Chapter 29 #2
But before I could go, I needed to see them settled, at least.
“Did you find the others?” she asked me, and I startled, realizing I’d been wiping her forehead while lost in thought. “Were they alive?”
I exhaled slowly. “No,” I lied. “You were the only ones we found alive.”
The orchards and their keepers were dead now. Dead and at peace. None of the survivors needed to know what torment they had lived through, nor what they had become in the end. It was over for them, and that was all that mattered.
She fell asleep under my ministrations, and I made my escape back to the Tower of Waves, the only place I could be truly alone.
I peeled away the bandage, revealing half-healed pockmarks and slices in my arm, where Marrion had tested, poked, and prodded me until I was sure I wasn’t carrying some horrific disease from the depths of the earth.
I decided to let them heal slowly, the natural way.
The one reminder I would carry with me from my time in Liuridar, as all else was lost. I had only my battered pack and the Fae Artifice I’d stolen, but I’d give it all over to the Collegium for study, which would leave me with next to nothing.
I almost wished I’d kept the bedroll, extra weight or not.
By the time I’d bathed, rinsing away every last speck of the Below from my hair and skin, dusk had finally fallen. I forced myself to sleep, and it seemed that the dawn light pried at them only seconds after shutting my eyes.
I dressed in clothes that had been left for me, probably more of Kajarin lai Orros’s leftovers, though I had no right to complain: dark red velvet riding breeches, a silk blouse, a waistcoat laced like a corset.
I felt naked without my pistol and sword on my hips, so I buckled on my belt even though I knew the noblemen would scoff and sneer at a woman wearing weapons into the hall.
The chthonium knife and its sheath I slid inside my boot.
To hell with them. One of their own was proof that treachery could come from anywhere, at any time; not even in the very heart of Owlhorn would I go unarmed.
The last thing I wanted to do was watch Alvar give testimony and lie his way through the murder of so many people, but I crept into the throne room, clinging to the wall in the back.
Despite the early hour the place was packed with noblemen and women, all the lais in their finery like they were spectating at a gala.
The air was warm, choked with musky perfumes, but in the back near the door, I got the occasional breath of fresh air.
And from here, with the women wearing tall, flower-encrusted hats perched on their coifs, their decorative golems at their side, the view of Wroth in his throne was blocked.
I could hear his deep voice, echoing off the high, arched ceiling, but I was spared the sight of him.
I had seen the flash of Esteri’s strawberry-red hair in the front row of the witnesses.
The last thing I could stand was to watch her smug face as she imagined sitting right up there beside him.
Alvar’s voice was quavering, tentative, designed to pull the heartstrings of all who listened—even if large parts of it were fiction.
He had only meant to search for treasure.
He had no idea a relic would come to life, forcing him to slave under its orders, forcing him to bring innocent people Below.
Rasmus was not having it. Wroth allowed him to make his interjections, and the whispering of the lais was growing more and more discontented as the account went on.
But no one mentioned the Fae himself. Only relics, only expected horrors, and that was not the only detail that would go to our graves—we had also agreed that no one would speak of the amplifier I’d wrought, or what I had done to Liuridar.
The last thing I wanted to become common knowledge was the destruction my hands could wield.
I took a breath, almost choking on a cloud of jasmine, and was about to slip outside when Marrion appeared at my side like a shadow.
“Don’t go yet,” she whispered to me. The lai couple in front of us turned a little, giving icy-eyed looks of disdain to the bloodwitch and the half-Forian Artificer. “Uncle won’t let this jest stand, believe me.”
“Oh? What will his fiancée think if he goes sentencing their golden boy to life in prison? That’s what he deserves for wholesale murder, anything less would be a mockery of justice.”
I kept my voice down, but the woman before me whipped out her fan, snapping it open and fluttering it before her face like she’d taken a whiff of dogshit straight to the nostrils.
Something mean and angry curled inside me, and I took pleasure in her irritation, even more so when I spotted the little golden spear pin gleaming on her lapel.
What was a momentary irritation to her? Alvar would almost certainly serve a light sentence, or a pleasant, coddled exile.
The same man who had arranged Esteri’s marriage was likely pouring gold marks into Wroth’s pockets to have a just sentence commuted to a lesser degree.
