Chapter Twenty-Six
Olympia
Iwaited until Nascha was safe and sound within her own room surrounded by only those I could trust before making my way back down to the Third.
I’d found Nascha bleeding from a head wound beneath the Tribunal’s table.
A massive chunk of stone had knocked her down but she was still conscious and able to crawl forward on hands and knees as directed with little help.
I had her stay low to avoid as much smoke as possible even when I’d watched Jude leap back up from where he’d been blown over to the side and practically sprint up the stairs with a few members of his house following quickly in his wake.
I’d deal with him later. For now, I had a list of priorities I was getting through much slower than I liked.
First, get Nascha to safety. Saving the Matriarch of my House was the one and only thing that mattered when that tunnel blew to bits in front of us all.
I didn’t have time to find Cosmo in the chaos and beat his head into a bloody pulp against the stones.
I didn’t have time to find Myrine and slash her throat with her own sword.
And I didn’t have time to think about Harrison and that cursed mark on his back.
All I could think about, as I waded through the smoke and debris clinging to the air above the Deck, was finding my grandmother.
I thought of nothing else until the moment her head hit her pillow and a healer from our own House bent beside her bed.
Then I allowed myself to shift to priority number two; Harrison.
I stormed through the halls of House Avus with a dark cloud hanging over me that anyone with sense could see. My own cousins leapt out of my way as I passed and even my mother, who never let me go without a snide remark aimed in my direction, didn’t dare to speak once she saw the look on my face.
I spiraled along with the steps down to the Third, my rage growing and burning inside of me until it was a fiery inferno I no longer had an ounce of control over. Harrison was a rebel. Harrison was a danger to my family. Harrison was a liar.
The door of his fourth floor apartment slammed into the wall so hard it left a hole where the knob had struck, but I didn’t care.
I strode right into that hovel with fists clenched at my sides and a feeling of betrayal clawing through my already shredded heart.
I was going to find him and I was going to make him pay for his lies.
I was going to make him feel every piece of the mortifying anguish tearing me apart at the seams. And then I was going to go back to my House and lock myself away where I could never fall for another man’s tricks again, where I could never feel anything for anyone ever again, because it always ended like this.
When I shoved the door to his bedroom open as hard as I’d pushed through the front door, however, I found it empty.
The bed was neatly made in a very un-Harrison-like fashion, not that I’d ever truly known what that might be.
Everything was put away and in its place, like he’d been expecting company, like he’d prepared for this or, I realized, heart sinking, like he’d left.
“Hey beautiful.”
The sound of his voice speaking that nickname sent me over the edge.
I whirled and a knife was at his throat. He held his hands up in a sign of surrender but I saw nothing even remarkably close to submission in his eyes.
“You fucking liar,” I snapped at him. “You knew. The whole godsdamned time, you knew about the rebels, about that fucking symbol, about all of it, and you lied to me. You’ve done nothing but lie to me.”
“That’s not true,” he argued.
I glared at him, the knife pushing further into his throat, enough for little droplets of blood to begin running down the blade and dripping off the tip. But he stayed calm as he explained.
“I got this tattoo a year ago,” he said.
“When Adrian was doing well in the Trials, when she and Dante looked like they were going to make it, these guys found me after I played a set in a bar and started talking about Third Ring pride. We got drunk and they showed me this symbol. They said it was just a mark of the lower rings, a mark of being proud of where you’re from.
I was wasted when we stumbled down to the Lyons studio and they put this on my back.
I was pissed when I found out what it really meant, what I’d been unknowingly inducted into.
They tried to recruit me then, saying I already had the mark so I should come check out what they were about.
I went to a few meetings, I won’t lie, but then I stopped.
Because Adrian loved Dante and talked all the time about Milo and I started thinking there might be another way to make it work with the First Ringers, that maybe they weren’t so high above us after all if some of them were willing to slum it down here on the Third for her.
I don’t know how Cosmo found out about it but I swear to you, Olympia, I’m not one of them. ”
“You watched me hunt for that symbol,” I accused. “You let me warn you about how dangerous it was when you knew more about it than I did.”
“Don’t pretend you tell me everything you know that I don’t, Olympia.
We’re both well aware that would be a lie.
Besides, I never expected to come home to my apartment one night to find the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen climbing out of my window, and I definitely never expected that woman to be a First Ringer.
Nothing I’ve said to you since that moment has been a lie, beautiful, I swear on the Geist. I want this to work between us.
I thought I proved that by going to your cousin, by pretending he has some sort of say in who I decide to be with. ”
“You went to the meetings,” I said, loosening my grip on the knife. “You heard them out.”
“It’s no secret the Viper Patriarch and I don’t see eye to eye and I won’t lie that I’ve had a real issue in the past with the superiority complex you all seem to have up there.
But I give a shit about lives, Olympia. Innocent people were standing around that tunnel when they fucking blew it up. I would never risk that.”
His eyes were boring into me as his tone turned so severe I couldn’t help but believe him, again. Though I hesitated, I dropped the knife to my side and let my shoulders collapse as I stepped back, away from him, mind whirring with all the information I’d been faced with over the last few hours.
