness to the Talusar attack that we were discussing when you came in,” Larke replies. “Specialist Gylle will assess Theren Forint in the meantime, and if she approves of bringing in Julia Martin, we can revisit this discussion.”
Elegy doesn’t respond. She doesn’t intend to wait for Gylle’s approval in order to recover that memory—-or Larke’s. So there’s no point in arguing.
Larke says, “I’ll let you know when you can be ‘useful’ again, Your Grace. Until then, I suggest you make yourself scarce.”
Elegy glances at Thompson, who gives his head an almost--imperceptible shake, and at Saetang, who still isn’t meeting her eyes.
Her face burns with humiliation. She wants to scream at Larke; she wants to tell her to go fuck herself.
But she’s not going to let Larke turn her into an impetuous toddler.
She stands as straight as she can, her expression carefully neutral.
“Of course, Your Highness,” Elegy says. “Though, as my Scout father used to say, sometimes when you leave a tool outside for too long, it gets too rusty to do its job.”
Larke raises an eyebrow. Elegy gives her a respectful nod, and steps backward through the veil.