But Marrion gave me a sidelong look, smiling. It was almost strange to see everyone from the crew looking so clean and tidy; her hair was bound back in elaborate braids, jet drops gleaming in her earlobes. “Just desserts. That’s all I’ll tell you.”
Another interminable hour passed, and I had no idea what was being said, because Rasmus, now giving his own account, had a soft voice lost in the murmurs echoing from the walls.
And then everything went silent. All whispers hushed, breaths were held; everyone focused on the throne I couldn’t see.
“Rasmus lai Orros.” Wroth’s voice was loud and clear, thunder crashing through the room.
“For petty theft, the breaching of the Below, and alchemy brewed with inimical purpose, I sentence you to ten years of indenture, to be served under the auspices of the Silver Sisterhood. Your deeds will be reported to the Alchemical Guild of Argent; they will choose whether or not to strip you of your Mastery.”
I heard Rasmus accepting his sentence with grace, and silently thanked Wroth; in the Sisterhood’s hands, put to healing and building, Rasmus could at least find some way to atone for his part in this.
“Alvar lai Orros.” The hush was almost tangible, everyone’s spines as straight as arrows. “For the breaching of the Below, bribery, blackmail, theft, the kidnapping of two hundred residents of the Rivers, and the murder thereof, you are given a choice: death, or life on the Sere Isle.”
For a moment, there was shocked silence.
Then whispers. Then cries, followed by outraged shouting.
My mouth dropped open in surprise.
The Sere Isle. In the wide lake between the Rift and the Rivers, from which the Five Sisters were born, there was a single island. It was the sole focal point, a long, barren strip of land that housed an ancient fortress.
Once upon a time, it had been a stronghold.
Later, it had been converted to a prison, housing the worst of the worst. Its waters were just a breath above ice cold, and anybody mad enough to swim it would die anyway, drawn down to the depths of the lake.
Like the Iselaine Blind, its waters were impassable, though safe to look upon or sail a boat across.
Scholars in Argent theorized it was populated by water spirits, or other relics of the Fae.
If Alvar chose life on Sere, it would be a long, harsh life, deprived of any comfort or companionship. He may well starve, or go mad; and in his madness, he might attempt to swim to shore, and fail like all the others.
Marrion fiddled with an earring, still smiling. “So…death, or death.”
“I can’t believe it.”
She shook her head, braids swaying. “He was never going to let him walk free.”
It was impossible to feel satisfied with such a conclusion; neither death nor imprisonment would bring back those lost to the orchards of Liuridar. And yet, while Rasmus clearly wished to atone, Alvar did not. He would not lift a hand to even begin making amends.
Let him rot there, amid the waves and silence. He had cost so many people so much.
But the nobility did not see it in such a way. The rising shouts and frothing fervor were verging on a madness of their own.
“He’s just a boy! It was a mistake!”
“Shame to you, sentencing one and not the other!”
One man actually beat his chest, eyes bright with tears. “You kill our future, leech!”
“Strange,” Marrion murmured, leaning in so I felt her breath on my ear. She’d been chewing clove candy; the scent of spice was a welcome break from perfume. “How when a lai manages to murder more people than are in this room, it’s just a boy’s mistake.”
I rose on my tiptoes, and finally saw Wroth, standing before the throne and staring down at his prisoner. I expected irritation, the quiet rage and disdain that he’d always demonstrated towards the loyalist nobility.
But his hands were loose, his shoulders relaxed; in fact, he looked like a man who had made a hard decision, and was perfectly satisfied with his choice, regardless of the cost.
“Choose,” Wroth said, his thunder cutting through the impassioned shouts for mercy.
Alvar sucked in a breath, his face pale. “The Sere Isle. I choose life on Sere.”
The lord and master of the castle didn’t seem to give a damn as new shouts broke out, condemning him for the choice presented to Alvar, even after they’d just heard his own testimony that he’d directly caused the murder of an entire village.
“Good,” I murmured, and that was all I could muster. I was thinking of escaping again when I was crowded in on the other side.
It took me a moment to place the leather-and-steel armor. “Mathis,” I whispered, looking up at my old friend and mentor, and then I peered around him.
My father was in his wheelchair, Tarja pushing him. My family smiled at me, and I bent down to hug my father tightly, tears stinging my eyes again.
“There you are, darling,” he said, stroking my shoulder. “You made it home, safe and sound.”