33. The Sunset Trial
The Sunset Trial
There’s a queue for the ladders, and when we reach the Sky Deck, it’s crowded. Seems so much busier than Chapp’s trial was.
“You still have your plan, right?” Riss asks. I’d told her about it on the way up.
“Yes,” I say, but inside I’m thinking but it’s falling apart.
I hadn’t anticipated how busy it would be. How much pressure I might be feeling. Nor do I have Drake’s magic to help me.
We thread our way to the wooden platform, positioning ourselves beside the same scribe from Chapp’s trial.
This is good. I’ll be right in front of Vikemy when he ascends the stairs.
A minute drags by. It’s a lifetime. The sky is a deep orange, and our shadows are growing. Ships travelling in the distance look like creatures of the night.
And then they appear. Three figures, right across from me, crowds and crowds between us.
Dezeeves is leading the way this time rather than Ephraine.
He looks like an impoverished man compared to Vikemy in his immaculate State Craftsman robes and gleaming cape.
Cosmer is in between them, being pulled along by Dezeeves with a sort of tether, like an animal.
His hands are tied in front of him, and there’s something unnerving about the way he’s stumbling along.
My heart lurches.
I wish Dezeeves would drop dead.
But then I reconsider it. Because surely he won’t let his son, his own flesh and blood, be executed?
Still. I can’t take any chances when it comes to him. I need to act.
They’re coming this way.
Dezeeves passes me first.
Then Cosmer. But he doesn’t seem to see me. Doesn’t seem to see anything.
They must have given him more osimidite. It’s the only explanation.
I can’t dwell on it, can’t feel the pain I want to feel, because Vikemy is directly in my line of sight. Another ten seconds and he’ll be on the stairs.
I inhale so deeply I swallow air. My pulse is rising. I can feel the light surrounding me, as if it was already there. I just needed to notice it.
One more step, Vikemy. One more.
Now.
Vikemy, I say into his mind, just as he crosses my path. I can smell the perfume on him. Cosmer isn’t guilty.
He passes me at the same quick speed.
No change in his demeanour at all.
And my world is on fire.
Because I know in my bones, my mind, my soul, that it didn’t work.
I felt no drops of heat as my magic left me. No prickling over my skin. No sound in my head. No inaudible click, like something slotted into place in Vikemy’s mind.
Why?
“Well?” Riss asks, at the same time that Dezeeves’ amplified voice begins resounding from the platform. But when she sees my face, her own drops. She clutches her jaw. “No. Don’t tell me…”
Tears fill my eyes.
She looks like she’s about to cry, too. “But we were right in front of him.”
My voice is as weak as I feel. “I know. I don’t understand.”
Bringing my magic to me had felt so natural it felt accidental – just like it did when I stopped Drake from taking the knife or made Cosmer look at me at the dance.
But my magic couldn’t leave me. Stayed stuck. Caged. It was like –
“Sisters,” I say, painfully, like I’m calling on them to kill me now.
Because I know what must have happened
I spin around.
And I lock eyes with Drake, a few rows back.
I’d seen him instantly, even though he’s in standard uniform now, blending in despite being taller, broader and darker than the other soldiers. As if I’d already known exactly where he would be.
I’m convinced he’s smiling.
“Wait here,” I order Riss.
And I’m storming. That’s the only way I can describe it. I want to rain floods down on him. Feel myself roar. Tear him away from me, my world.
I plough into him, shoving him with both my hands. He hardly moves.
“You!” I yell.
I’m causing a scene.
I don’t care.
I go to shove him again.
He grabs my hands, halting me.
Someone asks Drake, “Are you all right?”
How ridiculous that is. Asking him if he’s all right...
Drake brushes off the question. “We are fine. Ara is simply upset at the situation and needs someone to take it out on.”
People step away from us.
I want to cry but I’m too enraged. If I keep feeling rage like this, I’ll never cry again.
“Why did you do that?” I say in Rhavnan, probably louder than I should. “I had a clear shot.”
He pulls me closer to him by my hands, which are still enclosed in his. “What if you were caught? It’s an assault on a State Craftsman. Not to mention a slippery slope. Rig a trial for your boyfriend. What next? Murder for him?”
I burst out of his grip. “Coming from you,” I hiss up at him, rolling my wrists. “You cheat. You lie.”
“When it serves a valid purpose—”
“You want to use your power to – what did you call it? Topple the queen.”
“Different,” he states, dryly.
I could shove him again. “It’s not different.”
“One involves ending the rule of a tyrant.” He flicks his eyes up to the platform. “The other – saving a crush from a fate that, by the sound of all of those charges, he deserves. He’s lucky to even be getting a trial.”