“They’ll never believe you,” I said. “Milo won’t be able to back us now.
No matter what we say, he won’t be able to put his stamp of approval on this, on you.
And now every First Ringer thinks you're the enemy. You have more targets on your back than I can count, not the least of which is placed there by the Patriarch of House Viper himself.”
“I can take care of myself.”
I barked a bitter laugh and shook my head as I turned away from him.
“The fact that you think that shows me how little you understand these people,” I told him.
“Cosmo will come for you, Harrison, and he has the gathered might of the Guardians and the priesthood behind him. It’ll start with something small, an arrest on suspicion of rebellious activity.
They’ll say they’re bringing you in for questioning and drag you up to the First to the Viper’s basement.
Then they’ll make up some charge, maybe blame you for the bombing itself, and execute you down there in the dark where no one can see.
They’ll send your body to your mother and your brother without an explanation or even a note of sympathy.
Or maybe they’ll just poison you and be done with it.
Do you know where your food comes from, Harrison?
Or your water? Do you know who runs the power grid that lights your apartment? ”
He just stared at me for a moment, blinking, as if he’d truly never thought of those things before now.
“Cosmo will do whatever he wants with you because Cosmo owns you,” I growled, glaring as I approached him again.
“The leaders of this city decide who lives and dies because they decide who eats, who sleeps, who drinks. Milo could have helped you. He offered you the chance to show where your allegiances lie. He offered you the chance to help him rid us all of the snake and you cost us the trial because you weren’t honest about the skeletons in your closet, because Cosmo knew more about you than you did about him.
You said you could do it and we trusted you.
You promised us a witness and you let yourself get put on trial instead.
You failed, Harrison, and instead of putting away a murderer, we put him on display for the whole city to see all morning.
He fancies himself a priest and we gave him a pulpit.
Then your boneheaded friends blew it up and made him a martyr.
He’s a survivor now, persecuted for his faith in the Geist by the heretics he’s always known were hiding amongst us.
Sanctuary is breaking down, people are panicking, and public opinion is not trending in our favor.
They made an enemy of the gods by bombing a man who claims to speak for them. They’ve brought us religious war.”
He watched me for a moment, blood drying on his neck, frowning.
“To be clear, whatever we might have thought was between us, whatever we thought we’d have the time to explore, doesn’t matter now,” I barked at him.
“Olympia–” he started, reaching for me.
But I pulled back, stepped away, and shook my head.
“No,” I said firmly.
“Tell me how to make it right.”
I watched him for a moment, gauging his reaction, examining his expression.
He was breathing hard, his eyes bright, forearms strained, neck stiff.
My heart ached so badly to believe him, to give him another chance.
His story had been believable. I’d known this group was likely trying to recruit those ignorant of their past and what they stood for.
I, myself, had to look that symbol up in the House library to remember what it meant.
Even Milo hadn’t known. So what hope did a random Third Ringer have of knowing what that symbol meant?
Logically, I knew all of that. It made giving him a second chance a perfectly reasonable action to take.
But I’d never been reasonable, especially when it came to my heart, and I didn’t trust easily because I’d been taught enough times not to.
Giving this thing between us a chance had already stretched me to my emotional limits but now, with this, I couldn’t bear the idea of jumping right back in, of taking the risk that he might make a fool of me, that he might hurt me.
If he wanted me to believe him, he’d have to prove to me that I could.
Truthfully, that had always been the case, only now it was even more of an uphill battle.
I crossed my arms and frowned back at him.
“The Bexleys had a dinner guest several nights ago,” I started and Harrison’s expression alighted with annoyance at the realization that I’d been spying on his friends again.
I didn’t care. “Her name is Veronica. Her house was the one that burned down the very same night. I want you to find out how well they know her and what she wants with them.”
Harrison’s jaw clenched as he pushed off of the wall to look down at me.
“You want me to spy on my friends,” he deadpanned, clearly unamused. “You want me to spy on Adrian’s family.”
“Milo has extended an invitation to the Bexleys to visit him on the First. He invited them to his godsdamned wedding and they’ve never shown up, not once.
Then I see them having dinner with a known member of the same rebel group which convinced you to get their symbol branded on your back.
And all of this happens days before a bombing which takes out the entire twelfth tunnel and injures several of the members of the expanded Tribunal, not to mention killing a few of the bribed witnesses and Guardians standing nearby.
So I have questions for the Bexleys regarding their involvement with the terrorists who killed our fellow citizens and targeted our leaders.
Either you can ask them those questions, or I will. ”
Harrison was frowning by the time I finished, clearly seeing the picture I was painting for him.
There was about to be a massive manhunt in Sanctuary for anyone bearing the symbol of the rebellion and anyone associated with them.
The Bexleys had been seen hosting one such rebel which meant they would be called in for questioning along with all the others if Harrison and I didn’t get to them first.
“What should I tell them to do?” he asked, tone grave.
“Tell them to go to Milo the way they should have done in the first place,” I replied, ignoring Harrison’s frustration while I turned and strode back toward the front door. “We aren’t going to hurt them, Harrison. Unless, of course, they had something to do with that bombing.”