“You had no right. My magic is mine—”
“Wrong,” he replies. “All of your magic is mine – stolen from me. Remember?” His smile cuts his face. Looks strange on it, like a crack in smooth stone. He adds in a single breath, “And it’s working better for me than it has this whole time. Or I wouldn’t have been able to block you.”
“Not true,” I say.
“True,” he says. “Perhaps you are feeling differently about me. And our union.”
“I promise you, I’m not. And this isn’t what our magic is supposed to be doing—”
“It is exactly what our magic is supposed to be doing. We should be blocking each other when one of us is doing something reckless. Immoral. It is the main purpose of all of this.”
“That’s—”
“You still haven’t remembered the first fortune.”
He has me there.
I’m still.
“Try to remember,” he urges. “I need to go and save your boyfriend now. Without assaulting a State Craftsman.”
And then he’s looking away. Stepping around me.
“Drake,” I say, with confusion – at the same time that Drake’s name echoes through the megaphone.
Dezeeves is calling for Drake?
I watch as Drake reaches the stairs. Clears them in seconds.
“Your statement, please,” Dezeeves says, once Drake is by his side.
“Cosmer was an excellent keeper,” Drake states, staring out at the crowd. He doesn’t even need the megaphone. His voice travels. “He did take out a weapon, but it was part of my Integration, for shooting practice – Approved Use.”
I look at Cosmer. Why isn’t he responding to these lies from Drake’s mouth – Drake, who he hates?
His eyes are closed. He’s swaying on the spot. I’ve never seen him like this. How much osimidite did they give him?
It takes everything in me not to run to him. Throw my arms around him.
Instead, I force myself to listen to Drake as he continues.
“As for the skirmish in The Bridge, I wasn’t there, but can only think that Cosmer panicked when he saw the tank of osimidite and perhaps thought that he himself would be subjected to it.
He confided in me about an addiction to it in his past.”
The last of the light is dripping out of the sky. Drake’s black eyes find me in the crowd, and I know he’s talking directly to me when he speaks again.
“Nor could he possibly be in an Inappropriate Relationship with Ara. She is engaged to me, and has been since before we arrived on the ship. Hence why we danced together at the morale booster.”
“Perfect,” Dezeeves says. “Thank you, Drake.”
Drake steps down off the platform. Dezeeves unfurls a piece of paper.
“I also have a statement here from Meglyn Sands, one of my first officers. While Cosmer acted irrationally in a high-pressured situation, and deserved his time spent in the brig, I would not consider his actions to have directly endangered anyone in The Bridge and warrant Execution By Airlock. He was disarmed quickly by Ephraine and arrested.”
Dezeeves folds the piece of paper. “Cosmer. Do you deny the charges?”
Cosmer mumbles something.
“Please note,” Dezeeves says, loudly, “for the record that Cosmer denies the charges against him. We now call forwards Cosmer’s State Craftsman, Vikemy Pire of Vikemy Village, to deliver the verdict.”
The sun dips. The sky is night.
Vikemy, who looks like a shadow now, doesn’t even step forwards. In a bored tone, he states, “Not guilty.”
“Excellent,” Dezeeves says. “Excellent.” He lowers the megaphone before chiming, “Time for dinner, I think.”
He takes Cosmer by the elbow, and leads him away.
“I-I don’t understand,” Riss stammers as we trudge down to the Mess Hall with the other pilots and soldiers. “Dezeeves clearly got Cosmer out of that, and it makes sense, since he’s his father. But why did Drake testify for him?”
I have no idea. The only time Drake ever did anything remotely helpful was when –
“Dezeeves must have made a deal with him,” I say.
Dezeeves, Meg, Drake. A dangerous alliance is stacking up against me.
“And where is Ephraine?” Riss hisses. “He’d have to be dead to miss an execution. I don’t think Dezeeves has ever led one before.”
“He must be speaking to The Assembly.”
Maybe tonight is the last night Dezeeves will have us all playing games of his invention.
“I hate him,” I spit.
“Ephraine?”
“No. Dezeeves.” I loop my arm in hers. “Did you see how drugged up Cosmer was? To drug your own son like that… Does osimidite even do that to a person? He had no idea where he was or what was going on.”
“It can. You’d have to inhale a lot of it. And…”
“What?”
“Well. That much osimidite could kill you. They call it The Happy Death. It wouldn’t be the first time a soldier has died that way.
” Her voice lifts. “To give that much to a recovering addict…” She exhales harshly, like she’s fighting off a scream.
“Dezeeves barely sees him. He doesn’t care.
But we’ll be picking up the pieces for years. ”
She’s right. Cosmer and I will have osimidite hanging over our heads, maybe forever.
I glare at nothing. Feel hollow.
I’m disgusted. Utterly, furiously, disgusted.
Dezeeves.
What kind of monster is he?
Rike catches up to me in the queue for dinner.